estate agents cocooned in their taxpayer-sponsored Ponziworld. Brutal Realist : 24 Dec 2010 2:43:08pm Indeed. And unlike Sweden and other Northern European countries, we do not roll up our sleeves and do some hard work and create stuff. If you look at Australia's largest corporations they are either in mining, banking, retail and all the other banana republic industries. If you look at Sweden's largest industries they are engineering, IT, pharmaceuticals and automobiles - stuff which requires intelligence to succeed in. I'm not saying we have to be exactly like them, and whatever the case mining industries will continue to be the largest industries for a long time, but we could us our brains and diversify so that we are not dependent on creating a ponzi-style economy that requires a growing population. Also, unlike Australia, Sweden has a more self-respecting culture in which they do want to be swamped with foreign cultures so that their own is dilluted. Also no opportunity cost costings for the use of capital for these above 'more of the same for more migrants' rather than the infrastructure costs that Access Economics says should be spent to improve the economy: $770 billion according to the last figures trotted out. The point is made that refugees are a big cost - $55 000 per refugee over the first decade. Budovski : 23 Dec 2010 8:58:51pm Without immigration we would have a negative rate of population growth. Whilst there is definitely room to improve education amongst women and