# And that makes 3 - Toyota bails out



## tavas (10/2/14)

Toyota to end manufacturing in Australia by 2017.

http://www.news.com.au/national/toyota-to-end-australian-carmaking-by-end-of-2017-with-2500-jobs-to-go-at-its-altona-plant/story-fncynjr2-1226822787698


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## wide eyed and legless (10/2/14)

It is coming


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

Suprised they managed to squeeze this story in amongst all the hoopla in Bali


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## indica86 (10/2/14)

Are Toyota relocating to Kerobokan Prison?


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## Bribie G (10/2/14)

The car industry was a bastion of unions and high wages. Now Abbott and Gina RindPork can look forward to an Australia of the mega rich riding on the backs of the toiling masses of $4 an hour slaves. No problem, feed the slaves with episodes of Dancing with the Stars and Home and Away served out to them on their cheap Chinese TVs from Walmart also staffed by $4 an hour slaves and they will be content, blaming the single mothers on $40 a week for all their problems.

edit: all this information to be channeled to the slaves via Murdoch media. The perfect triumvirate.


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## Mardoo (10/2/14)

This is truly bad news.


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## law-of-ohms (10/2/14)

I welcome back the turbo nissan to Bathurst 1000


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## carniebrew (10/2/14)

Think of it this way. With no car manufacturing industry in Australia to protect, *surely* the govt has to drop all import tariffs...which were in place only to protect the fact we couldn't make cars anywhere near as cheaply as overseas can.

So a whole bunch of imported cars will become a whole lot cheaper, as our buddies over in NZ have been enjoying for decades now....


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

Surely you jest......they can name the price now as we have no other choice but imported cars. A somewhat captive market.

But I still have my MM1000 ute...so I cant see myself upgrading any time soon.


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## spog (10/2/14)

I heard Bill Shorten on the radio today blaming Tony Abbott .!
He said that its Abbott's fault,then said he has only been in the top job 5 months.

Nothing about the Labour government achieving SFA in their time,nothing about the world economy being up shit creek.
Not bothering to mention that the automotive industry has been sinking for years ! Not in the last 5 months.

As I said in a txt to ABC radio today " if Shortens eyes are not yet brown they soon will be,he's full of it !

Billy boy fucked up again.


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## Tahoose (10/2/14)

I did here about this when talking to a Holden engineer last week, he said it would be announced soon. He also said that Holden leaving was Obama's fault and not Abbott's. Apparently when Obama's government bailed out General Motor's in the GFC, the caveat was that GM had to bring all of the jobs back to the States.

I'm not sure what to make of it, but.... if anybody thinks that the price of imported cars is going to come down, I ask the question, do you also think the excise on Alcohol is going to be reduced aswell? Or that petrol will come down?

Not bloody likely.


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## Bribie G (10/2/14)

The LabOr government steered us through the GFC without the collapse of banks, without 25 percent unemployment as in many parts of Europe, despite the world economy being up shit creek as pointed out. One Term Tony has just accelerated the demise of manufacturing in Australia.


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## DU99 (10/2/14)

In my life time we also had _Nissan_,_Mitsubishi,__Chrysler_ they also disappeared as auto cars makers here..


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## carniebrew (10/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Surely you jest......they can name the price now as we have no other choice but imported cars. A somewhat captive market.
> 
> But I still have my MM1000 ute...so I cant see myself upgrading any time soon.


No way....the imported new car market is hardly a monopoly! Competition will be fierce, and now like other markets we'll finally start to get some seriously sweet mod cons on our cars as standard, because the price won't be jacked up $10k by government tariffs.


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## yum beer (10/2/14)

The need for us to be involved in 'the wold economy' is squarely to blame.....
if we had no imports produced in countries with disgustingly low wages and poor conditions then the Australian car industry would be as strong as ever.
So would every other industry that has gone down or is sliding down the gurgler.

**** the world economy, why do we need to drag our arses down to the low living standards of developing countries to feel good about ourselves.
Stop importing shit, make it here, sell it here and everybody has a job, a house and money in their pocket, not just the industry fat cats and politicians.


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## Tahoose (10/2/14)

My other big bugbear is the taxes that we pay, I looked into this maybe a year ago and the yanks could buy a Holden SS (badged Pontiac GTO) that was made in Adelaide for $10,000 less than what we could.

Surely that makes next to no sense at all


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## yum beer (10/2/14)

And Americans can't get life saving surgery for under $50,000.
I'm happy to pay 10 grand more for an SS. Then get free treatment when I wrap it around a pole.


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## Tahoose (10/2/14)

:icon_offtopic: Here is a totally different discussion, my day job sees me at a hospital in theatre, I'd rather pay the extra and pick my surgeon rather than get the work done for free. Each to there own.

It does piss me off though.

Surely they could have taxed the crap out of things like Kia's and Hyundai's and not taxed locally built models so much, hell even dangle a Australian made air freshener from the mirror. Then people would be happy to buy an affordable locally built car.


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## eamonnfoley (10/2/14)

yum beer said:


> The need for us to be involved in 'the wold economy' is squarely to blame.....
> if we had no imports produced in countries with disgustingly low wages and poor conditions then the Australian car industry would be as strong as ever.
> So would every other industry that has gone down or is sliding down the gurgler.
> 
> ...



Us Aussies are always quick to blame others. The reasons for this is that we've (mainly the government) has created a country where its too expensive to do business, unless your in the service industry where you can mark cheap imported products up by 400%. Laws that encourage real estate to balloon (i.e. negative gearing) are increasing the cost of leasing, buying, renting premises, not to mention the fact that everyone is paying more for mortgage or rent - they need to get it from somewhere (so costs of products goes up to increase peoples income). And in general too many rules, regulations, and red tape around everything make the end price of a manufactured product very high in Aust. 

Yes some goods are made with cheap labour, and there are problems in that regard - but thats only a part of it. Look at what Germany for example is doing. They manage to keep costs down (through a system that doesnt encourage property speculation, and possibly the Euro working in their favour), and produce high quality manufactured products that nobody can match, in specialist industries. For example a massive machine that digs tunnels, electrical equipment, cars, or the Braumeister . And they encourage apprenticeships, as well as having a massive family business sector (and mentality). Germans and German companies also avoid going into debt if possible too, even if they grow slower.

We need to leverage our vast skills and high quality of education, and offer something more than just mining (And I am in mining myself). And direct our investment dollars away from property, which is a non-productive asset.


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## Scooby Tha Newbie (10/2/14)

Bribie G said:


> The car industry was a bastion of unions and high wages. Now Abbott and Gina RindPork can look forward to an Australia of the mega rich riding on the backs of the toiling masses of $4 an hour slaves. No problem, feed the slaves with episodes of Dancing with the Stars and Home and Away served out to them on their cheap Chinese TVs from Walmart also staffed by $4 an hour slaves and they will be content, blaming the single mothers on $40 a week for all their problems.
> 
> edit: all this information to be channeled to the slaves via Murdoch media. The perfect triumvirate.


Don't let the facts get in the way. Hahaha maybe it's worth paying some yobo 125,000 per year to do 35 hrs a week. 
And btw we as tax payers we where paying 50,000 of that pay packet.

Hope fully now we can see some real tax cuts And grow the economy. 
The only reason why Australia did so well Thu the Efc was China buying our iron and coal that and the low Aussie dollar at the time.


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

carniebrew said:


> No way....the imported new car market is hardly a monopoly! Competition will be fierce, and now like other markets we'll finally start to get some seriously sweet mod cons on our cars as standard, because the price won't be jacked up $10k by government tariffs.


Our market is small. Most of the cars we buy are imported anyway. 

And $10k tarrifs are bullshit. They are not that high, unless your buying a high end vehicle.


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## browndog (10/2/14)

I heard and read here and there that that the people building these cars on the assembly line, process workers for want of a better word, were on $50 per hr. Now if that is true then no wonder they have all gone to the wall. And thank you Abbot for not propping them up any longer.


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

Interesting read...2013...but still relevant

http://m.theage.com.au/national/less-support-lower-tariffs-no-industry-20130523-2k3w2.html


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

browndog said:


> I heard and read here and there that that the people building these cars on the assembly line, process workers for want of a better word, were on $50 per hr. Now if that is true then no wonder they have all gone to the wall. And thank you Abbot for not propping them up any longer.


um....do you honestly beleive that...theysaid the same about SPC....that puts them on $100k pa...


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## Scooby Tha Newbie (10/2/14)

The shame about Spc is the farmers. 
I wonder if the farmhouse growing the food is unionised.


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## DU99 (10/2/14)

:icon_offtopic: bit like four and tewnty pies went off shore,and there opposition bought them back to australia owned..SPC is owned by Americian's..It's about time the pollies stopped overseas interest's buying our company's and killing them off so they can bring there product here.


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

Got to love a bit of union bashing. Dont get the facts first...just bash the unions.


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

DU99 said:


> :icon_offtopic: bit like four and tewnty pies went off shore,and there opposition bought them back to australia owned..SPC is owned by Americian's..It's about time the pollies stopped overseas interest's buying our company's and killing them off so they can bring there product here.


CCA is an Australian company...not American.


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## carniebrew (10/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Our market is small. Most of the cars we buy are imported anyway.
> 
> And $10k tarrifs are bullshit. They are not that high, unless your buying a high end vehicle.


Yes, exactly. Our market is small, yet we've had tariffs in place to protect it for decades. Now they can be removed, and car prices will come down accordingly. What's bullshit is thinking the car makers overseas will artificially jack up prices just to make more profit out of our market. Competition will prevent that entirely.

And yeah, $10k is at the high end, but we're talking thousands of dollars in tariffs the govt collects for every imported car sold in Australia. Better in my pocket thanks.


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## DU99 (10/2/14)

:icon_offtopic: Coca-Cola Amatil is an Australian company, however The Coca-Cola Company has a 29% shareholding in Coca-Cola Amatil, as it does with each of its primary or "anchor" bottlers in the worldwide Coca-Cola system.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/cca-and-qantas-authors-of-their-own-misfortune-20140207-327ca.html


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

carniebrew said:


> Yes, exactly. Our market is small, yet we've had tariffs in place to protect it for decades. Now they can be removed, and car prices will come down accordingly. What's bullshit is thinking the car makers overseas will artificially jack up prices just to make more profit out of our market. Competition will prevent that entirely.
> 
> And yeah, $10k is at the high end, but we're talking thousands of dollars in tariffs the govt collects for every imported car sold in Australia. Better in my pocket thanks.


Do you actually know what the tarrifs are...


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## pedleyr (10/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Surely you jest......they can name the price now as we have no other choice but imported cars. A somewhat captive market.
> 
> But I still have my MM1000 ute...so I cant see myself upgrading any time soon.


Except for the part where they're in competition with each other and they compete on price like they do in every other country in the world.


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## Scooby Tha Newbie (10/2/14)

Well hopefully the royal commission will clean the unions up a bit. 
At least in the building industry. 

Btw I think Coke is a American company.


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## pedleyr (10/2/14)

Bribie G said:


> The LabOr government steered us through the GFC without the collapse of banks, without 25 percent unemployment as in many parts of Europe, despite the world economy being up shit creek as pointed out. One Term Tony has just accelerated the demise of manufacturing in Australia.


They came to power with already high interest rates, low unemployment and healthy surpluses, leaving a lot of room to move. 

They did at least a passable job (which is better than most governments), but you need to give credit to the previous governments at least partially (and I include Hawke/Keating in that - it was a long term thing to lay that foundation).


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## Scooby Tha Newbie (10/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Got to love a bit of union bashing. Dont get the facts first...just bash the unions.


Yes almost as funny (and irrelevant) as the labor party.


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## pedleyr (10/2/14)

yum beer said:


> The need for us to be involved in 'the wold economy' is squarely to blame.....
> if we had no imports produced in countries with disgustingly low wages and poor conditions then the Australian car industry would be as strong as ever.
> So would every other industry that has gone down or is sliding down the gurgler.
> 
> ...


Where would we export to then? Can't have it both ways - all exports no imports. 

If someone in Bangladesh is prepared to work harder, longer and cheaper we can't stop that. We need to invest in our own population to focus on higher value jobs if we want to maintain our standards of living.


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## Ducatiboy stu (10/2/14)

pedleyr said:


> Except for the part where they're in competition with each other and they compete on price like they do in every other country in the world.


And the fact we are a small captive market. Price a VW here...then go to Europe and price one..and dont forget our $ is falling.....If you bought a euro car when the $ was at $1.00+ us you did well..now how does it compare when it drops to $0.80....


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## idzy (11/2/14)

Yeah I blame Tony Abott. He has had 5 months to legislate the mandatory buying of camrys and aurions by all Australians and didn't. Definitely his fault...


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## Econwatson (11/2/14)

I thought Holden were staying in Australia because of some sort of deal? When did that change?

Excuse my foreign ignorance. I listen to Skyhooks every day driving home if that helps?


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## yum beer (11/2/14)

pedleyr said:


> Where would we export to then? Can't have it both ways - all exports no imports.
> 
> If someone in Bangladesh is prepared to work harder, longer and cheaper we can't stop that. We need to invest in our own population to focus on higher value jobs if we want to maintain our standards of living.


 Thats the problem, economic greed drives local companies to want to export, the government needs to make deals with other countries to allow that, so we import stuff from others....world economy.
Problem is the majority of those countries involved live at a standard that I don't wish to but I have no choice because that is how it will become for everybody. We will end up like the worker in Bangladesh, harder , cheaper, longer.
Anybody that wants to argue any other point on the end result of world economy is having themselves on.


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## StalkingWilbur (11/2/14)

That's a positive outlook you're promoting.


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## schrodinger (11/2/14)

A. Count your lucky stars, Aussies. 

1. Australians are the wealthiest people on Earth. 

2. The watered-down GFC you felt here was a pinprick compared to the catastrophe felt elsewhere, and you're still in a far better position than most, despite recent trends. 

3. Australia's economic class structure is radically flatter than that in the US. I've long been struck by how much more respect Aussies have for people without uni educations, and that's a very good thing, not just because it's right, but because it means you have an educational system and a culture that are far better geared to flesh out an entire economy with productive people who spend money.

4. Agriculture and its ancillary industries are more important to Australia's economy than manufacturing. We make the best wheat, cotton, sheep, you name it, in the world, and unlike most wealthy countries, we have room to expand agriculture and even more room to improve efficiency in that sector.

5. Australia's tax rates aren't that high. The US has marginally lower taxation overall but its government is in a perpetual state of near-bankruptcy. Most of the rest of the 'first world' has higher taxation.

6. The health care system here is extraordinary, and a hell of a bargain.


B. Though I utterly loathe the idiotic free market idolatry of many in the right wing, ...

1. Greed is not the problem -- it's a parameter, i.e., an unavoidable constraint, because humans are involved. Telling humans not to be greedy is like telling the sun not to shine.

2. Manufacturing cars is not the future for any western economies, because there are 3 billion or so people who can build them way cheaper. The loss of the car industry was neither Labor's nor Abbott's fault -- it was inevitable. If Hari Seldon were here, he would have predicted it from first principles.

3. Isolationism is a dead end now more than ever, however morally upright it may sound. Australia could in theory be self-sufficient, but it would also be pretty poor. The world economy is as you describe because rich people would rather pay less, and there are still poor people willing to take less money to make shit for them. But those rich people were rich before the majority of those jobs were shipped off to Bangladesh, so no, I'm not having myself on.


This country is uniquely situated to put itself at the pinnacle of the world economy. We should stop bitching about inevitable change, stop thinking with party blinders on, and figure out what else we can build from our abundant natural resources and human and intellectual capital. If the Germans can do it, despite living in a cramped, freezing-ass cold swamp with awful music, surely we can do it as well. 

BTW, the idea that the US federal bailout of GM mandated GM to bring all jobs back to the US is just pure bullshit. GM is expanding overseas, not contracting. Besides, if you think a major corporation would keep a non-legally-binding promise to a politician, I've got a bridge to sell you.


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## Econwatson (11/2/14)

schrodinger said:


> 2. Manufacturing cars is not the future for any western economies, because there are 3 billion or so people who can build them way cheaper. The loss of the car industry was neither Labor's nor Abbott's fault -- it was inevitable. If Hari Seldon were here, he would have predicted it from first principles.


That's strange, because the UK is the fastest growing economy in Europe and has just hit a six year high in car production. How do you explain that?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25854938


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## DJ_L3ThAL (11/2/14)

Because the rest of Europe is in dire straits. Compare oranges with oranges.


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## Econwatson (11/2/14)

DJ_L3ThAL said:


> Because the rest of Europe is in dire straits. Compare oranges with oranges.


I'm not comparing the UK with Europe, I'm comparing it with Australia.

The guy above said 'Manufacturing cars is not the future for any western economies, because there are 3 billion or so people who can build them way cheaper'

People don't just want cheaper, they also want better. That is my point. Rolls-Royce, Range-Rover and Aston-Martin are proof of that.

Not sure why you are referring to Europe.


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## Dave70 (11/2/14)

HA... HA.. HA ..HA.. HA.. HA.. HA..... MMMMM..... BA..HA HA HA HA!!!!!......


















..tee..he..he...


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## Phoney (11/2/14)

..


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## DJ_L3ThAL (11/2/14)

Econwatson said:


> I'm not comparing the UK with Europe, I'm comparing it with Australia.
> 
> The guy above said 'Manufacturing cars is not the future for any western economies, because there are 3 billion or so people who can build them way cheaper'
> 
> ...


Sorry my mis-reading then!

UK has a substantially higher population and therefore market to sell to, and when I visited Europe, the consumer trend was clearly towards Euro built cars over Asian cars (don't think this has changed in recent times?). So it is a sheer numbers game as to why it is feasible in the UK to make and sell cars, because you can actually sell them at a rate that returns good profit. Whilst there are a lot of Fords/Holdens around, building V6/V8 huge sedans as your flagship models is deviating away from what consumers want in the first case these days (before anyone gets all "Aussie icon" on me, people want to go further for less fuel, period), coupled with the high costs of manufacturing labour and operating costs.

I did a presentation with the Marketing Exec at Futuris Automotive a couple years ago on sustainability and during my discussions with him when quizzing him on current media articles about auto manufacturing going under in aus he made the very simple point. That to make an equal quality car seat for a Toyota, here we need to add on not only higher labout costs for the individual, but they expect air conditioning and heating in the factory, clean toilets and a safe working environment. In China the workers don't expect (aren't entitled?) to any of that. So as a global manufacturing business trying to fund shareholders pay packets, what would be your choice when you are being paid a salary to make a decision to purely add to the shareholder pay packets?

I think the points raised on Aussies needing to get smarter and capitalise on what we can do better than any other nation is both prudent and the only way forward if we want to maintain this awesome country the way it is.


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## schrodinger (11/2/14)

Econwatson said:


> That's strange, because the UK is the fastest growing economy in Europe and has just hit a six year high in car production. How do you explain that?
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25854938


First, many things, many places are hitting six year highs, because the last six years have been uncommonly poor. Second, the UK car industry itself had nose-dived something fierce in the first half of the decade after steady decline in previous decades, so it doesn't take much recovery to hit a six year high. Third, as you pointed out, part of that production is driven by a niche demand unique to the UK, based on the illusion that they produce good, classy cars (in fact they're comically unreliable, and most of those niche brands are now foreign-owned, but those are different issues). Fourth, even with this resurgence, it's only around 2% of the UK economy and 5% of exports -- no pillar here. Fifth, the comment about Europe in dire straits is indeed relevant because much of the UK auto manufacturing growth has come from foreign manufacturers shifting production from mainland Europe to the UK, presumably because the UK government and financial sector are seen as more stable and having a brighter future than old man Europe. All in all, I think it's an outlier.

It's not that western auto industries are doomed, it's just that the opportunities are limited, and I wouldn't bank on Australia being able to base manufacturing growth on cars.


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

Its a fact that manufacturers will find the cheapest place to build cars. But what tends to happen is as the worker start to realise they should be paid more the manufacturer just moves to the next country with lower costs. China will eventually become to expenses and the manufacturing will shift. Africa is the new asia, and manufacturers are already looking there. GM did the same with Mexico. When the mexican workes saw they where being screwed and the labour rates went up and GM reduced manufacturing and found somewhere else.


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## wide eyed and legless (11/2/14)

I watched a doco about Nissan in the nth east of England it had the highest production rate in all of the Nissan factories, some one this morning was on t.v saying that the sickies after Australia day was the straw that broke the camels back for Toyota here, bullshit I know.
The other thing is if we start putting tariffs on imports other nations will do the same to us, I agree that England is booming at the moment even out stripping Germany but the rest of the world is still struggling and it will for a long time yet, America got their financial recovery wrong and everyone else pays for it.
The few good years we went through was because we were hanging on to the shirt tail of China and China can't recover until the rest of the world starts to recover, we are in for a rough time now.
Manufacturing has been in decline here for years lots of small businesses have gone, now the bigger ones are getting out, the next will be Qantas to go to the wall.


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## tavas (11/2/14)

I think its pretty naive to suggest this is solely a Liberal or Labor fault. There is no one single reason why manufacturing is dying in Australia. Is a combination of internal and external factors. Do you think policy of either party is THAT much different? Its either centre left or centre right. Neither one really messes with core economic drivers, they play with emotion led sound bites which play on the 30-40% of swinging voters.

World economics do not revolve around our 3 year election cycle, despite what you read/see in the media (Murdoch or otherwise inspired).

Car manufaturing is dying because Ford/Holden refused to change to market conditions, coupled with high Aussie dollar and high local costs, and a small local market (read Falcon and Commodore), and restrictive policy from American head office (export Commodore to be badged as Pontiac to protect local Chev brand, no left hand drive Falcon for export, OneFord branding etc). Toyota is not immune to this either - they have had quality issues by trying to outsource manufacturing to low cost countries. And that hurt brand reputation as Toyota were always considered benchmark for low cost, high quality.

Australian car engineers/engineering is considered world class, its just that we've never had a big enough locla market to force it globally. The Zeta platform on which the VE Commodore/Comaro is based is considered to be an excellent chassis, but GM didn't want to impact on Corvette sales so put it under the Comaro. The VE Commodore is a better handling car vs Comaro (based on admittedly small sample selection of reviews I have read). GM rebadged Commodores as Pontiac GTO's becaue they were protecting Chev initially, but the GTO badge is an emotional badge (just like GT HO), so Americans didn't warm to the idea of a foreign car branded as GTO. Would this have made much of a difference on the decision of Holden to end local manufacturing? Probably not, but certainly doesn't help.

European car makers also outsource manufacturing to low cost Eastern European countries so that helps to keep costs down. BMW makes 3 series cars in South Africa.

Rudd may have been steering the ship during the GFC, but he also had a good tail wind and favorable currents to help him - low Aussie dollar coupled with high demand for resources by China in the lead up to 2008 Olympics, good economic base to start with. Creating an expansionsary budget by going into deficet isn't revolutionary economic policy - its pretty standard economics 101. But was also led by bad management of inefficient programs - pink batts and funding school halls when none were needed. And even though Abbott wants you to belive our debt is horrendous (it isn't), we still have to pay it back some day, so borrowing to spend your way out of recession has its drawbacks.

My 2.2c (+ GST)


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## pedleyr (11/2/14)

yum beer said:


> Thats the problem, economic greed drives local companies to want to export, the government needs to make deals with other countries to allow that, so we import stuff from others....world economy.
> Problem is the majority of those countries involved live at a standard that I don't wish to but I have no choice because that is how it will become for everybody. We will end up like the worker in Bangladesh, harder , cheaper, longer.
> Anybody that wants to argue any other point on the end result of world economy is having themselves on.


We can't produce everything we need (electronics for example) and we can't consume everything we produce (iron ore for example). Trade solves the problem. 

Protectionism has long ago been debunked I'm afraid, it definitely does not lead to increased economic prosperity. 

Why should people in Bangladesh be deprived of the ability to better their standard of living? What, just because we want to maintain our early mover advantage and refuse to up skill or diversify?


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## sb944 (11/2/14)

tavas said:


> Australian car engineers/engineering is considered world class, its just that we've never had a big enough locla market to force it globally. The Zeta platform on which the VE Commodore/Comaro is based is considered to be an excellent chassis, but GM didn't want to impact on Corvette sales so put it under the Comaro. The VE Commodore is a better handling car vs Comaro (based on admittedly small sample selection of reviews I have read). GM rebadged Commodores as Pontiac GTO's becaue they were protecting Chev initially, but the GTO badge is an emotional badge (just like GT HO), so Americans didn't warm to the idea of a foreign car branded as GTO. Would this have made much of a difference on the decision of Holden to end local manufacturing? Probably not, but certainly doesn't help.
> 
> My 2.2c (+ GST)


You couldn't force a Commodore globally, it's a tank compared with Euro family cars. It chews up their expensive petrol, and is far too big on their small windy roads. Americans should like it more, but I think American cars are butt ugly, and they probably think the same about ours, not to mention they have some pride in local brands. Commodores are built for Australians, not for the world, so of course the buyers are going to mainly be Australians.


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## tavas (11/2/14)

sb944 said:


> You couldn't force a Commodore globally, it's a tank compared with Euro family cars. It chews up their expensive petrol, and is far too big on their small windy roads. Americans should like it more, but I think American cars are butt ugly, and they probably think the same about ours, not to mention they have some pride in local brands. Commodores are built for Australians, not for the world, so of course the buyers are going to mainly be Australians.


I agree. We don't have enough local demand to make the unit cost cheaper and more attractive. For example, Hyundais handle like crap, but are so cheap you forgive the ride for a car which comes fully loaded over a local made car. If our unit cost was lower we may have been able to defeat other markets with sheer numbers.

You are right about large size car and innefficient motors though. Hence my comment about GM/Ford not adapting to customer demands.

There are markets for our cars (South Africa, US, Middle East) but we don't have the volumes to sustain breaking into those markets.

I've owned mainly Holdens for years, but was always amazed at how they played catch up in terms of options etc. For example, Falcon brought out CD players, Bluetooth, GPS before Holden ever did. And Falcon was behind Hyundai, Toyota etc so Holden was way off. Trim and fit of interior was always average. But they drove well and I forgave the fuel economy in favour of supporting local.

One of the best cars I ever owned was an XF Falcon wagon. Motor had done over 300,000 kms when the speedo went and was still strong as an ox. Spent more on replacing door handles than i did on the motor though. Which says it all. Good concept, executed badly.

Having said all that, Euro makers get a much larger injection from the Gvt than we did. We put something like $18-20 per person into our auto manufacturing industry whereas Germany spends something like $200/person. So no matter what you do, it will be hard to beat them apples.

Like I said, more than one single factor.


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## stm (11/2/14)

Why should taxpayers support failing businesses? (How do you anti-business lefties feel about having your taxes being diverted to evil capitalists?) Surely we should be supporting successful, growing businesses as the way to reduce unemployment.

How do we do this? By reducing costs and regulations on business eg, red tape, green tape, high energy costs, union restrictions, payroll tax, land tax on factories, rules, rules, rules, and allowing free trade, freedom and choice.


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## yum beer (11/2/14)

schrodinger said:


> B. Though I utterly loathe the idiotic free market idolatry of many in the right wing, ...
> 
> 1. Greed is not the problem -- it's a parameter, i.e., an unavoidable constraint, because humans are involved. Telling humans not to be greedy is like telling the sun not to shine.
> Parameters and constraints have bounds, they are not endless....the greed of capital is neverending. You've made a useless point.
> ...


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## yum beer (11/2/14)

pedleyr said:


> We can't produce everything we need (electronics for example) and we can't consume everything we produce (iron ore for example). Trade solves the problem.
> 
> Protectionism has long ago been debunked I'm afraid, it definitely does not lead to increased economic prosperity.
> 
> Why should people in Bangladesh be deprived of the ability to better their standard of living? What, just because we want to maintain our early mover advantage and refuse to up skill or diversify?


You have fallen prey to the Industrial Capitalist....

We can make everything we need, including electronics, we don't because we can't compete with cheap imports
If we can't consume everything we produce then we are producing too much...I'm sure there are mining companies with plenty enough money to create a nice electronics industry in our country.

Protectionism, isolationism, banana republicism...whatever you want to call it has only ever been debunked by the fat rich pricks who aren't happy with economic prosperity, your own words hail the problem....
increased economic prosperity. Why do you need to increase economic prosperity....I for 1 am happy with plain ol' prosperity.

I am not against the people of Bangladesh or any other country increasing their standard of living, hell good luck to them, but if we want to diversify and upskill we need to be doing for ourselves not buying the cheap results of others.

The biggest problem I see is that we have been fed the bullshit of industrialism and consumerism for so long we no longer feel offended by it.
I'm sorry I'm offended everytime I enter a shop and have to be subjected to more and more products being made in horrendous conditions by the poor of the world while rich pricks increase their profit margin and kick more and more aussie into the jobless gutter...but don't worry I'm sure it will turn out ok.


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

Sorry...but just not buying this " Commodores/Falcons" are gas guzzlers. My ex and I bought an a car with 3lt v6 and it used more fuel than my commy work wagon. Then latter an ex gf bought a CRV with a 4cyl. Damn thing used slightly more than my work commodoor. Just because a vehicle might be big doesnt mean its a petrol guzzler. I was easly able to get 9.5l/100km which is pretty good. Sure not as good as a prius bot not that far behind than smaller 4cyl cars. And as for the newer v8' they are very ecomomical if driven sensibly.


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## wide eyed and legless (11/2/14)

I was under the impression all the industrial capitalists live in China, the only way we can compete in manufacturing in this country is with a substantial drop in wages and then backdate it.
When China does start to recover doesn't mean we will be sweet again, America is on the sideline with its massive gas resources ready to undercut us, and the same with their coal.
If we don't have economic prosperity how are we going to fund schools and hospitals, they are in dire straits as it is, if you go to a hospital it would be more than likely that the person looking after you would be from overseas, whether it be nurse, doctor, surgeon, anaesthetist or specialist.
Should their wages drop they will be off to somewhere where the wages are better, you might think that goods we are buying from developing nations are horrendous, but to those people they are in luxury and can put food on the table, 2012 saw 70,000,000 Chinese people going on overseas holidays, we may have to get Hogan back and do another tourist ad "Throw another prawn in the wok"


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## yum beer (11/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> I was under the impression all the industrial capitalists live in China, the only way we can compete in manufacturing in this country is with a substantial drop in wages and then backdate it.
> When China does start to recover doesn't mean we will be sweet again, America is on the sideline with its massive gas resources ready to undercut us, and the same with their coal.
> If we don't have economic prosperity how are we going to fund schools and hospitals, they are in dire straits as it is, if you go to a hospital it would be more than likely that the person looking after you would be from overseas, whether it be nurse, doctor, surgeon, anaesthetist or specialist.
> Should their wages drop they will be off to somewhere where the wages are better, you might think that goods we are buying from developing nations are horrendous, but to those people they are in luxury and can put food on the table, 2012 saw 70,000,000 Chinese people going on overseas holidays, we may have to get Hogan back and do another tourist ad "Throw another prawn in the wok"


So we should drop the wages of workers to keep manufacturing but still pay doctors the same..........


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## wide eyed and legless (11/2/14)

Well you were looking for a way to compete in manufacturing, I am sure that the mining companies if they were to open up electronic factories it wouldn't be in this country they have shareholders to think of no shareholders = no jobs.


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## yum beer (11/2/14)

I wasn't looking for a way to compete.....its not possible for us to compete. Thats the whole point.


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## stm (11/2/14)

yum beer said:


> (1) I'm sorry I'm offended everytime I enter a shop and have to be subjected to more and more products being made in horrendous conditions by the poor of the world
> (2) while rich pricks increase their profit margin and kick more and more aussie into the jobless gutter...but don't worry I'm sure it will turn out ok.


1. Bangladeshis are working in clothing factories in their droves because it is a hell of a lot better than the subsistence farms they came from. Same with all those Chinese lining up to work at Foxconn. We also benefit because we get more for our money.
2. So the alternative is for businesses to be forced to operate at a loss? How is that going to keep us wealthy? Your strategy worked real well in the Soviet Union and is working real well in North Korea...
It is only by businesses making profits that wealth is generated.


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## stm (11/2/14)

yum beer said:


> I wasn't looking for a way to compete.....its not possible for us to compete. Thats the whole point.


Agree 100% with you on this. We should not (as a country) be wasting our resources on industries where we can't compete. Therefore, taxpayers should not be subsiding such industries. We should be investing our resources in industries where we can compete - ie, where we can make the most profit. 

That's the magic of that evil "profit" that you hate - it tells us where we compete and how we best ensure our prosperity. And you leave it to the free market to do this (because it tends to be planned economies that make decisions to invest in loss making industries and so the downward spiral continues - the free market goes after profits). 

Google "comparative advantage".


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## booargy (11/2/14)

We should put toyota workers on harpoon ships. get some profits returned to this country.


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## schrodinger (11/2/14)

yum beer said:


> > B. Though I utterly loathe the idiotic free market idolatry of many in the right wing, ...
> >
> > 1. Greed is not the problem -- it's a parameter, i.e., an unavoidable constraint, because humans are involved. Telling humans not to be greedy is like telling the sun not to shine.
> > Parameters and constraints have bounds, they are not endless....the greed of capital is neverending. You've made a useless point.
> > ...


You're missing my points. First, you and I ARE the rich pricks. Even Aussies who've lost their jobs and are on the dole are rich compared to the 'deshis. Second, I'm not arguing the 'world economy is good for you', but rather that the world economy, and greed, and all the rest are so inevitable, and so far beyond the control of pissed off righteous rich guys, that bitching about it is pointless and useless, and just makes you look pathetic. If you're so offended by the world economy (i.e., reality), then leave it, and go survive off rats in a cave. 

Nothing anybody has ever done, in history, has changed the essential character of human beings, which is to provide as much for themselves as possible. Christianity was supposed to change this. It didn't -- the most vociferously Christian people around are American hyper-capitalists. Marxism was supposed to kill off the evil force of greed. What's left of communism and post-communist countries are about as far from that ideal as possible. So nothing is gained by whinging about it and thinking wishfully. Greed, unbounded greed, IS a parameter. Just deal with it.


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## technobabble66 (11/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> ... Just because a vehicle might be big doesnt mean its a petrol guzzler. I was easly able to get 9.5l/100km which is pretty good. Sure not as good as a prius bot not that far behind than smaller 4cyl cars...


Fwiw, the automatic Honda I drive gets 6.1L/100km - and that's with me accelerating and braking heavily in the daily commute thru the 'burbs. It gets 5.2L/100km on longer drives. So that's roughly 30-45% more fuel efficient than the Aussie designed one!

I'd be strongly in favour of maintaining the car manufacturers in our country but it's hard to overlook what seems to be a large difference in quality/value. 

Germany spends $200 per person compared to our $18-20? Are those figures def correct? If so, it makes you wonder - Germany seem convinced its worth supporting car manufacturing, & their economy seems fairly strong. 

I'd stress it's the *overall* cost of production (plus our distance from world markets). Total labour cost is a big one, but also leases, transport, banking/finance, & utilities; and the difficulty/cost of dealing with govt bureaucracy. 
For my wife's retail business, labor is a major cost (& working on public holidays? Forget it - ridiculous cost! And yes, her staff would happily work on those days at normal wages if they could), but the cost of the lease is at least as large (if not the largest). On top of that is all the faffing around with BASS, etc. 
Is anything likely to be done to reduce land/lease costs? Good luck with that!

The bottom line is businesses are just not encouraged enough here. The return is commonly too little compared to the risk, stress and effort required. Sure some businesses do great and their owners become quite wealthy. The *vast* majority don't, though - they're just working hard to get by week to week. 

It's concerning Abbott seems so fixed on using this solely for the purpose of beating unions. It kinda smacks of a preconceived agenda that will be pursued while ignoring all these other issues, so at the end of it we may be still no more competitive. I'm tentatively supportive of the idea of labor reforms, but it's foolish to ignore the other elements.
I can't help but think he's also being a little contradictory: says/implies we need to be more competitive & smarter in manufacturing, esp in more advanced technology, and yet drops the post of the Minister of Science. 

2c


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

technobabble66 said:


> Fwiw, the automatic Honda I drive gets 6.1L/100km - and that's with me accelerating aond braking heavily in the daily commute thru the 'burbs. It gets 5.2L/100km on longer drives. So that's roughly 30-45% more fuel efficient than the Aussie designed one!


Hardly comparing apples.....load up your 1.6 with 4 adults and luggage and see what happens to your fuel economy.

1.6 v 3.8L. Even the 4.1L falcon gets just under 10l/100k. Thats not to bad at all.


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## technobabble66 (11/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Hardly comparing apples.....load up your 1.6 with 4 adults and luggage and see what happens to your fuel economy.
> 
> 1.6 v 3.8L. Even the 4.1L falcon gets just under 10l/100k. Thats not to bad at all.


True, though the 4 adults and luggage push it up only about 1.5L/100km. (It's more that the rate of acceleration drops a fraction -only slightly, never been a problem though).
However I'd mainly just drive myself; 1 passenger 20% of the time, 2-3 passengers 10% of the time. So my needs might be quite different to most others. 
It def affects my fuel economy, but not by much. 

10L/100km might be great for a 4.1L engine, but if a 1.6-2L car fulfills your needs just as well at 6L/100km, the ol' 4.1L ain't lookin so sweet. Obviously not relevant if you need to pull a trailer ;-) However, I think many people have realized these days that they don't need to pull a trailer or drive a large car. 

Again: design directives from the top management of ford & Holden seem to be fairly unsupportive of their Aussie operations.


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## stm (11/2/14)

Actual subsidies:

Aust: US$1885
US: US$166
Germany: US$206
UK: US$22

(all "per vehicle built")


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## Camo6 (11/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Hardly comparing apples.....load up your 1.6 with 4 adults and luggage and see what happens to your fuel economy.
> 
> 1.6 v 3.8L. Even the 4.1L falcon gets just under 10l/100k. Thats not to bad at all.


Not to mention the Liquid Petrol Injection Falcon that is capable of producing more power than the equivalent petrol variant (Holden tried but couldn't perfect this system) and a 4cyl Turbocharged Ecoboost Falcon. Both have impressive power and economy and one of the best safety ratings to boot yet weren't brought to the attention of the Australian public. Ford's greatest let down in this country has been its lackadaisical approach to advertising.


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

Yes. Ford does shoot itself in the foot sometimes. At least holden saw the small car market and made the Cruze locally.


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## tavas (11/2/14)

stm said:


> Actual subsidies:
> 
> Aust: US$1885
> US: US$166
> ...


Or as per person:
Aus $US18/person
Canada $US100
France $US150
US $260
Sweden $US 330

germany is around the $200 mark.

Stats are fun

http://m.theage.com.au/national/less-support-lower-tariffs-no-industry-20130523-2k3w2.html


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## mje1980 (11/2/14)

Instead of cutting wages, as seems so popular, how about removing the gouging from the various forms of government ?? and mountains of useless red tape


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## Darren Hayes (11/2/14)

Bribie G said:


> The car industry was a bastion of unions and high wages. Now Abbott and Gina RindPork can look forward to an Australia of the mega rich riding on the backs of the toiling masses of $4 an hour slaves. No problem, feed the slaves with episodes of Dancing with the Stars and Home and Away served out to them on their cheap Chinese TVs from Walmart also staffed by $4 an hour slaves and they will be content, blaming the single mothers on $40 a week for all their problems.
> 
> edit: all this information to be channeled to the slaves via Murdoch media. The perfect triumvirate.


Hahahaha, still get a thread moving ole cock . People have wrote novels and you nailed it in half a dozen sentences. As an advocate of Aldi I treasure the asian wars. 




typo


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## Black Devil Dog (11/2/14)

schrodinger said:


> First, you and I ARE the rich pricks.


+1
I remember reading an article back in the late 90's, about wealth distribution around the world.

Basically, if you're gainfully employed in a developed country, you're in the top 5% wealthiest people IN THE WORLD.
It's hard to believe and since that article, things have changed in China and other countries, but still, if you've got a job and you live in Australia, you're a rich bastard.
You might not think you are, but by world standards you definitely are.


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## yum beer (11/2/14)

stm said:


> 1. Bangladeshis are working in clothing factories in their droves because it is a hell of a lot better than the subsistence farms they came from. Same with all those Chinese lining up to work at Foxconn. *We also benefit because we get more for our money.*
> 2. So the alternative is for businesses to be forced to operate at a loss? How is that going to keep us wealthy? Your strategy worked real well in the Soviet Union and is working real well in North Korea...
> It is only by businesses making profits that wealth is generated.


We get more for our money as long as you have a job that puts money in your back pocket.
As for business operating at a loss where did that come from...nothing I said about them running at a loss. And certainly didn't compare anything to Soviet Union or North Korea....did I talk about communism or socialism...I think not.



stm said:


> Agree 100% with you on this. We should not (as a country) be wasting our resources on industries where we can't compete. Therefore, taxpayers should not be subsiding such industries. We should be investing our resources in industries where we can compete - ie, where we can make the most profit.
> 
> That's the magic of that evil "profit" that you hate - it tells us where we compete and how we best ensure our prosperity. And you leave it to the free market to do this (because it tends to be planned economies that make decisions to invest in loss making industries and so the downward spiral continues - the free market goes after profits).
> 
> Google "comparative advantage".


I don't hate 'profit', never said such a thing. Every business is entitled to make a profit, it is business' need to make increasingly higher and higher profits at the cost of aussie jobs that I'm against.


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## yum beer (11/2/14)

Black Devil Dog said:


> +1
> I remember reading an article back in the late 90's, about wealth distribution around the world.
> 
> Basically, if you're gainfully employed in a developed country, you're in the top 5% wealthiest people IN THE WORLD.
> ...


I'm sure all the workers losing their jobs are glad to hear t is and will be able to sleep better at night. Thank you.


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## Black Devil Dog (11/2/14)

yum beer said:


> I'm sure all the workers losing their jobs are glad to hear t is and will be able to sleep better at night. Thank you.


Once they receive their superannuation, holiday pay, long service leave and redundancy packages, then find another job or start their own business, I'm confident most of them will be ok.


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

Um....you cant touch super till retirement. Having been thru 2 redundancies....there is no pot of gold.


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

As far as Aldi go....they have nailed it. Most of there stuff is Australian made, more than what most give credit for. They have all the basics with good quality. The shops are simple and once you get used to their way its actuslly pretty good. In fact their highest grossing shops are in the more affluent suburbs. In fact Woolworths even stated that they cannot match Aldi on pricing and distribution costs.


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## Black Devil Dog (11/2/14)

Didn't say it was a pot of gold, but they do get looked after, which is more than what happens for 95% of the worlds population.


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

Well....you dont really get looked after. Its more a "we are showing that we are doing something" without really doing anything.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (11/2/14)

Let's not forget the media portraying poor blue collar guys carrying their sandwich bags out the gates of the Toyota plant unshaven with a grim look on their face.

There's been 2,000+ redundancies if not more purely in the design consulting engineering space over the past 12 months in Australia, let alone from Utilities and Asset Owners. None of my friends got their faces on TV, probably cos it's not as dramatic as a guy in a suit walking out of a high rise office building?


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## Ducatiboy stu (11/2/14)

And a big trend is to have a casual workforce....so there is no redundancy or any payouts.


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## Black Devil Dog (11/2/14)

I'd been shafted that many times in previous jobs, I sometimes wondered whether I should take some vaseline with me to work.

But instead of being the victim, I decided to be the master of my own destiny.

I pay into my own super - *when I can afford to* - I get no holiday pay, no long service leave, no sick leave, no RDO's, no 38 hour week, no redundancy payout, etc.

I only get work when I get off my arse and generate it, If my business was to go broke, that's it, I'm broke.

Tony Abbott isn't going to come and save me and nor should he.


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## pk.sax (11/2/14)

Just gone through a redundancy too, here is my take on it. If you've worked hard and are prepared to work hard going on, not just hard but smart too, there won't be an employment problem.

I can't recount the nights spent into the evenings trying to fix things and do 3 people's work single handedly. Most of our work force at the place was absurdly under skilled and pretty much 9/10 people had the knock off at 4.30 attitude. They would close their eyes to the mountains of work needing doing to keep the ship floating and go home.

A lot of Aussie workers HAVE this entitled attitude where they believe they will get their "dues" no matter what. I can see there was a generation going back that worked hard and put by to put their feet up. Unfortunately that attitude seems to have percolated down to the following generations. Generations of checkout chicks. They don't want to know where he paycheck is coming from as long as it comes in. A big part of that is also the death of small and medium business because that promotes workers connecting with their work.

One of the driving forces behind people working harder and working to up skill themselves is aspiring for a better life. If a factory worker turning a spanner, not required to think too much, makes barely less than his supervisor who has to manage the people and support them all and then again even not that less than the engineer that works out the business case and puts a plan together to create the job in the first place then what sort of example are you promoting?

I know first hand that mechanics that regularly fucked up on doing the right things, couldn't read manuals properly, couldn't adapt to much that was new that quickly, had to be spent oodles of cash on by the company for their certs made more money that the support people that spent longer at work, held their hands, had invested longer years in training and education from their own pocket. In fact the difference was obscene.

What happens is that business compensate for the lack of quality coming in through the 'educated' sources by employing quantity at cheaper rates. No worker will give up the tools to further themselves when the other job pays less. Forcing a further deterioration of quality in the professional fields. I think there were perhaps 3 professionals in the class of 200 I studied with. That is pathetic. This is what comes from a largely flat economic culture. It's got its bad. It's driving the country into a dark abyss. All at the same time. Leadership is frowned on.


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## Gelding (11/2/14)

> So we should drop the wages of workers to keep manufacturing but still pay doctors the same..........


That should for the market to decide yummy boy.

You are decades behind if you think Australia can thrive in the long term on protectionism. Not while the country depends on export revenue.

I'm staggered that you want to protect your lifestyle at the expense of poverty elsewhere in the world. Bangladesh seems oft quoted. You can't tell a starving beggar on the street that he should go on a diet while you stay fat.


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## hellbent (12/2/14)

Quite often I read stories of China's expansion into Australia of late. They are purchasing our big cattle stations and our prime farming spreads with not one ounce of resistance from any Australian Government.
Go to the House auctions in any capital city and you will see the Chinese/Asians pump up the price of houses to extraordinarily high levels, forcing the Aussie guy looking to buy his first home out of the market.....Once again no resistance from Government. 
They send send their kids over here to Aussie for a better education and by paying big money they force the Aussie kids out of places in the Schools and the Univerities.... Government encourages this.
What do we get in return??...... Bloody $2 shops everywhere with the crappiest crap you could possibly find anywhere so people who's eyes only see price tags buy then wonder why the don't work!....... Fluctuations?? My friggin' oath!!!

Edit: a word change.


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## Goose (12/2/14)

> Go to the House auctions in any capital city and you will see the Chinese/Asians pump up the price of houses to extraordinarily high levels, forcing the Aussie guy looking to buy his first home out of the market.....Once again no resistance from Government.


If they are citizens, is that an issue ? As far as I know laws exists such that foreigners can't buy existing properties, only new ones off a plan. This means also that when they come to sell , it must be to an Aussie citizen.


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## Ducatiboy stu (12/2/14)

As a %, the chinesse dont own that much of our farming land. And sure they may own a few mines, but most mines are owned by foreign companies anyway. And if they are buying farms and sending the produce home then it can work in our favour. They employ locals, use local services and by sending the produce overseas it allows local farmers a better chance of selling their produce in the domestic market.


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## pat_00 (12/2/14)

Goose said:


> If they are citizens, is that an issue ? As far as I know laws exists such that foreigners can't buy existing properties, only new ones off a plan. This means also that when they come to sell , it must be to an Aussie citizen.


Are you sure?, my girlfriends' aunt just sold their 1960s era house to Chinese investors. They didn't even advertise locally, just went straight to OS Chinese real estate agents. They were convinced they would get more for it.

FWIW I'm not against foreign investment or land ownership. But i think when it comes to housing it should at least be regulated so local citizens don't get priced out of the market. But I suppose the government gets a fatter stamp duty payout with inflated prices...


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## Goose (12/2/14)

pat_00 said:


> Are you sure?, my girlfriends' aunt just sold their 1960s era house to Chinese investors. They didn't even advertise locally, just went straight to OS Chinese real estate agents. They were convinced they would get more for it.
> 
> FWIW I'm not against foreign investment or land ownership. But i think when it comes to housing it should at least be regulated so local citizens don't get priced out of the market. But I suppose the government gets a fatter stamp duty payout with inflated prices...


Its not an open market:

http://www.australia-migration.com/page/foreign_investors_buying_property_as_a_foreigner_or_temporary_resident_in_australia/178


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## DJ_L3ThAL (12/2/14)

Most of these "$2 shop owners" work a shit load harder and have better prospects in life than your average dole bludger in the comission flats who just wants to be spoon fed cash, just saying.


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## Goose (12/2/14)

DJ_L3ThAL said:


> Most of these "$2 shop owners" work a shit load harder and have better prospects in life than your average dole bludger in the comission flats who just wants to be spoon fed cash, just saying.


and nobody says you _have_ to buy the stuff they sell in there either


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## Bastow (12/2/14)

The real problem the world over is the unrelenting pursuit of growth, for growths sake. The capitalist system is broken, or more to the point was bound to fail from the get go. A never ending cycle of booms and busts, constantly comsuming more in a finite world. For capitalism to succeed we need to consume more and more, whilst becoming more efficient at producing "stuff". 

The problem is this. As we make efficiency gains, inevitably someones job is made redundant. This in turn leads to us needing a new product to produce so old mate can make that instead. It is an exponential cycle, and simply cannot be sustained long term.

Sorry if this is a little OT.

Cheers Bastow


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## Ducatiboy stu (12/2/14)

I like how our PM pointed the finger at the unions for SPC & Toyota and both companies released statements saying that what he said was incorrect.


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## pk.sax (12/2/14)

Bastow said:


> The real problem the world over is the unrelenting pursuit of growth, for growths sake. The capitalist system is broken, or more to the point was bound to fail from the get go. A never ending cycle of booms and busts, constantly comsuming more in a finite world. For capitalism to succeed we need to consume more and more, whilst becoming more efficient at producing "stuff". The problem is this. As we make efficiency gains, inevitably someones job is made redundant. This in turn leads to us needing a new product to produce so old mate can make that instead. It is an exponential cycle, and simply cannot be sustained long term. Sorry if this is a little OT. Cheers Bastow


The old capitalist system needs wars to drive the booms and busts. This peaceful way of doing things is overpopulating the earth. The UN and such will be the death of the race as we know it.

...Invitation to refute the facts as I see them.


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## Ducatiboy stu (12/2/14)

Yep Capitalists desire growth. They see it as the only way. Its pure greed. If your company does not keep growing its seen as a failure. When growth hits the wall they look at other areas to find growth....look at facebook and other social media type setups...when the growth stops and declines there is a "need" to find a new area of growth. There is only so much money going around and all that is happening is it is being shifted around so " someone" can make money. Same goes for cars. We are constantly being told we need new cars for the sake of a new car. Do you really need a new car, honestly, do you "need" a new car.


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## technobabble66 (12/2/14)

Goose said:


> If they are citizens, is that an issue ? As far as I know laws exists such that foreigners can't buy existing properties, only new ones off a plan. This means also that when they come to sell , it must be to an Aussie citizen.





Goose said:


> Its not an open market:
> 
> http://www.australia-migration.com/page/foreign_investors_buying_property_as_a_foreigner_or_temporary_resident_in_australia/178


I'm not sure about this either - pretty certain i know a few people in the real estate industry or from Asia that have numerous stories about non-Australian citizens buying residential land quite freely. That link basically just says they all get reviewed. I'm sure they do, then get accepted about 5.3 secs later. I'd suggest that the agents handling the sales might have a vested interest in knowing how to fill out the applications to ensure they get accepted - 2% commission on a $20mill block of flats is a decent incentive.
And how much of it's dirty money? I coincidently was told yesterday a friend of my FIL sold an investment property to a newly arrived Chinese couple for $1.2mil. They paid cash. The father of one of them is a mid-level bureaucrat in China - and the money wasn't from his weekly wage. That's not the first time i've heard that kinda thing. Hey, i'm sure one of them's a student, so it's all ok? Well at least there's a chance that the couple will decide to stay in Australia & become citizens.
I'm ok with some Foreign Investment. However, i'm not convinced of the overall benefit to the community in the long-term with widespread foreign ownership of residential land. I'm happy for anyone of any background to come here to live, but kinda think residential land should only be going to those with a real stake in our country, at least a PR, not just some cash.
I'm sure it's more complicated, and there's probably good reason to have a little foreign ownership of residential land, but to me it generally seems to be the height of stupidity to allow such open freedom or lame obstacles to foreign ownership of this precious resource.

Sorry for getting a little ranty - but the residential thing really gets my goat.


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## schrodinger (13/2/14)

technobabble66 said:


> I'm not sure about this either - pretty certain i know a few people in the real estate industry or from Asia that have numerous stories about non-Australian citizens buying residential land quite freely. That link basically just says they all get reviewed. I'm sure they do, then get accepted about 5.3 secs later. I'd suggest that the agents handling the sales might have a vested interest in knowing how to fill out the applications to ensure they get accepted - 2% commission on a $20mill block of flats is a decent incentive.
> And how much of it's dirty money? I coincidently was told yesterday a friend of my FIL sold an investment property to a newly arrived Chinese couple for $1.2mil. They paid cash. The father of one of them is a mid-level bureaucrat in China - and the money wasn't from his weekly wage. That's not the first time i've heard that kinda thing. Hey, i'm sure one of them's a student, so it's all ok? Well at least there's a chance that the couple will decide to stay in Australia & become citizens.
> I'm ok with some Foreign Investment. However, i'm not convinced of the overall benefit to the community in the long-term with widespread foreign ownership of residential land. I'm happy for anyone of any background to come here to live, but kinda think residential land should only be going to those with a real stake in our country, at least a PR, not just some cash.
> I'm sure it's more complicated, and there's probably good reason to have a little foreign ownership of residential land, but to me it generally seems to be the height of stupidity to allow such open freedom or lame obstacles to foreign ownership of this precious resource.
> ...


There is no real benefit to the community if foreign owners of residential property aren't fully embedded in the local economy. The one thing they are certainly doing is inflating prices -- speculating up the value of land, then taking their profits home. In the end all this does is deflate the value of everything else in the local economy (relative to its value in the absence of the asset bubble), most notably incomes. We feel richer because our homes are worth half a million instead of 100k, but this wealth is an illusion unless you cash out of the system (i.e., move to a cheaper market). 

The counterargument that foreign investors are fueling the economy by providing capital for construction, maintenance, etc, is also an illusion: this supposedly beneficial capital flow would be greatest if every property owner were non-resident, but then all the locals would be sending their income to foreigners as rent instead of accumulating some principal here, where at least it would protect them from higher rents in retirement. 

Foreign investors are keen on Aussie property for the same reason they're keen on US government bonds -- it's a fairly safe investment; i.e., it's a fairly safe way to turn money into more money without doing any actual work. As long as immigrants keep pouring in here, which they will as long as Australia remains far wealthier than the average country, residential property will always be biased in favour of demand over supply, and prices will rise as high as speculators (foreign or domestic) want them to.

Governments, left or right, will never do anything to change this -- if they shut down immigration, the economy would lose a heap of cheap labor, and if they blocked foreign investment, the property bubble would collapse. In either case the economy would eventually be fine, but only after a long period of painful readjustment that would cost the pollies their jobs. And the lesson would still not be learnt. See: USA, 2007-present.


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## Liam_snorkel (13/2/14)

The same could be said about negative gearing on domestic property investments.


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## stm (13/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Yep Capitalists desire growth. They see it as the only way. Its pure greed. If your company does not keep growing its seen as a failure. When growth hits the wall they look at other areas to find growth....look at facebook and other social media type setups...when the growth stops and declines there is a "need" to find a new area of growth. There is only so much money going around and all that is happening is it is being shifted around so " someone" can make money. Same goes for cars. We are constantly being told we need new cars for the sake of a new car. Do you really need a new car, honestly, do you "need" a new car.


The great thing about the free market is that it is your choice. If you don't want to buy a new car, don't buy one.

Wealth is created by growth and markets - actually created. It is not a matter of someone becoming wealthy at someone else expense. 

When you have socialism or crony capitalism, then you are right - a government decides how to shift a limited amount of wealth around and the inefficiencies actually reduce overall wealth. An example is where a govt decides to subsidise one industry at the expense of taxpayers and other industries. The Aust motor vehicle manufacturing industry being an example.


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## Liam_snorkel (13/2/14)

stm said:


> Wealth is created by growth and markets - actually created. It is not a matter of someone becoming wealthy at someone else expense.


Can you explain how wealth is created, _other than_ by value being added (ie work being done), or value being extracted from a natural source (ie mining)?


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## stm (13/2/14)

It is simply by adding value, specifically: production of a good or service that is value-adding, ie, taking inputs and converting them into output with value greater than the sum of the individual parts. Production of a motor vehicle in Australia is not value-adding.


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## Ducatiboy stu (13/2/14)

You cant creat wealth...you just acquire it from somewhere else. You have to get the money from someone. As someone becomes wealthy someone else has to become poorer


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## stm (13/2/14)

Liam_snorkel said:


> The same could be said about negative gearing on domestic property investments.


Agree. It just distorts investment (away from productive investment eg in factories and other commercial properties, to residential property).


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

You create wealth by acquisition, doesn't necessarily mean some one else becomes poorer.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (13/2/14)

Sure you can create wealth, print more money.

1 Australian Dollar equals
19019.80 Vietnamese Dong


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## Liam_snorkel (13/2/14)

stm said:


> It is simply by adding value, specifically: production of a good or service that is value-adding, ie, taking inputs and converting them into output with value greater than the sum of the individual parts. Production of a motor vehicle in Australia is not value-adding.[/size]


that's what I was saying. Someone is doing the work. Growth just means more people are working for the same business. Wealth isn't created out of thin air.



wide eyed and legless said:


> You create wealth by acquisition, doesn't necessarily mean some one else becomes poorer.


Ok not necessarily poorer, but it is all relative.


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## Phoney (13/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Same goes for cars. We are constantly being told we need new cars for the sake of a new car. Do you really need a new car, honestly, do you "need" a new car.


I know a few people who think they do. Case in point a guy at my work. His car is just on 3 years old, I remember when he bought it, his kids have moved out of home so it's only him & his wife, and he only uses it to drive 6km to work and back, the weekly shopping, and the occasional trip to the inlaws. He is getting a new car next week. I ask what for? He says 'Oh just a bit of an upgrade, you know' I ask is there anything wrong with your old car? He says 'no it runs like new and it's very comfortable'. My mind boggles. Some people have more money than sense I guess.


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## sponge (13/2/14)

And some, like me, have neither.


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## stm (13/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> You cant creat wealth...you just acquire it from somewhere else. You have to get the money from someone. As someone becomes wealthy someone else has to become poorer


Money is not wealth.


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## stm (13/2/14)

Liam_snorkel said:


> Ok not necessarily poorer, but it is all relative.


Someone once said: The vice of capitalism is that it makes everyone better off unequally, the virtue of socialism is that it makes everyone poorer equally.


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## tavas (13/2/14)

stm said:


> . An example is where a govt decides to subsidise one industry at the expense of taxpayers and other industries. The Aust motor vehicle manufacturing industry being an example.


Govt subsidises more than just the motor industry
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/04/car-industry-subsidies-in-perspective/


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## stm (13/2/14)

phoneyhuh said:


> I know a few people who think they do. Case in point a guy at my work. His car is just on 3 years old, I remember when he bought it, his kids have moved out of home so it's only him & his wife, and he only uses it to drive 6km to work and back, the weekly shopping, and the occasional trip to the inlaws. He is getting a new car next week. I ask what for? He says 'Oh just a bit of an upgrade, you know' I ask is there anything wrong with your old car? He says 'no it runs like new and it's very comfortable'. My mind boggles. Some people have more money than sense I guess.


But the great thing is that someone is going to buy his old car from him because the buyer values it more highly than the seller. It is a voluntary transaction that is a win-win (both parties are better off), as all voluntary transactions tend to be (not a Ducatistu-style win-lose).


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## tavas (13/2/14)

stm said:


> Someone once said: The vice of capitalism is that it makes everyone better off unequally, the virtue of socialism is that it makes everyone poorer equally.


Famous quip about Communism
"We pretend to work while they pretend to pay us".


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

Pretending to work doesn't just apply to Communism.


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## Liam_snorkel (13/2/14)

heh, yeah. I'm not opposed to people getting others to do the work for them, there has to be incentives otherwise nothing would get done. Small to medium businesses do just that. The employers work their butts off establishing a business model, getting it up and running, maintaining cash flow, and that is genuine value adding.
Large multi-national companies are different, they are not a person. They are purely profit driven, and if there is a way to exploit a resource (material or human), niche, or loop-hole for profit, they will do just that, regardless of the effect is has on others. Shareholders aren't interested in (or aware of) the well-being of 3rd parties who may be affected by the company's actions.


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

Macquarie, is renown for the exploitation of employees, nervous breakdown or leave.
But if you can stand the pressure big rewards if the goals are achieved.


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## schrodinger (13/2/14)

Liam_snorkel said:


> Large multi-national companies are different, they are not a person.


Sadly, the US Supreme Court disagrees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission

It's the most absurd decision I've seen in my lifetime. Persons have rights because they have the realistic ability to be responsible for respecting those same rights in others. Corporations, by contrast, exist to devolve responsibility from shareholders to a board, and even the board are shielded by corporate liability law from bearing personal responsibility for the corporation's actions.


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## Liam_snorkel (13/2/14)

That's insane.


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## yankinoz (13/2/14)

yum beer said:


> The need for us to be involved in 'the wold economy' is squarely to blame.....
> if we had no imports produced in countries with disgustingly low wages and poor conditions then the Australian car industry would be as strong as ever.
> So would every other industry that has gone down or is sliding down the gurgler.
> 
> ...


Australian wages are exceptionally high, but not so much in the car industry, which pays quite well in many countries. German car workers are paid more, about USD 40/hour. US car workers cost employers more than Australian workers, thanks in large part to US firms paying $15,000 p.a. or more for health insurance for each of their workers. Japan is close or not far behind Australia, depending on the exchange rate. Koreans are a little lower. Even Mexican car workers, whose labor goes into many parts for US cars, do pretty well.

But you're right about a great many commodities. Look at Aussie furniture and tinned fruit. Carnage and imports.

And you may be prophetic about cars if Chinese-made ones improve their engineering and reputation.


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## Ducatiboy stu (13/2/14)

Why do you think big corporations can get away with so much. Its because the people who run them know that there not liable, unless they make a deliberate criminal decision.


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## yankinoz (13/2/14)

schrodinger said:


> Sadly, the US Supreme Court disagrees.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
> 
> It's the most absurd decision I've seen in my lifetime. Persons have rights because they have the realistic ability to be responsible for respecting those same rights in others. Corporations, by contrast, exist to devolve responsibility from shareholders to a board, and even the board are shielded by corporate liability law from bearing personal responsibility for the corporation's actions.


I agree completey, as do many in the US. Disastrous decision by the Court.


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

I feel for the component manufacturers, some of the investments they have made in machinery, millions of dollars in some cases, those machines now are only worth scrap value.


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## Ducatiboy stu (13/2/14)

Yep. Looks like Tony has to find another 50,000 jobs on top of the 1 million he has already promised.


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## tavas (13/2/14)

yum beer said:


> The need for us to be involved in 'the wold economy' is squarely to blame.....
> if we had no imports produced in countries with disgustingly low wages and poor conditions then the Australian car industry would be as strong as ever.
> So would every other industry that has gone down or is sliding down the gurgler.
> 
> ...


With no imports that would mean no capital inflow. So to recoup costs that $35,000 Commodore suddenly becomes $100,000-$200,00 so that the manufacturer can break even on capital.

Then you see people in other countries paying $15k for a Hyundai and wonder why? Except you won't see that because without imports you won't have an international newspaper, tourism or internet.


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## Goose (13/2/14)

Liam_snorkel said:


> that's what I was saying. Someone is doing the work. Growth just means more people are working for the same business. *Wealth isn't created out of thin air.*
> 
> 
> Ok not necessarily poorer, but it is all relative.


So, where does the money come from when the stock market rises , or where does it go when it falls ?


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## schrodinger (13/2/14)

Goose said:


> So, where does the money come from when the stock market rises , or where does it go when it falls ?


Most of the ups and downs of the stock market involve imaginary wealth, created by wishing it into existence, or destroyed by fearing it out of existence. Where's the money created in the housing bubble of the mid 2000s? Nowhere. It never existed. Unfortunately, everybody already spent it.


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

Well, it's not real money like cash, it is share value.


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## Goose (13/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Well, it's not real money like cash, it is share value.



which can be converted to cash during trading hours by picking up the phone to a broker and placing a sell order.....


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

Of course it can, but your getting the value of the share at that moment, if half the share holders decided to sell at a given time, then the share price drops dramatically, share values are only on paper not real money. If for instance a company floated and set a value on shares and a buying frenzy ensued the value of those shares would go up (supply and demand)therefore making the value of the company worth a lot more than what it is really worth in real money.


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## Goose (13/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Of course it can, but your getting the value of the share at that moment, if half the share holders decided to sell at a given time, then the share price drops dramatically, share values are only on paper not real money. If for instance a company floated and set a value on shares and a buying frenzy ensued the value of those shares would go up (supply and demand)therefore making the value of the company worth a lot more than what it is really worth in real money.


well, the question is how do you define "the value of the company worth a lot more than what it is really worth in real money".

how do you reckon Twitter with a market cap of 20 billion and a revenue of 200 Million, can be "valued" the same way as a mining company such as Anglo American, also with a market cap of 20 billion, but has revenues of 16 *B*illion ?


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## Ducatiboy stu (13/2/14)

Its called "Accounting"


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

Before a company is floated a value is put on the said company, for instance Royal Mail was floated at a value of 2,05 billion pounds it is now worth (on paper 3.73 billion pounds)it all comes back to supply and demand, my father bought shares in a mining company some years ago for about 20 cents that company while mining for tin found tantelite, those shares jumped virtually overnight to $16 a share, without anyone really knowing what amount of tantelite was found or the vale after mining, it is all a gamble.


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## pedleyr (13/2/14)

yum beer said:


> You have fallen prey to the Industrial Capitalist....
> 
> We can make everything we need, including electronics, we don't because we can't compete with cheap imports
> If we can't consume everything we produce then we are producing too much...I'm sure there are mining companies with plenty enough money to create a nice electronics industry in our country.
> ...


No mate I've fallen prey to actually having a clue what I'm talking about.

Why is it a bad idea for us to produce what we are good at, the Bangladeshis to produce what they're good at, the Nigerians to produce what they're good at, the Americans to produce what they're good at, and each of us just sell the excess we don't need to each other? 

If we can produce X product by putting Y inputs in, but producing Z product costs us Yx2 inputs, aren't we better producing 3 of X and selling the one X we don't need in exchange for one Z with someone who can produce Zs for cheap? That way with Yx3 inputs we end up with goods that would take Yx4 inputs for us to produce. 

That's what it boils down to.

Guess who ends up paying more for the Zs under your scenario? Hint: it sure as shit is not the rich people who control the capital (and whose control is only strengthened under your ideal world due to fewer competitors).


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## pedleyr (13/2/14)

yum beer said:


> I wasn't looking for a way to compete.....its not possible for us to compete. Thats the whole point.


But we can compete. 

We are a developed economy with an educated and wealthy population. Use that to focus our output. 

We can't compete by doing what we've done for 50 or 100 years previously, with that I'll agree, but we have the ingredients to work smarter and add more value than third world economies. 

If that means we don't subsidise industries that can't compete I can live with that. Spend that money on training or re-skilling. If some factory worker is worried about his job going to China, I sympathise and say that we should help him up-skill. If he refuses to do so for whatever reason then I say too bad. 

Nobody has any natural right to wealth or prosperity, we are a wealthy country because our ancestors did things differently to our friends in third world countries. We need to continue to do that and be a step ahead. 

I'm not saying "**** the blue collar workers", I'm saying that we should invest in training them to do jobs that the Bangladeshis can't do rather than propping up uncompetitive industries.


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## pedleyr (13/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> You cant creat wealth...you just acquire it from somewhere else. You have to get the money from someone. As someone becomes wealthy someone else has to become poorer


No, you acquire money from someone else. 

You cannot just acquire wealth, think about it: I want wealth. John has wealth. Say it's worth $100 million. I approach John and say I'll buy your wealth, here is $100 million in cash! 

Have I actually acquired wealth I didn't have? No - I already had $100 million in cash, I was already wealthy. I just converted cash into (say) shares or property. 

The way most people create wealth (note, not the way most wealth is created - just how most people do it) is by growing their business. 

If I start a business and grow it into something that makes me $1 million per year, I'm probably going to meet the definition of wealthy. Who have I acquired that wealth from?

Not my employees, who I pay wages to. They give me labour in return. If they thought their labour was worth more they'd probably work for someone else (simplification to make the point). But I've not acquired wealth from them. 

Not my customers, who I provide goods and services to at a price they obviously consider fair (because they pay it, so they obviously think that they are getting a product worth at least whatever it is they pay). They give me $100 and I give them something they consider to be worth $100 in return, so at worst there is no net change in wealth and at best we're both wealthier (because I think the product is worth less to me and they more to them). 

Not my competition, from whom I have received nothing and with whom I've never transacted. 

Not my suppliers, who I've paid money for their products at a price they're obviously happy with (same logic as customers). 

Where then?


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## Liam_snorkel (13/2/14)

pedleyr said:


> I'm not saying "**** the blue collar workers", I'm saying that we should invest in training them to do jobs that the Bangladeshis can't do rather than propping up uncompetitive industries.


that's where innovation (read, investment into research projects) comes in... and we have no science minister. So dumb. We're going to ride the tail of fossil fuels while the only thing keeping industry going is (population) growth. We're making breakthroughs in PV technology and you know where the funding is coming from? China. We should be leading the way by investing in this stuff and selling it to _them_.


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## yum beer (13/2/14)

pedleyr said:


> If I start a business and grow it into something that makes me $1 million per year, I'm probably going to meet the definition of wealthy. Who have I acquired that wealth from?
> 
> 
> Not my customers, who I provide goods and services to at a price they obviously consider fair (because they pay it, so they obviously think that they are getting a product worth at least whatever it is they pay). They give me $100 and I give them something they consider to be worth $100 in return, so at worst there is no net change in wealth and at best we're both wealthier (because I think the product is worth less to me and they more to them).


You can't be serious. This exactly where your wealth comes from.
Just because they give you $100 for your product does not mean they consider it to be worth $100. Thats just what you charge for it. They need/want it and thats the price they pay.


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

In a free market the consumer makes a purchase, if it is something they need they would shop around and make a decision, I am sure after reviewing prices and service they would feel satisfied, and also feel the money was well spent.


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## Gelding (13/2/14)

> yum beer, on 10 Feb 2014 - 6:35 PM, said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think Yum beer lives in Planet Australia. Or is it Planet Young ? B) 

North Korea springs to mind. Great standards of living there by example.


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## Gelding (13/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Its called "Accounting"


Nope. Its called market value.

Please google "Tulip Bulb Mania" and you will see what I mean.


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## Ducatiboy stu (13/2/14)

pedleyr said:


> Where then?


You aquire your" wealth" thru your customers giving you $100 at a time ( or whatever amount you charge ) They are $100 poorer and you are $100 richer. You cannot gain wealth unless someone is prepared to give you money ( or goods). Its not a trade. They need your product and give you money ( or goods ).


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

Example, I bought gold in 2008 at around $700/oz was I then poorer because of that purchase, or when I sold in 2012 at $1700/ oz was I richer.


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## Gelding (13/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Example, I bought gold in 2008 at around $700/oz was I then poorer because of that purchase, or when I sold in 2012 at $1700/ oz was I richer.


Great trade mate, well done


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## wide eyed and legless (13/2/14)

Just an example unfortunately.


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## Ducatiboy stu (14/2/14)

If you sold it you would be $1000 richer because someone has to give you money for it. If you dont and the price drops, you havent made any money. Even if you dig it out of the ground someone still needs to give you money ( or goods ). If no one wants it...its worth nothing. Bit like brewing beer. You might brew 10,000ltrs but if no one buys it you wont become wealthy from it.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

Liam_snorkel said:


> that's where innovation (read, investment into research projects) comes in... and we have no science minister. So dumb. We're going to ride the tail of fossil fuels while the only thing keeping industry going is (population) growth. We're making breakthroughs in PV technology and you know where the funding is coming from? China. We should be leading the way by investing in this stuff and selling it to _them_.


Although we need to get serious about more mas scale renreables such as solar thermal, geothermal and even tidal.

Lots of cool biomass ideas to reduce harmful wastes going to landfill and produce energy. But youre right no funding


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## pedleyr (14/2/14)

yum beer said:


> You can't be serious. This exactly where your wealth comes from.
> Just because they give you $100 for your product does not mean they consider it to be worth $100. Thats just what you charge for it. They need/want it and thats the price they pay.


That's simply illogical. They have $100 and give it to me in exchange for goods and services, as opposed to spending it on something else or buying from a competitor. If they thought my widget wasn't worth their $100 they'd keep their money - you said that yourself, they want the product. They obviously want it more than their $100.

Goods are worth whatever two people are willing to buy and sell them for.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

Stu hit the note on the money thing, as pedleyr I think people missed that was his point.

Wealth comes from financial gain, better known as profit.

EDIT: Stephen Spellberg


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## pedleyr (14/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> You aquire your" wealth" thru your customers giving you $100 at a time ( or whatever amount you charge ) They are $100 poorer and you are $100 richer. You cannot gain wealth unless someone is prepared to give you money ( or goods). Its not a trade. They need your product and give you money ( or goods ).


This is flat out wrong and I addressed it in my comment. 

They get a product worth $100, I get cash. I'm worse off by a product that is worth $100 on the open market, but better off by $100 cash. Vice versa for them. At worst we're even. 

It's in fact better than that because I probably wouldn't part with $100 for the product (it's surplus to my needs which is why I'm selling it) and they obviously consider that this product is a better use of their $100 than anything else in our trillion dollars economy that they could buy with it. 

Cash and wealth aren't the same thing - who is better off, someone with $5 cash and no food or someone with no cash but enough food for the day that would cost $6 to buy?


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## pedleyr (14/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> If you sold it you would be $1000 richer because someone has to give you money for it. If you dont and the price drops, you havent made any money. Even if you dig it out of the ground someone still needs to give you money ( or goods ). If no one wants it...its worth nothing. Bit like brewing beer. You might brew 10,000ltrs but if no one buys it you wont become wealthy from it.


This is actually a good example. 

In any of the scenarios you give there has been a fair exchange and zero change in wealth measured at market value. Two actors are swapping gold for cash - the net position of each is the same. 

The change in wealth happens independently of the transactions (in this instance it happens by the operation of the market for gold).

When you buy a house for $500k, your wealth doesn't go down by $500k because you've forked over $500k.


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## idzy (14/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Example, I bought gold in 2008 at around $700/oz was I then poorer because of that purchase, or when I sold in 2012 at $1700/ oz was I richer.


Wealth is not diminished when you invest in something of value such as gold. As an asset it contributes to your wealth. Otherwise many of the wealthy would not be wealthy due to their wealth not consisting of liquid cash.


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## pk.sax (14/2/14)

Wealth is a relative term used to describe the means required to be affluent. Money/barter, doesn't matter.

Everyone has some skill, they would produce more value from that skill than with other activities they aren't skilled with. The wealthy one would be the one that can produce a lot more tradeable excess value that can be used to acquire what they want in return. Case in point, a corporation doing millions of units of something at a small margin of profit is actually wealthier than a small business doing the same unit at small volume and higher margin. Along with the goods themselves, value includes the risk and tradeability. If your goods are more merchantable due to brand recognition and distribution then that is part of your wealth.

That is how wealth is created/lost. In other words, wealth is advantage. A very human attribute. For someone to gain advantage someone loses some. The loser might just be better off in value of what they own after the transaction but the winner took a greater advantage. That 100$ gizmo quoted above, the seller might be able to knock them out for cheap (ignore material cost, just time and labour) and sell it to someone who would have to spend 5 times the effort to make the same gizmo. Even before the transaction happened, the buyer's means of purchase have less value than the equivalent goods on sale so his 100 bucks is paying for something that is probably worth 70 to the seller, hence furthering the advantage of the seller. Aka generation (strictly transfer) of wealth.

Disclaimer: layman understanding of economics.


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## stm (14/2/14)

practicalfool said:


> For someone to gain advantage someone loses some.


That's your crucial misunderstanding, with respect. In a free market, with voluntary transactions, both buyer and seller are better off. Look at all the examples given above. Another couple of examples:

1. I have a 50L s/s pot I am not using. I offer it on here for $75. You buy it because you think it is a good price. You are better off because you now have a pot which you value at more than $75. I am better off because I now have $75.

2. I am an accountant with very specialised skills (not really). I have no skills to hunt or grow my own food. Therefore I would starve in the absence of a market. Instead I sell my labour to a company in return for salary. The company is better off because it has the use of my labour, and I am better off because I have money with which to buy food.

That's the genius of the free market.

And in your example, the buyer of the $100 gizmo is better off because he would have otherwise had to spend $350 (5 x $70 in your example) to produce it. So he is wealthier by $250. The seller is of course better off by $30.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

Another good example would be paying a builder to renovate your house, you say pay him $25,000 to do whatever is required to spruce up the place and whether you sell it or not, you are more wealthy as your house is worth more. You can extract that wealth through either using the equity to invest somewhere else, or sell it and get more cash for the place than what it was worth before you renovated it.

The other down side of the free market. in context of property, is that your house is only worth what someone will pay. So whatever evaluators tell you will be worth squat if you need to sell it and there are no buyers in the market willing to pay for it. Goes back to supply and demand comments raised in this thread too.

Don't know why this has become such a big deal on here anyway? lol.


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## niftinev (14/2/14)

it would be better to spend an additional $500milion+ per year on welfare assistance and help the rich get richer (royal commission into the building industry),
jobs for the boys and forgot to tell everyone that we previously had the same thing in the howard government which cost $66 millions (over a hundred today and not one person was charged)

not interested in keeping jobs if they have to help financially unless of course you're a mate, because at the end of the day he says it was Toyotas decision not
ours and we offered them help (yeah, close it down help)

similar with SPC and actually not owned by coke just a major share holder

what about the $20 millions (for advertising and I assume not singos company)to Cadbury, their not australian either but we can help them. Cadbury choc from England tastes better fark......

they have no ******* idea, everything is a level playing field, just members of political parties that make a career out of it at the expense of us people and our country. of course there is no other country/countries that offer help to car or canning industries

just my rant


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## Bridges (14/2/14)

Yeah the royal commission mystifies me too Nev. If some one has evidence of dodgy deals or illegal activities, pass it to the police. If the libs want to bash the unions (as is their way) I just wish they wouldn't do it with my money. Then claim they need to sell off everything they can as a way to finance the country.


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## Gelding (14/2/14)

DJ_L3ThAL said:


> Although we need to get serious about more mas scale renreables such as solar thermal, geothermal and even tidal.
> 
> Lots of cool biomass ideas to reduce harmful wastes going to landfill and produce energy. But youre right no funding



like this ?

http://www.coolplanet.com/

even funded by google... the mind boggles


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## pk.sax (14/2/14)

@ stm, I don't disagree with you, what I'm saying is that advantage is relative to what it is valued at.

The seller making 30 bucks can then buy 30/70 of his own product if he so wishes. He has to sell 3 units to make himself enough + margin to afford one of his own gizmos. The buyer saves 250 in his own terms (else why would he buy, you are correct there). But what he has bought he cannot sell for 350, he would maximum sell it for 100, likely less because he doesn't have the reputation the original seller has, the seller retains much of that part of his wealth. Besides, the buyer on-selling would not make money (different to retailer margin, they make money by providing services to the manufacturer - increasing merchantability of their goods with retail skills). However the seller makes those 30 bucks each time.

In the case of your example of an accountant selling his skills to the employer, the employer is making more than what they pay the accountant or it wouldn't be worth it. Alternatively, the accountant enables better extraction of value for the company from other assets, taking a fee for that through better wages or bonus or commission. At that point, you can differentiate between an accountant who is doing what he's told and makes minimum and the one that is consulting to the company and making serious money. You'd have to agree that the latter is wealthier. This is what I mean by relative advantage.
Both accountants are accruing wealth. The company also accrues wealth. But the company accrues a different % of advantage relative to either employee. The employees in turn accrue wealth at different rates. Skill and knowledge of many types is central to it. In real terms, most likely, the wealthier accountant is helping the company leverage extra efficiency from the employment of the other accountant, so he is indirectly taking money off the other guy - i.e., your manager is making money off you, getting wealthier. If he didn't, you might be able to do say 50% as well for the company as he is making you do but you'd also be able to charge more while the company makes less money. Hence why companies tend to merge business to bring partnered skills under the one umbrella to leverage off each other.

Essentially I maintain that wealth is relative to another. I might be wealthy relative to a couple of people and poor compared to 97. That makes me the 98th wealthiest. To gain advantage I will have to use some skills to make more than others, either increase my advantage on the 2 poorer than me (mostly organic growth) or try to gain additional advantage (acquisition/contracting to bigger and competition etc) on those richer than me. In the process, might be that everybody gets a little richer with time but that only goes so far as the basic resource you are exploiting. If we run out of manpower or energy or natural resources then to get wealthier we are basically taking each other's share to keep climbing the wealth ladder. Make sme think that capitalists have the best understanding of a finite market, growth equaling shrinkage elsewhere.

PS: also brings to mind 'what so generosity'. I'd say generosity has types. There is cooperative generosity where you don't press your competitive advantage to generate wealth for yourself. I.e., selling the gizmo for 70. Then there is charity, which is giving a discount, on your labour charge for example. Then there is stupidity, where you discount deep enough to be below actual acquisition cost. That is a reduction in value for your goods. Selling for 80 instead of 100 is a competitive discount, not generosity.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

Gelding said:


> like this ?
> 
> http://www.coolplanet.com/
> 
> even funded by google... the mind boggles


Hmm, looks like they might use crops that are also a food source, very bad with starving nations around pulling up wheat or corn crops to convert them into fuel for cars.

There are algae based trials at the moment which obviously doesn't compete with food, is readily available and assists in things like wastewater treatment environments. Or even in developing nations where they have corn crops and leave the husks lying around to rot in fields, that biomass can be used to produce energy.

It's simply amazing how noone has just taken these technologies, pumped millions (even billions) into them and made it a world renowned product. Guess those oil/gas pigs do in fact have ultimate control.


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## booargy (14/2/14)

DJ_L3ThAL said:


> Hmm, looks like they might use crops that are also a food source, very bad with starving nations around pulling up wheat or corn crops to convert them into fuel for cars.
> 
> There are algae based trials at the moment which obviously doesn't compete with food, is readily available and assists in things like wastewater treatment environments. Or even in developing nations where they have corn crops and leave the husks lying around to rot in fields, that biomass can be used to produce energy.
> 
> It's simply amazing how noone has just taken these technologies, pumped millions (even billions) into them and made it a world renowned product. Guess those oil/gas pigs do in fact have ultimate control.


Have you ever filled a diesel car up with canola from a supermarket? I brought a $1000 diesel mazda 626 because I read somewhere of someone doing it. It cost me a fortune to do it but it worked and in the middle of winter.
We have everything to lead the world in renewable technology but our leaders are too worried about their ideology and getting the people they don't like. So they don't do what is best for the country.
for example solar thermal technology developed at Newcastle Uni by David Mills went to the USA because they couldn't get $42m funding to make it comercial here.
How much did they put into that mythical carbon capture and storage? 

as an edit the only solar thermal setup I have seen up close doesn't work. But my cynical opinion is that it was not meant to work.


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## Goose (14/2/14)

DJ_L3ThAL said:


> Hmm, looks like they might use crops that are also a food source, very bad with starving nations around pulling up wheat or corn crops to convert them into fuel for cars.
> 
> There are algae based trials at the moment which obviously doesn't compete with food, is readily available and assists in things like wastewater treatment environments. Or even in developing nations where they have corn crops and leave the husks lying around to rot in fields, that biomass can be used to produce energy.
> 
> It's simply amazing how noone has just taken these technologies, pumped millions (even billions) into them and made it a world renowned product. Guess those oil/gas pigs do in fact have ultimate control.



I think the Cooplanet idea is not to use food crops, but the waste produced from their growth. This means corn cobs, coconut shells, palm fonds. It can also mean growth of non-food crops such as bamboo, flax or hemp and yes algae. These are rapid growing short cycle crops. I like the process in the link because it also produces carbon (biochar) which can be recycled back into the soil, hence the carbon negative fuel.

You are quite correct in that food to fuel is uneconomic as well as unethical....


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## sb944 (14/2/14)

I'd argue the loser is the other suppliers. If you sell enough product to make $1 million, then you've probably taken around $3 million worth of sales away from the other suppliers. If your product sells well because it's cheap, that might be $10 million away from the competitors. If you've actually created demand with your product, then it's taking away money from all other potential markets the customers would have spent that money on. So the losers are the suppliers that would have made the money, had your product never existed.


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## Ducatiboy stu (14/2/14)

And wealth is relative. If say you lived in a small town where most people where on welfare and you worked an could afford a new SS Commodoore you would be seen as wealthy. Move to a capital city affluant suburb with the same car you would not be seen as wealthy.

If you lived in an affluant suburb and your house was worth $1m it does not mean your wealthy if you sold it but had to spend the same amount on a new house. If you sold it and moved to a small town and only paid $300,000 for a house you would be seen as wealthy.


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## Goose (14/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> And wealth is relative. If say you lived in a small town where most people where on welfare and you worked an could afford a new SS Commodoore you would be seen as wealthy. Move to a capital city affluant suburb with the same car you would not be seen as wealthy.
> 
> If you lived in an affluant suburb and your house was worth $1m it does not mean your wealthy if you sold it but had to spend the same amount on a new house. If you sold it and moved to a small town and only paid $300,000 for a house you would be seen as wealthy.


Thank you for this pearl of wisdom Stu.

But wealth can be measured in terms of $ of net worth.

US dollars is the global currency of measurement and the usual basis for comparison.


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## tavas (14/2/14)

DJ_L3ThAL said:


> Hmm, looks like they might use crops that are also a food source, very bad with starving nations around pulling up wheat or corn crops to convert them into fuel for cars.
> 
> There are algae based trials at the moment which obviously doesn't compete with food, is readily available and assists in things like wastewater treatment environments. Or even in developing nations where they have corn crops and leave the husks lying around to rot in fields, that biomass can be used to produce energy.
> 
> It's simply amazing how noone has just taken these technologies, pumped millions (even billions) into them and made it a world renowned product. Guess those oil/gas pigs do in fact have ultimate control.


Actually, converting food sources into fuel is exactly what is happening in places like Brazil. Using bio fuels is creating a shortage of food crops.

People have taken advantage of these technologies but for a number of reasons they haven't taken off. Of course there is big oil ensuring that the technology is being drip fed, govt ensuring that they support big business, but also people like you and me that don't want to pay $3/litre for fuel when we can get oil based fuel for $1.50/litre. depsite whatever idealistic socialist agenda we may espouse on the internet.


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## tavas (14/2/14)

practicalfool said:


> If we run out of manpower or energy or natural resources then to get wealthier we are basically taking each other's share to keep climbing the wealth ladder. Make sme think that capitalists have the best understanding of a finite market, growth equaling shrinkage elsewhere.


In a true capitalist market, this drives innovation into new markets. So for example, as oil becomes scarce, people will look for energy from other sources, such as bio fuels, solar, nuclear etc. But also in a true capitalist market, you need to get that startup capital from somewhere. The free market assesses that risk and decides whether it will fund you or not. In most cases, unless the return on investment is high, you won't get that capital.

So going back to subsidies: people then use the Govt to derisk the venture and ensure there is some return on investment. Which is why there are far more subsidies out there then just the car industry. The govt knows if the new business can succeed, jobs will be created and they will recieve revenue back as taxes through business tax, income tax nd GST amongst others. So for a relatively small amount of subsidy, the upside can be quite large.


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## Goose (14/2/14)

tavas said:


> Actually, converting food sources into fuel is exactly what is happening in places like Brazil. Using bio fuels is creating a shortage of food crops.
> 
> People have taken advantage of these technologies but for a number of reasons they haven't taken off. Of course there is big oil ensuring that the technology is being drip fed, govt ensuring that they support big business, but also people like you and me that don't want to pay $3/litre for fuel when we can get oil based fuel for $1.50/litre. depsite whatever idealistic socialist agenda we may espouse on the internet.



You wouldn't even be paying $1.50 per litre if it were not for the tax the government charges you. Crude oil is about $105 US$/barrel which is only A$0.75 per litre  (though of course there are other costs though the vast majority of the markup is tax).




> Who Takes What out of our $1.478?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## tavas (14/2/14)

Of course. I never said the tax levied was fair. 

But then again, without taxes, who pays for the roads, schools, hospitals, social welfare arts? The money has to come from somewhere.

So again, in a true capitalist market, it would be from private enterprise on a user pays system. But that would disadvantage the poor, so govt steps in to collect from everyone and try to redistribute back to level the playing field. So without your 50c tax (in the above fuel example), you wouldn't have a Medicare system, Centrelink or Govt backed bank deposits.


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## Goose (14/2/14)

This becomes a political debate, left or right wing for which the balance is theoretically chosen by the people in a democratic government system.

Not worth getting heated about. Else might get attacked by pepper spray in parliament


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## wide eyed and legless (14/2/14)

What I have noticed with wealth distribution i.e. someone who drives a luxury car and lives in an affluent suburb, compared to someone driving a clapped out old banger living in the least desirable suburb,
The one living in the least desirable suburb and driving a banger is the easiest one to wrest money from.


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## tavas (14/2/14)

Yep, and thats always the question: How much govt intervention should there be? In a true free market, you have none, but that would never work, just as in a true socialist economy, you have no private enterprise.

Where all of this falls down is people. We are corrupt, greedy, jealous etc. So where true market forces would see innovation you have corrupt people ensuring new technologies get put on hold.

And in Australia our problem is apathy. We simply don't care about govt, we expect they will give us things without understanding that govt money is not free money. We don't care for policy and only listen to the first 10secs of a press release hence why we now get sound bites and the 24hr news cycle.

We deserve to have the politicians we have. Labor, Liberal, Greens, Independents, it makes no difference.

Edit: bit about parties on the end.


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## wide eyed and legless (14/2/14)

I would hate to go to the pub with some of the posters on this thread,we would have nothing to argue about.


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## Goose (14/2/14)

"people get the governments they deserve" is the cliche'.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> I would hate to go to the pub with some of the posters on this thread,we would have nothing to argue about.


Alas, we'd drink a lot of good beer.


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## Liam_snorkel (14/2/14)

we could take it in turns playing devil's advocate


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## sponge (14/2/14)

:icon_offtopic:

I know this is of little interest to anyone (except for maybe a little amusement), but every time I see the name of this thread, think about the loss of car manufacturing in Aus and along with the money-hungry-lawyer-talk in the U-blew-it thread, I always think of this;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg


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## stm (14/2/14)

booargy said:


> for example solar thermal technology


And isn't that going well:

“A giant solar-power project officially opening this week in the California desert is the first of its kind, and may be among the last, in part because of growing evidence that the technology it uses is killing birds. The dead birds included a peregrine falcon, a grebe, two hawks, four nighthawks and a variety of warblers and sparrows.

“Utility-scale solar plants have come under fire for their costs–Ivanpah costs about four times as much as a conventional natural gas-fired plant but will produce far less electricity—and also for the amount of land they require."

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304703804579379230641329484?


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## Liam_snorkel (14/2/14)

that's a design issue which can probably be sorted out. Maybe we should calculate the deaths per MW of fossil fuel power and see how they compare.

here's another one going up: http://www.csp-world.com/news/20140109/001295/abengoa-wins-first-csp-tender-chile-will-build-110-mw-tower-plant-generate


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## stm (14/2/14)

Cheap fossil fuel powered electricity has saved millions of lives.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

I wonder how quickly they fry. It might even be as simple as some of those sharp pins around the tower edge to stop them landing in the path of the collector beams.


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

stm said:


> Cheap fossil fuel powered electricity has saved millions of lives.


???????


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## Liam_snorkel (14/2/14)

and it also kills thousands, and is contributing to Earths greenhouse effect, which in turn will cause major upheaval, killing millions. So we need to find alternative sources of energy which don't.
That solar thermal plant killed a few birds, they can probably retrofit it with some kind of high frequency deterrant. Fossil fuels kill an estimated 9.4 birds / GWh, but we're not comparing apples with apples here.


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## wide eyed and legless (14/2/14)

Well now Toyota can produce a hydrogen cell car for under a $100,000 with a range of about 500 kilometres and considering how expensive they were a couple of years ago, we just need to find a cheap means to produce the hydrogen without having to extract it from fossil fuels.


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## Goose (14/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Well now Toyota can produce a hydrogen cell car for under a $100,000 with a range of about 500 kilometres and considering how expensive they were a couple of years ago, _*we just need to find a cheap means to produce the hydrogen without having to extract it from fossil fuels*._


cold fusion.


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## booargy (14/2/14)

tavas said:


> Actually, converting food sources into fuel is exactly what is happening in places like Brazil. Using bio fuels is creating a shortage of food crops.
> 
> People have taken advantage of these technologies but for a number of reasons they haven't taken off. Of course there is big oil ensuring that the technology is being drip fed, govt ensuring that they support big business, but also people like you and me that don't want to pay $3/litre for fuel when we can get oil based fuel for $1.50/litre. depsite whatever idealistic socialist agenda we may espouse on the internet.


Ethanol as an internal combustion fuel is rubbish.
vegetable oil on the other hand well, to make my own fuel out of waste oil was around $0.60 a litre so no way I was going to pay $3 a litre. commercial bio-diesel is cheaper than normal diesel but when you take in the fact you use 10% more the difference is not much. There is one company I know of just kicking off in australia to make fuel from algae.
I think you may find that there are more problems with palm oil in asia than in south america.


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## booargy (14/2/14)

stm said:


> And isn't that going well:
> 
> “A giant solar-power project officially opening this week in the California desert is the first of its kind, and may be among the last, in part because of growing evidence that the technology it uses is killing birds. The dead birds included a peregrine falcon, a grebe, two hawks, four nighthawks and a variety of warblers and sparrows.
> 
> ...


there ain't no use of pointing things like that out to me because I don't give a shit how many birds get killed so long as it is cheaper to run my computer. seen how many animals die in coal mines?
The build costs are likely to be 4 times as much but what about operating costs. does it cost more to dig coal or sunlight? these articles are just drivel, how many people die of skin cancer in australia per year.



stm said:


> Cheap fossil fuel powered electricity has saved millions of lives.


One of the most stupid arguments against solar panels I have ever heard was from the resource council of Australia.
"It makes your roof blue" hahahha


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## Ducatiboy stu (14/2/14)

Maybe we should get Toyota to build the Prius localy.


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## Ducatiboy stu (14/2/14)

Goose said:


> US dollars is the global currency of measurement and the usual basis for comparison.


Yep. And they are doing great. Just about every country became wealthy ( except Greece ) when the US dollar droped in value.


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## Liam_snorkel (14/2/14)

it's the currency of measurement because it's the largest single economy (and historical reasons of course). Chinese economy is nipping at their heels though, will be interesting to see what happens as we are entering into the "Asian century" and the US is steadily heading towards a state of anarchy..


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## tavas (14/2/14)

booargy said:


> Ethanol as an internal combustion fuel is rubbish.
> vegetable oil on the other hand well, to make my own fuel out of waste oil was around $0.60 a litre so no way I was going to pay $3 a litre. commercial bio-diesel is cheaper than normal diesel but when you take in the fact you use 10% more the difference is not much. There is one company I know of just kicking off in australia to make fuel from algae.
> I think you may find that there are more problems with palm oil in asia than in south america.


Yeah don't quote me on those figures, I was just making the arguement that while people may say they support "green" fuels in public, they will still go for the low cost option.

Agree with comments about palm oil.

Edit: spelink


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## Ducatiboy stu (14/2/14)

Liam_snorkel said:


> it's the currency of measurement because it's the largest single economy (and historical reasons of course). Chinese economy is nipping at their heels though, will be interesting to see what happens as we are entering into the "Asian century" and the US is steadily heading towards a state of anarchy..


Bring on a single world currency. I can see bankers and currency traders leaping out of highrise office building.


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## Liam_snorkel (14/2/14)

that being said, ethanol isn't necessarily all that "green" due to land clearing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_land_use_change_impacts_of_biofuels


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## Ducatiboy stu (14/2/14)

booargy said:


> One of the most stupid arguments against solar panels I have ever heard was from the resource council of Australia.
> "It makes your roof blue" hahahha


Dont worry I over heard a conversation about this recently

Quote by bottle blonde pretend glamour " Yeah...we where going to get solarpanals to cut down the power bill....but they make the roof look ugly "


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## tavas (14/2/14)

Liam_snorkel said:


> that being said, ethanol isn't necessarily all that "green" due to land clearing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_land_use_change_impacts_of_biofuels


Yes, tends to fill the world with lots of Smug


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## wide eyed and legless (14/2/14)

Anyone remember a few years back when the price of barley went up because the Yanks started making ethanol out of it, maybe 5 years ago if I recall.


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## Goose (14/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Anyone remember a few years back when the price of barley went up because the Yanks started making ethanol out of it, maybe 5 years ago if I recall.


which is precisely why regional biodiesel makers that rely on palm oil for feedstock went bust...


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## DJ_L3ThAL (14/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Dont worry I over heard a conversation about this recently
> 
> Quote by bottle blonde pretend glamour " Yeah...we where going to get solarpanals to cut down the power bill....but they make the roof look ugly "


Bet she could suck a d.......


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## peas_and_corn (15/2/14)

Goose said:


> cold fusion.


Doesn't fusion use (heavy) hydrogen and produce helium? (Plus energy)



DJ_L3ThAL said:


> I wonder how quickly they fry. It might even be as simple as some of those sharp pins around the tower edge to stop them landing in the path of the collector beams.


After the first sentence I thought you were going to recommend using rosemary


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## wombil (15/2/14)

Bring on a single world currency. I can see bankers and currency traders leaping out of highrise office building. 

How can I get a good seat to watch this?


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## Ducatiboy stu (15/2/14)

Dont know. But you can sit with me and we can share some homemade beers,jeerky,salami, cheese and bread and watch em jump.


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## wide eyed and legless (15/2/14)

If global currency ever happens we will all be dead and buried, and our children and grand children for that matter.
As for a renewable energy I am confident that there is a solution, probably so simple that no one has thought of it yet.
But say there was a simple solution,how would governments react. Germany has mothballed power stations to cover the carbon emission set by E.E.U. and the effect of people turning to solar, because of this gas prices in Germany are rising to make up the shortfall from electricity revenue.
Another possible source in the near future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Australia


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## Online Brewing Supplies (15/2/14)

On my last visit to Lithuania, they were importing nuclear generated power from outside their boarders .
whilst maintaining a "green" profile they were still using nuclear power, just not generated on their turf.
These countries are so close to each other that having your own infrastructure makes little sense, so cheap nuclear power makes sense if only from a financial aspect.
Solar makes little impact in a country like Lithuania, just not enough sun.


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## wide eyed and legless (15/2/14)

This year I grew some Giant Russian cucumbers and when anyone has asked me where I got the seeds I tell them Chernobyl.


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## Online Brewing Supplies (15/2/14)

Cucumber vodka ??
Is it possible ?


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## Ducatiboy stu (15/2/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> If global currency ever happens we will all be dead and buried, and our children and grand children for that matter.


Why is that.


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## wide eyed and legless (15/2/14)

Plum Brandy is, some of the BBC documentary is Cooking in the danger zone 15 kilometres from Chernobyl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwStrnqsIwo


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## wide eyed and legless (15/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> Why is that.


How could it work? Prime example Euro, would you like your taxes bailing out other countries.


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## komodo (21/2/14)

browndog said:


> I heard and read here and there that that the people building these cars on the assembly line, process workers for want of a better word, were on $50 per hr. Now if that is true then no wonder they have all gone to the wall. And thank you Abbot for not propping them up any longer.


I've not got the time or patients to read the rest of the tripe in this tread - but seriously I employ guys working under an AMWU EBA. No ******* way are they on $50 an hour. If they were I wouldn't put up with the bull shit I put up with if I could get that kind of money working the on the workshop floor. They might *COST $50 *an hour by the time the employer accounts for annual leave, sick leave, leave loading, workcover (or equiv) insurance, any top up insurances, PPE, training etc etc. But there is NO way they are taking home $50P/H even gross.
My boys in the workshop earn no way near $50 an hour. I charge them at $87 an hour and I make less than $5 an hour out of them performing a full tilt and I'm betting I pay better than Toyota/holden/ford do.


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## Ducatiboy stu (23/2/14)

My old employer used to charge $90hr...I got 25 of that. The rest was taken up in general overheads,vehicles, fuel etc.


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## spog (23/2/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> My old employer used to charge $90hr...I got 25 of that. The rest was taken up in general overheads,vehicles, fuel etc.


As a self employed chippie I couldn't agree more with what you said.
The cost's of fuel,rego,insurance,licences,clearances,repairs,replacement s,testing and tagging every 3 month's the list seems to be endless,all this has to be allowed for and the cost passed down the line.
Also super,sickness and accident cover,long service,holidays etc etc,and the building industry being flat as it is here doesn't help.
Though it could be a lot worse,just have to soldier on and hope things pick up soon.
Cheers....spog..


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## Ducatiboy stu (23/2/14)

One of his pet hates was when a customer says " yeah but I can buy that part for $x cheaper". They dont understand the time it takes ordering, pick/delivary, holding stock etc


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## wide eyed and legless (23/2/14)

Well if I was getting less than $5.00 per hour nett from the $87 I was charging, I would expect to have at least 20 guys working for me to make it worth the effort of employing them.


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## komodo (24/2/14)

^ I have about 30 & that's how its works - total of the tape. And we hope they don't **** up cause when they do it costs $. Or when there's no work and the boys are sweeping the floor that costs $ with 0 income.
Problem is you'd think doubling your number of employees would double your capacity. Its simply not the case. For a double the employees you might get a 1.5-1.7x increase in productivity. More employees = more headaches. Sometimes I think I'm a kinder teacher not a manager.
Last financial year we broke even and this year we look to be making a loss unless things pickup dramatically. Regardless of how much work you're doing most of your overheads don't vary that greatly. Sure materials costs are lower and your consumables are down. But general electricity bills remain fairly stable, estimators are still working, rent remains the same, licencing remains the same, 3 month testing of equipment (irrespective of if its been used or not), water, rates, gas etc all remain fairly stable but your turn over is down. Eventually something has to give.


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## Ducatiboy stu (24/2/14)

Kind of interesting. Know a bloke who has a long reach excavotor for cleaning dams. He was telling me he make more from running 1 machine than he didwhen he had 10 ( dozer, grader,roller etc )

Sometimes more is not better


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## wide eyed and legless (24/2/14)

That's the problem with being an employer, there is never a happy medium regarding work coming in, my brother who is a roofing plumber has been working for a roofing contractor for a number of years, but it was the better times that almost sent them to the wall,labour force went up to around 150 and they ended up loosing money.
His boss has now declared a workforce of 70 would be his maximum, there are about 35 there at the moment and my brother tells me that they are going to have to take cuts such as travel allowance and site allowances etc just to stay employed.
Better to make some minor sacrifices and be employed.


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## stm (28/2/14)

Mar'n Ferguson was always one of the more sensible Labor ministers. This in the paper today:


*F**ORMER Labor frontbencher and union leader Martin Ferguson today will back changes to ind**ustrial** relations laws, including allowing the use of contractors and restoring the building watchdog, warning that productivity must improve or unemployment will rise and living standards will fall**.*

Mr Ferguson, a former ACTU president and leader of the factional Left, will support elements of Tony Abbott’s industrial relations and deregulation agenda and *reject government subsidies* for “unsustainable industries”.
His comments, in a speech to be delivered today in Perth, are at odds with Bill Shorten’s opposition to the government’s plan to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission and with criticism of the government’s refusal to provide subsidies to SPC Ardmona and further assistance to General Motors Holden.
He will also call for special-purpose agreements for capital-intensive projects to provide long-term certainty on workforce costs and accuses the Maritime Union of Australia of threatening Western Australia’s economic prospects through outsized wage claims.
Mr Ferguson will say that Australia risks pricing itself out of $180 billion worth of new LNG investments that would create 150,000 jobs.
Arguing that “*Australia’s future economic strength will not be underpinned by the propping up of unsustainable sectors or by any government subsidy or handout*”, Mr Ferguson will declare that reform must make it easier for business to invest with certainty.
He will call for a reduction in red tape, for government to commit to market-based policy and for it to “re-evaluate how our workplace relations framework influences access to labour and how it affects the economic viability of new projects”.


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