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Another fossil protesting the rise of WFH (www.news.com.au)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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OK, my title may be a bit incendiary... But I've about had it with the recent constant parade of articles calling for "return to the office" as a cure for everything. It's almost like the Murdoch press has a vested interest? Anyway, we're in a cost of living crisis and we're calling to lump everyone with higher travel, and food costs all over again. So much for work life balance. If everyone does return to their offices will the press start running fluff articles about all the suburban cafes and restaurants that are suffering now that their local post-pandemic foot traffic is stuck back in the city?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hate to shatter your world view but mining is only about 5.8%% of the economy — same size as our manufacturing industry coincidentally. Realestate only makes up 3.1% of the economy.

Most of the economy is services at 68%. Our health care industry (part of services) is larger than our mining industry. Our education industry(again services) is 4.8% of the economy. We actually have a pretty diversified economy.

Manufacturing isn’t the be all of an economy and it isn’t where the wage to profit ratio is equitable. We all earn more as a service economy than we would as a manufacturing economy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Australia

https://web.archive.org.au/awa/20190308031902mp_/https://publications.industry.gov.au/publications/industryinsightsjune2018/documents/IndustryInsights_1_2018_Chapter2_ONLINE.pdf

[–] Aussiemandeus 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have a question,

If our economy is all service related we would be very insular and not bringing in outside investment. Woudlnt that cause stagnation?

I sell coffee to buy healthcare who buy education who bye coffee. Round and round

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No. We sell our services overseas. Most of our education industry (in dollar value) is international. We provide STEM services, legal services, financial services, etc to other countries etc.

Taking a step back there is no difference in your question between a national economy and the entire world economy. 64% of the world economy is services.

So no, services aren’t an inferior category of the economy. Manufacturing is fundamentally a service there are just foods involved. You can fuck up manufacturing by making something you can’t sell for more than it cost to make or even sell for less than it costs to make. This is harder to do with services, or at least feedback is quicker because you don’t hold inventory of services.

So then how do we grow the economy if all everyone is just doing is Services for everyone else. This is the fundamental problem with capitalism. There are only two ways. Population growth and debt. But that’s a lesson for another day.

[–] Aussiemandeus 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you, the last paragraph really framed my question for myself haha.