a question for the gold bugs, page-23

just to monopolise the thread for a moment:

"If you don't make it here you have to buy it from somewhere, or have it not at all. Australia does produce some things. But for a rich Western economy, its production-and lets remember this a country of 20 million people-is largely concentrated in raw materials and agricultural goods, not finished manufactured products.

The strong dollar eases the pain of imports a bit, especially since many of the imports are cheap and come from Asia. But it's generally true that profit margins are greater in finished goods than raw materials. Australia's had its bacon saved in this respect because resource prices have been rising by so much and so quickly.

Makes you wonder what will happen in a generation or two (perhaps less), when the resource profit growth is gone and the country's productive capacity hasn't been diversified. Expect to see a lot of service jobs at low wages."