Thanks Grim - agree absolutely re: the merits of Mondragon!;

On the beach - the difference is that I am talking about a genuine co-investment rather than a 'handout'.

Tristan Ewins,

I accept that you are genuine in what you are suggesting and Grim's idea also has its appeal. It takes an ideal world though.

However, for once I would like to see union bosses -mighty mouths like Paul Howes who are all care and no responsibility, but get to decide who is the (Labor)PM- put their 'Big Union' money and claimed expertise into running a cooperative.

Howes was the 'expert' who rubbished family farms, saying that 'ma and pa farms had to end' and demanded restructuring. Easy for Howes to say, while he is guaranteed his excessive remuneration package and travel, and retirement benefits also paid for by union members.

It seems there are many who run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

Tristan
What objections do you have to complete government control and direction of all production? Why not collectivise agriculture?

looks like Socialism & Capitalism are heading for the edge of the cliff. Good I say if it helps waking some of the greedy morons up.
Let's hope it results in the reintroduction of sense.

Tristan
What objections do you have to complete government control and direction of all production? Why not collectivise agriculture.?

On the contrary, Mr Ewins, I am one hundred percent sure that the business can be made profitable.

>>Pericles; You are suggesting that SPC-Ardmona simply cannot be made profitable.<<

However, we are discussing this in the context of i) a business owned by CCA, who have their own measurement of profitability, more than likely based upon the cost of capital, and ii) a business that has over a period of time created expectations in terms of employment and remuneration.

Avenues to profitability might include such actions as reducing the amount they pay to producers, reducing the amount they pay their staff (including management, of course), reducing their staffing levels, reducing prices so that they could sell a greater volume etc. etc. And undoubtedly one such measure could be to turn it into a cooperative venture with producers and workers.

I would buy the company in a heartbeat, and make the necessary changes myself, if I was given a free hand to do so by the various parties. But you can bet your bottom rouble that there would immediately appear a long line of rent-seekers, staking their own claims to special treatment in such a turnaround project, and in the process ensuring that it would end up in exactly the same state in which you find it today.

Unprofitable.

>>That's not apparently what CCA thinks; They believe that with the government co-investment that it could well be made profitable. Otherwise they wouldn't have made the suggestion.<<

That's just nonsense. If they believed that an investment would make a difference, they would have made it themselves. Ask yourself, what is the difference between $25 million provided by the government, and $25 million provided from your own resources?

Answer: if you can get some sucker to put a buck in your tin, why wouldn't you?

But it wouldn't change the intrinsic profitability of the end result of that investment, one iota.