The One Thing The Australian Government Got Right this Year

‘The two enemies of the people tend to be criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Metabolic rate so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.’

Thomas Jefferson

If you’re a long time Money Morning reader, you’ll know that our publishers aren’t exactly government cheerleaders. Actually, the idea that ‘the best government is the fact that which governs least’, is a concept every one of our editors shares…to varying degrees.

I state ‘to varying degrees’ for a reason. I’ve always been a supporter of little government. One that taxes much less, spends less, and lives within its means. And i have always believed that you should be able to perform as you choose, so long as that doesn’t directly harm anyone else.

For most of my life this view was considered fairly extremist by my friends and former colleagues. That is until I signed on as the managing editor of Port Phillip Publishing two years ago. Then my libertarian ideas all of a sudden bordered on mainstream.

Last 12 months I found myself in a discussion with our publisher, Kris Sayce. And I was at the odd position associated with arguing that of course we do need ‘some’ government, including a small police force to handle real offences. Not Nanny State offences mind you, but criminal measures that directly harm others.

Now Kris didn’t come out in support of murderers and thieves. But he did stick to his weapons, insisting that any and each time government becomes involved it only makes things even worse. Whatever the government can do, the free market can do better. This is a bold statement. But it’s one that is hard to refute.

Until last week, that is. At least if you live in Victoria.

I’m talking, of course, about the AFL Grand Last Long Weekend…or Footy Friday. The extra holiday — Victoria’s 13th annual day off — was one of Leading Daniel Andrews’ promises. And one he really came through on.

Now I’ve heard various figures tossed around about how much this will have cost the economy — as much as $1.5 billion apparently. And I don’t have to tell you that Australia’s economy has seen better days. But you should take these kinds of estimates with a healthy dose of scepticism.

Remember who’s putting them together. Company groups who don’t want to spend penalty rates. Some of them actually closed up shop…as well as enjoyed this brand new government shipped holiday.

No holiday for aircraft pilots…yet

One profession that didn’t enjoy a relaxing Footy Friday off was pilots. In fact they struggled to get any time off around the three day weekend. Here’s this particular headline from ABC News: ‘AFL grand final: West Coast Eagles fans race to find tickets, fly via Asian countries to reach MCG’.

The article goes on to state:

‘Virgin has added an extra 6,500 seats on it’s existing flight schedule between Perth and Melbourne.

‘Qantas will offer one more A330 service while its spending budget arm, Jetstar, will put on bigger aircraft for its four planned flights between the two capital cities, improving its combined passenger figures by 2,500.

‘Despite the extra services, Darren Wright from booking broker Flight Centre said fans would pay a premium of more than $1,000 just to fly there one-way direct…

‘Others willing to cough up much more cash can choose to fly via Asian cities, and there is even anecdotal evidence a few are flying via London.‘

That’s a lot of extra passengers, meaning procuring pilots in the air.

And according to Boeing, the actual demand for pilots is set to undergo the roof. The company estimates which 558,000 new pilots will be needed inside the next 2 decades. As you can see in the graphic beneath, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, Asia makes up the biggest share of this new demand.

Looking at these numbers, you’d think becoming an airline pilot would provide you with tremendous job security for life. Not too fast.

As Sam Volkering, our citizen tech guru, likes to remind us, the pace of technologies are advancing at an exponential price. That means that over the coming years we could see technology progress further than it has in the past hundreds of years.

Check out this recent article about pilotless planes in Business Day:

‘Google has trialled driverless cars and Singapore has driverless locomotives. Now the airline industry is tinkering with the idea of pilotless passenger planes…

‘On an industrial flight these days, whether an hour-long hop between Sydney and Melbourne or a 14-hour flight over the Pacific, it is possible a pilot will expend as little as one minute touching the control stick…

‘Back in the Nineteen fifties, commercial aircraft typically experienced five cockpit crew people: a captain, first officer, flight engineer, navigator as well as radio operator. But by the 1980s, the numbers needed on the flight deck had been decreased to two because computers could fulfil many of the tasks formerly done by humans…

‘The second, much more dramatic scenario is moving to fully autonomous aircraft procedures. In the nearer future, it is more probably in the freight market compared to passengers… [Qantas Captain Richard] de Crespigny, who’s deeply interested in technology as well as systems, believes sentient machines duplicating human consciousness and conjecture could be developed by 2025, paving the way in which for pilotless aircraft to be in production about 2040.’

I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel flying by having an empty cockpit. You might feel the same way. But the reality is, regardless of how we feel about it, the future is coming. And pilotless planes will be a part of that.

One thing that will be incredibly important in the future is cyber security. The pilotless planes of tomorrow will need iron clad internet defences to ensure hackers can’t go ahead and take controls. And the revolutionary companies pioneering these defences today stand to make huge gains out of this ever growing trend.

This trend hasn’t been lost on Sam Volkering. Sam’s investigated every listed company in this field. And he’s recommended the very best of these stocks to his subscribers over at Revolutionary Tech Investor. He or she calls them ‘Cyber Defenders’. You can find out more here.

Surviving the transition

Vern Gowdie, our wealth preservation specialist, has been following a rapid pace of technological change as well. You’re likely familiar with Vern. Among other feathers in his cap, he’s the actual editor of The Gowdie Letter and the author of The End of Australia.

If you haven’t read it yet, I urge you to do so. You can order your free paperback copy online here. But don’t wait too long. We’ve given away 15,752 copies so far. And that’s out of an overall total print run of 17,000.

Despite the title, it is not all doom as well as gloom. Vern offers you a number of strategies to protect your wealth from the coming meltdown. And, as he authored in a recent Gowdie Letter update, one thing to get ready for is how the technological trend is going to impact employment.

‘In accessory for a change in the world power base and the domino effect this has around the global economy, we have a technological revolution that is going to significantly affect the employment landscape.

‘The Committee with regard to Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) launched a report in June 2105 entitled “Australia’s Future Workforce?”

‘This is an extract from the foreword written by CEDA CEO Professor Stephen Martin (emphasis is mine):

“Technological alter over the last two decades has been extremely fast and that is likely to continue. This means that a significant portion of Australian work that exist today will no longer appear in 20 years’ time.

“In fact, modelling in this report has found that almost five million Australian jobs – around 40 per cent from the workforce – face the high probability of being replaced by computer systems in the next 10 to 15 years.“

‘I probably have that in time we’ll adjust to all the upheaval that the next day brings…we always have.

‘But the actual resilience of the human race is not the issue. It’s about surviving the time of transition. The debt-fuelled success of yesterday was made feasible by conditions that were vastly different to the ones we face tomorrow.‘

To learn more about how you and your family can survive the period of transition, you can order your totally free copy of Vern’s book right here.

Regards,

Bernd Struben,

Managing Editor, Money Morning

From the Port Phillip Publishing Library

Special Report: The End of Australia Vern Gowdie’s new book is called The End of Australia: The actual Story Behind Australia’s Economic Collapse and What You Can do to Survive It. We are mailing free copies of this book to anyone who requests 1 online. It does not make for cheerful reading. But the idea is the fact that you’ll be safer (and much richer) in 10 years’ time from receiving a more sober as well as realistic analysis of what’s happening…what happens next…and what you should be doing about it now… (more)