The price around our way is still in the $10/kilo range, some three times its previous price. Who is getting the extra six bucks? It is obviously a windfall for those unaffected by the cyclone, since they wouldn't get anywhere near that for their product before.

Is the fortunate (i.e. non-cyclone-affected) grower getting the benefit? Or is it the retailer, making the most of the laws of supply and demand, cashing in on high demand and low supply? We hear enough about the hardships experienced by those affected by the weather, but nothing at all about those who are benefitting from the inflated prices.

In my view there is absolutely no justification for protecting our banana industry. Regardless of "assisting developing countries", there is no justification in asking the Australian consumer to pay over the odds for a commodity as simple and basic as a banana. Who is protecting what from whom? Does anyone know what the price of a free-market banana would be?

I am separating out the quarantine issue from the economic; we should obviously protect ourselves from disease. However I get the strong impression that it is being used as a smokescreen, in the same way as do-gooders think in terms of assistance, rather than trade.

Whatever, I'd love to know who is getting financial benefit from the shortage, and whether they are channelling any of their windfall (sorry!) profits to the devastated growers.

Rhain

You bet Ya I would prefer to go back to putting kids to learn a bloody trade. The ones that wish to go to night uni can like we did. They can work to pay their own fees like we did.

As for your faith in government figures u are very silly to follow their figures.

Why dont you really read some of Billys posts and try to learn something.

As for your comment on Family First It does not warrant an answer but if you think its ok for a so called church based group to have NO INTEREST in the barbaric cruelty to our animals in the live export trade while stealing work from Australia than it is you who belong in their camp along with The National Party and the Low Life government.

Beazsley is not going anywhere while he has Jack lake as Adviser either and sits on his arse regarding the live export issue as well.

So that Leaves As they say.>
A FEW GOOD MEN

Like Billie

The threat of disease is very real. If black sigatoga had struck at the moment, when there has been just 8 days without rain in NQ since cyclone Larry, it would have been virtually uncontrollable.

Selfishness of southern city folk is unbelievable. Mirko do you know how hard the average banana worker works. The pay is basic and they work in the rain, mud and tropical heat. A bunch of bananas can weigh 60 to 80 kg and they are dropped onto the shoulders of workers when the tree is cut. The worker then has to carry the bunch on their shoulders to the trailer in the aforementioned rain, mud or heat. They encounter snakes, spiders and rats. Leptospirosis is always a risk.

Your selfish desire to import bananas will put these very hard working men and women's income at risk.

The farmers whose crop did survive Larry are getting the premium price for their bananas, but there were not too many who have a crop.

Rather than push for imports, be patient as bananas will be back to a more affordable price in a few months. However, when I drove through the Innisfail area yesterday, a lot of homes still have tarps on their roofs. I suspect the banana crop will recover a lot faster than the community that Larry decimated.

I am not a banana grower or worker but I know the risk of importing disease is very real.

And bannanas is not the half of this miserable sick trade in what we call money that is the root cause of so much pain, damage and destruction of our world....

Anyone heard of copper? well its all around us but we cant see it. In every wire that supplies electricity in our houses, to every little electrical gadget that makes our life's easier to computers, cars to planes, phones to video conference..I think I have got the importance of it across.

Now over the last thirty years, the world demand for copper (Cu) has gone through the roof. Right, now for us budding economist to apply common reason to reasonably say "Cripes, the copper prices would have gone through the roof'...BUT nope, for 1975 on it crashed and stayed that way since.

How? well it seems that somebody has stockpiled vast quantities of copper and releases them into the market to control its prices. Who produce most of the copper? some of the poorest third world countries on earth whom cant reduce production or not allowed to, to let the stockpile be exhausted.

Who produces most of these finished electronic items....Yep. How much do they cost...x10, x100 value of the copper in it....So some evil genius figured out about copper futures and and an effective way to manipulate it for getting gross amount of the green stuff...money baby.

Welcome to the world we live in...where we are made to not think too much of the complete circle to things we do, just here is a nice tv at a price you can afford.. take it home and enjoy. Dont worry about the 1000 children whom will die of starvation in the country that produced the copper because the price of copper is kept so low and we dont care so why should you, just give me your green stuff and take the tv. NO

Oh.... make sure you keep believing what you read in the corporate media that copper prices is the result of demand and supply..

Sam
Ps; some figures quoted are fictional but the principle holds true

The economic illiterates in this thread opposed to free trade (for reasons other than health, contamination concerns, etc.) should educate themselves on the basics, primarily comparative advantage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

It's not a matter of preference, it's a matter of fact versus fallacy.

So GT,our $400 billion balance of payments deficit is also fiction?Unbridled free trade has a lot of negatives when our very small manufacturing sector is rapidly evaporating.

How are we going to pay our way when we run out of resources,coal and gas to flog?We are locking in cheap prices with China to secure our market.Not very clever when you consider that the price of energy will only rise above the CPI due to increased demand.

Comparative Advantage looks good on paper,but the reality is vastly different.