Thread: A primitive economy.

ABC news site has an story regarding Mr Howes followed by forum discussion

Beyond the straitjacket of unions vs business - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Thanks for that post Bill!!!

I hope others will see why I was so interested in this address by Paul Howes.

Let's hope his "road to Damascus conversion"( See Fred's post) is permanent.

I painfully watched Mr Howes speech on the A.B.C the other day.Couldn't change the channel as i was gobsmacked listening to his verbal fart ..putrid,putrid man.I must be from another planet if this chump is human...MM

Originally Posted by artme

Thanks for that post Bill!!!

I hope others will see why I was so interested in this address by Paul Howes.

Let's hope his "road to Damascus conversion"( See Fred's post) is permanent.

Well Art, I would say that his conversion has more to do with advancing the political career of Mr Howes than it has to do with advancing industrial relations in this country.

He is working very hard to invent a new image after his rather disastrous foray in to the political big time.

I, like a number of you probably are, am wondering if he is a leopard trying to change his spots, or simply a chameleon
trying to camouflage himself.

Still, one of the most intriguing and interesting speeches I have heard in a long time.

BTW; loved Clarke and Dawe last night!!!1

The US National Science Foundation recently released a report discussing world trends in R&D, education, high technology manufacturing and so on. See nsf.gov - S&E Indicators 2014 - US National Science Foundation (NSF).

Interesting numbers come out of this.

Between 2003 and 2012 Chinese high-tech manufacturing increased five-fold. China's share of global R&D went from 8% to 24%. The US leads with 27%. How long will it be before China's 4.5-fold demographic advantage puts it into the leading position?

Among persons holding doctoral level science and engineering degrees 37% are employed by firms having 100 employees or less. Approximately equal numbers are employed in academics and businesses. I interpret this as showing that big business, i.e. business that are established and have built up their product lines, employ a minority of research workers. Thus big businesses are focused on extracting the value of IP, not creating it. The average age of US researchers is also increasing and the median is 44 years old. South Korea doubled and China tripled the number of researchers they educated between 1995 and 2007. The US number increased by 36% and that of the EU increased by 65%.

The US still spends twice as much on R&D as does China, but the trend is downward in the US, Japan and the EU and strongly upward in China for global share of R&D expenditures.

From my preliminary reading I perceive that the East is catching up rapidly to the West. Given the much larger population of China I predict that, as its stock of researchers matures and achieves full potential, China will come to dominate the areas of enterprise that we think of as high-tech.

Toyota to exit Australian, 30,000 jobs could go

If there is any doubt now, I'll eat my old work boots.

This country is now officially doomed. The collapse is going to be vicious.

I have no idea how big the economic problems are for Australia. What I do see is NO rain, HOT weather and no sign of rain. The cocc\kies around here are doing it tough and they have been for a while. This hot dry spell will have repercussions as we get into the colder months. The first will be a shortage of grain. It is so dry they can't plant winter crops because there is no moisture available. I am talking in the Tamworth area. I know we are not alone!! Other states would be in a similar problem. The levels of meat animals is also going to fall due to no feed.
As far as the car market goes .....should we rest some blame back onto the government (either Labor or Liberal) They should not allow imported cars in to under sell the local product. We are digging Australia up and sending it overseas at an astonishing rate and what are we left with?
The Australian economy can not suffer tens of thousands of workers on benefits. Who will raise the money needed to pay them? Are we heading for another Depression like the 30s had? (Might be sooner than we think)
Our politicians need to get some long term direction to get Australia on a better level of productivity in every sector! (Ok I will wait outside in the shade for the black unmarked car from ASIO to pick me up and take me to the salt mines)

So the car industry and SPC called for government assistance - free money - and both were knocked back.

Bill Shorten, the invisible man, screams his face off and accuses the government of all sorts of destructive behaviour.

Has the said Mr. Shorten said anything aout the mining industry here in Qld. where thousands have lost their jobs?
Has he suggested we subsidize mining? Don't recall a word from him on these losses.

I was talking to a jewellery shop owner a few days ago.As she said, no one subsidizes her or will offer her money to
keep her business alive.

Where do the subsides and handouts begin and end??

I can see us getting into the position I saw last time I was in the States where in some places virtually every shop in some
shopping centres was closed. People were walking the streets with signs saying they would work for food.

As for tariffs, well who knows what would happen if they were reintroduced??

The trouble with Govt subsidies is that they are just not viable.

Today there was a news item on the ABC web site about a report in to the ethanol for fuel subsidy started by the Howard Govt. The report was commissioned by the Labor Govt and their conclusions make interesting reading

E10 consumers missing out on full subsidy discount, ethanol report finds - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

One of the really telling lines is this one:

"The report estimates the three ethanol producers employ about 200 workers combined, costing taxpayers between $545,000 and $680,000 per job. "

as well as this one:

"For an E10 blend the program provides an effective excise differential of 3.8 cents per litre compared to a litre of regular unleaded petrol," it says.

"However, in 2012-13 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission estimated that the average E10 price discount at the bowser was approximately 2 cents per litre - suggesting that around 40 per cent of the excise rebate was not being passed through to motorists."


What all that really means is that Govts of any persuasion should not get in to the business of shelling out money to create and/or save jobs because almost without fail it is a doomed exercise.

What Mr Shorten conveniently forgets is that Ford Australia announced in May 2013 it was closing their Broadmeadows and Geelong plants.

Ford Australia to close Broadmeadows and Geelong plants, 1,200 jobs to go - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I could be wrong but I don't think Mr Abbott was Prime Minister then, or was he?

Some interesting discussion and points on this topic made on the ABC program Q&A on Monday night - might be possible to watch reruns on the internet if you are interested.

Originally Posted by Big Shed

The trouble with Govt subsidies is that they are just not viable.

What all that really means is that Govts of any persuasion should not get in to the business of shelling out money to create and/or save jobs because almost without fail it is a doomed exercise.

When your government becomes beholden to capital you have lost the game.

In West Virginia there was recently an industrial chemical spill. The chemical is used to process coal. Very little was known about the toxicity of this chemical (4-methylcyclohexanemethanol) because the manufacturer was not required to test it, a failure of government. The chemical spilled into the local river which supplies drinking water for the down stream population. The residents could not use the water for weeks and had to rely on bottled water for all of their needs. The bottled water supply ran out early. Now the residents have seen their water bills go up Despite Not Using Water, West Virginians Say Water Bills Have Spiked Since Chemical Spill | ThinkProgress.

In 2010 our Supreme Court in the case known as 'Citizens United' decided that corporations could donate unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns and politicians. The Justices decided that such spending was a form of 'speech' that was protected from government control under the US Constitution. Thus we now have a situation where the forces of capital can exert tremendous and disproportionate influence over our elections.

In 1986 our Congress passed and President Reagan signed into law the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986. this act and others require the users and suppliers of chemicals to produce a document known as a Material Safety Data Sheet or MSDS. In the MSDS all known hazards and the physical and chemical characteristics of a compound are to be reported. The act has since been diluted to the point that most MSDS's are useless. No information is typically provided for the composition of products that are mixtures. Only the most rudimentary information and warnings are provided such as 'do not take internally' or 'flammable' etc.

These two forces combined have exacerbated the problems in West Virginia. Little to no toxicological information is available in the MSDS for MCHM and thus the possible health effects are almost completely unknown. Why has this happened? Big coal bought the politicians. The politicians watered-down the public safety laws and somebody 'accidentally' dumped the chemical in the river. Now about 1/4 of the state of West Virginia has poisoned drinking water.

Unfortunately situations like the one in West Virginia are anything but unique. Take the global warming situation. Australia is having major problems as I write but in the US there is a large segment of the population that does not believe man-made climate change is real. We teach creationism along side evolution to children in science class in the public schools here.

When your government becomes more responsive to money than it is to your vote then you can expect nothing but trouble. We have been sold.

Good post Rob, although I don't see what the teaching of evolution has to do with things.

One problem i see with repulican systems of government is that all laws and decisions become
rooted in the constitution and that leads to to the sorts of troubles you have outlined. We end up
with a plutocracy and not a democracy.