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Our GDP "growth" is largely because property price inflation is somehow considered economic growth. As an Australian, my conclusion is that Australia has faile

Our GDP "growth" is largely because property price inflation is somehow considered economic growth. As an Australian, my conclusion is that Australia has failed to diversify its economy. Money comes in through mining, agriculture, property sales and to a lesser extent tertiary education. The rest is a services economy, and I think the joke about Australia being a country where we all serve each other lattes captures the idea in as few words possible. I've just left the US, and instead of going home I went to Europe to start my company. Denmark is amazingly progressive with how it spends its public purse setting up an environment for innovation. Australia on the other hand seems to have abandoned any idea of establishing a sovereign wealth fund (mining tax) and instead blown millions courting US dollars which hasn't succeeded in turning Australia into a foreign branch of SV. For a longer read, this is obviously one person's analysis, but I fail to find a flaw in his conclusions. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/australias-economy-house-cards-matt-barrie https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/australias-economy-house-card...

wycx 8y ago
From the link, on economic complexity [1]: Where does Australia rank on the global scale? Worse than Mauritius, Macedonia, Oman, Moldova, Vietnam, Egypt and Botswana. Worse than Georgia, Kuwait, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and El Salvador. Sitting embarrassingly and awkwardly between Kazakhstan and Jamaica, and worse than the Dominican Republic at 74 and Guatemala at 75, Australia ranks off the deep end of the scale at 77th place. 77th and falling. After Tajikistan, Australia had the fourth highest loss in Economic Complexity over the last decade, falling 18 places. Not the behavior of a modern, mixed economy that many Australians pretend that we have. We are an anomaly. A third world economy with a first world standard of living. Will is last? [1] http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/rankings/ http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/rankings/
dcx 8y ago
That was an amazing read - thanks for sharing. Being pointed to these kinds of brilliant longform pieces of thinking is one of the best things I consistently get out of HN.

wycx 8y ago

From the link, on economic complexity [1]: Where does Australia rank on the global scale? Worse than Mauritius, Macedonia, Oman, Moldova, Vietnam, Egypt and Botswana. Worse than Georgia, Kuwait, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and El Salvador. Sitting embarrassingly and awkwardly between Kazakhstan and Jamaica, and worse than the Dominican Republic at 74 and Guatemala at 75, Australia ranks off the deep end of the scale at 77th place. 77th and falling. After Tajikistan, Australia had the fourth highest loss in Economic Complexity over the last decade, falling 18 places. Not the behavior of a modern, mixed economy that many Australians pretend that we have. We are an anomaly. A third world economy with a first world standard of living. Will is last? [1] http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/rankings/ http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/rankings/

dcx 8y ago

That was an amazing read - thanks for sharing. Being pointed to these kinds of brilliant longform pieces of thinking is one of the best things I consistently get out of HN.