>Anyway - by way of fleeting distraction from the charged hiatus - a quick
>update on the world's most dynamic capitalist economy (as our treasurer and
>primeminister-in-waiting Peter Costello likes to characterise it).
>Australia's telecommunications (OneTel, the third largest telco in the
>country, collapsed three months ago), insurance (HIH, the country's biggest
>insurer, collapsed two months ago), and airline (Ansett, with 43% of the
>market, collapsed this week) sectors have all pretty well hit the wall (oh,
>and our biggest ore processor, Pasminco, collapsed this morning), our
>foreign debt is at $311 billion, twice what it was when the fiscally
>responsible free marketeers came in in '96, our household debt is up 80%
>on that year, growth has fallen in two years from 4% to 1%, and
>unemployment is headed for 8%. So, with that bit of background in mind ...
>let's see where our vaunted competition policy has, in ten short years, got
>us in sectors where the fixed-versus-marginal cost ratio is such as to
>recommend monopoly, and monopoly such as to recommend public ownership and
>control.
At the same time, Australia's growth rate has been among the strongest in the world. How can that be, if all these titans are falling?
Doug