Australia Profile: Part 1 Culture

1.    Popular sports (including popular teams or athletes)

The most popular sports in Australia are basketball, rugby, tennis, golf, cricket, car racing, and marathon.

Some of the popular rugby teams are the Brisbon Broncos, Reds, Melbourne Victory, Collingwood, and Geelong Cats.

2.    Music (traditional music, popular music, well-known performers)

The traditional music inlcudes indigenous, classical, bush, folk, and country (Tex Morton, Slim Dusty), and jazz (Don Burrows)

The popular music includes pop (John Farnham, Olivia Newton-John) and rock (Men at Work, Midnight Oil).

3.    Food (traditional foods, popular foods)

The traditional foods include meat pie, chicko rolls, and surf n’ turf

The popular foods include the pie floater, Sydney rock oysters, Moreton Bay Bugs, and lots of barbecues.

4.    Major religions and/or spiritual beliefs

The major religion is Christian (Catholic, Anglican) with Buddhism as largest non-Christian religion. Also, many people are not religious (17%).

5.    National holidays and traditional customs in Perth Australia

The Public Holidays in Perth, Australia inclue New Years Day, Australia Day, Labour day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Western Australia Day, Queen’s Birthday, Christmas, and Boxing Day. The Public Holidays vary between different states.

Traditional Customs include social drinking, gambling, and barbecues.

6.    Popular TV shows or movies (and popular stars)

Some famous TV shows include Farscape, Home and Away, Rake, and Terra Nova.

Some popular movies include The Adventures of Priscilla, Mad Max, Rabbit- Proof Fence, Moulin Rouge, and Wolf Creek.

Some famous actors and actresses include Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Travis Fimmel, Chris Hemsworth, Yvonne Strahovski, Liam Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman, and Heath Ledger.

7.    Online news sources (with links)

            http://www.abc.net.au/news/

            http://www.theaustralian.com.au

            http://www.skynews.com.au/home/

http://www.smh.com.au

http://www.news.com.au/

8.    Online forums for expatriates (include links)

http://www.expatforum.com/expats/australia-expat-forum-expats-living-australia/

http://www.pomsinoz.com

http://www.expatexchange.com/australia/liveinaustralia.html

9.    Type of Government (plus political leaders, political parties)

The government style is a Constitutional Monarchy.

Some political leaders are Tony Abbot (prime minister) and Colin Barnett (Western Australia Chief Minister).

A few political parties are Liberal, Labor, Democrats, Green, and the Nationals.

Post 2

What does the author see as the defining characteristics of a market? Select a quote (or quotes) from the text as evidence of his view.

            In this chapter, McMilan refers to “a market” as the “specific physical space or cyberspace where goods are bought and sold… a market is a forum for carrying out exchanges” (6). Market transactions are what goes on in markets, and McMilan’s definition is “an exchange that is voluntary: each party can veto it, and (subject to the rules of the marketplace) each freely agrees to the terms. If there is a lack of autonomy in an exchange, by definition the dealing isn’t a market transaction. Other nonmarket transactions include unpaid household work, intrafirm business, and government activities. Interestingly, competition is not a defining characteristic of a market to McMilan.

McMillan writes, “Markets provoke clashing opinions. Some people revile them as the source of exploitation and poverty. Others extol them as the font of liberty and prosperity.” Have you observed these kinds of opinions? What might cause some people to distrust markets? What might cause other people to distrust government control over economic decisions? Do you personally lean one way or the other?

            I have heard many people express their opinion that markets are the source of exploitation and poverty, however I haven’t heard many people express them as the font of liberty and prosperity. There are a few reasons why some people would distrust markets, one being, especially online, that consumers do not know what they are buying. By this I mean how the product was obtained, manufactured, and transported. The workers and tools used in the process could have been mistreated and been bad for the environment. Also, to look at the worst-case scenario, people could have died getting the product for the consumers. Another reason people could distrust markets is that they don’t know if they are getting a fair price. This distrust is brought by lack of government control where businesses are only looking out for themselves and not their workers and consumers. On the other hand, with government control, many people say that economic growth decreases and may even become stagnant. This could be because this discourages individuals from coming up with innovations that drive the economy. It takes out the trial and error that makes economies strong. Government can take out the adaptability of the markets.

            My personal opinion lies somewhere between government control and a free market. I believe that an economy needs some government control to make rules to organize and make transactions more sophisticated but with a good sum of free room for businesses to make their own decisions to give the spontaneity to the markets.

McMillan uses folk football as an analogy for a completely lawless market and claims that modern markets are governed by rules (as are the modern sports of soccer, rugby, and American football). What market rules would you say are important for modern markets? Why?

            There are a couple market rules that are important for modern markets, one including buyer-seller transaction agreement honesty and trustworthiness. This is important because relations do not go so well when the seller can not be trusted to give the true product, or any product, to the buyer. Also, when the buyer cannot be trusted to pay for the product or service when they have consumed, transactions are not exchanged well. Another important rule for modern markets is that property rights are protected. I’ll use software as an example, but any product or service can work. If a company spends a lot of time and money on some revolutionary software, they want to keep their well-earned profits from that software. If they do the correct things to protect it, they won’t have any problems with other companies to take their software. A problem arises when people take and sell the software independently of the first company, who didn’t do any work to develop it. If the software is not protected, the drive to innovate lessens because the reward is severely less.

Response 1

Response to "Why Did Human History Unfold Differently On Different Continents For The Last 13,000 Years?" by Jared Diamond

Identify Diamond’s major themes and key points

One major theme of Diamond’s essay was that the differences between people in different parts of the world are due to continental environments and not biological differences. The other theme is that “the availability of wild plant and animal species suitable for domestication, and the ease with which those species could spread without encountering unsuitable climates, contributed decisively to the varying rates of rise of agriculture and herding, which in turn contributed decisively to the rise of human population numbers, population densities, and food surpluses, which in turn contributed decisively to the development of epidemic infectious diseases, writing, technology, and political organization” (Diamond). The last theme that he touches briefly is that “many people accept racist explanations of history’s broad pattern because we don’t have a convincing alternative explanation” (Diamond).

One key point of this essay was why some parts of the world had less domesticated plants and animals. Some reasons for this were due to size, whether the land mass was stretched more horizontally or vertically, and climate. Another point is that domesticated animals yield far more calories/acre than wild animals leading to population densities 10 to 100 times greater. Agriculture also help a lot with settling of larger societies.

What does Diamond identify as the most important determinants to a society’s success?

            Diamond specifically tells of guns, steel, oceangoing ships, political organization, and writing in why Europeans came to “dominate” the world but Diamond has more general determinants. The first of these is that technology has to be created and implemented. The higher the population, the higher the chance of there being advances in technology, but also independent factors that contribute to the society’s willingness to accept innovations needs to be considered. The second is that technology tends to come from the outside, as in not locally. So societies that are in close contact with each other are going to advance rapidly. The last is that technology has to be maintained. The societies that don’t maintain the useful advances will either be outcompeted or repent their error.

How can these ideas be applied to today’s global economy?

            The main point in Diamond’s essay that can be applied to today’s global economy is that people across the world that you do or will do business with are not inferior/superior to you. The differences between you and them are due to their environment and history. This in turn should make people doing business be respectful because everyone is on equal ground. This could make for fair business deals and better relations between countries. The racist explanations for the differences between the cultures of people only hurt.