Well with Rudd taking over as the PM of Australia I look for the Aussie’s to slip back to the level of New Zealand.
“A FORMER New Zealand prime minister once joked the migration of his citizens to Australia increased the IQ of both countries.”
They used to say the same thing about the Okies moving to CA.
A certain irony, as Milton Friedman points out that at the start of the 20th Century Australia had the highest standard of living in the world. They fell behind the United States because they adopted British style socialism. If they embraced neo-socialism, they’ll regress.
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From what I understand, NZ is very, very liberal. If that encompasses the same things as it does in the US, I imagine many NZ’ers detest capitalism and would, therefore, not want to invest in capital equipment because that’s helping a capital system to grow and prosper.
Better, in a liberal’s mind, to just give the money away to layabouts rather than “waste” it on a capital enterprise.