Going along nicely? Wages - stagnated. Manufacturing - gone. Jobs - gone. Unemployment - Up, Debt - up. Cost of living - through the roof.
The only reason we haven't had a recession is because of dubious government policy and fiddling with the books. The definition of 'unemployed' these days is farcical. The official rate of inflation is equally farcical. Australia just follows the old adage 'If at first you don't succeed, redefine success'. And in your 70's, you could go from high school to a life long secure job. Nowadays, it's casual work for many with no rights, no security, low wages and poor conditions. A lot more stress these days.
And the reserve bank hasn't a clue. 'Oh, let's just lower interest rates, that'll fix it!'. Interest rates should never have dropped below about 3%. Now we're just scrapping the bottom of the barrel and being lined up for the firing squad.
We survived Tony Abbott, but will we survive Turnball? He's real great. Talks about foreign investment being our saviour. Might have worked decades ago when foreign companies came here, built factories, hired locals and produced something but these days when it comprises of buying local business's, shutting them down to remove competition, moving jobs offshore (because all this is exactly what happened to the last place I worked at) and pushing property prices up beyond the reach of the average Australian, then you can take your foreign investment and shove it. These days, policies like that benefit the big end of town only. This whole 'free trade' *smile* when it should have been 'fair trade'. As far as I'm now concerned, every import should be taxed to the point where it would have cost the same or less to have made it in Australia. And locally made goods should be consumed BEFORE any equivalent imports are allowed.
For all the criticism that Keating copped, at least he had the balls to have the 'recession we had to have' which is probably largely responsible for following period of economic stability. Failure to accept that the good comes with the bad isn't going to prevent a recession, it only delays it and likely makes it worse. But don't worry, you'll probably be dead by then and it'll be your kids or grandkids who'll pay for it. When you have incompetent politicians and capitalist pigs joining forces implementing self serving unsustainable policies, then it's going to come back and bite you on the bum one day. It's just a matter of when.
