Where have all the Macau VIP’s gone? How much debt is the West really in? Are there any governments in the world anymore that live within their means?

These are questions that have been on my mind for a while. The answer to all three is a desert island continent on the other side of the world (from most of us), where summer is winter and winter is summer and the water spins the wrong way down the toilet. A former prison colony that very well may be the last bastion of pseudo-sanity in the Western world. The answer is Australia.

Not everything there is raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Australia is more like the most stable patient in the global psych ward, one that has its bouts of insanity but it’s still possible to have a normal conversation with it, if you discount the occasional random bout of screaming out of context like a Tourette syndrome patient. Compared to everyone else that is drooling all over themselves catatonic, you definitely want to hang out with Australia and skip the forbidden upper floors where all the lobotomies and electroshock therapies take place.

And is it any coincidence that Australia, of all nations, has the highest gambling rate in the world at over 80%? Probably not, because on an individual level, someone who can enjoy gambling responsibly, or any other so-called vice like junk food or alcohol or marijuana or whatever it is without becoming addicted to it, tends to be a more balanced person than the ascetic. So, too, with a nation.