manicmike

I have to say I'm not a political activist, but I do observe what's happening and don't like it a bit.

The USA has a chance of remaining self sufficient and we have none. For example, we no longer have a car industry (the govt actively and happily killed it last year) and once manufacturing stops we can never re-start it. Here, all the factories that are being closed get demolished immediately to make cheap apartments, and most of the equipment is sold to China (so they can make the same things but badly then sell it back to us). Most of the apartments are also being sold to China. Chinese citizens can buy whatever they want here and they have been.

When I visited the US in 2011 the factories were abandoned but hadn't been demolished (more of the US is usable land so you have much more space - Australia is mostly harsh desert). The US economic stimulus plan resulted in the re-opening of some of these factories.

Australia produces nothing except food and if a local company needs a workforce, they'll set up a factory in China or India rather than here because more short term profit is far more important than helping the country.

Here's why I'm really alarmed about the shutting down of our industries: Imagine a war is announced and China's not on our side. Self-sufficiency is extremely important in war time, for obvious reasons.
In this situation, the US would re-purpose factories for the war effort, producing armaments, vehicles, ordnance, uniforms and will fight the good fight. Australia's leaders think for a few seconds, finally realise that absolutely everything we need would have to come from China and we will very quickly have no ability to defend ourselves. A moment of clarity, a little regret, then we surrender to our new overlords who already own most of the land anyway.

I've thought about this a lot, and all of our political leaders from the '80s seem hell bent on getting rid of our skills and self sufficiency. As much as your country has also headed down, we'll definitely get to the bottom first.

Is 10:11am too early for a stiff drink?