The thing is protectionism will be applied globally, each country trying to hobble each other leaving us all ultimately worse off. Trade wars don't really benefit anyone at the end of the day and lead to a collapse in trade which can the then lead to actual wars. You know the saying, "when goods don't cross borders, armies do".
Then there must be a 3rd way. There no doubt is, but a squabbling, immature group of civilisations filled with religion and racism probably won't find it unfortunately.
I tend to think we are looking in the wrong place. We've become fixated on protecting all these big businesses, but to my mind, the big problem we have is that we have too many rules, regulations and taxes and that these are hobbling our smaller businesses making us more dependent on the big businesses. I think that as economies develop they become more and more decentralised and specialised. Certainly this is what happens in IT which is relatively unregulated and I think this is the general trend but that it has been hobbled because it doesn't suit the govt. The govt likes centralisation and central control. Central planning if you will. And this is the major source of our problems. We are looking at symptoms rather than the disease.
Well, that depends how you go about encouraging that kind of bespoke industry. If you took the billions of dollars in subsidies given out to the majors, halved it, and distributed the rest out two dozen small/mid-sized local assemblers, in the form of grants to fund the start up of their operations (rather than permanent, on-going subsidies), you'd end up with a reduction in the overall amount of free cash being handed out to car companies in the short term and be totally out of the subsidy business after the initial grant money runs out. Some of those small companies would fail of course, but by that stage the whole industry would have been shaken up and the majors wouldn't have as much of a stranglehold on the market as they do now. And that's not just a stranglehold on the retail market for motor vehicles but also on the employment market too - when one big car maker has a plant employing thousands of people, its very easy for them to blackmail the government into handing over some "industry assistance" by threatening to close the factory and move production to Asia (or wherever). Wouldn't it be better to have those jobs spread out over more employers to spread out the risk of job losses and give the workers more options for employment in the same industry in case the company they work for does go bust?
Why don't we just use our natural resources, i.e. mineral wealth and add value to them instead of shipping them off in their raw state for peanuts and reimport them later at a higher price?
Processing them is usually toxic . Im happy to see it going overseas to be processed. Keep oz clean & green
Just do the toxic stuff in >insert parochial pariah<*. No-one would care *I was going to put Tasmania but thought better of it
& broke! Have to disagree. Major generalisation there that Bobby Brown would be proud of. We have fairly strict environmental regulations here in Aus - as anyone who has dealt with the EPA or similar f'wits would know, these people are on a power trip and wouldn't let you get away with anything now days. Besides, are we only worried about the environment within our borders? Or is it OK to ship toxic crap past of our boarders out "beyond the environment"?
What? You will still have toxic waste water & chemicals . Toxic sludge & solids . What do you think we should do with them ? Have large storage dams so it seeps into the ground water ? your dreaming if you think its possible to process things efficiently & cost effectively without chemicals & toxic waste EPA or not .The EPA will be the ones who make it unviable with their demands .
You're right. Along with all our manufacturing jobs, lets ship all the toxic waste water & chemicals overseas and f#%k the rest of the world. We'll just be a consumer society, that digs holes all over the landscape and ships rocks off to China.
I was answering nuggets question .I suggest you go back & see what it was before you have another rant . Theres more to manufacturing than processing raw materials
For sure. But I believe we've got what it takes to do it. We've got plenty of space (unless you want to build a family home that is), we've got the raw materials, we have an educated workforce, the infrastructure. Sure there's the tyranny of distance, and the domestic market place pales in comparison to other nations (but we want to export so that's cool). I just think we lack the political leadership. It's far easier to dig dirt and skim a bit off that.
I don't really have a problem with "fking over the rest of the world". At the end of the day, its their choice to poison their own land and we don't have a right to tell them what they can or can't do. Not everybody puts the same value on the environment. If the Chinese think its a good idea to add a few extra digits on GDP in return for destroying their own environment, they can do it. I think more long term. Sure, we are losing millions in GDP but our clean rivers and land can then be converted into agriculture which can be used for a long time. Once the Chinese ruin their land, they can never use it again. Also, they are already paying a heavy price for destroying their own environment for sweet short-term gains, they are facing a clean water crisis right now because they were so happy getting cheap minerals from us that they forgot they are in a drought and officially screwed their own people over by pouring tonnes of poisons in their rivers and lakes. There are also other benefits for us such as being able to take advantage of their greed to build dams and making them pay premium price for our fresh water and having a beautiful country to boost tourism GDP =D.
I just don't get this rationale? The Chinese do pump crap onto their land, into their water and into their air. So is everyone that naive to believe their air and water stays in China. Seriously? Is all the CO2 they produce going to stay in a bubble over asia? Don't burn coal here - export it to China so they can keep all the CO2? All the sea ways they root are going to just hang around their coast? In a way, we would be better off manufacturing here in Aus because we do a cleaner job of it.
I acknowledge that the whole world suffers when China or whichever country for that matter pollutes the environment. But just because the whole world suffers doesn't mean that we should just get in on the act ourselves since we can bring everyone down with us. What I'm saying is that we can use this to our advantage to manipulate how much of the impact we will feel relative to other countries around the world. The fact of the matter is although the poisons do reach the oceans, much of it is diluted and won't be as toxic by the time it reaches the ocean borderlines of our country. The brunt of the pollution impact will be felt by China and its surrounding border neighbors. For example, there is probably radiation in some of the fish we eat because of the Japan nuclear crisis but the levels are insignificant to the point we don't really have to care, but there is strong radiation in pretty much anything the Japanese catch and hence the Japanese take the biggest hit and their pregnant women will take all the risks and negatives that come with it. We have two options: a) Take the biggest environmental hit ourselves and gain all the economic benefits at the cost of permanently destroying our rivers and land. b) Let someone else take the hit and lose the millions or billions that would have added to our GDP but protecting our lands and river that could used for agriculture and gain a little bit of income over a long period of time. At the end of the day, it comes down to how much value we put on our environment. I'm just saying that when someone produces smog, the impact of it is diluted as the area expands. Even if we do a better job at manufacturing it in Australia, remember what you're saying. Its the same thing as going "we're more efficent because we use less chemicals than the Chinese at ruining our waterways and land". I only care about Australia and Australians so for me, I'd rather let someone else do all the dirty work for us and destroy themselves than us doing it because the rest of the world suffers less if we destroy ourselves instead.
Fair enough 2weeke. I can accept what you say. However, I would guess that most people against manufacturing are not employed in the manufacturing industry. This makes it easy for them to just dismiss as an uneccessary evil. I have always worked in heavy industry, and don't believe it is as toxic as some like to make out. I really arch up when pro-environmentalists think we can just shutdown anything that may appear to go against their philosophy. It is not only unsustainable, but in some cases hypocritical when they then look for handouts and the money ain't there anymore. I also don't believe that an economy without manufacturing is a necessarily successful one. Each to their own I guess.
They ignored the japanese innovations of the sixties and when they finally tried to copy them it was too little too late. For the last 30 years they have relied on the parocial and complacent nature of the average aussie but that has finally worn out in favor of style, efficency, economy and common sense.
I agree completely. I've only ever bought japanese or korean. Not specifically looking for them, they just turn out to be best value for money. When I go to a car-yard I stay well away from all the over-priced, ugly, gas-guzzling Australian crap.
