Poor Feller My Country

I originally posted these thoughts on the CTP site. As there was a fair bit of support for the post< I thought it would be interesting to see what a more general audience thought.

So here goes:

Nothing stands a chance in Australia. We are an extremely negative society. We support nothing - not an automotive industry; not a petrochemical industry; not a plastics industry; not a beef industry; not a CSG industry; not an agriculture industry - nothing. We cannot even tolerate a dog racing industry.

Just compare us, for example, to Sweden! Its estimated 2015 population was 9,747,355 people. We have two and a half times as many people and heaps more natural advantages but we are nowhere near as sucessful!!!

Not only does Sweden have neuclear power but they also produce trucks, cars, jet aircraft, submarines and ships plus masses of other high quality machines and other useful goods and equipment. They have a regal line-up of active corporations including Volvo, Ericsson, Vattenfall, Skanska, Hennes & Mauritz, Electrolux, Volvo Personvagnar, Preem, TeliaSonera, Sandvik, ICA, Atlas Copco, Nordea, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, Scania, Securitas, Nordstjernan, SKF and ABB Norden Holding.

Why are we so ineffective? It is our culture. We have evolved into a society where the preferred pastime is complaint and grievance ventilation. We foster meddlesome egotists who satisfy their creative urges by condominal opposition to anything that they did not propose.

And there is no rescue in sight.

Our society is led by timid politicians. Their primary objective is not the progress of the nation. Their main target is to achieve and retain the approval of the marginal participants whose vote is perceived as being critical to the political survival of the so called leaders. In the context of the fine balance of support for the two major parties, our leaders constantly pursue the fringes of opinion in their search for that extra percentage.