*With automated factories necessitating skilled engineers and designers there is little need for anyone to do a crappy job like working on an assembly line*

There you have it David. The meat industry is screaming for
machines to automate their labour that nobody wants to do.

The bit of machinery we do buy comes largely from NZ. There is
no reason Australian companies can't develop products and make
them right here. For that you don't need tariff protection,
just intelligent entrepreneurs prepared to have a go.

Dear Yabby,

You have argued well. For Australia to compete successfully with Germany we need a change in social attitudes, a different emphasis in educational outcomes and government encouragement for the first two changes. The fact is that we're not going to get it. I agree with you.

*For Australia to compete successfully with Germany we need a change in social attitudes,*

David, we sure do lol. Methinks Aussies by and large are getting it
so easy, they don't even need to try.

Let me give you an example, which has nothing at all to to with
tariffs or cheap labour. Over the last 10 years or so I've been
busy breeding a new kind of meat sheep, that sheds its wool and needs
no shearing. As we breed the wool off these animals, we still shear
some, in depends on how the genes fall and we have to focus on a number of attributes, not just their self shedding.

This stuff would be ideal for insulation etc, turning into wool
batts. Yet there is nobody in WA who will wash it, too many
EPA problems with the grease etc it seems. So woolbatts for
insulation from WA, include wool imported from Britain of all
places, to insulate West Australian homes!

Is it really beyond West Australian industry to wash a bit of
wool?

Frankly this sort of stuff just makes me shake my head. There
are still opportunities everywhere in Australia, but it seems
to me that most people have it so good, they don't need to bother
to have a look.

Davidf
Interesting topic.

“And now for something completely different” a devils advocate view.
To accept Yabby’s views one must first accept his premises and I’m not sure I do.
Yabby is also arguing from a position of self interest rather than objectivity and as such is using perceptions as facts.

1st ‘people don’t want production line work’
Try telling that the car and associated industries in Victoria, NSW and SA.
Or to the meat workers in abattoirs in Townsville Qld where 20% of the Cities working population worked in or in surrounding industries.
Or the ex cannery workers in places like Shepparton where 10% worked in canneries and the suppling farms now have problems surviving.
Fact. More people are employed in manufacturing etc than farming. In reality people in the developed world don’t want to work for a pittance a comparative early industrial situation (3rd world situation.)

2nd Yabby is in denial that manufacturing is fleeing to 3rd world countries solely because labour and conditions (regulations) are cheaper and slacker i.e. More profit.

3rd One has to accept Status Quo and that in the light of current events strikes me as a myopic choice at best. AGW, WW financial crisis, Pollution, Desertification/salting of Arable land, concentration of wealth, even primary industry being multi national corporatised. Family farms have decreased exponentially in recent years. One can and many do that we need a new world financial paradigm. This one is broken.

4th One must accept that capitalism as it is practiced is the only way…it simply isn’t or does it mean that if we dispense with current capitalism that Communism or Socialism (both equally flawed constructs) and pre industrial life styles are the only alternatives.

Capitalism was conceived as a beneficial system prior to:
Limited liability Companies
Floating exchange
Derivatives, debt swaps
Rating agencies
*mass*production on the scale it is now
Consumerism
Gobalism
All the above and more have been created to facilitate what… Capital and those who control it. But at what cost to the people national independence and self sufficiency?
Enough to start with.

*1st ‘people don’t want production line work’*

Examinator, in that case why haven't they been applying
for the jobs that are available in the meat industry and
other industries? In WA it has frankly been a disaster
to hire people. A bit of a recession is just what we
need, to bring back some sense into things, as they were
getting out of hand.

*Fact. More people are employed in manufacturing etc than farming.*

Err, so what? Primary industry creates the raw material for
secondary industries to work with. Primary industry in
Australia is generally highly competitive, when seen in a
global context. Not so for Australian manufacturing.

*2nd Yabby is in denial that manufacturing is fleeing to 3rd world countries solely because labour and conditions (regulations) are cheaper and slacker i.e. More profit.*

I am in denial of nothing. If goods can be made cheaper, given some
competition, they can also be sold cheaper to consumers. Consumers
benefit! Fact is that in today's system, the cost of making goods
is often far less then getting them from the wharf to the consumer.

I read somewhere that the average pair of shoes from China cost
around 5US$. But those high rents at Westfield shopping centres and
those many sales staff standing around, twiddling their thumbs,
have to be paid for. Marketing today often costs far more then
manufacture.

*Family farms have decreased exponentially in recent years.*

Sure they have. Australian agriculture has to be globally competitive
to survive, so agriculture has been in a cost/price squeeze for
decades. That loaf of bread that you buy for 4$, might contain
20c of wheat for instance. Everyone stakes their claim, farmers
are left with the crumbs that are left.

*Capital and those who control it. But at what cost to the people national independence and self sufficiency?*

So who owns those large corporations? Workers of course, through
their super funds. Take a look at the top 20 shareholders of ASX
listed companies of some size.

Yabby,
What happens in WA is not necessarily reflected in the rest of Aus and vice versa.
My point was that people *do* want production line work. Why not in WA? Up until recently the mining industry offered more $’s. Capitalism at work.
As for Drs and nurses you need to look at previous government’s spending priorities (uni places and affordability.) then you need to consider the AMA and the medical college’s restrictive supply policies to maintain wealth levels etc. (Drs. unions in effect) no real competition there.
Don’t forget that not every one has the smarts or the opportunity to be good Drs. etc.
Who wants to work for a pittance on some remote farm when in cities there are better paid jobs? More dysfunction in the system.

Your super fund bit is not quite accurate they are bit players in multi nationals.
Your point about bread proves my point about who makes most of the profit, the mega-corps Coles, Woollies etc. Ask who is supplying their capital most of it comes from the net lending countries.

As for the $5 shoes. What price the labour and conditions? The big winners are the wholesalers and retailers their mark-ups (profits) are extortionate. And who owns the big shoe companies like Nike? Capital investors of which super fund are small beer.

Part of the financial problem today is because net lending countries like China have flooded the west with capital causing the credit bubble.

My argument was that your assertions were based on
-maintaining status quo et al
-that propping up current structures are our only options.
And that the current system has a sound basis it doesn’t. Capitalism as it is has been ad hoc development. To the point whereby it is effectively dysfunctional.
There are many other options.

Status Quo asserts than Gobalism and rampant consumerism (magic pudding principal) is the only way to go from any number of perspectives this is both untrue and unwise.

There is other options.