Here in SE QLD just down the road, MASSIVE vegetable growing area about 20 - 30 mins from my place. I think it was ... To be honest can't remember which veg it was but they told all the farmers their produce is "no longer required" no more contracts for them.... Processing plant closed, cannot remember exactly how many people were put off. The veg is being grown in Vietnam and a processing plant has been built there and the frozen produce is being shipped back to Aus. The farmers now have no contract so they now are deciding what to grow instead and who will buy it. Spoke to a potato grower at Mary Falls, he said he does not negotiate prices he is told what he will be paid by the large supermarket chains. If he does not agree they just go to the next farmer and if they do not agree they keep going until they find someone who will grow them for that price. He was saying people have it to good and people need to start going hungry for awhile, missing a few meals to wake people up and get people thinking about what is going on. A lot of people think if they do not have the latest phone, the big 60 inch, LED, 3D TV and the latest Model optioned car that life will end.
Johnny Mcpaymealot, worked at the local cannery, he got paid very very well since he had no qualifications as he had left school at 15yo. Pushing a button on a production line earned him $30.00 per hour, he should get payed that simply because his job is so boring. When Mcpaymealot went shopping he bought the cheapest products he could find, weather it was food or white goods, cheapest price was always what he searched for, even Chinese beans were cheaper than the beans he was canning at work so of course Mcpaymealot had a cupboard full of Chinese beans. Cheap beans ment he had more money to spend on smokes,beer and a punt on the horses. One day Johnny Mcpaymealot was given a notice that his work would no longer be required as the company was moving to china. TO CHINA!!! Mcpaymealot was outraged, furious and angry he marched up to the company boss demanding to know why his job was going to china. The company boss explained simply that " people only eat Chinese beans ", they are cheaper. When Mcpaymealot returned home that evening and looked at his cupboard full of cheap beans, he no longer saw a cupboard full of cheap beans, but instead the giving away of his job.
What Mcpaymealot didnt know was that he was eating golden peas and beans from Asia... What fertilizer do they use... You better believe it is nightsoil. You had better not eat it is made in Shanghi Don't feed it to your dog, he might die. Regards Errol 43
Yep. Why do Chinese have people post cartons of baby formula to them from Australia? Whay are there walled "secret gardens" there with clean soil to grow veggies for the wealthy? Prawns and fish from the Mekong? No thanks.
It is funny you mention the baby formula, going to China I was planning on filling my bag with baby formula. Gifts are big in China and Australian baby formula makes a great gift for a Chinese family who are expecting or have a bub. It is seen as a premium product and an investment in the child, giving them the best possible start. I suppose it says a lot when people do not want to use local items and will import formula from Australia.
It's all about comparative advantage not absolute advantage. Downward nominal rigidities principally imposed on us by our awesome Government and other imposed inflexibilities are principally to blame for the economy moving from accumulating capital to consuming capital. Compared to the US (and especially many European countries) our consumption of capital is nowhere near as bad thank goodness.
Spot on fellas. The corporate scabs look overseas for slave labor to increase profits as unions basically bargain their members out of a job over here, and then add all the BS government red tape that never ends making an employee a liability instead of an asset. This once great country has gone down the shitter real quick.
The minimum wage for Thai industrial workers is now 300baht ($10) a day. That's the legislated minimum though, skilled workers understandably command more.
Source: http://www.business-in-asia.com/asia/minimum_wage/Minimum_wages_in_Asia/minimum_wage_in_asia.html
If you want to compete with countries like Thailand, Everyone in Australia will have to take a massive haircut. IMO the manufacturing industry is long gone...How many $$$ did the red and blue teams throw at the car manufacturers and they are still under water. Was it bad management or workers being over paid. Maybe a little bit of both? In a very short time we won't make anything, not even pencils and shoes, we won't make a darm thing. The paper movers and the key board computer $$ movers will be the only ones with high paid jobs plus of course the Casino and Mine owners.. But that can soon turn right around. Even the blue team leaders know that Australia is in for a downturn and just like the red team, the G8 will tell them what to do and when. If the Panda gets sick then you won't care how much you earn as long as you have a job. During the depression of 29/32, the best and safest jobs were in the brewery and the racing industry.. Regards Errol 43
Downturns, recessions, booms and busts are a normal part of a functioning economic system. Under a free market, job losses in one sector are supposed to be offset by employment opportunities in another sector as wage earners "contract" their labour to other producers for a cheaper rate, as productivity improves, wages rise until a point is reached when lay-offs must occur again to restore profitability. Recessions are an (although not welcome by most) essential part of the healing process in an economy. In much the same way as a former PM of Australia was famously quoted. But, Keynesians and Monetarists (Hockey) believe it is possible and achievable to manage economic conditions in order to achieve a balanced economy, ie equilibrium, and insist on using Legislation to achieve that which is impossible. In other words, they believe it is possible to manage economies to avoid recessions, it is possible to achieve a land of gold and honey for all. This is bullshit of course. Equilibrium is a goal, but it is unachievable on a whole economic sense (though it is reached every day for a short period of time at an individual level) and attempts to manage the economy to achieve a state of equilibrium only result in doing more damage eg The Great Depression. Piss poor management, workers being overpaid, brilliant management and workers being underpaid are a function of a normal free market. Government intervention in the marketplace distorts the natural system of economics, amplifying and extending the effect of poor management and overpaid wages.
However... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_economic_zone I couldn't see Thailand in the list but in the book "No Logo" http://www.naomiklein.org/no-logo Naomi Klien looks at areas where the law doesn't exist and minimum wages are not applcable and safety standards do not exist. Hard to compete with that.
A business producing things using 10 baht a day workers can't sell you something if you aren't producing something that they want. We are not starting from a situation of zero trade and production. We are starting from a situation where we have an accumulated capital stock and comparative advantages that enable us to be paid ~$200-$300/day. The sustainability of that wage level depends on maintaining the comparative advantage by innovation and the process of creative destruction. There's nothing (except Governments) that stops us from moving to an average pay of $1,000/day while the Thai workers stagnate at 10 baht/day. Just as there's nothing that stops Thai workers moving to 3,000 Baht/day. The issue is time to accumulate the requisite capital and technology that allows such to happen - accumulation that takes investment and savings. If you want to maintain your current $200-$300/day or grow it then you need to live within your means and re-invest into future productivity. If you want to consume more than you earn now, then this can be done by living of the past investments but be prepared for a future decline in your capacity to maintain $200-$300/day as the capital stock that enabled the comparative advantage slowly erodes away over time. See here
I wonder what belief has to do with those 'Keynesians and Monetarists'. Do they strive for a 'balanced economy'? As far as I can see is their goal just an organized unpunished theft on those that produce the products and services that are traded. I don't agree with that downturns, recessions, booms and busts would be a normal part of a functioning economic system. A functioning economic system corrects production and consumption with the resolution of 1 trade. In other words: numerous small corrections that happen everyday and give people the time to adapt/change to changing trends / environments / resources. Instead, downturns, recessions, booms and busts are part of the thievery system of the central planning, they block those numerous small corrections that happen everyday, and this blocking causes these to accumulate in booms - big market shifts that end up in a the few big corrections that we know as downturns, recessions and busts, that surprise people, give them no time to deal with, causing destruction, misery, poverty, conflict, upto a zero crossing. In short, instead of 'managing economy' it's just a bunch ordinary thieves that enslave entire population parts, drive another part in dependency and have the brutality to go on until there is nothing left to steal.
I'm pretty sure they believe they can achieve such a state. I don't believe that. Look, I may be a bit naive and I'm sure yippe will +100 to that, but I believe that most humans enter politics with either the best of intentions or because they have have a power fetish. The unpunished theft happens as an unplanned afterthought or more precisely, they are either oblivious to the impact of their decisions or they become fully aware of the influence they wield and then seek to wield it for personal gain. Few rational humans enter politics with the intention of thieving. You are correct, on a daily level corrections take place with every economic transaction, on a regional or nationwide level though, as the systems of economies become more complex, the impact of oversupply, excess demand etc become greater, there is a greater lag in time between demand and satisfaction of that demand. or production and consumption. To suggest that without government interference the market would not experience times of surpluses or shortages, great demand or huge indifference to a product is false. What I meant was that government interference causes these normal, everyday economic corrections to be blown out of proportion resulting in long term booms and busts, which is pretty much what you said below. Marx said the same thing about capitalists, however I'm not saying that about Keynesian or Monetarist theory. I'm just saying they are wrong.
Another one to go in my area with ownership to change hands tomorrow. In excess of $200 million worth of relatively young, Australian-owned, renewable energy power generation plant and infrastructure sent to the wall by the Rudd/Wong FUBAR legacy. And the buyers..... Swiss. This company was doing well until the watermelons decided they knew a pinch of shyte about economics and the environment.
