We rank amongst the world’s richest nations when it comes to personal wealth but, in terms of our economy and particularly its complexity, we sit amongst the world’s poorest.
It’s a situation that is progressively getting worse.
At just 5.1 per cent of GDP, we have the lowest level of manufacturing of all 37 nations in the OECD.
I agree with this sentiment, I don’t think it is a good idea long term to lose manufacturing capability and knowledge. I would however prefer that a stake in the company is transferred to the government when they have to spend large sums bailing out a facility due to it being in the national interest to do so.
I was doing some random ‘writer prompt’ thinking about this today, while thinking about the current/future car industry.
If most of our cars have self drive technology, and they can identify people/pedestrians, then in a state of war, couldn’t the programming be changed to target them instead of miss them?
And for electric cars, couldn’t an enemy state alter the battery management system to cause a runaway thermal battery fire? Imagine every electric car co-ordinated to all catch on fire at the one time. That could make an interesting story.
Just to be clear, I don’t think this would happen, or even know of it’s actually possible.
It just made me think, well, I couldn’t prevent this by buying an Australian car. Which made me sad and miss the old Aussie built cars.
Also “smart” devices all through everyone’s homes. And phones, routers, other telecommunication devices. Solar inverters.
You could write a crazy story if you started thinking about how many things could be a back door for nation states.