"The tragedy is, if you believe we squandered the mining boom, is that Labor were in power for most of the time commodity prices really rocketed."
so what? ... commodity prices skyrocket ... ok - let's take that as a given (you're right, they did increase a lot) .... so what? .... what's the conclusion from all this?
Because I can tell you that, THAT, on its own, doesn't mean much ... you talk about preconceived bias and prejudice - in fact you accuse others of it in a way that implies that you are above that kind of thinking and that unlike those other people, you make your decisions/opinions on hard facts
fine!
if that's the case, then you must admit that the REAL metric is not just the prices of commodities ... the REAL metric is,
terms.
of.
trade.
The fact is that after the GFC, the ToT took a massive nose dive (TWICE!) due, in large part, to the fact that our economy was unique among the western world (in that it didn't collapse) and we experienced a massive influx of capital, pushing our dollar WAY above USD parity and producing a negative ToT.
Result? ..... our exports (all the stuff we sell to the rest of the world) couldn't pay for our imports (all the stuff we need to buy from the rest of the world) ...... this was DESPITE (!!!!) the fact that iron ore prices "skyrocketed"
( I mean, for gods sake, look at the 13 YEAR! run Howard/Costello had ... ToT was always increasing! AND towards 2007, the rate-of-increase ... WAS INCREASING!!! ....... one year after Rudd got in, the GFC sort of, you know, HAPPENED!, it took a massive nose dive!
but instead you want to talk about the price of some red dirt dug up from a hole in the ground
