Hmm, well half a world away it's no better really - our pollies tell us things are great - and they rattle off the numbers to justofy their claims.
Unemployment low - 5.75% (what they don't say is the numbers low coz most people have given up looking).
Interest rates - record lows lowest in 40 years - mortgage round 9.5% (what they don't say is those who gave up looking for work coz there isn't any can't service the mortgage they already got!)
Look at it from a rural town point of view where I live, and it's been going down for the last 12 years or so.
I got here 15 years ago to a town of 1200
I was employed in forestry.
I had 86 wages employees and 26 salaried (total 112).
Budget for the year 3.5 million, revenues (from hardwood and softwood logging) 5.5 million
Left Forestry 8 years ago redundant - I'd comuterised every system bye then so it could all be done from the nearest regional city.
Forestry dept now has 3 salaried staff and 16 wages..total 19
In that 15 years I estimate 93 peoples disosable income of say 30K a year has left town along with their families, kids from the school, etc etc.
Thas about 3 million a year of disposable thats gone.
Same with the timber mill (the towns other biggest employer).
15 years ago they had 3 x 8 hr shifts of 42 men, 6 days a week, now 15 years later, they have one x 8 hr shift of 42 men, 4.5 days a week.
The disposable income from that industry which has left town?..
About another 3 million a year.
A busy little town of 1200 is, now a town of 500, and the sign on the bridge over the river into town says "would the last person to leave town please turn out the lights!".
Every business, house, and farm in the town has a "for sale" sign on it. there hasn't been a real estate sale in this town now for over 12 months.
School bus routes (and the govt. contracts that go with them) are closing - not enough kids to fill a small (20 seat) bus.
Teachers leaving - not enough students. One gas station left.
This is what city dwellers don't see, vibrant bstling little towns totally decimated,bye poor decision making in this world in the big cities (and powerful nations) that are destroying the rural areas totally.
Course - they will realise it was a mistake when their foods all imported because folks walked off their land and went to live on welfare in the citys.
They won't notice it imediately, because their food will be imported from some other third world nation, when they will notice it is when ebola, snmallpox, foot and mouthm anthrax or something else wipes out the third world nations supplying their food and theresnothing grown locally to bail the city's outta the shyte they created themselves from poor decision making.
All you need to be highly sought after by mutinationals is to know how to be a cost cutter, how to prune the tree, well unfortunately - a lot of the friut bearing wood on those pruned trees is gone.
The citys - all citys depend upon their rural outlying areas for their real wealth creation, citys only take rawproducts and manufacture it into something useable, rural communities take a seed of grain, grow it into stooled wheat stalk with many many grains, thats where real wealth creation comes from - sunlight, soil, water and tending the crop.
Citys produce little if any real wealth.
When rural areas collapse - all the greatest citys of the world have foundered at various times in history.
Any fool can find cost cutts - it takes a far sighted and dedicated person to bake a bigger cake so theres enough to go around.
Missus & I took the kids into a nearbye coastal tourism town, pop 250,000, to look at selling up our farm and moving to the bigger town - wife already commutes their to work, kids have to go there by bus next year for schhool anyway, might as well bloody shift there to live and save the fuel bills.
Don't want to but it's the only thing that makes any fiscal sense.
Real estate person said we were the 3rd couple from our town who were in there today looking at moving!
The world economys totally Phukked people and anyone tells you different must have 2 dicks coz you couldn't be that silly just playing with one!
The stock market and everything else will grow when our towns are vibrant & growing, and not before.
We country folk have been not renewing our house and farm insurance for years to try and get bye until things get better, in order to be able to service our mortgages etc.
The fella above who said he's in insurance and people aren't cancelling their policys so he figures his jobs safe - well, no they aren't comming in to cancell - but Ill bet my left ball a lot of em aren't renewing - which my dear fellow means your jobs not secure at all!
I know coz I'm one of em!
The world economy's totally Phukked and i know it - Nat's on the land and he knows it.
We'll be the forst to tell you when it gets better but the only light were seeing at the end of the tunnel, is the headlight of an oncomming express train as far as folks in the bush are concerned.
I personally wouldn't let G Dubyia or our own pollies downunder run a church raffle if you asked me.
Thats how things are in the bush!
Cheers!
