Does Australia need USA?

Thatcher, Reagan to inspire economic recovery

I hope not. Thatcher was zealous in her idealism. As a 16 year old in 1981, I have been in the middle of Thatchers policies so forgive me for my loathing of the woman. The only people who hold her up as a hero are those who didn't live under her policies.

In 1981 and out of a class of 31 or so, only 3 left school with a job to go to...others unemployed or stayed on by a lack of options. Many people in their 50's never worked again and highly paid executives took what they could get in whatever industry. 12.5% unemployment, 20%+ in some places and a country fractured that remains prevalent in the UK today. Poverty doubled. That's what recessions do and what you get if you follow her policies.

 

This is a big statement, and been hearing this for years..... however this is the reality..... the rest is speculation

GDP by Country - Worldometer

 

Hard to see US going anywhere. World's reserve currency, controls banking system, military powerhouse bases all around the world, greatest businesses/brands in the world and plentiful natural resources.

 

The US is still a significant investor putting geopolitics aside. And then Australia uses so much US tech, eg Paypal, Amazon, iPhones. Who doesn't use US tech? If you merge both US and China threads on this forum, it's pretty clear Australia needs almost every major country as Aus is such a small player.

But if there's a list of countries most needed it's probably US/China equal (for different reasons) + Japan, maybe Korea at a remote 4th.

 

I have been banging on about water infrastructure for years.

The problem is, as you say, harvesting the water. It requires a lot of infrastructure building mainly in the tropical north of our country. Once the harvesting is sorted the piping of water to wherever we need it is easy. I've always said that we should start with Queensland, backed by the Federal government. If we could irrigate inland Queensland using their own water it avoids all the inter-state bickering and bureaucracy. Once that is up and running it will be easier to roll out to other areas.

It is such a no-brainer. Once the infrastructure is built the ongoing benefit to our country of supplying cheap water to commercial scale farms will be enormous.

 

Irrigating this country properly would be transformative. That, and high speed rail.