Guest essay by Viv Forbes
To compete in today’s world we need to score well on resource availability, capital assets, energy costs, tax burden and workforce/management. It also helps to have secure property rights and a sound currency. Today’s Australia scores poorly on all counts.
In 1901, the year of Federation, Australia was the richest country in the world per capita.
The Pioneer generations, with freedom to explore and invest, had developed valuable mineral assets – gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, coal, tin and iron. And they had bred up large numbers of sheep and cattle on our native grasslands.
Energy was abundant – wood, horse power, kerosene, gas, hydro and coal powered electricity – we were among world leaders in cheap energy. Sydney had gas lights in its streets as far back as 1820.
The Pioneering innovators also invented game-changers such as the stump jump plough, the Ridley-Sunshine Harvester and froth flotation of minerals, and they developed better Australian versions of Leviathan coaches, Southern Cross windmills, Merino sheep, Shorthorn cattle, Federation wheat, Kelpies and Blue Heeler dogs.
The Builder generations who followed the pioneers invested heavily in productive capital assets like flour mills and wool sheds, mines and collieries, smelters and saw mills, power stations and electric trams, trans-continental railways and overland telegraph lines, orchards and plantations, stockyards and abattoirs, breweries and vineyards, dams and artesian bores, factories and universities, exploration and research, pipelines and harbours, railways and roads. There were no “Lock-the-Gate” signs.
Governments were decentralised with minimal taxes and red tape, creating new business was easy and union power was minimal and generally beneficial for workers.
But then the Termite generations took over, and for much of the last forty years taxes, handouts and green tape have been smothering new enterprise. We are sponging on the ageing assets created by past generations and building little to support future Australians. The monuments left by this generation are typified by casinos, sports arenas, wind-energy prayer wheels, sit-down money and debt.
The trendy war on carbon has already inflated our electricity costs – this will hasten the closure of more processing and manufacturing industries. Green tape is shutting-the-gate on new investments in exploration, grassland protection, dams, power stations, fishing, forestry and coastal development. Taxes are weakening existing industry and the savings that could build new industries are being wasted on bureaucracy, delays, legalism, subsidies, climate tomfoolery and green energy toys. Finally, union featherbedding is crippling any large survivors.
Australia’s future prosperity demands cheap energy, more investment in productive assets, reduced government costs, more productive labour and the freedom to explore and innovate.
We must change, or more jobs will follow Holden.
More at carbon-sense.com
DaveW
[I like moths and don’t like the idea of any non-pest species going extinct, and the two termite mound nesting parrot species are in strife, but I don’t see any mass extinction here. Even if all the termite-mound nesting parrots went, the genus would still be represented by its known generalist T. euryspoda and the Oecophoridae would still be hyper diverse. Specialization is always a risk over evolutionary time and it is no real surprise when highly specialized species go extinct. So while I find it interesting that climateace is obsessed with coprophagous moths, I don’t see how it adds to the debate about mass extinction through climate change.]
(1) Island species, specialized species, coprophagous species, obligate-dependent species are all species. An extinction is an extinction is an extinction.
(2) I have not introduced climate change into this string. You have. MB did. I am not sure why.
(3) Thank you for the details on the moths. The details reflect the point I was making: that for every vertebrate extinction there will be extinctions of invertebrates. (IMHO, many of these will not be obvious Insecta, like moths, but will be smaller. In most cases we will never know that they existed at all.)
(4) My main point is that Australia is losing around .o45% of its vertebrate fauna per century. That gives it around 100 centuries worth of vertebrate species left. (MB’s point about this not being linear, is a good one, and stands).
(5) Around 1% of the vertebrate fauna is regarded as being vulnerable, threatened, endangered or critically endangered with extinction. Without action, the next couple of centuries worth of extinctions is in the bag.
(6) My original point, that Australia has started a mass extinction event, stands.
(7) All the processes that generated the extinctions remain in place. To these can be added additional processes which are being added all the time: new predators, competitors, pathogens, propagules, nutrients and so on and so forth.
(7) My second point stands. We have a choice about whether to continue with our mass extinction event. If we choose to halt the mass extinction event then we will have to have effective regulations, constraints on development, recovery actions and protected areas.
‘JohnB says:
December 27, 2013 at 7:46 pm
Just a couple of points for “climateace”.
The list at Wiki of “extinct” animals is flawed in two basic ways when considering an “Extinction Event”.
Firstly, as has been mentioned, many of the species lived on small islands. Extinctions are far more common in small ecological areas. So these numbers should not be extrapolated to the Continent. One should also consider that they are part of “Australia” as a matter of chance and due to a line on a map. They could just have easily been part of “Holland” or “France”.
Secondly, and more importantly, many of the vertebrates do not even have a drawing and may not have existed at all. “New” species were being claimed on the basis of two feathers and a lower jaw without the creature ever being actually sighted at all. Perhaps it is better that a species be proven to actually exist before claims of its extinction can be considered?’
John B
(1) I am not extrapolating from islands to the continent. If we did that Australia would have thousands of vertebrate species go extinct over the past two centuries. I do agree that the islands act as a bellwhether for what is happening on the continent.
(2) While it is true that the islands could have belonged to other countries, they don’t. They are part of Australia. We are responsible for them. We are accountable.
(3) The vast majority of threatened, vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered species are mainland species. The processes that got them there are still there. Without intervention they will likely go extinct. The lists under these headings are growing all the time.
(4) While it is true that a few species have been described on the basis of a very limited amount of material this is not true for most of the Australian vertebrate species that have gone extinct over the past two centuries.
(5) My two main points stand: we have initiated a mass extinction event. We have a choice about whether we are going to keep it going or to stop it.
Dave W
“(2) I was using the vertebrates because someone raised them – as a proxy for the rest.”
It seems to me you slung vertebrates and vascular plants out all on your own – and what else would you use to support your specious claim of an ongoing mass extinction? Shellfish would be one – they have always been used as markers for mass extinction events (lots of species, good fossilization). Surprisingly, I don’t see a Wiki page on recent extinctions of Australian shellfish.’
If you check upstring you will see that someone else raised vertebrates… just as you have now raised vascular plants. The facts for plants are that they are becoming extinct at the rate of around 25 a century. With hundreds more in the pipeline, noting that the list of critically endangered and endangered Australian plants is very, very long:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_threatened_flora_of_Australia
‘In fact, outside of islands, vertebrate and vascular plant extinctions in the last 200 years are surprisingly rare, especially considering the stress that has been put on them by human expansion.’
They are so ‘suprisingly rare’, whatever that means, that if we do nothing hundreds of species which have already reached vulnerable, threatened, endangered and critically endangered status on the mainland will also become extinct.
‘If you really cared about protecting existing populations, then you should be trying to stop wind, biomass and other poorly conceived ‘green’ solutions and supporting cheap natural gas, petroleum, and nuclear energy. Rich societies are far more likely to try and protect their ecosystems than poor ones.’
Oh dear. Dragging climate change into the discussion.
‘(3) You obviously have no idea about coprophagous invertebrates which are obligate to specific hollow-nesting species of birds.”
You make arrogant assumptions easily, but you are wrong again: I actually do have more than a basic knowledge about nest associates of mammals and birds. I also understand what ‘mass extinction’ means, as you do not.’
Congratulations on knowing about nest associates of animals and birds. You would then know that if they are obligate species specific then if the vertebrate becomes extinct, so do the nest associates – which was my original point.
My view is that losing .045% of your vertebrates per century is the start of a mass extinction event.
What we do with the start might ensure that we get one.
You appear to need for just about everything to be extinct before you agree that it just might be a mass extinction event which is too damn late, of course.
24 birds, 4 amphibians and 28 mammals in 225 years = 0.25 species per annum. Time to panic? No. Time for government to permit people “saving the planet” to send more species into extinction. Presumably they need to make up the numbers to make the predictions more credible. Oh dear…
Re Pompous Git – and for many of these we have a good understanding for why they went extinct and what to do to try and prevent further extinctions. For example, science killed off the frogs – medical researchers with their exotic, chytrid-riddled frogs and well meaning field biologists tramping the spores around. Habitat destruction, introduced species and other factors are fairly well understood. Well, maybe – the case of the Woylie (Brush-tailed Bettong) is a bit disheartening. A seemingly successful effort at protection and an increasing population is now disappearing for unknown reasons (although possibly related to a trypanosome). Perhaps we (climateace excepted, of course) cannot play God very well.
climate ace (isn’t that name slightly misspelled?) none of your points stand scrutiny and you really do protest too much. As you can see you raised mass extinction in your first spew and both vertebrates (in wiki, animal = vertebrate, flora = vascular plants and one alga) and vascular plants as examples later – in response to someone questioning your claim of mass extinction.
“climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 5:37 pm
This article is truly bizarre.
The thing is this: Australia has, over the past couple of decades, climbed UP the ladder of the world’s largest economies.
According to Forbes this would simply not be impossible because Australia is not competitive in all the ways that count, including in energy costs.
The other bizarre element is that there is not the slightest skerrick of an attempt at balance: how does Forbes account for our mass extinction event, the trashing of our soils, and the utter degradation of our largest river systems?
They must not matter, right?”
“climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 10:27 pm
Someone inquired about Australian extinctions. Below see links of extinctions of vertebrate fauna and vascular plants. You can safely assume suites of invertebrate and non-vascular plant extinctions to go with each higher order extinction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_flora_of_Australia
The true damage to Australian biodiversity has been within-species loss of genetic diversity.
Forbes ignores each and every one of these which leads inevitably to the view that he does not give a rat’s about extinctions.”
“Wind-energy prayer wheels” I almost missed this post, glad I didn’t. Wow, what a wonderfully written piece. Who is this Viv Forbes? I wanna read more. Not just for the content but for the style.
TPG says
’24 birds, 4 amphibians and 28 mammals in 225 years = 0.25 species per annum. Time to panic? No. Time for government to permit people “saving the planet” to send more species into extinction. Presumably they need to make up the numbers to make the predictions more credible. Oh dear…’
At around 25 vertebrate extinctions a year we will be completely out of vertebrates in less than 30,000 years.
The Pompous Git wrote ;
“So you believe these “middle class welfare beneficiaries” don’t deserve a fairer deal?”
FB responds : have we got our wires crossed?
I said I didn’t want subsidies , because I want as much freedom from government intervention as I can get. Subsidy always has strings attached.
By the way I’m a farmer in my sixties , still working 80 hours a week, and have done for the last 35 years. I can stand on my own feet thanks.
The Pompous Git wrote ;
“So you believe these “middle class welfare beneficiaries” don’t deserve a fairer deal?”
FB: I’m certainly in favour of a fairer deal . But it will never happen.
I’m paying NZ$20,000/annum in rates, in return for which I receive no water , no sewage system , no footpath, lighting etc, no rubbish collection, but I do get a stopbank (which turns half of my farm into a ponding area) through my farm to protect the city-dwellers living in the flood plain. I wouldn’t call it a fair deal, but I can live with it.
Climateace..
The rise in the Australian economy began when the party of the Left, Labor, stole without attribution, the ideology of its conservative opponents—the free enterprise ideology Labor had reviled and demonized since Labor’s inception—and the ideology it was condemning and seeking to destroy via its unions [ in order to ‘bring Australia to its knees’ ] just five minutes before.
Labor deregulated the economy as prescribed by the ‘dries’ amongst the conservatives in the Coalition, and as later PM John Howard had tried to do as Treasurer —and that boosted the Australian economy.
Labor Treasurer Keating mismanaged the deregulation in several ways, not the least being refusal to deregulate the labour market —being hog-tied as he was by Labor’s union masters.
So your party [ it appears from your point of view—or maybe you’re Green] left as always a massive economic mess for the conservatives to clean up, and the Coalition turned a very high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rate, high debt, huge deficit economy into a spectacularly prosperous economy over the next eleven years.
In the process, they turned a world’s worst practice, crime-ridden, strike-ridden waterfront into a model of efficiency , and wages across Australia rose by 22% whereas they had fallen under Labor’s thirteen years in power..
Australia’s position vis-a-vis other economies is meaningless considering some of the negative impacts other countries have suffered while we were benefiting from a massive boom in commodities—the once in a century boom that Labor squandered to turn a no-debt, $22billion surplus economy into a $350billion plus debt, $50billion deficit economy—- in just six miserable years.
This debacle the Left achieved while Australia’s revenues were of unprecedented proportions.
The impact on energy costs came with Labor’s carbon tax , which turned our competitive advantage in coal-fired electricity production into a huge liability, driving up costs of manufacturing and closing down industry.
You talk about ‘bizarre’, but how bizarre is it for a government to nobble and cut off at the knees its own manufacturing industry, and give a leg up to competitors who will supply the goods we would have supplied , but often at a greater cost in CO2 emissions—ie to increase the world’s CO2 emissions?
That’s not only bizarre, but subversive—an act of vandalism and sabotage —-and massive sovereign risk.
How could investors be confident enough to invest in a country whose government has shown it’s prepared to sell it out at any moment to keep faith not with its own citizens , but with some ideological global movement.
Those environmental impacts you describe apply in every country in the world—and usually to a far greater extent than here—so you would like Australia’s economy alone to be trashed in order to mitigate those impacts?
Where then is the money going to come from to mitigate all of that when Australia is the economic backwater the Left’s prescription ensures?
You on the Left and in the Green movement don’t mind defiling the Australian landscape with horrible invasive windmills that don’t even produce renewable power anyway, do you?
And many on the left were willing to bury billions of tonnes of CO2 near our precious aquifers, and pipe it across the landscape, and risk it escaping into the atmosphere down the track..
Many on the Left maintain deathly silence over the black carbon from the burning of trees and other biomass in Asian countries and Brazil.
Why are you not agitating about the fact that almost half of the arctic ice melt and that of glaciers and permafrost has been found by researchers to be caused not by CO2, but by black carbon—soot–deposited on the surface?
This must not matter, right??
Why are you not having a fit about the burning of biomass in the Scandinavian countries, and now the conversion of coal-fired UK power stations to burn biomass pellets imported from Canada and the US?
According to Greenpeace, burning of biomass is not only not renewable, and is therefore adding to climate change and adding more CO2 than does coal to the atmosphere—– but is destroying those very soils you speak of.
So I guess you’re in favor of Tony Abbott’s Direct Action policy, are you??
DaveW
‘Re Pompous Git – and for many of these we have a good understanding for why they went extinct and what to do to try and prevent further extinctions. For example, science killed off the frogs – medical researchers with their exotic, chytrid-riddled frogs and well meaning field biologists tramping the spores around. Habitat destruction, introduced species and other factors are fairly well understood. Well, maybe – the case of the Woylie (Brush-tailed Bettong) is a bit disheartening. A seemingly successful effort at protection and an increasing population is now disappearing for unknown reasons (although possibly related to a trypanosome). Perhaps we (climateace excepted, of course) cannot play God very well.
climate ace (isn’t that name slightly misspelled?) none of your points stand scrutiny and you really do protest too much. As you can see you raised mass extinction in your first spew and both vertebrates (in wiki, animal = vertebrate, flora = vascular plants and one alga) and vascular plants as examples later – in response to someone questioning your claim of mass extinction.’
This post reinforces that diverse human activities have initiated the beginning of our mass extinction event. The (continuing) introduction of alien pathogens is something I raised earlier. As for ‘playing god’, how about introducing an ever-increasing list of pests, weeds, predators, competitors and pathogens. Is DaveW talking about god-like introductions of rabbits, foxes, goats, pigs, cane toads, mission grass, Patterson’s curse and Gambusia?
DaveW, you appear to be suffering from short-term memory loss: you raised vascular plants. I responded.
What puzzles me is why some individuals are so very, very keen to avoid our extinction stats.
DaveW said @ur momisugly December 27, 2013 at 11:00 pm
We do indeed which is why I find government intervention exacerbating the problem so bloody frustrating. Example: here in Tasmania we have a number of island species well-known to be particularly fragile populations. The wedgies are on a very small genetic base, for example.
The kookaburra (aka laughing jackass) is not native to Tasmania; it is a “successful introduction” and present in ever increasing numbers. Nevertheless it is a “protected species” even though as a carnivore and egg-eater, it is driving several of our rarer birds into extinction. Some, such as the Diamond bird are useful insectivores from the farming/gardening POV.
Except in an emergency, I think expecting government to help with a problem is overly optimistic. Even when laws were passed with the best intentions, eventually all they serve is the bureaucracy that enforces them. In the US, you can’t even take care of a cat-mauled bird or pick up a shed feather without running the risk of being fined for being in possession of a migratory bird.
Thanks for your blog series on broadband. I’ve been out of country, missed all the brouhaha, and all my friends are knee-jerk Laborites, so I didn’t have a clue what to expect. Nice to know that I’ll get screwed no matter what system is put in place.
metro70
Why is an economy that is totally non-competitive (according to Forbes) have a triple AAA credit rating from ALL major international credit agencies for the first time ever, climbed up the ladder of economies by size, and had economic growth for around 80 months in a row?
Forbes’ claim is bizarre.
I would not have a clue what Abbott’s DAP actually means. Neither do the Liberals, apparently. After six years in Opposition and three months in Government all they have managed to produce is a consultation paper on the DAP.
Good luck with that.
TPG
I would be happy for Kookaburras to be eradicated from Tasmania. I am not sure what fool introduced them but a big, big mistake.
However, what about the gun-lover, supposedly upset at Howard’s gun laws who deliberately introduced foxes to Tasmania?
The idiot should be locked up and the key thrown away.
“climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 10:27 pm
… Below see links of extinctions of vertebrate fauna and vascular plants. …”
DaveW says:
December 27, 2013 at 3:57 pm – this is when I raised the vascular plants, in my first comment. Anyone who feels the need to check can scroll through. The comment was a direct response to your misrepresentations about mass extinctions of both vertebrates and vascular plants and invertebrates and non vascular plants.
“climateace says:
December 27, 2013 at 11:41 pm
DaveW, you appear to be suffering from short-term memory loss: you raised vascular plants. I responded.”
In my world, 3: 37 pm December 27th came after 10: 27 pm December 26th, actually much later since I responded on the 28th from Australia, but in your world where you know all, the clock goes whichever way you wish. You are a very confused person. Or a troll. Or both.
‘ Lewis P Buckingham says:
December 28, 2013 at 12:21 am
As for ‘playing god’, how about introducing an ever-increasing list of pests, weeds, predators, competitors and pathogens. Is DaveW talking about god-like introductions of rabbits, foxes, goats, pigs, cane toads, mission grass, Patterson’s curse and Gambusia?
climateace says:
December 27, 2013 at 11:41 pm
WoW CA you have really got this thread buzzing about all sorts of things.
May I try a [non Howard] shot in the dark.
Could it be that you are a pastures protection officer, looking after some area of prime agriculture,or even in Parks and Wildlife, looking after all the National Parks,not Marine.
If so what are you going to do about the Bilby and Quoll?’
Now its all very well declaring National Parks, but what about controlling the ferals within.
Stopping the feral cat would be a good start.
If you really believe that a Mass Extinction is upon us, then it is time to wipe out the feral cat.
When one of the Government Bureaucracies actually formulate a plan and start,I will join you as a true believer that the bureaucracy is actually about doing something practical about conservation in the lands it controls.
[hint, fencing off the natives lasts as long as the fence stays up so does not work.]
Lewis, before we get down to the byways I would like to reiterate my original position: Forbe’s blog is bizarre because it does not make any sense to claim that the Australian economy is uncompetitive while it is climbing up the league ladder of big economies, while it has had 80 consecutive months of economic growth and while it has a triple AAA rating from ALL the international ratings agencies.
In relation to your other points:
(1) It does not matter whether I picked potatoes or not as a young man or anything else about me personally. Completely irrelevant. It is the concepts and the data that count in this discussion. BTW, would you happen to know the three ways in which potato workers in the sixties could lose blood? No? Tough stuff. I lost blood in two of the ways but not the third way but I did observe it.
(2) As far as I know, there are no pasture protection officers left. This would be one of the reasons why dreadful pasture weeds are on the increase. St John’s Wort is going berserk, for example.
(3) You are quite right to decry the declaration of national parks without commensurate allocation of resources to manage them.
(4) We agree on the feral cat.
“climateace says:
December 27, 2013 at 11:53 pm
The idiot should be locked up and the key thrown away.”
I am glad you support the locking up and throwing away of keys for idiots introducing species into Australia. In 1935 the CSRO, as it was called then, and the kane toad would be the first on my list. The CSRO supported the Qld Govn’t and Brisbane sugar company to do so because the CSRO wanted to introduce the European toad into other parts of Australia. All endorced by politicians and scientists of the day. How did that work out for Australia?
Fast forward to modern day CSRO, called CSIRO, which is the same organsation who is trying to convince Australians that we must de-carbonise our economy because a computer simulation says CO2, and only those emissions from human activity, is going to destroy the climate/barrier reef/ocean/scare du jour. I am sure you will be able to find a way to blame Howard or Abbott for this, you seem to blame them for everything else.
The tripple “A” rating is about as meaningful as a global average temprature.
patrick
‘The tripple “A” rating is about as meaningful as a global average temprature.’
Tsk, tsk. It ensures low cost of money.
daveW
‘climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 10:27 pm
… Below see links of extinctions of vertebrate fauna and vascular plants. …”
DaveW says:
December 27, 2013 at 3:57 pm – this is when I raised the vascular plants, in my first comment. Anyone who feels the need to check can scroll through. The comment was a direct response to your misrepresentations about mass extinctions of both vertebrates and vascular plants and invertebrates and non vascular plants.
“climateace says:
December 27, 2013 at 11:41 pm
DaveW, you appear to be suffering from short-term memory loss: you raised vascular plants. I responded.”
In my world, 3: 37 pm December 27th came after 10: 27 pm December 26th, actually much later since I responded on the 28th from Australia, but in your world where you know all, the clock goes whichever way you wish. You are a very confused person. Or a troll. Or both.’
Oh dear. That is really important stuff, right?
You could always try to discuss the substantive issue which is that, at current rates, Australia will have no vertebrate species left within 30,000 years.
Per Mister Climateace: “You are ignoring the facts.”
Fifty years ago we, at least, understood fact meant truth.
Climate Ace,
Before you buzz off, can I thank you for sidetracking an important essay by Viv Forbes with scarcely relevant side topics and some absurd claims like those of a mass extinction. You wonder why people are not concerned by your claims of mass extinction. Simple reason – the claims are unbelievable and such dross that they are not worth a comment except to not that they are not worth a comment.
To your questions about Australia forging ahead with triple A ratings, compare not with other countries but set an absolute measure of where we might have been without the lead in the saddles of unions (that have seldom got anything right) and bureaucrats who are often so blatantly self-serving that even their best friends tell them. A hard working bureaucrat is working to improve her/his private position, not through altruism as a generalisation. I’ve met but a handful of altruist public servants in a seething mass of many in my career. Coming into the clutches of bureaucrats was one of the biggest fears of the free marketeers with whom I spent most of my career. They gave to our country far more than most people I know, certainly more than they could ever take out.
So cheerio and have a good 2014. Do make it a New Year resolution to read and digest “Atlas Shrugged” as a start to creating a brain without a deluded value system.
@ur momisugly Climate ace
I used to sit and plot the transformation of the world with Bill Mollison of Permaculture fame these many long years ago. In the 1980s his Permaculture minions decided that the nurseries in Tasmania selling pampas grass plants (female clone) was a rip-off and imported and sold pampas grass seed. Now there’s pampas grass everywhere, and it has become a declared weed, especially in that rainforest so beloved by the greenies. Sad that the only people controlling the pampas grasss (forestry workers) are now unemployed. Sad also that my farmer friends who had planted out many hectares of pampas grass for sheep forage had to burn and spray herbicide to destroy what had been encouraged by the agricultural extension officers.
Good intentions are not sufficient.
‘The Pompous Git says:
December 28, 2013 at 2:26 am
@ur momisugly Climate ace
I used to sit and plot the transformation of the world with Bill Mollison of Permaculture fame these many long years ago. In the 1980s his Permaculture minions decided that the nurseries in Tasmania selling pampas grass plants (female clone) was a rip-off and imported and sold pampas grass seed. Now there’s pampas grass everywhere, and it has become a declared weed, especially in that rainforest so beloved by the greenies. Sad that the only people controlling the pampas grasss (forestry workers) are now unemployed. Sad also that my farmer friends who had planted out many hectares of pampas grass for sheep forage had to burn and spray herbicide to destroy what had been encouraged by the agricultural extension officers.
Good intentions are not sufficient.’
Never a truer word.
“climateace says:
December 28, 2013 at 12:44 am
Tsk, tsk. It ensures low cost of money.”
No it desn’t.
‘Geoff Sherrington says:
December 28, 2013 at 1:31 am
Climate Ace,
Before you buzz off, can I thank you for sidetracking an important essay by Viv Forbes with scarcely relevant side topics and some absurd claims like those of a mass extinction.’
I addressed directly Forbes’ bizarre contention that somehow or other the Australian economy was not competitive, despite the fact that the economy has grown for 80 consecutive months, despite the fact that it is the only time in history that we have AAA credit ratings with ALL the major international ratings agencies and despite the fact that Australia is climbing up the international ladder of largest economies.
The contradictions here are obvious. You have failed to address them.
‘You wonder why people are not concerned by your claims of mass extinction. Simple reason – the claims are unbelievable and such dross that they are not worth a comment except to not that they are not worth a comment.’
I have provided statistics and relevant links. All you have done is deny the facts, the stats and the trends because you don’t want to believe them.
‘So cheerio and have a good 2014. Do make it a New Year resolution to read and digest “Atlas Shrugged” as a start to creating a brain without a deluded value system.’
‘Atlas Shrugged’ would be by the same Ayn Rand who died virutally penniless and in receipt of social security and Medicare?
Luckily for Rand there were governments and bureaucrats who had not read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ – oherwise she might have died while sleeping rough under a bridge in a cardboard box, one of society’s ‘losers’. Oh, the irony!
“climateace says:
December 28, 2013 at 3:00 am
I addressed directly Forbes’ bizarre contention that somehow or other the Australian economy was not competitive,…”
Can you remind non-Australian residents/readers the two main reasons why Ford (Now GMH and soon Toyota?) chose to pull out of Australia in 2016 (This was while the ALP were in power so you can’t lay blame to the LNP for that)? Ford stated two main factors! 1; Labour costs. Ford has to compete with car makers who build cars in Asia and the EU zones at 4 and 2 times cheaper respectively (Even with subsidies) than in Aus. Why is that?. 2; Energy costs!
The big issue here are the indirect industries that will be affected by the downturn (Look at Detroit, US). That’s 10’s of thousands of jobs, and of course, billions in tax revenue lost.
BTW, I worked in the automotive industry in the UK back in the 1990’s and even back THEN there was over-capacity. Thousands of acres in the channel islands were parking lots for cars car makers made but were not selling. A “by-product” of Govn’t subsidy? Well, that is a possibility given the milk, olive oil lakes (It’s why we can buy cheaper olive oil grown and pressed in the EU than locally sourced in Aus), cheese, meat (Deep frozen for years!!!) mountains etc in the EU farming sectors.