It was but 2.5yrs ago that Jing left this country with the knowledge of furniture manufacturing that our country had instilled in his psyche.Now many others in China have the skills and incentive to construct furniture to our standards that have taken centuries to hone and perfect in Australia.

Just a short time ago in Aust Jing had to sack his only 3 workers since they wanted an increase in their hourly rate of just $3.00.This would have taken their hourly rate to $18.00 plus workers comp of 11%,plus holiday pay,long service leave,sick pay,and all the legal nonsense/insurances that our system now kills incentive to achieve.

Jing now in China,employs 60 factory workers for $1.00 per hr each.He employs 6 office workers at a slightly higher rate.As more skills are transferred to poorer countries we will continue to lose more jobs and our balance of payments deficit will increase expodentially.It was $600 billion.With the depreciation of our dollar, it is now $750 billion,or $75,000.00 for every working person.

The Central Banks of the World have now more than doubled the amount of money in a debt trap that has over inflated all our assets,and we seem quite contented to accept the distortions in our economy that reward,rapacious,impotent greed and not those who produce.Hyper-inflation,and stagflation are looming on the horizon.

We have rules for the "World Game" ,known as soccer,but there are no rules for the Global Economy.Barack Obama is just the olive leaf to appease Western sensitivities.He like George Bush,will do as he is told.

Arjay.... welcome to the ugly world of the 'employer'.....

yep.. sad indeed, but the reality is.. if union/worker demands continue upward.. the job possibilities will spiral downward.

The only thing left in the end will be some office jobs and infrastructure related work..such as for major utilities and mining etc.

The debt situation you mentioned is a time bomb.. we don't even hear it ticking.. all we hear is a cacophony of voices wanting more more more.... oblivious to the 'hell' coming upon us when the financial/economic poo finally hits the fan.

AAAaah..then there will be a mad scramble for survival... and all those bleeding hearts who are so insistent on 'human rights' will be bleating it out like lost sheep.. wandering around...glazed eyed.. panic stricken...wondering why no one is listening to what they thought was an "important" message.

Well, I am the uneducated one here, although you would not think it after reading this thread, so far.
Century's of honing our skills in furniture building?
Do you Arjay mean to say that?
Our skills may well have taken that long to hone but they came from Europe not Australia.
And poor old Polycarp that Christian gentle man, follower of a God that seems to have thought far differently than him.
Unions/workers, evil buggers!
Poly YOUR GOD WAS A CARPENTER
Are we to take it you again think it is Christian to see workers suffer low wages, low standard of living, for the good of the economy?
Baric and Kevin are under the control only of reality Arjay, how man can avoid these extremes is not clear but your mate from China has been learning a lot over the past 15 years m before that his Buddy from Japan did much the same.
I think your China never existed, the country had culture before we existed as a country.
Mate bob may well have leaned what we want to buy but his skills existed long before our country.
workers, their wage packets, are the oil our economy runs on, who wants to reduce that oil flow as a way of making some suffer so some prosper?
A Christian!

Dear Belly....

no one wants higher pay for workers than me :) my wife works outside our company, and we need every cent she can earn.

BUT....to earn something...she has to have a JOB..and if the pressure to pay ever increasing wages continues.. she (and all the others where she works) will not have one.

It's a simple equation. "Workers cost too much.. making our product uncompetitivie--- Solution.. re-locate factory to a place where workers are cheap"

I'ts not 'my' equation... it's lifes.

In Malaysia, the problem always arises at the border areas.
Malaysians want say $20/day for day labor work, but Indonesians will zip across the border and do it for half that and smile all the way to the shops.

A much better solution to just 'paying more' is to upgrade the quality of life in other ways, and to make life more fulfilling in non materialistic ways :)

nuf said.

I would b surprised to know that chinese factory workers are paid that much. They red chinese seem to be able to sell profitably into the indo local economy so they must be paying less than $AU5 per day.

More so than higher wages needing to be paid, in my view, company profits need to be regulated down thus increasing the "real value" of peoples wages, reducing the costs of commodities and services and giving the consumer greater purchasing power.

And obviously executive pay needs to come down, along with that of some professionals, most especially lawyers and doctors who should have the right to determine their own fees taken away and I note the words of a high court judge:

"Remorseless mercantilastion"

Justice and Medicine are rights not priveleges of the self indulgent rich and consequently everyone must be able to afford it.

And of course, the oldies/pensioners need to be ratcheted up and in order to do that the public sector wages in certain areas must come down.

This system of greed is good, a select few get the lion's share and everyone else gets a plebs lot is the consequence of the exploitation of an inherently flawed economic system and perversion of the "Free Market" principal. Necessity is often the mother of invention and when people are a hungry they strive all that much harder to perform and to encourage this, there ought be modest but real incentive bonuses for those that want to go the extra hard yards.

But to give excess for nothing, that leads to lazy, fat cats who crash the system and here we are.

Arjay when our Balance of Payments becomes too onerous to finance, the exchange rate will decline to reflect in the landed price of imports and we will not be able to afford overseas products. That will stimulate local production.

I never worry about how we, as a nation, are doing, If I were to worry about anything it would be how I am doing and I have just contractually underpinned any personal ‘exposure’ for the next year at least. In short, worry about what I owe and just pray the brainless wallies in government don't run us into a debt funded budget.

Actually, I expect to go deeper into debt next year but since that debt will be to fund revenue earning assets generating well over the interest rate it will cost and since my credit rating is better than the average sub-prime borrower, it does not bother me.

DreamOn “who should have the right to determine their own fees taken away”

I negotiate my own rate of pay. I have done that for the past 20 years and I always will.

Who are you or anyone else to decide that someone will not be allowed to earn more than a certain amount?

Those doctors and lawyers (and any other provider of valued services) compete with other doctors and lawyers etc.

Negotiating a fee for service no different to buying anything,

Just as the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too the value is in the eye of the buyer.

I recall recently paying a barrister over $800 for an hour of his time. His advise saved me $40,000 and a lot of anguish. He was worth every cent.