Hasbeen,
The usual excuse for not purchasing locally is that local products are inferior in quality and more expensive than imports.

But over time, most things become better in quality and cheaper. I remember having an early model mobile phone. It came with a recharger the size of a shoebox, and weighed about the same as a brick. Now of course someone can easily lose their mobile phone if it drops out of their pocket.

So it is somewhat a hypothetical question, but it would be interesting to see what Australian manufactures could now produce, if given half a chance.

*It is sobering to remember that I once supplied raw materials to 6 companies in Sydney alone, who manufactured TV sets, & 10 who built refrigerators*

Well that just shows us how manufacturing has changed over the
decades. Today its all about huge, highly automated factories,
with as little manual labour as possible. Robot welders etc
are the norm. Australia can't compete there, we don't have the
population to have the required volume of scale.

Going back to making things by hand, would blow their cost right
out of the water. Consumers could not afford to buy them.

But then today, the cost to get things from the wharf to the
consumer, is often larger then the cost of manufacture. So even
on imported goods, a major chunk of their value stays local.

* in my last survey (August 2010) of a doorknock sample of an Australian demographic corridor, 86% supported such reform*

Clearly your survey was not much good, for people vote with
their wallets, every single day.

This is becoming an amusing thread. We have our marxist, our bloke
who believes nearly everything could be made locally, now Tony
with his economic voodoo, which is basically garbage.

WA does seem to be the go ahead state. 10% of the population
producing 50% of Australia's exports. I'd say that if the East
tried to go back to the dark days of tariffs, West Australians
would vote for you lot to get lost and simply secede. I doubt
if this state would go backwards 50 years.

Hi Tony Ryan,

Checked out your websites. I like a lot of what's on them, but am concerned that you go too far in some areas. For example, I am a supporter of moderate protectionism, that encourages diversity within local economies while still enabling trade. Creating a tariff 'firewall' to protect Australia is pretty strong rhetoric, moving toward the no-trade end of the free-trade/no-trade spectrum that I mentioned in the article.

With the Australian centred focus of your thoughts; fair enough, I think that it is in Australia's interest to protect its economy, but it's not about "We're gonna do what's right for us and the rest of you can jump." I realize that you didn't say that, but if you don't want to get accused of nationalism, perhaps it would be better if you provided an broader, international context within which the Australian focus could fit. (You could for example look at how supporting the implementation of trade tariffs could be used as an important component of development aid; encouraging each region toward self-directed economic interdependence and self-reliance.)

I also like the community-control-of-comunity-issues and direct democracy theme from the music related website, though I think that you could do more work on describing the specific mechanisms for the 'genuine democracy' that you describe. The devil may be in the detail but if you figure it out, the same processes can of course be applied across the board to the management of all local assets and scenarios.

Squeers, The article which you link for us with Pros and cons of protectionism is pretty poor to say the least. Shane Hall's enquiries are obviously biased by his assumption that free trade is good. In his points about the pro's of protectionism, we have, "Economists concede that free trade ..... in the long term, ... is far more beneficial than protectionism" and "The validity of this (protectionist) argument, however, is undermined by the tendency for such policies to become permanent as ... aided industry grows dependent on the support"

But Shane doesn't have any concerns about the supposed pros of free trade.

Surely you can do better than that. Your superviser would laugh at you.

Yabby, Thankyou for reading my articles and making comments. Your input and good humour is well appreciated. Friendliness aside however, I am concerned that you may be in unfamiliar territory here, what with Hasbeen making comments like, "We may have to reintroduce tariffs to give meaningful employment at some stage.", and you finding yourself in ideological allignment with Squeers. How weird is that?

Gidday Gilbert

I find it ironical when people who are monolingual and have experience of living in only one culture, then go on to express international values.

I have learned several languages in my life, lived in several cultures, and comprehend the conflict inherent in this.

I know that nobody in any other country cares that three million Australians are unemployed; that possibly up to 13% are homeless.

I also know that Australia is the only country remaining that is potentially self-sufficient. That we do not need to trade, except to balance the value of imports; most of which we are capable of producing ourselves. In fact, since WWII, most of our exports served the purpose of making certain elites wealthier; and these same exports had an inflationary effect on domestic consumption.

Other exports cost us jobs... for example, live cattle export cost us around 250,000 jobs in abattoirs and flow-on industries.

This is not ideology. It is reclaiming lives for the millions whose prosperity was sacrificed at the alter of free trade cultism; and UN-promoted internationalism; all of which can be traced to the creators of the UN: the Rockefellers and Rothschilds and their Zionist alliance.

I have observed the broken families, the thousands of suicides, the children who have no future, and I swear that their prosperity will be returned to them. I see this as a burgeoning war.

If you want to call that nationalism, as though this were a dirty word, I will respond with the word 'traitor' to anyone who sells us out to foreign powers. Ironically, the Constitution uses these very words. Am I a patriot? Yes.

On the issue of democracy; as this was understood by Thucydides, the Irish Monks, the Finnish Philosophers, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Acton, and Gore Vidal; I have prepared articles that cover this in detail. All pertinent issues are covered by similar articles, including an e-booklet on the Seventeen Elements of the Globalisation of Australia.

On music, Gilbert, what instrument do you play?

*Other exports cost us jobs... for example, live cattle export cost us around 250,000 jobs in abattoirs and flow-on industries.*

Gawd, I just love this economic voodoo. Last time I checked, we
were exporting around 750'000 cattle. That would be 1 job per
3 cows slaughtered. Wow!

Fact is that northern pastoralists would have gone broke without the
live export trade and there would be no jobs at all.

Fact is that many of our meatworks, even in Queensland, depend
on 457 workers, as Australians don't want the jobs. In WA they
need to use Chinese and Filipinos, Aussies don't want the jobs.

The National Farmers Federation knows how important export markets
are to agriculture. Without them, most Australian farmers would
go bankrupt. They also know how high tariffs on inputs nearly
sent many farmers to the wall.

But voodoo economics is preached at every election by the CEC
and luckily its pretty well ignored by the Australian public.
Not too many take Larouche seriously.