A few disassociated rambles.

A few observations I wanted to put forward with no real context.

On Australian Infrastructure

Australia's headline exports seem to be resources, agriculture, tourism and education. It's been an open secret that international education is a proxy for skilled migration. So two of these seem to hinge on Australian quality of life.

So why don't we spend more on infrastructure?

On cheap imported goods from China (and India, SE Asia, South America etc.)

We complain about cheap manufacturing jobs travelling overseas to places with substandard quality. I suspect it's quite unfair actually. The economic theory is that the country that is the best at doing something will end up doing a lot of it.

It's clear that in rich countries such as Australia, wages are high enough that it would be impractical to compete on cost (unless there was some kind of niche, but niches quickly get filled nowadays!).

So the system is set up so that the poor people get the jobs. What's wrong with that? (Also, it helps that Australia has a substantial safety net for unemployed workers, and also is providing a lot of raw material to said poorer countries, so that helps complete the cycle a bit.)

On Paul Keating's arrogance

Those of you with long memories might recall the 1991 Australian recession. Our then Treasurer and later Prime Minister, Paul Keating, with trademark brashness and arrogence, referred to it as "the recession we had to have". He then proceeded to come bitterly close to losing the next election.

Having said that, we actually haven't had a recession since. We escaped the Asian Economic Crisis in the late '90s, and missed a technical recession in the Global Financial Crisis in '08/09. (We call it global, but it's really led by the Western nations in Europe and North America.)

So our last recession is the one we had to have. Maybe Keating was right.

But then again, who knows what else tomorrow will bring?

Coca-Cola - the new packaging

Yes, the Coca-Cola company has changed its label again.

Not sure if this is Australian-specific or not.

No longer does the dynamic ribbon device have a subtle white stripe through the middle; it's just all saturated white nowadays. How can we consider it a ribbon now? It's now just two wavy red cutouts now!

Also, if you want to read some puke-worthy 10-spoons-of-sugary-sickening-sweetness advertising copy, check out the back of the can. I can't remember the exact wording. Something about listening to happiness escaping from the can. Those advertising gurus must have been drinking their own Kool-Aid.*

Come on, I can't be the only one who gets worked up about soft-drink packaging!

*that's cordial for people from my part of the world. But hey, the only ones that make you think funny seems to come out of the US!