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PUBLISHER’S LETTER
www.siliconchip.com.au
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
Production Manager
Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.)
Technical Staff
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
Peter Smith
Ross Tester
Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc, VK2ZLO
Rick Walters
Reader Services
Ann Jenkinson
Advertising Enquiries
Leo Simpson
Phone (02) 9979 5644
Fax (02) 9979 6503
Regular Contributors
Brendan Akhurst
Rodney Champness, VK3UG
Julian Edgar, Dip.T.(Sec.), B.Ed
Mike Sheriff, B.Sc, VK2YFK
Philip Watson, MIREE, VK2ZPW
Bob Young
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2 Silicon Chip
It’s good news week, every week...
Do you get sick of all the doom and gloom
constantly bombarding us? Are you sick of all
the dumping on Australia by greenies and environmentalists concerning energy use, pollution,
the Kyoto protocol, salinity, cutting of old-growth
forests and a thousand and one other issues. This
is not to mention the usual force-feed diet of crime,
economic troubles, terrorism and whatever.
You could let all the media news get you down
but a better approach is to think how much better
off most people are than they were five, ten and
20 years ago. Or go back further. How much better
off are you now than you were 30, 40 or 50 years
ago? OK, you were younger (and possibly in better health) but by and large,
life is better now than even in the recent past.
In general, with the possible exception of housing and petrol, most things
you can buy now are much cheaper than years ago. In particular, virtually
all consumer goods and mass-produced items are a great deal cheaper and
better than they were in the past. Not only do we have access to vastly better
technology in virtually every aspect of life, we are better fed, better clothed
and have better health services than we ever had in the past. Our prospects
for longer and healthier lives are also far better than in the past, in spite of
concerns about pollution, growing ineffectiveness of antibiotics, mad cow
disease and a host of other factors.
Why are we so much better off? Mainly it is due to the overwhelming advances in science and technology in every field of human endeavour. And
we are especially lucky in Australia to be living in a rich country with access
to virtually any product or technology we desire. Australia’s economy has
grown by leaps and bounds over the last ten years or so and the vast majority
of Australians are reaping the benefits.
I like to think of the Australian economy as akin to a huge amplifier system
with multiple inputs and outputs. The inputs come from all of us, government, business and a host of organisations. The outputs go to all of us as
well but the outputs are unnecessarily “loaded down” by government taxes
and excises, tariffs, surcharges and subsidies. There are filters in the system
too, stopping both good and bad ideas from being implemented and there
are “propagation delays” as well, causing desired government actions to be
delayed, sometimes for years. There are multiple feedback loops as well,
constantly correcting and modifying the “amplifier” behaviour and generally
responding to the wishes of the majority.
There is nothing new in this thinking – economists have been using similar
terminology in their computer models of the economy for many years.
So next time you are confronted by media doom and gloom, think about
how well the Australian economic “amplifier” is running. Focus on the good.
Comet chasing has its ups and downs
It is was pretty frustrating, really. Our September issue featured a major
story on NASA’s comet-chasing satellites. But even before the issue went
on sale, NASA was forced to make an announcement that they had lost the
CONTOUR satellite which had just been launched. A replacement satellite
is under way and the general theme of the story is unchanged but it was still
frustrating for us. You win some, you lose some.
Leo Simpson
www.siliconchip.com.au
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