One of the issues arising out of the European Union is that states under recessionary pressure can't devalue their currency to export their way out of it because the powerful nations such as Germany and France are not experiencing the same economic issues. Greece and Spain apparently are good current examples of this.
It suggests that it is not in all the European nations interests to join the EU as it ties them directly to one currency and the strength of the German and French economies. Richard Green poses
an interesting question about Western Australian Secession;
What if the rest of Australia would be better off without WA? Specifically, should Australia still have a single currency? If we keep worrying about the "two track economy" hypothesis maybe we should consider the idea that Australia is not a optimal currency area. The monetary policy and exchange rates we get from straddling divergent economies are optimal for neither East nor West.
One of the economic issues in Australia is that Western Australia, the Northern Territory and to an extent Queensland all have natural resources driven economies. They are based on mining and extraction. The east coast economies of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are service driven.
The complaint of the east coast who have employment issues is that the buoyant nature of the minerals market since China and India started developing in the 1990s has meant the Australian dollar is over-priced for the service based industries of the east coast to export competitively.
Via economic theory we would expect that, seeing the booming west coast economies, people from Sydney and Melbourne would immigrate to Perth and Fremantle to take part in it. But
that is not happening, most Sydneysiders and Melbournites immigrate to Queensland, not Perth. Half of the new arrivals in Western Australia are overseas immigrants the rest are new births.
More Reading on Australia
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
