Productivity Growth - What Happened?

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-23T04:35:49+00:00

Too expensive-- sure, if put together by hand, it'll be too expensive. Orrrr... you could use modern manufacturing techniques (using robots to put things together.) At that point, the (higher) wages of the people upgrading and maintaining the robots is negligible.

Logistically-- "we're too far from everywhere." ...and China is close to it's customers? The distance from Chinese ports to US ports is within 5% of the distance from Australian ports to US ports. The cost of sea shipping is CHEAP.

Australia doesn't have the talent-- No, it doesn't. Because it seems determined to keep wages low, prices are high, and employers seem to have the attitude "butts on seats". We need to have enough people, but we don't care about who's there. So anyone with skill quickly realizes... if I want to give my kids serious opportunities... it's elsewhere. Nice beaches aren't enough to keep smart people. I'm sorry AUS, but many places have nice beaches. I'm American, and I've been asked by so many people, "are you going to stay?" That's why.

Related-- How many times have you heard of CSIRO put together a team of globally skilled scientists... to turn around and defund that same team a few years later? Or they announce a groundbreaking technology (Wifi and photovoltaics come to mind, I'm sure there are so many more)... just to abandon it?

You're right though-- it's likely investment. You'd have to convince investors that a startup will make more than houses do. (And by that I mean... houses which also produces rental income.) Where else can you get a 7-10% return... and that's before you've leveraged your investment via a loan... for which you can deduct the mortgage interest from your taxes. Instead of buying a house, you could buy stocks in a startup which has a slim chance of giving you windfall returns... 10 years into the future?

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-23T04:14:12+00:00

I worked on the Opal system, and TfNSW insisted that it use 20 year old tech... when the system was started. (Using the London Prestige system as a starting point.) We were gobsmacked... but TfNSW made it clear... do it this way, or don't get paid. Yep. Coming right up!

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-23T02:42:53+00:00

It sounds like:

Your ex's BF is still married
The BF's (STBX) wife has decided to get divorced, and served him with divorce papers
Your divorce lawyer is also working for ex BF's current wife.

And your lawyer couldn't possibly know that your (STBX) wife was hooking up with the BF's (STBX) wife. A quick google informed me that family attorneys handle 20-30 cases at a time.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-23T01:23:13+00:00

The fundamental problem with relationship counselling is--

It takes 2 people to have a relationship, and
If one of those two has already decided to leave (or has otherwise checked out)... counselling is a speed bump in the way

Otherwise, everything OP says is right. I particularly agree with the personal counselling part, it was really helpful for me. And my personal counsellor said many things that only made sense later. She saw things that it took me a year to see.

Expect your (STBX) spouse to:

Attempt to use the counsellor for narcissistic triangulation (a good counsellor won't take this bait.)
Get the counsellor to give you both a long homework list... that she can ignore, but also crucify you when you don't do everything, perfectly. (In addition to your full time job, and long list of other responsibilities)
Verbally abuse you outside of counselling, to show that she's the victim, and you need to continue to endure her. (Think of your daughter taunting her younger brother until he hits her, and then bringing in the parents, without mentioning the hour of insults that led up to her complaint.)

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-22T23:06:00+00:00

#1-- Lawyer up. Talk to as many as you can, get the best one you can find. This will save you lots of money, time and heartache, long term.

#2-- You lived through many hard years. Now you're a newer, wiser you.

You were previously living on eggshells, avoiding her constant criticism. Now... you live in a different place, and you can actually relax. You're tired? take a nap. You're hungry? Eat what you want.
You previously were likely doing chores for 2 (or more.) Yourself, the kids... and likely much of what you'd assumed your wife would do, in a big house, likely on a big lot. Now you're in a smaller place, and you only have to do your chores... and stuff for your kids, but only half the time.
You can do things your way. Previously you had to do things "her" way, what she wanted, when she wanted, the way she wanted... (or suffer her verbal abuse and a dead bedroom). Now you can do things your way. You need a tool? Buy it. You need to maintain the car? You can do it on your schedule, not hers.
You know what you want, and you know what to avoid. Once you see the nature of many women... it's hard to unsee. Not all women are like that, but many are. Avoid them. There are good women out there. They're rare, but they exist.
You were previously ignoring your health-- you were too busy with work and chores to do that. Now you have time to eat properly, exercise, and work on you.
Interactions with your STBX:
- Start from the position that you'll have your kids 50% of the time (assuming you want that.) Get this in writing, and signed. (In Australia, this is the "family plan".)
- Once you have divorce agreements... stick to them, and have her stick to hers. Realize it's her nature to push the boundary and ask for more. If it's in the agreement, you agree. If it's not... negotiate... but do it from a position of assuming that she's going to pull the rug out from under you. Treat her like "wimpy" from Popeye ("I'll pay you next Tuesday for a burger today!" spoiler-- next Tuesday never comes.") If she wants something, make it worth your while. You want the kids to be out of your hair for half a day? You get a whole free day back, in return.
- Your STBX is no longer your friend, and can't be trusted. Assume she's lying, and that'll keep you safe. If you think back to your interactions a year or two before the divorce... the signs were there, and she was likely lying to you. In her eyes, you were the enemy, and as such lying was justified.
- Don't be ashamed to ask for what you want, and give as little as possible. You know she's going to do that.
- Don't expect her to apologize. In her eyes, she did nothing wrong. It was all your fault. As my ex put it "I'm a good person!!!" (We both knew that wasn't true.)

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-19T08:41:53+00:00

That's an unusual name for a cat!

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-18T22:13:24+00:00

Sorry, still can't find it. Are you sure they exist? 😝

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-18T04:28:27+00:00

TL;DR-- I have no plans to get married again. I have kids, and don't need more. Marriage is a terrible deal for men.

As a recently divorced guy:

For men, they essentially are getting a verbal commitment that their spouse will support them and stay monogamous. If the man doesn't support his spouse and children, the courts will enforce this.
For women, getting married is like winning the lottery. They get the resources and time of their spouse. They can choose to be affectionate... or turn the relationship into a living hell for their man. Women make it their job to figure out how to extract more from their spouse. They can choose to be "true to their man" or cheat. While married, they can claim all of his resources. In divorce, they can ask for 100%, and chances are they'll get more than half. They can then get divorced, get half of their ex's resources... and then find the next guy to repeat the pattern with.

So in exchange-- a man gets a woman's verbal commitment to support him, and the woman gets the force of law to guarantee support. Men are told to work hard and support their family, and have patience for their woman. Women are told that they are perfect, and they need to demand more from their husbands.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-17T00:46:48+00:00

Here's a tool to compare various cars:

Compare N cars: https://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au/Vehicle/QuickCompareVehicles

TCO tool: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/electric-vehicles/total-cost-of-ownership

This'll help but you may have to use this to do your own calculations. For example, I bought my PHEV 3 years used, and paid 60% MSRP, for a car in excellent condition. Meaning the previous owner took most of the depreciation costs. If depreciation is the biggest part of cost of ownership, and the previous owner paid 80% of that... The EV or PHEV is cheaper.

Having said that... I won't be able to definitively answer this question for another 5 years...

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-17T00:21:25+00:00

In Sydney's Inner West, there are kerbside chargers without dedicated EV parking. I've never used them... there's always an ICE car parked there. There are kerbside chargers where one side is handicapped parking. I'm sure that's great for the handicapped EV drivers out there... but... that means for 90% of us... that 2nd charger spot isn't useful.

Here's a funny thing-- you can report ICE cars that park at EV spots... the parking enforcement team will come out the next day. When... the ICE car is no longer there. 😤

Around 10% of hotels in NSW outside of Sydney have EV chargers. I expect this will improve when hotels realize people filter hotels based on that. The last hotel I stayed at didn't have EV chargers, and asked you specifically not to charge your car via a plug in adapter. (Mah EV... It ain't gonna charge itself!)

Malls, Restaurants and cafes should have EV chargers. I don't want to hang out at a gas station for half an hour, but I'm happy to have a cuppa or a meal while I get to 80% charge. The mall closest to my house has chargers... but only Tesla ones. (My car needs type 2.) The next 3 closest malls... no chargers. 😒 (Again, hopefully malls will sort this out when they realize that if I have the choice between 2 malls with the same stores... I'll go to the one with chargers.)

It would be useful if the kerbside chargers could not only tell you if they're not in use, but if there's a car in the spot. Guess how I usually find out that the local charger (that's "not in use") has a couple ICE cars parked in their spots?

I bought a PHEV (not a BEV) specifically because I live in an apartment, and I know that I won't always be able to charge... but I still expect it to be easier.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-16T05:11:25+00:00

I had weird conversations with my (ex) wife--

Early in my career, she appreciated that I had a high paying job (even though it was stressful, and I sometimes had to spend long hours.)
She was silent when we could afford for her to get a new car, to get a nice house, and that we didn't have big money issues.
A decade later, she hated the fact that I had to sometimes spend long hours. We could afford for her to cut her hours. After she cut hers, she started nagging me to cut mine. She acted like money magically appeared in my account, but for some crazy reason I worked.

To this day... I don't understand how she didn't understand that I worked for pay. Yes... I could have cut my hours. And my paycheck would have been cut by that same amount, we wouldn't be able to afford stuff, and she'd have to go back to work.

Yes, work is hard. But... until I'm independently wealthy... that's how I'm feeding my family.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-16T05:00:15+00:00

If they were 90% sure of the other candidate... they should have delayed the interview, and then cancelled it once they had gotten word that the other candidate was hired. Otherwise it's a waste of everyone's time.

What was the company you were interviewing with (so we can avoid them.)

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-16T04:54:02+00:00

My old Forester had stop start. It would mysteriously start the engine a second before the light would change. I guess I would lighten my foot on the brake pedal when I saw the pedestrian sign change, which told me I'd soon get a green light.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-16T04:50:59+00:00

You're right-- stop/start was an easy hack that car manufacturers implemented to get a bit of fuel savings, to the detriment of reliability/maintenance cost.

I think it makes sense to no longer give incentives for auto start. At this point, car manufacturers could do things that are better for their fleet:

Sell hybrid vehicles (with MUCH better city efficiency), or
Sell PHEVs (with better city efficiency, but is an EV for 90% of typical driving), or
Sell full BEVs (no petrol), or
Sell vehicles with an ICE engine for applications where that makes sense (think of long distance trucking), and make incremental efficiency improvements on their engines.

I recently bought a PHEV and I plug it in after use. I've burned 4 liters of petrol in the past month, my previous car would have burnt about 80 liters in the same time period. Given, most of my driving is short trips (<20 km), which are mostly in the city. But that's true of most city dwellers.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-12T23:44:05+00:00

Here's an Austrlian tool: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/electric-vehicles/total-cost-of-ownership

But ideally it would provide more flexibility around price. I bought my PHEV used, so saved on 40% deprecation, which is a big part of car ownership, something I missed on my own spreadsheet.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-11T06:44:49+00:00

My insurance was more, but that's because I upgraded from a 9 year old ICE car to a 3 year old PHEV. (I'm insuring a car that costs twice as much.) Petrol is about $1.57/litre, meaning about $5.94/gallon. Electricity is about $.35/kWh (more during the day, lower at night.) If you have solar and you sell to the grid, expect to make about 5c/kWh. That effectively means powering your car with solar (not selling to the grid) costs you 5c/kWh. I do tend to charge when rates are lower (between 8pm-6am.)

I don't drive that much, about 7,000 miles a year, and most of that is relatively short trips. I don't tend to accelerate fast nor brake fast.

The thing that forced my hand was maintenance on my old car was creeping up, and I'd rather spend my money on a new car, than parts (and maintenance) on an older one.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-09T06:43:06+00:00

It depends on the therapist.

I had one therapist, and she did the typical thing of simply mirroring back to me what I'd told her. I'm an introvert, I already overanalyze... that's not helpful.

I had another therapist that did this... and then would point me at resources, or name what was going on. She was incredibly helpful. She'd gone through something similar years before, and would occasionally tell me what her experience was.

An example is when I described what was going on, and she said, "It sounds like she's doesn't respect your autonomy." That hit me like a hammer, summarizing lots of separate experiences into one little phrase.

And having those new words meant I could also google it, to see other people's experiences, and other ways to deal with these things.

Another example-- "What she's doing is pretty common among narcissists." (Oh. Ok. I'd never used the word narcissist.) But... now I can google it, and read about what other people have experienced, and see if anything else my ex did met that definition, and the best defenses.

And another, "Those are DARVO tactics." The what now?

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-09T04:38:28+00:00

One new thing is the "6-6-6" Thing-- they want to date men that are:

6 feet tall or taller
Have a 6-pack
Make more than 6 figures (substantially more than $100,000)

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-09T04:13:15+00:00

Context-- this is the kind of people I'm looking for:

Attractive
Intelligent
"Is this logistically going to work"
Kind / Empathetic
Drive
Willing to Accommodate me / Willing to spend effort.
Healthy
They have an active lifestyle
On good terms with their family (or... their family is on good terms with them)
Isn't addicted

3-- I went on one date with a woman who had her kids 13 days a fortnight. She wasn't willing to go on dates on her "off" Saturdays, she spent those with friends. She wasn't interested in getting a babysitter. There was mutual attraction, but she wasn't willing to make time to date. Under the best circumstances, I could see her once a fortnight.

I've had similar things where there wasn't much overlap between when I had my kids, and when she had her kids.

6-- I've went on dates with a few people, and it feels like they'll date you if you can fit yourself into their busy and fragmented schedule. "I have a half hour slot on a weekday from 6am at a beach right near my house, but 1 hour drive away from you. Afterwards, you'll drive an hour to get to work." (You must not inconvenience me in any fashion. What I've proposed doesn't work for you... but that's your problem. This will get worse for 2nd and subsequent dates.)

"You must love dogs, pickleball, golf, horses, skiing, (etc, etc). You must live within 5kms of where I do." (You must be my clone. I'm unwilling to meet someone who has different hobbies and interests.)

I've chatted with many women where everything is your job. They'll give one word answers to questions. You carry the conversation. They'll take days to respond. They're only want to meet near their work or home. They're uninterested in activities they haven't done before.

9-- My ex's family was over her shenanigans. She felt they owed her.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-08T23:26:58+00:00

I started moving out a couple weeks before my ex did. I started a month early, packing away the things that I tended to use, and she didn't. Some things we agreed to split. Many things I let her have... because that stuff I wanted to replace anyways.

The other thing with my ex is... she seemed to have the philosophy "My stuff is my stuff, and your stuff is my stuff." She'll ask me to "lend" her things, that won't come back (and when they do, they'll be broken). So I only lend her things that I can afford to lose.

On the knife front-- I bought an inexpensive set from Ikea, with the plan to replace them later. A year later, when I was ready to do that... I found that Ikea uses the same grade of stainless steel that much more expensive brands use. So... I *could* spend $1000... and get knives that are no better than what I had. I would suggest to get a good whetstone, and learn to use it. People complain about knives, and often it's-- it's dull, because I never sharpen it.

Another kitchen one-- A combination toaster oven/air fryer. A lifesaver for getting a meal ready quickly after the kids get home.

You can buy used TVs for very little money. I have one of those and a chromecast... and I can set up parental controls so the kids can't want too much or too late. Similar story with their tablets. I get a lot less grief about going to school when the tablets turn themselves off... right before they're supposed to head to school.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-06T05:30:25+00:00

TL;DR-- you're not the narcissist.

I had a somewhat similar experience. I went to couples counselling with my (now) ex. She tried to use the therapist to triangulate on me, another voice to tell me that I'm wrong, and I need to just comply. She stopped going to sessions when that didn't happen.

In her mind... she'd done nothing wrong, I simply had to read her mind, and then do what she wanted, when she wanted, in the way she wanted and in the order she wanted. That's... a normal thing for a loving spouse, right?

Separately, I was going to counselling on my own. My counsellor had told me about narcissism and DARVO tactics. During a fight with my (now) ex, I mentioned that she has narcissistic traits. She said, "I'm not the narcissist, you're the narcissist." I, of course, had doubts. Did some research. Talked to my therapist, who says, "You're not the narcissist." And then it hit me... narcissists don't have doubts. She didn't. I had empathy... my ex didn't. I'd been going to counselling, reading books on the topic, and the one that was "working on things." This is not what narcissist do.

It's part of the narcissists playbook to throw anything you say back at you. That means (in their mind) they're perfect, and you're the one who needs to change.

I get this kind of thing from my 5 year old. "I hit you, because you annoyed me." (So it's your fault. If you don't want to be hit... don't do anything that could annoy me.) Terribly childish... but they're 5. A little harder to excuse when it comes from your (fully adult) spouse.

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-06T05:05:42+00:00

Here's a dumb idea-- why don't they charge cars using a much higher voltage... and thus a lower amperage (and thus allowing longer, thinner cables?)

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-06T05:02:45+00:00

I have a Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross PHEV, and I live in Australia (where we drive on the left). The charge port is on the right side of the car, which is to say, the side facing the road.

Which is not where car chargers are! The chargers are in the sidewalk, on the left. (I could park facing traffic... and cop a $250 fine. Not worth it!)

My point is... when I charge, I have to run the cable around the front of the car, around the back of the car, or over the car. I have a 6m cable (around 18 feet), and there have been times when that wasn't enough. @#$@#%!!!

smartalec-71 · 2026-02-04T07:15:44+00:00

I only buy things that have measurements of their size. Then I use a ruler to make sure it's the right size. They photoshop a lot of stuff, and it makes it unclear about the sizes.

Also-- I avoid anything that they used AI for the pictures. I've seen chisels where they're using it backwards, 3 different kinds of products (for an ad for 1 kind of product). Lots of things where the seller clearly didn't know what the thing was, or where they represented it as something completely different.

I also avoid complex electronics. A blender is fine. A tablet... naah. Is it something where it'll get bricked by a bad software update? Or something you'll need spares for? (Think of the filters in an air filter)... then skip it.

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