kraftwerk

The Business Review Weekly carries an interesting article about how de-industrialisation in some developed countries, Oz included, has led to the 'financialisation' of the economy which is now out of balance because so much wealth, and dependent economic activity, is tied up in residential and commercial property. We make money by selling it to each other. Taking in each other's real washing, so to speak.

Whenever I read arguments against support - of any kind - for manufacturing, I'll now think of this.

It may be economic illiteracy on my part but if as a country we can't make things, we're doomed.

Yes, clever financial people can devise ways of financing things that might not ever get done otherwise. It's a skill and it requires intelligence and effort. Public-private partnerships and so on.

But you still need to make things, because eventually we'll have nothing.

Actually not only doomed, but stupid.