Telstra Axes 671 Jobs, Outsources to Asia

Discussion in 'Markets & Economies' started by House, Jul 23, 2014.

  1. BuggedOut

    BuggedOut Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Isn't globalisation awesome! Look how much money we can make by outsourcing jobs to the 3rd world!

    I'm all for free markets but it's got to be a level playing field....
     
  2. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Australians are outsourcing their spending to overseas sellers so why should Australian businesses employ people who don't buy their products? If people want to buy their stuff from overseas at overseas prices then they soon may have to look for a job overseas at overseas wages.
     
  3. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    In other words anyone who complains that Australian businesses are too expensive and not competitive with overseas prices will have to learn that their wages and entitlements are too expensive and uncompetitive with overseas wages too. Can't have it both ways no matter what the unions may tell you.
     
  4. wrcmad

    wrcmad Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    No trade is a level playing field, and never has been. All business is conducted successfully due to an underlying market advantage of some sort. The notion of a level playing field is a myth.
    What Australia (and other first-world countries) are fast realising is that free trade is in fact the leveller of the field. :)
    For a long time the west has benefited the most from irregularities in the "field". Suddenly, globalisation is tipping it to a more level orientation, and we don't like it.
    Why? Because we suddenly find ourselves at a market disadvantage - something that has been artificially avoided in the past.
    There is not enough fat in world GDP to allow everyone into the current living standards of the first-world countries. Thus, we may have to get used to the global "averaging down" of the current living standards to accommodate those developing countries that are clawing there way up to somewhere close to what we have enjoyed for decades in Australia.
    People need to get used to it, and adapt their mindset.
    This^.
    For reasons I mentioned above, the union arrogance of believing we can have it both ways is costing more jobs in Australia than anyone likes to admit.
     
  5. BuggedOut

    BuggedOut Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    I understand what's happenning, that's why I've given up on being a wage earner and become effectively a full time capitalist. There is no future in being on the labor side of the equation in the 1st world - because you are on a hiding to nothing with no real prospect of wage growth in this lifetime. I don't really agree with it, but I'm adaptive and prefer to keep my family on the winning side of the equation.

    My question is why do people think this globalisation is going to actually work when we have democracies full of wage earners who are starting to realise they are losing out.

    Trump is a symptom. So is Brexit and the rise of people like Katter and Hanson.

    I think it is somewhere between arrogance and stupidity to think this globalisation strategy is going to work. It'll flip back to populist protectionism and maybe even war soon. It didn't need to be this way....
     
  6. wrcmad

    wrcmad Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Not working for who? Australia? USA?
    I mentioned above that we don't like it.
    Whome it seems to be working for is mere perception.
    There are a billion Chinese who standard of living has improved significantly in recent years that would probably disagree with you.
    There are a billion Indians following in their footsteps.
     
  7. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    What about companies in Australia that offshore their profit and who therefore have an advantage over local businesses who must pay local tax?
     
  8. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    You mean smart companies that minimise their costs so that they can still employ expensive Australian workers? ;)
     
  9. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    It's another symptom I guess of Australians spending their money with foreign businesses instead of local business, therefore the profits leave. Is there any reason that Australian businesses trading overseas can't do the same thing and offshore their profits here?

    It all seems to come back to the concept of "fairness" and this is a very nebulous concept because generally when people say "it's not fair' they mean 'it's not fair to me". What feels fair to workers often feels unfair to employers who take on all of the risk and responsibilities, what feels fair to consumers must feel unfair to Chinese factory workers, what feels fair to one country feels unfair to another. To someone who works every day it feels unfair that others bludge on the welfare system, to someone on welfare it feels unfair that someone who works can afford a car and overseas holidays.

    In the end reality trumps people's individual concepts of fairness because fairness is a relative thing. That's why socialism always ends on poverty and starvation. When the State takes ultimate control of "fairness" and enforces central planning the end result is Venezuela. In the end nothing is fair, nothing is produced and the 1% at the top move all the money into personal offshore accounts and the people starve until finally a capitalist system emerges from the ashes when people decide that they will set their own price for the things that they make that are above the cost of production again. When the state decrees that a loaf of bread will cost 80 cents but the coat of production is 90 cents the bread makers soon decide what is "fair" and simply stop making it.
     
  10. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Back to the case of Telstra. When consumers demand increasingly lower prices and shareholders rightly demand some return for the money that they have invested into the company then for the company to remain viable they must also cut costs. Moving employment offshore is logical because it lowers costs and reduces exposure to harsh unions.

    Being that Vodafone is owned by an offshore company and offers cheaper prices than the mostly locally owned Telstra they have to cut costs in order to keep their business running because Australians choose to take the cheaper foreign owned product. In the end why should the Australian company employ people who won't buy their service?
     
  11. Court Jester

    Court Jester Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    or how the NSW government with a stroke of a pen declare a whole industry illegal and putting thousands out of work
     
  12. wrcmad

    wrcmad Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    What about them?
    We like to whinge about companies like Apple and Google and pretend we can blame their smart accounting for all our problems.
    Fact is, we do it too. Top earner that paid no tax in 14/15 was Qantas, at the same time BHP was trading through a Singapore-based marketing company to avoid paying >$500 mil in taxes. The list goes on.... And on.
     
  13. SpacePete

    SpacePete Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Just raising the point because everyone here keeps blaming consumers and unions for constraining corporate profitability, but local businesses face many other regulatory and competitive challenges that can't all be lumped into the simplistic "wage earners bad, companies good" narrative.
     
  14. Shaddam IV

    Shaddam IV Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    In the end nothing is fair to everyone and every individual is somewhere on the scale between total self interest and total "social justice". You just have to choose between self preservation and social consciousness and find your niche on that scale.

    Without wanting to sound harsh I have to say that the people who will be washed away on the currents of history first will be those who live on welfare. Taking a leaf from our grandparents and great grandparents would be very wise now I think - for your own sake if you are dependant on welfare you are a slave to government and doing anything in your power to set up your own business or to find a job is the only sane thing to do. If you feel trapped or resentful working for someone else then don't complain, do the hard yards and start a small business and give up luxuries for a while and stick it out.

    And above all, no matter how small or large your income begin to save some money each week in a tin or a bank account for emergencies. Even if it's only a few dollars a week. At this point in history do not depend for your life on government handouts and do not assume that someone else is obliged to employ you. History does not care a whit for your opinions about what is fair and what you are entitled to.
     
  15. BuggedOut

    BuggedOut Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Small business is not a winner in Australia. Been there, done that.

    If you want to be in business you need your costs offshore (cheap labor and low regulations) and your sales/revenue onshore.

    Most small business can't do that. You need to be a certain size before you can take advantage of different regulatory environments, labor markets and consumer markets.
     

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