The Australian Economy is under re-calibration, are we really planning for the future as best we can

I predicted in my post in March this year, that due to the coronavirus, effective unemployment in Australia would hit 20%. I have been proven deadly correct on that sheer estimate. As the title of this blog clearly states, Australia is about to enter into a new phase of re-calibration.

Here are just some sobering statistics concerning the amounts of money that our governments have had to allocate in order to address the various problems the pandemic has thrown up.

[if !supportLists]· [endif]112,000 people have been housed in private hotels at a total cost of $118M (as at the end of June).

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Unemployment is at some 11%, but the real unemployment figure without jobkeeper & jobseeker is over

20%

[if !supportLists]· [endif]There are a staggering 3.2M additional Australians receiving some wage subsidy of some kind.

All these ‘so called’ superannuation experts and ‘financial planners’ up until the pandemic were assuring workers to invest their Super in all sorts of things like airports and other paid infrastructure, where commuters have to engage in payments to use essential roads, bridges and tunnels... this has proven to be very poor planning and advice. Now most of these big infrastructure projects like Westconnex will simply not have the projected traffic once thought. Australian migration has dropped from over 200,000 PA to under 35,000 last financial year.

Finally, our economy will not be artificially ‘overheated’ by swathes of itinerant people clogging our major cities.

Not to mention universities that were swimming in cash when international students were lining up to take their degrees; we now know, that Australian universities are (effectively) on their knees; without international students. The amount of universities we have in Australia will soon be an oversupply for our population. It wasn’t so long ago universities were using all that extra cash they had to build all these (now) unnecessary buildings. Hoarding billions in cash reserves. Well it’s time for them to start using that cash. No more putting your hands out to the Australian taxpayer seeking to subsidize students under the guise of building the economy, that’s proven to be a real furphy.

Then we have all of those dooms dayers asking where will we get the money to pay for all this? The same place the Government got the $100 billion dollars plus to house all the refugees offshore in the last 20 years. That’s what it’s cost us, $100 billion (or thereabouts). All of the pandemic assistance announced thus far by the Government might amount to $100 maybe $200 or even $300 billion, it’s all irrelevant. Australia is one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Don’t believe anyone that tries to tell you that we can’t afford payment of a living wage for each and every Australian who cannot find a job; that is absolute nonsense and anyone who swallows it is as stupid as those who pronounce it.

Whilst the Australian reserve bank continues to buy Australian dollars to back the Australian economy (as it has said that it will continue to do) Australia is in safe hands. The Reserve bank will be investing in Australia, as opposed to investing all over the world, its another reason why our dollar is firm at 70 cents (plus) against the USD.

So whilst your tallying up all of the wealth that Australia enjoys you might also want to think about all the big dirty holes that all of these mineral companies are digging and pouring outside Australia. This is another big part of our economy, deemed an ‘essential industry’. Those companies are making a shitloads of money; that’s why they have chosen to come to Australia, to dig up all of our minerals. Australia is one of the few nations in the world that has such an expensive resource of minerals, including might I add, gold, which has, in the last month alone, hit an all-time high of over $2000 US per ounce.

Now I have a problem when our government starts hemorrhaging the sorts of cash they are on a weekly basis with no real plan forward. Subsidizing huge amounts of wages through jobseeker and jobkeeper payments are no good (in the long term). This hemorrhaging highlights the ineptitude of our politicians to actually grapple and deal with this pandemic. I say, instead of putting money directly into the hands of employers to give to workers who have no jobs, what they should have been doing was fast tracking the assessment of other industries that need to be rebuilt, including our manufacturing sector; they should be investing in cooperatives, where say, entities employing 100 people would be entitled to 5 millions of dollars in subsidy. The government should have been setting up cooperative company[s] whereby each of those workers could also be shareholders in that entity.

I’m not sure why cooperatives have fallen off the radar, but they are the most equitable and effective way to put money back into people’s hands and still give them something of a future to hang onto. Just imagine if each employee would be a 1% or 2% shareholder in the operation? Not only would they be getting their wages secured through the business, they will also share in the dividends; the profits this company would generate on a yearly basis after it has paid its taxes and so forth. I am a big fan of cooperatives because I believe they will be the way forward for our nation, which is a wealthy, affluent and intelligent nation. It’s time to harness all of that intelligence and intellect to create new industries, new businesses, to set up new manufacturing sites that will produce goods that the world needs at this time.

Businesses small to medium will need this form of seed financing from Government, who also remains a long term shareholder in the operation.

There are other ways as well, if we sometimes think outside the square. How about less worrying about the future, and more positive rebuilding in these challenging times.