Australia has the largest share of the world's economic silver dirt

Discussion in 'Silver' started by Dynoman, Feb 24, 2011.

  1. Naphthalene Man

    Naphthalene Man Active Member Silver Stacker

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    I went to a presentation yesterday on the proposed national guidelines to managing asbestos in soil and it was mentioned that lead is a far greater concern than asbestos. My yard is contaminated as i live in an older suburb. The lead paints coming off houses over time and building up in the soil is definately not given the proper attention that it deserves.

    Leafy greens take up the lead so vege gardens and contact with the soil are the major hazards.

    Sorry for this community announcement but everyone should be aware.
     
  2. Naphthalene Man

    Naphthalene Man Active Member Silver Stacker

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    I think that you are exaggerating. How does this differ from American companies i.e Barrick, Peabody Coal etc, or Indian miners i.e. Gujarat (coal) as two examples coming into Australia and mining our land as opposed to China taking a stake in some of our miners? Australia isn't just mined by Australian companies. Mining is a global industry. Many Australian companies are mining/exploring overseas as well.
     
  3. downer

    downer New Member

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    Major issue for large steel bridges as well.

    The Sydney harbour bridge not long ago went through a lead removal process. Sealing up sections of beams within -ve pressure rooms, sand basted by guys in nasa type suits with onboard oxygen. Scary stuff.

    Our problems in this regard are trivial compared to the USA.
     
  4. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Depends on how you view it. National Sovereignty has certainly taken a back seat in the political arena in favour of easy tax revenue as long as the wider population are not protesting too strongly about it - which means keeping it off the front page as much as possible.

    But don't kid yourself into believing it's not happening because we're not reading headlines over it.

    It's a very real and present danger.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXBx0K8AR8[/youtube]
     
  5. Dynoman

    Dynoman Active Member

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    Those companies you speak of are owned by the shareholders. Whereas the Chinese companies are State owned, that's the major difference.

    My feeling is that we should be more protective of our resources. Not to sell Australia down the road & become slaves to a foreign master.
     
  6. margeandtina

    margeandtina Member

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    Does anyone remember the late 80's when the same arguments were being made regarding the

    Japanese buying up everything? When the Chinese debt bubble bursts these assets will be for

    sale at bargain basement prices. Same applies when the mighty greenback goes tits up.

    As usual I could be wrong but that's my take.

    Mark.
     
  7. downer

    downer New Member

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    Im all for Australian manufacturing (I work in a manufacturing company), but only if you can make competitive goods. I have aspirations to start my own Australian made manufactured goods one day.

    But, im all for private industry shipping off jobs if they can be done "significantly" cheaper elsewhere.

    The alternative is uncompetitive goods, or a huge amount of government intervention, either by massive wage subsidies which you and I will pay for in increased taxes, tarrifs and a possible trade wa or by reducing the price of labour in the country ie pay cuts or currency debasement/inflation. Apart from seeing Silver go up in value, raise your hand if you really want either of those?

    The whole argument amount chinese or another country buying and shipping "our" minerals off shore. Well, firstly, its no good to us buried under the ground, it costs money to extra and we dont have enough funds here to pay for it ourselves. Therefore, to secure funding you need investors from overseas who want to resource.

    Second, next time you drink your morning coffee or tea your drinking 1000's of litre of exported water resources from sumatra or where ever it comes from. The computer your typing on carries a massive amount of exported energy that was created in foreign power stations. I could go on and on.

    The world is globalised now, I suggest if your against globalisation then make a stand and only buy Australian made goods. We wont see you on the forums anymore, but send us a post card sometime to let us know how its worked out for you :)
     
  8. Big A.D.

    Big A.D. Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Same here.

    Somebody should really do something about looking after the Australian people's interests for a change. Maybe look at taxing the mining industry more and putting the extra cash into some kind of national fund for the benefit of the whole country or something.
     
  9. margeandtina

    margeandtina Member

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    Your logic is as good as your spelling.

    Read up on the effect of exporting 5 000 000 Manufacturing jobs from the USA to China over the past 20 years or so.

    The USA is now a fully rooted because people bought into bunkum like that sprouted by you above.

    Mark.
     
  10. downer

    downer New Member

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    Who says they are not?

    Answer me this.

    What do you think will happen to the Australian economy, unemployement and house prices (god forbid!) due to the Government bringing in a more protectionist stand on mining, either through higher company taxes, export tarrifs or limits on foreign investment in the upcoming pipeline of AUD $ 162,295,000,000 (source is ABARE) worth of mining projects (not including petrolium or gas) in construction or in planning/feasibility stages??

    Im not against the mining tax, but careful not to kill the golden goose. We are not the only country that has resources for sale.
     
  11. downer

    downer New Member

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    Engineers dont need to spell :) Argue the point, not the spelling, content is the same.

    Tell me how you would produce commodity/low level goods in a country with high labour costs without introducing protectionist policies / government intervention. Im willing to be educated.
     
  12. PerthStack

    PerthStack Member

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    But, wouldn't the mining companies just move their mines overseas? Apparently if we did try and tax miners, everyone would lose their jobs. Even though countries such as Norway can protect their national resources and pay their resource workers more than anyone in the world, apparently it's different here and not possible because even though the resources are here, wages are cheap in the Congo.
    Just a thought, if foreign investors can make money by investing in Australian mines, why couldn't the government? If the Government took a 20% stake in all new mines, wouldn't the profits from those shares go back into the public purse?, or would we all turn into commies?
     
  13. Big A.D.

    Big A.D. Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Heh, I was being a bit cheeky there (and yes I agree it would need to be managed carefully) but I find it stunning that some people are opposed to charging some companies more for the privilege of digging up out dirt and selling it.

    When the RSPT was first proposed everyone was jumping up and down saying buyers would go elsewhere to source their raw materials, such as from Canada...and then the Canadians announced they'd consider introducing exactly the same thing.
     
  14. downer

    downer New Member

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    I guess my point was, in a round about way, there are alot of pros and cons. I just wanted to list a few of the cons that people seem to forget about when going for the pro.

    Out of interest, Steven Keen did a good presentation in his behavioural finance lectures about humans and decision making. He notes that if you have a big decision matrix you can only focus on a very small number of items, and these will tend to be the ones you feel most passionate about and will over ride all other concerns.

    http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/...aviouralFinanceLecture01Economicbehaviour.ppt
     
  15. margeandtina

    margeandtina Member

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    I'm not with you. Isn't it the case that Australia is a high labour cost country producing mostly commodities/low level goods?

    This discussion is about adding value to those commodities locally then exporting them.

    The discussion about wages can be seen from the narrow perspective of the individual firm or from the larger perspective of the community as a whole. This is the trade-off inherent to this situation. It's a value judgement which should not be made in purely
    "economic" terms.

    Note that most of the developed world became developed behind protectionist walls. Trouble is, once developed, countries like the USA
    refuse to give undeveloped countries the opportunities they had. Refer to my earlier point on mercantilism.

    The single reform which would have the largest impact, in my opinion, would be to end the central banking model of interest rate manipulation, let's have free market capitalism for a change.

    At the moment we have a form of crony capitalism/fascism.

    Mark.
     
  16. renovator

    renovator Well-Known Member

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    .all the solutions but everyone is forgetting the main thing ...money ... there just isnt enough australians with the money to do all the things you propose i agree with a lot of things u been saying but with out the money we cant do squat so if other countries want to put up the money then its better then nothing .remember if they r buying the raw materials we get the money to put back into the economy
     
  17. downer

    downer New Member

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    @ margeandtina

    Like I said, you can argue pros and cons on anything but you can only focus on a few narrow points (as I have done myself).

    My narrow argument was, in summary.

    1. Yes, in the mining sector it is the case that we are producing low level goods with high labour costs. But that is because the deposits are in Australia.
    2 Once it comes time to actually add value it is not cost effective for environmental, safety and labor cost perspective (not 100% sure about labor content, but educated guess).
    3. To make it competitive you probably need government intervention. Tarrifs, subsidies, lower wages.
    4. All three introduce their own set of problems.
    5. Easier to ship it somewhere else.
    6. I like coffee and cheap computers. Go globalisation.

    I ignored other issues such as shipping jobs overseas. If you wanted to add more items in this vain.

    1. People in australia are have fairly high education standards. Who would do the hands on work? We already have low unemployement.
    2. Would need to increase immigration of UNSKILLED workers. That is a major political issue, we dont have a porus border like the USA/Mexico and people haaaatttteeee boat people. The whole "they took our jobs !!11!!!11!1" and Alan Jones mentality would need to be overcome.
    3. Need to somehow pay these workers below award wages to make it competitive. Im sure the unions would have something to say about that
    4. Need massive insurance premium or future fund to cover cleanup of contaminated land (look at the companies in Homebush bay or bangaroo and how much they had to / will have to pay for cleanup 50 or years after the factory closed). Maybe you could do it in the middle of the dessert and just seal the area off in the future.
    5. Relaxation of EPA laws probably required.
    6. I have personally seen inside Chinese steel mills, I would not want to work anywhere near a massive vat of molten metal. Fark that.

    Central banking is another topic all in itself :cool:
     
  18. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Short answer is mate - you don't.

    The problem isn't the production costs themselves.

    The problem is everyone in this country is loaded to the fecking eyeballs with debt because they have to have EVERYTHING and have it NOW.

    So now the borrowing costs are increasing substantially, the debtors require more of their disposable income to meet their debt obligations.

    Less disposable income, but the desire to still consume means a large increase in demand for low production cost goods and services.


    I agree with Gerald Celente's 20% solution paradigm. Buy local, but demand high quality and pay for it.

    Sadly, with the average Australian carrying more personal debt than even the US citizen does, there's heavy restrictions on this being a matter of free choice.


    I believe there still is a market out there for high quality manufacturing to turn a good profit in this country.

    You can't beat the slave labour force ethic of the east, so why try?

    Aim instead for very high quality and charge an appropriate amount for it. Reputation and demand from that 20% I speak of will take care of the rest.
     
  19. Dynoman

    Dynoman Active Member

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    Yeap, concur Auspm, we should be concentrating more focus on developing high tech manufacturing industries.

    The R&D support the Govt. offers to technologists in Australia is pathetic and we have some of the most intelligent innovative people in the world.

    I was reading about the Chinese company BYD. They employ 10,000 engineering graduates to develop new technology. I was thinking that's pretty ridiculous. Like, how can so many people collectively innovate ? Imagine if you had 10,000 Aussie & Kiwi techs working on new technology. They would be coming up with amazing new concepts everyday. When it comes to innovation you can't beat the Australasians. That's why they are so highly sought after around the world.

    In fact to add to this I was speaking to one of my colleagues yesterday, he is a good friend of Warren Strange, once local farmer come technologist that developed RC drilling. Amazing technology. It was his machine that rescued the Chilean miners.
     
  20. margeandtina

    margeandtina Member

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    downer, we probably have different views on how the endgame currently under way is going to play out.

    I can see a future where our housing bubble bursts, quickly leading to recession and elevated levels of unemployment.
    (Or the USA collapses taking everyone with them, or the middle east blows up or the Chinese debt bubble collapses.)
    When one has no job any paying work looks good.

    On the environmental front, it is possible to pick and choose to an extent. Steel production really only releases carbon dioxide

    and slag as waste products, it matters little where they're released (politics aside).

    Central banking is another topic indeed but it intrudes on all aspects of discussions such as this and is central to any reform.

    Being in petrochemicals I am fully aware of the crap getting around in various industrial sites around the country, however these situations are largely a throwback to earlier times. Current environmental regulations are quite severe. Interestingly, the organisations most guilty of environmental damage these days here are multinational corporations. However, one could advance the concern that by not bearing the
    added costs involved with the retention of a local chemical industry we are simply exporting our pollution to China.

    On the matter of wages, we could get away with lower wages by killing the central banks and massively reducing taxes (by massively reducing the size of government).

    I don't know if your avatar reflects your politics or is more ironic but I guarantee if Menzies came back to life today he would not recognise the political party he started. We effectively have a one-party system in this country when it comes to the important issues. You can tell what the important issues are, they're the ones that never get discussed.

    Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful response.

    Mark
     

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