it's not a matter of dragging down - it's a matter of having an economy that suits your environment
and, btw - climate change is a big deal in France - a big big deal - as are weather extremes
this years almost entire grape crop is cactus because of an extreme set of conditions back a couple of months.
environmentally for Oz ------- because we've got a lot of nothing - and are pretty close to now totally dependent on royalties from IO and coal - and broadacre crops --
that's MORE imperative to have developed industries ----------- but,
we don't
the tragedy of it is that we could have - we have people who love to adventure - and, they, in the past, have been inventive and innovative - but, we have NEVER harnessed that.
Places like France and Germany and some of the Nordics have - Britain used to - but, now - it's died off mostly.
Imagine if we had have backed research - so that instead of the handful of research payoffs we've had - like wifi etc - imagine if we had thousands of them - instead of just a few
would that have been possible?? ------------ yes, IMO - easily - it just needed nurturing by government - forget private funding - Ozzies are too scared for that - the yanks are far better at that than we are.
the tragedy is all we needed to do was to throw money at it - at times when we had money - from mining booms or the like
we didn't -------- government after government pissed the proceeds away - often giving 'tax cuts' to the wealthy -
for the wealthy to do what?????????? -- buy bigger houses - and, send the prices through the roof ---------
now - we have things like CSIRO cut to the bone - deep INTO the bone -
we have bugger all general research to speak of - the very thing where you get the biggest returns
I was out in the boondocks here the other day and some bastard flew so low over my car that he left skid marks on the roof ------- because I was near an aerospace development place - where it looks like the dunny block is big enough to house about a dozen jumbos - the place is massive
out in the middle of nowhere -----------
why's it not in Oz?????
meanwhile - back at the ranch - we sold off our resource dirt digging companies to foreigners - and we get paid a royalty on the dirt they dig and sell - then - one day in the future - someone will invent a material that will replace steel -
and - no more IO royalties ------------- what then?
could it happen soon?
oh yeah --------- it's when - not if and it could happen next week
