There was a really great writeup by someone who worked in that Disney animation shop on a blog I once stumbled on - he wrote about how he took on the 'job of a lifetime' as a teenager while his mother was terminally ill and how that impacts your priorities.

Incredibly moving read that I unfortunately can't find now, but it covered how the Sydney office ended, from memory it was a combination of CGI changing the industry, and cost - Australian wages weren't cheap and the studio was mostly used for producing direct-to-video sequels which was a market that dried up.

The actual big influence on the Australian-American cross pollination though, I suspect, was Rupert Murdoch's expansion into the American film and TV industry. For all his faults, he was a big champion of talent from his homeland in both his movies and Fox TV network. Even the infamous Simpsons Australia episode was likely influenced by the big influence of Australians at Fox at that time.

Apart from the "Crocodile Dundee" and "Men at Work" phenomena in the late 80s, there is no real cultural pollination between Australia and the US, as far as I can tell. It's too far away and there are no real reasons for Americans to visit, nor are there enough internationally notable Australian music brands, films, or products that give visibility to the country, which is one price of being a commodity producing nation rather than finished goods. We know about Japanese and British prodigious cultural output, Japanese manufactures, German cars and Swiss machine tools and watches, but what product makes Australia stand out? Coal, copper, etc.

Didn't Australia used to have an auto industry? I kinda feel like Australia stopped producing culturally relevant output in the late 80s or 90s.

Trump.

I feel like I wrote a paper about this in high-school history class.

I've been thinking the silver lining of the current situation is that we'll be less inclined to send troops to aid US in their latest Middle East boondoggle, in the expectation of reciprocation in the future.

In other online spaces, I've seen some conservative commenters from the US asserting that America is so powerful, the rest of the world has no choice but to go along with them, and therefore there is no need to maintain good relationships and the US should do what most immediately benefits itself at all times. Certainly, there are some areas where we simply have to play along with the US, but I think they are underestimating the amount of things where they will no longer be our first choice to deal with.

>Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead.

We still had dual citizen brits running government departments making pro UK decisions until like the 70s or 80s. The UK/US have sort of shared us until the 90s. We let the poms nuke SA.

NZ is always the correct answer but is rarely given because it's taken for granted.

Not only close, but NZ was originally slated to join Australia and is indeed named in the original Australian Constitution (that created federation) as one of the original 7 states.

NZ isn't big enough to think about. Don't tell them because they get very upset.

Australians and New Zelalanders don't need a visa to travel either way.

In NZ, I approached the immigration desk with my American partner at the time, they stamped her passport with a visa but said to me I didn't need one.

I agree. Since moving back from California a decade ago, Australia has felt more and more American.

Big cars, the slow incursion of American sports, more American brands popping up (including Starbucks actually getting a foothold), Gen-Z using American terms like math and trash, and a rise in the “screw you” style of American individualism.

I don’t think any of this is making Australia a better place to live.

> Even things from the US are coming here, like the growth of Halloween.

Halloween is nearly 100% Irish/Scottish. The only American contributions are using a pumpkin, and sometimes holding it in a parking lot.

I've always felt that Australia felt like a British version of California. Though California is itself a bit exceptional in the context of America. The two places have a lot in common though - not withstanding the fact that everyone drives on the wrong side of the road and uses different power cables.

Well, socialism died out in Europe around 1989. When the iron curtain fell. Currently there is not a single country that has socialism in it's constitution. In the EU, but also in exactly zero non-EU european countries.

To educate: socialism has nothing to with how influence the execute or legislative has. Nor has it anything to do with health insurance.

The central point of the ideology called "socialism" is that control of the state (not of private owners) over the "means of production". Like capital, land, workforce. To gain this control, socialism is keen to use force. They call it e.g. "dictatorship of the proletariat". Usually this leads to heavy oppression of the people, to some sort of police state. If you look at any real socialist country (like GDR, USSR, Yugoslavia, Cuba, North Korea) you'll always find it to some sort. Even in today's China the banks are still under government control, so "the party" has the ultimate say in everything.

You usage of "socialism" doesn't fit that at all. Perhaps you meant something that isn't fully libertarian?

My guess is the US people are badly educated these days. And thus easily influenced with false factoids coming from libertarian oligarchs like the Koch brothers.

And also it seems like they never heard about "social market economy" ... I mean, there is a spectrum between a fully socialist country like e.g. North Korea and a fully capitalist like ... actually we don't have one that is purely capitalist. Not even in the USA does the "market regulates everything".

And also I think that quite a few people never pondered about the idea that there are two words ("social" and "socialism") for a reason.

FYI I don’t think anyone is accepting American critique on government control and censorship right now. Maybe leave it for a decade or two.

People identify with other places, people, policies, and cultures — along with their own, or wherever they're originally from. Sometimes they don't even identify with their own, or say, feel alienated. It's perfectly fine, and in fact a very healthy state of being.

But there's whole communities of Americans who identify as Irish, or Anglo-Saxon, or whatever.

Censorship? Do you mean the fact that we hold platforms accountable if they post hate speech or misinformation, or is this something else?

You're native American or why do you say something like this?

The civil national identity is wasting away. I'm less and less inclined to call myself Australian, as opposed to English, because Australia now is for everybody. An Australian doesn't even mean a funny accent anymore. It doesn't mean anything.

Basic web search for “australia survey closest international friend” returned https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/australias-best-friend...

I've never really understood the protectionist mindset. It kinda only makes sense to me as a fading shadow of WWII paranoia. The invasion of Australia by a foreign adversary has never been something I've worried about (but, maybe, that's _because_ of the alignment with the US). I've also struggled with the practical logistics of it.

Singapore is a city, Australia is a continent. Singapore is a poor analog for pretty much every other country. It was founded precisely because it sits near a busy sea route. It makes sense for Singapore to be very open to trade. That does not mean it works for Australia.

(I'm not arguing that the reverse is true, just that Singapore proves nothing.)

> at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil

It's weird India gets held to this standard. Don't European countries still buy some natural gas from Russia?

> Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.

It helps to be familiar with realism in international relations theory starting with Machiavelli and Hobbes, and postwar realism which developed over the Cold War. The ethics have been debated for centuries and the mainstream interpretation is that leaders have a fiduciary obligation to the population they are responsible for, which fundamentally changes ethical considerations.

It’s a completely different moral question when you’re responsible for a billion people, many of whom may suffer or die due to the cost of fuel. It is in principle a violation against their own people for Indian leaders to prioritize Ukraine’s people over their own.

Russian crude made up 35-40% of India's oil imports in 2024. I'm sure it is not much different at present. Although a bill just passed through congress that will allow Trump to put up to a 100% Tariff on Indian imports.

Carney saying 'middle powers' really is the most polite way of saying this.

>Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.

Which high performing economy DOESN'T struggle with housing affordability?

>mostly through immigration

*SKILLED immigration

Per capita GDP is falling with every new migrant. I don't think it's the kind of GDP growth anyone wants to have.

The Trump admin will be 2 years out of office by the time the Virginia deliveries are slated to start.

If America goes fully fascist by then, then the wisdom of that contract will be the least of our problems (or to put it another way: what's the alternative? Because if you're serious about the threat it's "crash course nuclear weapons and a delivery vehicle" if you want to guarantee our sovereignty).

The powers granted to the U.S. President are meant to be used in times of war or situations that threatens the security of the United States. Trump is using it nilly-willy for just about everything. It will, however, be difficult to come up with a law that would put a stop to this without harming the Executive Branch's effectiveness in a time of need.

But so far I'm pretty satisfied how Congress and the judiciary are putting reins on his powers. He recently threatened to halt all trade with Europe over Canada's associate EU membership. There's no way he can do that. Congress would step in.

Ok! Why aren't citizenship swaps allowed?

I think it's fairly well acknowledged, but there is no 'dealt with' that fits into any kind of reality I'm familiar with.

My purely observational understanding is that there are fundamental incompatibilities between aboriginal and 'western/British' culture. "Ownership" of land as probably the primary example. I don't know how that gets 'dealt with'.

I think Australia is a great country and Australians should be proud of our British heritage, institutions and culture. I don't think that's incompatible with reparations or whatever you have in mind for the Aboriginals.

That doesn't feel like a topic that impacts trade/mobility deals at the international level

You forgot Turkey as well. Yes, the EU is open in general for specific treaties. If possible they want to do broad treaties (see the EEA). But Switzerland is almost as big a partner as the UK. If it is big enough, they'll do custom deal.

There is not much trade with Canada at the moment but with some special treaties this might change.

Then there's the political edge to this "associate member" status and if it can work as a blueprint for more countries, they'll certainly will be open to do it.

> The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out.

This isn't _really_ what they said. In practice, if the UK wanted similar status to Norway, it could have had it. The EU is cautious of specifically the Switzerland situation, which is a huge complex mess of treaties.

to be fair until we know what associate member means, there might not be any contradiction to the UK position

Schengen doesn't have anything to do with currency. You might have been mistaken it with the European Economic Area?

Canada doesn't share a land border with any Schengen countries, so I'm not sure how valuable passport-free travel would be - you're already taking a transatlantic flight, it's not like passport control is a huge additional hassle.

However, I could see a big argument for a labour mobility agreement similar to the NAFTA model, where EU citizens in a long list of professions have the right to work in Canada and vice-versa.

The Council of Europe is strictly speaking not an EU thing at all, though all EU countries are required to be members of the Council of Europe, and, confusingly, they share a flag. The UK is still a member of the Council of Europe, for instance, as was _Russia_ until 2022.

You understand this. I understand this.

But MAGA people are going the full emotional breakdown "why don't you love us anymore?!?".

By the summer of 2023 when Ukraine's big counteroffensive had failed my own view was that the situation was stalemated and Russia will wait until the West gets bored or the situation changes and Russia's geopolitical position improves. Russia has that option available to it in a way the West doesn't.

Sanctions in general don't work. They don't work against enemies. Arguably they only work against allies (eg apartheid South Africa). Sanctions were never going to work against Russia and Russia has more manpower to throw at the meat grinder than Ukraine does.

And that changing situation has come to Putin with the Iran War. The US has lost. It has been strategically and militarily defeated by a lesser regional power. It's just a matter of time before it accepts this loss.

Because of attacks from Ukraine on Russian energy infrastructure, Russia has changed from a net diesel exporter to banning diesel exports and arguably being a diesel importer. That's a big problem that we're all about to learn. China too has banned the export of refined petroleum products (including diesel) for months now. Diesel prices are about to go way up and the US is now considering a ban on diesel exports. All this "energy nationalism" is going to torch Europe, Asian economies and South America. Just you wait.

By foolishly attacking Iran, Trump has made Russia's position much stronger. So yes, the Ukraine war predates the Iran war but the Iran war has made the Ukraine war much better for Russia. That's the point.

Canada is too intertwined with the US to truly divorce the US or even shift significant trade to Europe.

Australia can sell raw materials anywhere but the Red Sea being closed makes it take longer and be more expensive and who is really going to demand raw materials in Europe when the energy crunch hits? And we're bouldering towards that energy crunch (both natural gas and diesel). One of Australia's biggest competitive advantages in selling raw materials to China has always been relative proximity. Lower shipping times and costs.

Yes, the US has used Israel as a weapon in the Middle East (since ~1967) but what kept Gulf powers in line was the supply of weapons (to prop up unpopular regimes) and the free flow of trade. This war has shown that the US cannot defend its own bases in the Gulf let alone any of its client states (sorry, "allies").

I believe there's a nonzero chance the Israeli state collapses within the next decade. That's how much things are shifting and what a blunder this has been.

The GCC countries are going to have the redefine a new regional security architecture that includes Iran. That's inevitable at this point. If the US had been smart they simply would've admitted defeat ~5 months ago but they can't. Because of Israel. For now.

So Iran is America's Afghanistan (USSR era). The quagmire of Afghanistan was a huge factor in the collapse and breakup of the USSR. This isn't like Vietnam, which we could simply walk away from. Iran won and the Israeli state in its current form is doomed.

You should read more Krugman. There's a whole argument about this.

US GDP is mostly imaginary and not tangible. It's dependent on both international respect for intellectual property laws (reason for the anger toward China), and the natural resources of other lands (that have had their governments blamed by the current administration actively misleading US citizens about provenance of what is needed to sustain American life)

Intellectual property laws being recognized, US fiat currency, etc. vs. the hard value of natural resources of these other countries (that the US would prefer to try to annex and loot since the former is not a base you can build on)

When you're deciding on long term trade and economic policy, are you thinking about fabricated valuations of US tech companies, or whether you have energy, minerals, and food supply that have an actual value attached?

I do believe they were talking about Asutralia, not Asustralia. A common misunderstanding. Taiwan might not need to be involved.