The Albanese Government

They talk about their "product" which is just different ways of moving money from one place to another while skimming some off the top.

It's not good for the common people that banking is run as a business rather than a service but the big 4 are now so powerful that no Labor government will ever be able to reign them in and no Liberal government will ever have the inclination to do so.

I'm of the viewpoint that area's like education, health and banking should be treated as a service not a business.  As a society we should be able to ensure that all our members have equal access to health and education services, as a society we will grow if all have equal opportunity.  Banking I just see as an industry that skims from the top of other people doing actual work, ok we need to keep our finances somewhere and people also need financial backing at times but surely we don't need banks turning these massive profits for basically shuffling numbers around?

Congrats Afros & Rusty - TBV role models 

Uluru Statement from the Heart, reviewing Climate Change technologies & Women's Issues are the biggies. Watch this space

Do you worry for the long term viability of our economy? Given majority of our largest companies are largely either banks, telecommunications (Telstra), digging stuff out of the ground or selling us food and other items (Woolies and Coles groups)

More our society than the economy.

The companies that are most profitable (excluding banks) are pretty much parasites, demanding gov subsidies and pay f all tax.

Just being a hole in the ground, won’t see us outperform other countries that add value to our cheap resources.

As an aside Norway pretty much earns as much royalties in one year, as we’ve received in total.

Let me give you an example with the game I'm now in - importing artificial grass. We only had another  Chinese manufacturer visit us on Friday to get some business. Got the promotional video / new variants blah, blah. There are over 300 Artificial Grass manufacturers in China. This company had  300 office staff alone (is one of the bigger ones). They control 95% of the worlds market. Australia has 2 manufacturers - who both now supplement their products with Chinese imports in order to compete on price with importers like us. When i say they manufacture - they import all the components - the backing / the plastic blades / the stitching in bulk from China - & assemble it on machines purchased from China. They sell it at a premium as Australian made grass - emphasizing suitability to local conditions, All cobblers of course. A typical Austrian made grass is manufactured at approx $16/m2 at the gate. A Chinese equivalent $10 (assuming approx. current exchange rates). Cost per m2 to get it from the Chinese factory into our warehouse is approx. $2 to $2.5 / m2. So we can receive the same product 25% cheaper. Bunning type operators are probably more like 40 to 50% cheaper than locally made equivalents (assuming anyone even bothers doing it) for all the products they import.

Can you imagine everything in Bunnings going up 40 to 50% overnight ?

Not everyone see's things the same !

But you know that PT