Yes! We are allowed to make money while saving the planet.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Australia - the really dumb country?

We are an arrogant bunch aren't we.  Constantly crowing our praises at our umpteen years of uninterupted economic growth and even avoiding the Global Financial Crisis.  But, just hold on a minute.  Almost half of that growth has simply come about through immigration. The bigger the population, the bigger the economy.  Is it suprising that governments love immigration?  As for the rest of our economic growth, that has primarily come from the fact that we happen to be very lucky to have so much stuff we can just dig out from the ground and ship overseas.   The real test of how smart a country is, productivity, is rarely mentioned by our pollies for the simple reason that it is pretty poor.  And it is productivity that primarily gives us a better life, not more population and not just digging stuff out of the ground.   As the Australian Bureau of Statistics says "In the long-term, (productivity) ... is the ultimate source of economic growth and higher living standards.  http://tinyurl.com/6jvm4ugSo how are we doing in productivity.  Pretty poor it works out.   Australia's multi factor productivity for the last 10 years went backwards by 0.1% a year.  Not so smart after all, are we?

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