without prejudice
OPINIONS
WE SHOULD BE THE RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!
Edited Transcript of Matt Barrie’s discussion:
Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer, we're in a situation right now where we should be the richest country in the world!
WE WERE THE RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IN 1900
So, we discovered GOLD back in like 1853 or something rather that led to a gigantic gold rush through the late 1800s in this country!
We are a huge producer of Natural Resources so you know Sheep and Beef and Grain and so forth.
You can just walk around Melbourne and look at the buildings, right; in 1900 Melbourne was the richest city in the world; full stop the second richest city in the world was Buenos Aires.
Now the two countries of Australia and Argentina took very different paths from 1900 onwards Argentina went down the path of socialism right and ended up in a complete disastrous situation.
I have an office in Buenos Aires you know, so I know very much you what goes on that country that's recently corrected itself with Milei1 and in fact um I think for the first time in many, many, many, years they've, shared actually had a month where there's no food inflation, you know but, but, normally the inflation is completely out of control and you got adjust wages every month and this the other and it's a very destabilizing place to, live and so forth and then we {Australia} went down the other path right and um for, for, a while you know Australia was a great place to live and we had manufacturing for example as a substantial portion of, the GDP of this country.
We made cars we made a bunch of different things; we had whole Supply chains for, various things; and then we {Australia} just went into this path of just, just, easy Relentless growth where, it was just you know house prices drifting up and shipping iron ore and coal and gas and gold overseas.
You would think a country with 1200 years of coal Supply would be an Energy Superpower!
You would think a country with 28% of the world's uranium reserves would be an Energy Superpower!
You would think a country with 20% of the world's Gas Exports; sometimes number one in the world for Gas Exports, sometimes number two in the world for Gas Exports, would be an Energy Superpower.
You would think a country with 3.46 people per square kilometer would have cheap land and cheap housing right.
You would think; a country that has well what is it you know something like we're:
Third, the in the world for production of cobalt.
We have 47% of the world's lithium production
Fifth in the world for, the production of nickel.
Sixth in the world for production of copper
You' think we would be an energy and um you know Electronic and Mechanical Engineering Superpower!
We control 56% of the world's iron ore exports, you would think, would be, a; you know; a Steel Superpower!
We have cheap energy, and we have abundant iron ore, and we turn that and elaborately transform that and other materials we have; to become an Export Powerhouse!
WE SHOULD BE THE RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!
Full stop!
We have everything right!
But instead:
We have the greatest erosion of wealth in the Developed World right.
We have a cost-living crisis that is the MOTHER OF ALL COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS!
We have House Pricing that is astronomically expensive; it doesn't make any sense anywhere around the world where a Terrace House2 in Wallarah3, is the same price as a cruise ship you know it's literally a 2025 model 164 {164 foot cruise ship (50.00 Meters) } cruise ship or $18 million Terrace it's a nice Terrace but I mean come on let's get let's get some reality.
The Root-Cause of this Cost -Of-Living crisis the Cost-Of-Land and, the root cause of that is Mass Immigration
We have the most expensive casual wages in the world but again it's not enough to live on but that's caused, because people need somewhere to live
And then we have an energy crisis because we stupidly are going down this path of well you what about the environment this that the other, we can't burn coal etc. No, we're burning the coal every, single thing we're digging out of the ground is being burned is it being burnt by China, or it's being burnt by Japan right it's all being shipped overseas and burnt we're deluding ourselves that we think we're doing anything by not burning it here; completely deluding ourselves.
The gas we send overseas in many cases is being re-exported we sent it to Japan they sell they don't sell it right and now we're trying now; we're; actually; going; to import gas in the Eastern Seaboard which is ludicrous because we don't have a gas reservation scheme right!
So! We have a cost-of-living crisis caused by input costs such as, you know, land and wages which come back to land.
We have an energy crisis; through a very poor energy policy where we'll export all the raw materials to build renewable generators, which are energy negative on the energy that's consumed to get the materials out of the ground; which ship back to us are unreliable; which we can't; and as a result of such; we can't run a reliable manufacturing industry in this country.
Manufacturing as a percentage of gross value a is 5.39% which is on par with Botswana where you go see cheetahs.
It's On Par with Liechtenstein which is a financial Haven; it is dropped from about you know 15, 16, 17, 18, 19% to 5% it's about one third what of the average is for the OECD
We are literally in this country is going to hell on a hand basket!
We are 93rd in the Harvard economic complexity index in terms of the complexity of things that we produce and how sophisticated they are and how much people can replicate them.
Our economy in terms of sophistication and complexity is on par with Equatorial Guinea where they don't have a cinema in the entire country right and so it is all being caused by government policy which can be turned around on a dime.
Acknowledgements Original Sources
Credit to All From Equity Mates Politics news
Credit to Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer
{Javier Gerardo Milei Argentine politician and economist currently serving as the president of Argentina since December 2023.}
{The terrace house is a dwelling that is joined to at least two other houses, usually of identical design, to form a row. The basic idea of joined houses extends back to ancient times. 22m sept 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/article/2024/sep/12/sydney-terrace-house-22m-listing-average-house-prices }
{NSW 2259}
2024 OCT 04 Australia should be the richest country in the world instead we have the greatest erosion of wealth in the Developed World