Australia Vs. Canada

[shams]

starcraft said:
Ray buddy, you can say whatever you want about Howard's ethics, but to even suggest that his policies hurt small (or large) business is laughable. The alternatives are Labor or the Greens, both recession's waiting to happen. Besides, Howard is keeping the dollar high, which should prevent more console price rises and make it easier to drop them for sony and microsoft:)

Wish I could agree. We have seen NO savings since the dollar (versus $US) has gone from first 55c (many years ago) to 66c (a few years ago) to 74c (typical just a year or two back) to 85c (now - virtually a 20yr high). New release PS3/360 titles are still $120AU.

The high dollar is terrible for any Australian exporters (and most of our big companies are all exporters), bad for local producers (makes imported goods cheaper) and bad for the tourist industry (a large part of the economy - as its cheaper for OS visitors to go somewhere else instead).

It does have some longer-term beneficial economic effects though, if you can survive through all of this...