Sharing Our Rescources
Written by binsblog
According to the latest report from Credit Swiss, Australia is by far the richest country in the world, and daylight comes second. We have a net median wealth of $220,000 per adult. Don’t forget to rub that in next time you visit Bangladesh, it sure is something to gloat about. 100 years ago we were even richer; living off the fat of the land: Gold, wool and beef, till the gold ran out and the Soviet Union stopped buying our wool to cloth their vast army and the Brazilians cut down the Amazon rainforests to grow grass for their beef cattle.
Just when we were down to our last brass razoo, the evil communist Chinese, sorry, our good friends the Chinese started clamouring for our coal and iron ore.
Phew, that was lucky!
So here we are again, laughing all the way to the bank, or some of us anyway.
The rescource sector of our economy pulls in a total combined profit of 50 billion dollars every year. This rather large sum of money, which matches, coincidentally, our annual government defecit, is accumulated by the very simple method of digging up the country and selling it to the highest bidder; right now that is our good friends the evil chinese communists.
Fully 40% of the land that is dug up and shipped out is Aboriginal owned. How do you think they feel about their sacred sights being turned into knick-knacks and throw away screw drivers. Disgruntled, to say the least.
You may have noticed quite a few countries are nationalizing their precious resources these days. Bolivia and Venezuala spring to mind, not that we take the slightest interest in goings-on south of the U.S. border, except for the world cup, of course.
Now l know that nationalization is a dirty word here in Australia; not to be uttered in public under pain of death. The mere mention of the word can bring on an anxiety attack amongst the well-to-do, horrified at the very idea of all their lovely money being wasted on the poor. l would be the last person to want to instigate that level of mass hysteria, so l would like to propose a simple method for retrieving the vast wealth gained from the sale of our country. A method that sits comfortably within the boundaries of acceptable behavior in this nation of Capitalists that we have become.
All we have to do is convince the government to buy shares in the resources sector; all of them. There are nearly 25 million people in Australia so that would mean $2,000 each. Nothing to be sniveled at. A family of four would receive $8,000. A big fat cheque every Christmas.
An added bonus would be that as shareholders we would have a say over mining operations. We could choose if we wanted, to forgo some of our dividends and return a fair share to the blackfellas whose land we are removing. We could direct the minners to be a little less environmentally destructive. We could tell them in no uncertain terms to stop digging up all that filthy brown coal that is ruining the place.
Just imagine, we could be masters of our own destiny.
Ben's Blog 