Last Updated: Oct 22nd, 2010 - 15:35:08 Newsletters : 2005 Newsletters : 15 March 2005 Thought for the Day Quote from Sir John Quinton, British Academic, "Money" 1989. Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnel. This just about sums up our current situation! Mar 15, 2005, 14:29 Newsletters : 2005 Newsletters : 15 March 2005 No Time to Stop and Smell the Roses As we have observed, Australia is still edging ahead of us at a small but steady and consistent pace in the climb up the "rich list". Our desire to keep up is not just that we want to be "rich" but that if we are to get a good living standard that will give us a decent pension and a health system that doesn't kill 1100 patients a year on its waiting lists then we must keep up with the best countries in the world. If we don't keep up then we must suffer declining standards relative to other countries. Unfortunately, after a period of continuing decline citizens lose heart and the more capable leave to enjoy the fruits of a high standard of living available to the well educated and hard working in another country - Australia. People say that Australia is the "lucky" country - that all they have to do is dig a hole and sell the minerals they find! Well, maybe it is good to have resources like that but they still need to be developed and other countries with few and fragile resources are managing to do much better than New Zealanders. Try Iceland for size. NO minerals, 400,000 people in a lot of ice, snow and tundra. They went from number 18 in the rich list to number 14 in the same time that we went from number 17 to number 37. The Economist of Feb 19th tells the story of Icelandic businesses now making big acquistions across Europe. We sell for cash - Icelanders go for growth. The source of this Icelandic financial muscle is, according to the Economist, 14 years of deregulating and privatising government. Also their tax rate is now 18%, the third lowest of the OECD after Ireland and Hungary. The economy is now growing at rates between 4% and 6% after a slide in 2001/2002. Why do we put up with governments that take us down the slippery slope? One of my good mates said the other day, "The harder I work the luckier I get". Yeah, but he shifted to Australia 5 years ago! Roger Kerr puts things in perspective in the following article. . . Mar 15, 2005, 13:07