*Oh Yabby, Yabby, Yabby
The world is not as neat and tidy as you may think.
Markets rise and fall for many reasons, not just protectionism.*

Vanna, I'm really not sure what your point is. I am well aware
of the above. And so?

Nevertheless, protectionism drives up input costs for growers.
If those same growers export their produce, it makes things
that much more difficult for them to compete in the real world.

It also makes goods more expensive for consumers, including workers.
Those same workers then need higher wages to survive, to pay for
increasingly expensive consumer goods. So it lands up like a dog
chasing its tail.

Fact is, we are part of the real world, we cannot pretend that we
are not.

...Mark, it was actually you who made the sweeping statements at the beginning of your article. Statements not actually connected with a book review but in line with a non protectionist ideology; your own no doubt. You use Massey to argue against protectionist policies and the failures apparent in the wool reserve price scheme. I considered my comments were very relevant to your article.

...The point of my argument was to use history to make the point that protectionism is all well and good if the protected are “connected”. Your line ignores that point, and claims it as irrelevant; or you simply ignore the relevance. The wool price initiative was a classic example of the ability of certain industries to featherbed themselves at the expense of others (taxpayers). You argue that price fixing is counter productive, if not in the short term then definitely in the long term. You argue of the need for the market to be used as an acclimatiser of reality.(still using Massey’s book as support for your personal proposition)!

...Many industries used fixing mechanisms such as tariffs to not only protect the industry but to protect the jobs of the (sometimes) thousands of workers.(as opposed to the long history of the wool industry in pandering to self interest at all times) I believe that in those circumstances price fixing is actually socially responsible. You point to Europe now as an example of tariffs ill effects; It is you that fails to point out why you believe that point to be true. Its not sufficient to use that argument as the central plank of debate to support the negatives of protectionism without at least some example.

...And finally, I am not at all surprised you ignored China as the shining light of success in non protectionist policies as a reason for their huge progress in economic growth

Yabby,

I'm wondering, if public servants are employed within a protected environment.

I have noticed that many of them are highly anti-protectionist, but they never stop asking for more taxpayer funding.

I'm not totally in support of tarrifs, I'm more in support of so-called Australians being more in support of Australian industry.

That I don't often see, and I rarely see it amongst government employees and members of the education system.

In fact, I'm sure some of them would rather commit hari kari on a blunt sword than be forced to even look at something made in Australia.

And they would rather have their lips sown together rather than say anything positive about Australia.

Maybe such people should go and live in China, Hong Kong, India, USA etc.

*The wool price initiative was a classic example of the ability of certain industries to featherbed themselves at the expense of others (taxpayers).*

Diver Dan, not as far as I can remember. In the end growers were
paying a levy of 27% of any shorn wool, to bankroll the huge losses
involved. After the whole thing collapsed, they continued to pay
off the debts for years.

The thing is, the rot set in much earlier. Woom boomed at the time
of the Korean war in the 50s. Along came synthetics, all the time
better and the wool industry refused to accept the changes. Meantime
the inputs they were paying to produce wool, were heavily taxed
with protectionist tariffs to featherbed Australian industry.

By the early 90s the whole thing had fallen to bits and Australia
was broke, the old sheep had collapsed. That is when we got
Keating's banana republic statement and the rest of Australia had
to accept that it was all over, they had to join the real world.

Vanna, I agree with you, public servants live in their own little
world, protected by the Public Service act and I gather its virtually
impossible to sack them. If it was up to me, every Govt dept would
be overhauled every few years, where everyone would have to actually
justify as to what they do all day and why.

...Yabby

$300m subsidy feb1991 wool floor price suspended: The scheme was Government guaranteed and funded (read tax payers): Identical similarities to bank bail outs during the GFC recently. Who walked away with the “goodies”?

Diver Dan, 300m$, given the Govt culpability in all of this and
seen against 6 billion assistance to the automotive sector, is
frankly peanuts. The wool industry carried the rest of Australia
for decade upon decade. Without it, the Ponzi scheme of high
tariffs could never have been introduced in the first place.

I've seen the other side of agriculture. Of farmers in the backblocks
of WA, living in the back of shearing sheds, who got stung by all
this, many had to give up farming because of it.