And then there were none .

[Captiva Fan]

John Howard the hero of many here was adamant that Australia had to get out of manufacturing and become a service based country. I guess the liberals still think that way and are carrying on with the mission as he planned.

Don't the majority of people who know things about economics still continue to say that you should just let an ailing company or industry die, because the employees & the economy overall will therefore find something more efficient to make more money out of?
That's the way I still read it, and that's basically what's happened.
You can't solely blame the Liberals, Ford waved goodbye under Labor.

however a lot of the time "these days" the latest and greatest widget is built like shit and will happily fuck out after a year or two.

"Widgets" yeah, but I dunno about a lot of other stuff ... some stuff (like many whitegoods - eg. washing machines) if you do some research & spend about 1/5 as much as they did back then (ie. adjusted according to average/median wage) it'll last as long, it's when you pay 1/10 as much as they did that it dies. However stuff like cars are heaps more reliable ... TV's are, in fact most entertainment electronics probably are ... 'fridges I don't know if you can buy anything that gets near the reliability/longevity (although power usage is a different matter!) ... clothes it seems you can still get good stuff but you do need to know what you're doing (I honestly have NFI about quality/longevity with clothes but the nopix seems to be able to pick it) & pay sorta the equivalent of what they paid "back then".

Oh, and another one - fresh food definitely lasts longer, get your mixed salad greens from the grower's market & they'll last a week in the 'fridge, get them from the supermarket on Saturday & they're all wilty by Monday.

[9triton]

No the price of housing has exploded which has made everything more expensive a long with it... In the 80's-90's the average cost of a house was about 4x the annual salary now its around 8-10x which is a huge increase particularly when you take into account Australia has nothing but space...

id agree - highest in wesetrn world?
IIRC : australia and canada are only two countries that have negative gearing on property.




world housing to income affordability :



but here are the stats for 2013:

lol: port macquarie ....

[itsnotagsr]

Just thinking about this some more, I find the Toyota decision the most puzzling and even the company's own comments today say the decision was "close". We'll probably never know but I'd be really interested to know what the factors were that they took into account and how the numbers looked; Toyota doesn't strike me as a company that would close a plant lightly, unlike Ford and GM.

Perhaps though it was just the writing on the wall - costs weren't going to get much better, imports were going to continue to be cheaper, and the Productivity Commission just last week recommended that the Govt not provide any car industry funding at all from 2020 onwards.

It will be really interesting to see what happens if/when the dollar gets back down to 70c or even 50c and imported cars suddenly become very expensive.

You have to understand how the industry is moving. Its all about consolidation and scale. Look at VW for example and how they're sharing platforms. Then look at how Ford and GM are shutting plants in Europe (eg Belgium/Germany). Then ask if it was every likely that they were going to keep open a small plant in Australia only making 50-100k (at best) cars a year? It was always going to happen. Someone in government realised that the industry was changing and that it was only ever a cash grab.

As for the dollar, the car companies are all over that. They have hedging in place if it rises. I used to consult for some of the Japanese truck companies and they did that 15 years ago. Ask yourself when the dollar was stronger, if prices changed much? Not really. They just threw in a couple of extras that didn't cost much to make it seem better value. On top of that, they have an efficiency advantage by not having to individualise the cars as much. Win-Win!

The only way car prices will come down is through competition. Given how competitive it is in Australia, products have improved. Shit ones (eg Citroen, etc) or overpriced ones (eg Fiat) don't survive long because there is something better or cheaper available.

[kabab]

Just thinking about what gets imported as opposed to local.
Clothing is one, that'd go up.
Fuel would go up, we do way too much transport so that means even though we make food here that will go up quite a lot. The cost of all these utilities that've gone-up recently; that's a recent thing, and there's been no bubble in the last 3 years in wages, so that's not going to be particularly wage-related; eg. maintenance of stuff no-doubt involves buying-in from overseas.

We have enormous amounts of oil,gas, solar, geo, hydro energy sources and a small population if the government subsided energy given we the people own it anyway and sell off the rest then it becomes quiet interesting since it would become very cheap for industry and reduce the cost burden of living for the average person..

Right now we just sell it all off and the profits go to the government as royalties (then gets wasted with stupid policy's) and the rest is kept by private business...

Cloths would be cheap because most of the is made in countries which are 3rd and 2nd world where our buying power would still be very considerable, what i'm angling at is become a cheap first world nation and as you noted it might encourage more domestic production..

On balance, I think you're right. Short-term pain would be longer-term gain overall. Although I don't know if I'm convinced that housing would necessarily drop that much, and that's a biggie in the places people actually want to live ... you'd have to put a plug in investment by non-citizens or something like that. And everyone with a mortgage would get kicked firmly in the financial 'nads.

Housing is another policy area which needs to be looked at currently we have rich Chinese buying the country out from under us (they probably got more millionaires then we have population) and broken taxation systems which is slowly creating a feudal society...

We are living in a bubble the longer it exists the more painful the explosion is going to be, perhaps all these people in power (baby boomers) are trying to delay this till they are gone and pass the burden along to the rest of us...

I firmly believe at this point democratic capitalism has run its course and its time for a new form of government and financial model to emerge.

One possibly-interesting thing I found, when just having a look around for numbers on income vs houses vs time, is on Wikipedia here. It says Sydney property has only increased ~17% in the last 10 years where every other capital has doubled. It does make you wonder whether that means everything will stabilise; did Sydney stabilise a bit because it finally hit that saturation value where everyone's just said "enough - I can't afford that"? Or did foreign investors start buying elsewhere maybe?

Its gone up at a rate way higher then inflation..

http://www.whocrashedtheeconomy.com/...ia_sep2012.png

All these factors are drowning out our ability to compete globally, what the fuck are we going to do as a nation in the future?? We need to stop trying to play by these stupid global systems and come up with a strategy which is best for Australia who gives a fuck if its seen as nationalist or anti free trade...

[Captiva Fan]

All these factors are drowning out our ability to compete globally, what the fuck are we going to do as a nation in the future?? We need to stop trying to play by these stupid global systems and come up with a strategy which is best for Australia who gives a fuck if its seen as nationalist or anti free trade...

But I think you've struck a problem there; it seems that most economics-people think that something which is anti-competition ISN'T best for Australia.

[kabab]

But I think you've struck a problem there; it seems that most economics-people think that something which is anti-competition ISN'T best for Australia.

Yeah but everyone we compete with isn't playing fair either... If everyone was operating on an even playing field then fine..

For instance the USA has massive subsidies for farmers, Germany gives huge government support for Automotive industry and China has pegged their YEN and highly restrictive laws on foreign ownership...

Free trade is a myth....

Look at what all these big tech companies do they generate billions of $$$ of revenues in various companies then offshore it all to Ireland i think and pay fuck all tax..

Apple paid $36 million in tax on $6 billion in sales last year in Australia....

Shit is wack on a global scale...

[Captain_Slow]

(Edit: in response to itsnotagsr) Good point well made, I'd overlooked scale in my thinking about the local plant; although you could say it's a plant that's already there as opposed to a decision about where to locate a new one. But yeah, I guess it's cheaper to buy (say) 200,000 Camry dashboards from a Thai supplier for your Thai assembly plant than 130,000 Thai dashboards and 70,000 Aussie ones.

[Biggus]

But I think you've struck a problem there; it seems that most economics-people think that something which is anti-competition ISN'T best for Australia.

Depends on how they define "Australia". You, me and the other 23 million plebs?

[Captiva Fan]

Depends on how they define "Australia". You, me and the other 23 million plebs?

That's as I understand it ... anti-competition leads to price increases &/or stagnation, and stagnation isn't good according to the growth-or-die financial system the world operates under.

[itsnotagsr]

Yeah but everyone we compete with isn't playing fair either... If everyone was operating on an even playing field then fine..

For instance the USA has massive subsidies for farmers, Germany gives huge government support for Automotive industry and China has pegged their YEN and highly restrictive laws on foreign ownership...

Free trade is a myth....

Look at what all these big tech companies do they generate billions of $$$ of revenues in various companies then offshore it all to Ireland i think and pay fuck all tax..

Apple paid $36 million in tax on $6 billion in sales last year in Australia....

Shit is wack on a global scale...

Agree Babs. We need a fairer tax system. Not paying tax is a massive advantage. But how do you properly tax internet revenue? I'm sure Apple/Google/etc have hired lawyers to work it out according to the rules set.

But re trade, I still think that we could be positioning ourselves better. We are good at producing stuff (eg fruit/veg) but absolutely shit at marketing it properly. China has a massive issue with dodgy food and drink. Why aren't we marketing Australian fruit and veg as a premium product over there? That might have saved SPC?

(Edit: in response to itsnotagsr) Good point well made, I'd overlooked scale in my thinking about the local plant; although you could say it's a plant that's already there as opposed to a decision about where to locate a new one. But yeah, I guess it's cheaper to buy (say) 200,000 Camry dashboards from a Thai supplier for your Thai assembly plant than 130,000 Thai dashboards and 70,000 Aussie ones.

The land is usually the cheapest part. Factories and the tooling are very easily moved.

[Captain_Slow]

But I think you've struck a problem there; it seems that most economics-people think that something which is anti-competition ISN'T best for Australia.

Basically true though if you accept that free market competition results in the best product winning. In the car case, imported products won and the resources allocated to local car making can then be reallocated to some more efficient use on a sector where Australia has competitive advantages.

The issue in that for me is that capital can move more freely than labour can. I accept that if jobs are available in WA mines and you live in Broadmeadows you can move (and if you don't want to, then don't expect the taxpayer to support your lifestyle choice); but you can't easily move across national borders.

[Biggus]

That's as I understand it ... anti-competition leads to price increases &/or stagnation, and stagnation isn't good according to the growth-or-die financial system the world operates under.

I understand the theory. I think it's now complete bollocks on a national scale. Chinese millionaires buying up property in Australia doesn't do us that much good and reduces local competition. It's probably fucking great for the top 5% of individuals internationally, but for locals, all it does is drive the price of living up, and the flow-on is to demand higher and higher wages.

I'm not blaming the Chinese for property prices, they were stupid years before the overseas investors started to get serious. They're not helping the situation, though.

[kabab]

That's as I understand it ... anti-competition leads to price increases &/or stagnation, and stagnation isn't good according to the growth-or-die financial system the world operates under.

The financial system the world operates under has failed why try to keep it propped its become 100% clear that the system leads to nothing but abuse and financial manipulation in order to benefits a small percentage of people while raping everyone else..

The only people this system benefits is the finance and banking companies who create no real valuable product anyway...

[TonyJZX]

http://www.smh.com.au/business/banki...212-32h4x.html

[Fatboy]

I went to an auction on the weekend kinda hoping for a bargain. 2 bed unit, western Sydney, expectation around 280 to 300k. Sold at 352k. Yeah, it's getting a little silly...