Concern for the Future

We live in an amazing country, but it seems we are abandoning many things that make it so.

Historically, we have been blessed economically, culturally and environmentally. Those blessings now seem to be the rationale for why people accept the gradual slide into malaise.

When things are too easy or good things persist for too long, people take them for granted and presume they will continue forever. History demonstrates that every trend ends and that a series of outperformances is inevitably followed by underperformance.

It's true of financial markets, and it's true of nations.

Every empire has suffered from the excesses of success leading to their fall. My first blog post ( way back in 2008) was about how these excesses created 'sogginess'. You can read it here.

Right now, we are drowning in sogginess.

The seemingly eternal economic growth borne of the mining industry gave license to the socialists to demand more taxes and more extensive social welfare programmes. They did so while attacking the very industry our prosperity depended on.

Now, we are stuck with welfare that is devouring us from the inside. The work ethic and pride in self-sufficiency have been replaced with a 'what's in it for me' attitude.

Successive governments have turned their backs on small businesses by imposing needless bureaucracy and compliance on those who do the heavy lifting in our economy.

Along the way, the fifth columnists have determined that they can mask our declining economic success with an immigration program that had no consequence for our cultural balance sheet.

There is no doubt that immigration has been a critical component of Australia's success, but that success has relied on an expectation of integration and embracing of the values our nation was founded upon.

When politicians discovered the electoral potential of unbridled and unskilled immigration, it became a numbers game. The result has been an unmitigated disaster.

Our way of life has been compromised through congestion, housing prices, and the cost of living in so many other areas. That might be acceptable if governments kept up with infrastructure needs, but they aren't. It would be better if many of these new migrants weren't reliant on our welfare system, but they are.

Alarmingly, many left voices claim we need to accept more and provide more in the name of compassion. That is total BS.

We must defend and protect the interests of all Australians.

We don't do that by increasing the burden on the declining number of taxpayers or accelerating the inevitable collapse of the welfare state.

We don't do it by limiting the potential of our industry and by surrendering to international demands.

Yet that is where we are. Our government (and that means us) is deeply in debt. Our bureaucracy is in charge, and our way of life has been altered.

We still compare favourably in the international comparisons, but getting last place in the ugly country contest is no victory. We shouldn't be an entrant in the first place.