I think this is very sad news.......... I believe a functioning car manufacturing industry is very important for Australia, and Holden closing will have wide implications for Australia's economy in the decades to come. IMO it is essential for National Security and our Defense capabilities to have a strong manufacturing base, and without a car industry the rest of the countries manufacturing base now has it's days numbered. More should have been done to keep them here, the A$ may drop in a year or two, but Holden will never come back.
To be honest I think it is just a step in the direction we are heading. Our standard of living is dropping and is going to continue to drop. We my not like it and we may not want it to happen but it is happening. A lot of people will jump up and down but it will still happen. Asian countries standard of living will improve as ours goes backwards. All part of globalisation, we have had it to good for too long. More unemployment, lower wages, less money to spend on non essential items. Give it another 20 years and see where we are at.
Brilliant post. Nothing good has ever come from the crime of "globalisation". Its effects can be slowed down and possibly reversed however TPTB and our politician pawns, are pushing us in that direction.
This slow move has been in the pipeline for at least 30+ years Both sides of politics should be strung up for what they have done There used to be a GM plant in dandenong in Melbourne , had it's own train station , they used to run 3 shifts Got closed down in the mid 90's All hot air unless The bastards get taken down , both sides of politics are reading from the same why the fuck do we have nearly zero import duty on imported cars THEY ARE NOT CARS BUT like washing machines , disposable white goods Built in expiry date Sell more crap , where quality doesn't count
does it matter if I do or not, I ahve other skills that have kept me gainfully employed in a stable position / company HOw are you doing with your "trade skills"
Globalisation is brilliant and a thing to be encouraged and not to be afraid of. If you define globalisation as free trade between countries, then it is awesome. Just as it makes sense and is highly beneficial for individuals in our local community to specialise and have division of labour, so to does it make sense to specialise and have division of labour globally. It is vastly more productive for you to specialise in your comparative advantage rather than try to produce everything yourself. If you define globalisation as companies spreading their production facilities across different countries and building integrated supply networks then it is also highly beneficial, for these companies are simply organising the division of labour and producing far more goods and services than would be possible without the division of labour. To argue that our living standards and employment will fall because of such specialisation is counter to the last few hundred years of history. (Excepting in some areas encroached upon by governments) in pretty much every way people are substantially better off and are still relatively fully employed compared to 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 or 300 years ago because of the division of labour and the capitalist system of encouraging the development and accumulation of capital stock through the free ownership and trade of private property. The knee-jerk arguments against globalisation are inherently the same as those against machines because "they are taking our jobs" - a sophism which was readily disproved by Frederic Bastiat centuries ago. Globalisation will allow economies of scale in the most important factor of production: the number of intellectually gifted individuals applying themselves to solving the problems in their field. Just as it has been for the past 300 hundred years, this will be the wellspring by which currently Developing economies can develop and which will enable current First World economies to continue to develop and enhance the quality of lives of everyone involved. Fear of globalisation is a fear of competition and beneficial change through innovation. Protectionism and restrictions on change are what will cause our lifestyles to stagnate and possibly deteriorate as governments try to force the status quo in some misguided notion that the status quo is somehow perfect.
Countries have to produce something, everyone has to have a certain percentage of "production" if we import "10" X items of measure we need to export a comparative level of items. If we only produce "6" x items for export we are in trouble. We can not all be farmers, miners or work in the tourism. If you loose manufacturing jobs and it is cheaper to import frozen fruit and veg from Vietnam, mining drops off so we export less, any job that could be done here is sent off shore (for example call centers) banks are training people in India to do the non face to face stuff so that will be off shore. A lot of IT jobs are being sent offshore, all these jobs being sent offshore then place preasure on wages and conditions in Australia. If someone can be employed in India for example for a total cost of $15,000.00 a year but an Australian costs a total of $75,000.00 a year what is going to happen? If jobs are lost here those people have to have another job to go to, all the jobs that are lost do not seem to be replaced by other jobs. Talking about 100, 200 or 300 years ago is crazy stuff, if you want to look at 200 or 300 years ago Aboriginals were fully employed, globalisation did not work out to well for them. Look at what has happened in the last say 15 years and what is going to happen in the next 20 years. Think about this, if we did not have mineral resources where would we be now?
Its not just called Globalisation.....Its also called 'Offshoring'......End of day its all about the Labour rate and the business's running costs like electricty for these huge factories........... Apparently Oz used to be the second cheapest country in the world for power now its one of the most expensive!
As I have already predicted its news like this that will send shockwaves around the country and could possibly be the cause of an early recession well before 2015/16. Fords news was bad enough but we all know that Holden was a more popular and iconic brand because its totally 'Australian'......Think about it they've been building cars for 50-60 years.......and now its all gone! http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-11/horror-unfolding-as-holden-production-goes-off/5151020
Exactly. We all have to produce something (unless you can con the world to think you are entitled to their stuff) which is why you should embrace productivity enhancing change - be it better machines, better processes, better use of comparative advantage. The more cheap things available the more the same export dollar can buy. See, this is the fear of change. Every single major productivity improvement that has reduced the demand for Australian labour over past decades has just meant that there is more labour available to produce things that couldn't previously be produced. This is why we have more good and services available to us now that at any time in the history of mankind. Read the Bastiat article. The reduction of obstacles is welfare enhancing. Artificially creating obstacles is welfare diminishing. You're crazy. Any indigenous person actively engaged in the economy is massively better off today compared to 300 years ago. State-created war, genocide, welfare and the failure to obtain true private property rights are what has created problems for those not engaged in the economy. Simple. We would instead have had a very strong manufacturing base or perhaps a much strong productive services sector. The riding of the mineral boom was simply riding our comparative advantage to the benefit of millions of people in Australia and around the world. Prior to the boom we had many other strong and expanding sectors and were exporting a plethora of things to the world in exchange for the things that the Japanese, Taiwanese, etc could do better than us. If you want to see what's possible without minerals simply look at Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea etc (noting that the major part of the equation is the freedom to develop and accumulate capital stock via the free ownership and trade of private property).
Someone I know has just read the Holden EBA..............Apparently the conditions are WAY over the top.......Some of the long time workers will be getting 300-500k redudency packages! Gees I did ten years at my old job and only got 7k?
The rest of the stuff you wrote I'll agree to disagree and leave it there. One thing I have to respond to is the comment ref indigenous people, why are they better off? What now they have a car, a mobile phone and the Internet they must be better off? Australia's Aboriginals better off? American Indians, indigenous South Americans better off? Come on they have been subjected to all types of diseases which killed of huge percentages of the population, hunted for sport, kicked off their land, had foreign cultures pushed onto them, forced to assimilate into societies they did not want to, had their children removed from their custody, languages banned and forced to learn a foreign language. Saying they are better off is crazy, who says they would not prefer to be living the lifestyle they were three hundred years ago? You talk about aboriginals actively engaged in the economy? What percentage of >50% aboriginal blood are actively engaged in the economy? The percentage is very, very low. Have you been to the NT or far north QLD? I can not think of one indigenous culture that is better off since contact with the European culture. The Native American term "wetico" sort of sums it up.
Head of Holden Mike Devereux press release today.....16 minutes. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...money-for-toyota/story-fn59niix-1226781280825
here is the EBA if anyone is interested: http://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/agreements/fwa/AE894332-2.pdf yes they get paid too much for what they do.