The demise of the Holden name is being blamed on all sorts of factors, but the bottom line is that an iconic part of Australia's popular culture will slowly disappear from our streets.

Given that General Motors was no longer manufacturing cars in Australia, it's certainly not entirely unexpected, but it does make you wonder about the future of our nation's wealth and financial security.

I heard someone comment this week that, in the future, Australia's manufacturing was going to be restricted to "boutique" products In reality, that's already happening as manufacturing has been going offshore for years as globalisation and outsourcing force changes.

We're often told that our economy is in an "exciting period of transition" to something new, but we are never entirely sure what it is that the nation is transitioning into.

One question that never seems to be adequately answered is what is going to happen to provide the jobs that were once a part of the manufacturing sector.

Occasionally we hear about developments in green energy, or some sort of technology boom, but it feels a little like the Australia economy is increasingly becoming reliant on service-based industries and retail.

The problem with relying on service-based industries, of course, is that they hinge on people to have money to spend on those "little luxuries" like a meal out, a beauty treatment or a new pair of shoes.

We know that, broadly speaking, the cost of housing in Australia is continuing to rise. In Sydney, depending on exactly where the market is at, $1 million is roughly the median price for a home.

Whether you're paying off a mortgage or renting, the result is that as house prices rise, the amount you spend each week on keeping a roof over your head is also rising.

It used to be said that if you were spending more than 30 per cent of your income on rent, you were in "rent stress".

There was a flurry of reports published towards the end of 2019, citing several different studies, which announced that an increasing number of people were being trapped in rent stress, some for years.

At the same time, we all know that utilities prices are also increasing, leaving people spending more every week on essentials and less on discretionary items.

The problem for the economy is that it now needs people to have a certain amount of money to spend on non-essentials.

You don't need to look far to see the effects of reduced consumer demand. There has been a string of retail chains announce either weakened profits or plans to close stores in recent months.

Qantas, late in 2019, suggested there was a reduced appetite for flights and, at about the same time, the Coles supermarket chain noted that shoppers were increasingly buying the cheaper store-branded items.

In September 2019, the ABC quoted Jim Stanford, the chief economist and director of The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work, as saying the last six years has been the worst period for wages growth since World War II.

As the drought grinds on and communities calculate the impact of everything from bushfires to the Coronavirus, it doesn't seem likely there has been much improvement in the five months since.

We've seen interest rates hovering at record low levels and the government has tried to stimulate the economy with tax cuts.

Whether these will help as we continue into 2020 will remain to be seen, but it is an issue that we cannot afford to ignore.

Australia already has an ageing population. We need a healthy tax base to meet the burden that comes with a growing number of pensioners.

It's no longer good enough to blithely announce that ours is an economy in "transition".

Somebody, somewhere, needs to figure out just what it is we are morphing into and how this can then be translated into jobs for people who want them.

It's an issue far beyond the usual "spin, rinse and repeat" cycle of modern governing.