Unemployment rate low?

The governments goes on and on, and on about a 30 year low unemployment rate of 5%, but I (and Mr Howard) have lived long enough to remember when things have been much, much better, what is going on? Are they misleading us? A check of the relevant web site reveals that they are quite right but it also reveals much more. The rate 30years ago was not a minimum but part way through a drastic rise which commenced in 1974 32.5 years ago. Further examination of the data revealed that to find an earlier time that unemployment was as high as 5% we must go back to 1940 (66 years ago) and the great depression. In the years between 1934 and 1974 the average unemployment was only 2%. So 32 years ago it was 2% and to find a time when it was at or above current levels we must go back to the great depression! And the “opposition” permits this 30 year claim to go unchallenged!

Another point is that in this period 40 to 72 years ago most employed people were in full time employment but now only 60 have full time employment.

How can they get away with this true but very misleading assertion?

“They lie these men who tell you for reasons of their own
That want is here a stranger and that poverty’s unknown
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
My window sill is level with the faces in the street.

Henry Lawson “The faces in the street”



Source (rba)

http://www.rba.gov.au/PublicationsAndResearch/Conferences/1998/BorlandKennedy.pdf.

I think employment statistics need to put into the context of how society has changed. For example, one should consider participation rate. In the past (40 plus years ago) many woman were housewives and were not seeking work, so they were not counted as unemployed. Now many women work and there are comparatively more single person households. Evidently, then, we have a higher portion of the population participating in the workforce than before.

if there is such low unemployment and such a huge demand for skilled workers, then why does the Government continue to prop up the car industry with billion dollar subsidies?

Surely it would be better to release this pool of skilled people into the labour market, instead of subsidising cars which people dont want because they are too large.

Yeh I reckon its crap too.
When you think about how many people are doing voluntary,casual or part time work coupled with single parents the real figure in context must be at 15% or higher.

They are very sneaky but still these are good and interesting times we are a livin.

Interesting point about the car industry which employs about 70,000 people.

I don't think that the Federal Government will be giving more handouts. It's the state governments doing their usual pleading.

There simply is not enough room in Australia for the number of car makes we have. Nor is there a place for manufacturers who do not build 1 single small car here, preferring to stick to the petrol guzzlers. They have to provide what customers want.

If we were serious about globalisation and free trade, and smartened ourselves up, we would have by now provided different jobs for those in the car industry and let that industry survive on its own merits.

Any form of manufacturing can be done much cheaper elsewhere. It's a pity that politicans sneered at Barry Jones when he talked about the "smart country".

The lack of committment to free trade by our politicians is also seen in the fact that we have been denied cheap bananas from the Philipines while our own growers grew rich through the ridiculous prices charged following crop damage.

You can't please some people. I know people in a number of locations throughout Australia who can't get unskilled workers. No matter how good things are you will always get those wanting to be the victim (must be to ingrained with socialism). Can't somebody be happy that never before has our kids had it so good. I grew up with parents who never owned their own home (still don't) and yet people complain that they have not got it all by the age of 30. I know that their are a lot of Howard haters on this forum but at least give him some credit (it does not mean you have to like him)

To see a different perspective, I suggest you visit regional areas employing backpackers.
Last year the federal government changed the rules to allow those with one year Work/Travel visas to extend for a second year in Australia if they completed 3 months work in specific regional areas where there was previously an acute labour shortage.
Now there is an oversupply of international backpackers competing against each other to get the jobs. Once they complete 3 months of backbreaking servitude they are eligible to move to urban areas where changes to the rules have also allowed them to work in any job for six months.
These changes please producers as they now have a supply of hard working people who will remain with them for the duration of the harvest.

Recently my local suburban newspaper asked whether welfare to work was working fairly and questioned the unemployment statistics of 5.1%. It noted that a person can be 'employed' for 1 hour per fortnight in paid or unpaid work. Unemployed people can't be studying and must be actively looking and ready to work this week. Commentators put the real unemployment rate higher with Henry Thornton estimating its really 15%. Roy Morgan, of pollster fame, said that while we persist in using unrealistic statistics we will not be able to formulate realistic policies.

When I was at school we were told about the disgraceful work practices on the waterfront in the 1930s. In the 1930s workers appeared for work at the start of the day and the foreman would walk through the men and select them “you, you and you” for a days work. If you weren’t hired you would return the next day. In Victoria in 2006 teachers would be ready for the classroom at 7:10 am waiting for the phone call from the labour hire company telling them what school they were working at that day. Or not. In term 3 teachers would get 3 – 4 days work a week but in term 4 they would be called 10 days in 10 weeks.

Recently advertisements appeared for 165 COBOL programmers to rewrite part of the Telstra billing system. The advertisement says that due to the number of applications they expect to process they can't possibly get back to unsuccessful candidates. This computer company \ will store the applications in a database but hasn't got the technology or the courtesy to spend time sending out acknowledgement or rejection letters. Each application would have taken an average of 8 hours to prepare and the candidates had to have the skill set, education and university education to bother submitting an application. To put this into context, no one accurately reports the employment rate of ICT graduates as they are counted as engineering, science or business graduates. In 2002 the employment rate for ICT graduates was less than 20%.

The UK film the Navigator by Ken Loach dramatised the familiar processes of globalisation which we in Victoria have seen applied to ourselves, friends and family.
The film depicts
• a large organisation being broken into smaller units,
• former colleagues finding themselves competing against colleagues in other units
• labour hire companies offer great contract rates
• the work is outsourced
• the work unit is forced to destroy equipment
• Labour hire companies employ casualised workers who are responsible for their own training, certification, equipment, sick, holiday and superannuation pay.
• Supervisors are forced to commit acts of bastardry to keep their jobs [just a little bit longer].
• Workers are rostered into work gangs that are short and forced into heavy lifting – the back injuries will shorten their working life.
• Workers who speak out find themselves blacklisted by labour hire companies.
• Work is done by unqualified [willing and ignorant] workers using outdated, slow and dangerous techniques to save money for the subcontractors.
• The inevitable happens, the unsafe work practices lead someone being seriously injured but the workers hide the real reason for the accident because they wanted more work.

So Ken Loach always directs gloomy movies you say, but unfortunately we see the same stuff happening here under the guise of privatisation and globalisation

While I am on about skanky work employment practices let me draw 2 more to your attention.

As you are all aware it’s mandatory for employers to deduct superannuation payments from your pay packet and pay them into the super fund of your choice. It takes the employer about 2 days effort to set up a payment into a new superfund for an employee so the reality is that contractors won’t hire low paid employees who want to specify their choice of super fund. If you are working 3 part time jobs you will have 3 seperate superannuation funds each taking out administration fees and compulsory life insurance.

Outsourcing in Australia has been taken to dizzy heights far beyond what is practised overseas. In the UK cleaners are outsourced but here in Australia professional jobs have been outsourced. Every 5 years the contract comes up for renewal and theoretically the client can select an entirely new outsourcer who will come in with 1500 experienced and skilled professionals who know your business and the changeover will occur without your customers being aware its happening. Yeah right! Even if your business is using uncustomised packages like SAP and MYOB its going to take an experienced professional 6 weeks to understand the intricacies of your business. How long does it take the auditors to check the businesses carefully prepared books each year – 6 weeks – so why should it take new ICT professionals any less time?

Which leads into a further distortion of employment figures. Every time the outsourcing contract is up for renewal 3 or 4 outsourcers bid for the work and place advertisements for staff they may need if they are awarded the contract. This inflates the job advertisement indices.

Whoa whatever gave runner the idea that I “want to be the victim” and that I am a “John Howard hater”! I merely set out the case that the government and by default, the opposition were misleading us. Runner seems to have reached the type of conclusion that would have been uate, and the job prospects for various trades and professions are reached by the KGB or the Gestapo, that messengers are to blame. In fact I deprecate the actions of all major parties on this matter not the people involved.

SCOTTY and billie’s estimate of a real unemployment rate of 15% percent is probably close to the mark. If we consider that the 40% of part time workers are on average employed for 50% of the time that adds 19% to the 5% making it 24%. If we consider the underemployment factor the rate probably lies somewhere between 15% and 24%. Robg mentioned another device used to reduce unemployment figures that is the “participation rate”. Many unemployed people are removed by reclassifying them as non-participants. Robg does make a good point about more women working now it is a pity however that because of economic exigencies most of these women work out of necessity and many are unemployed. Thirty years ago however most women were in full time unpaid employment.

This brings me to another interesting point there was a dip in the unemployment statistics in the mid sixties 2% down to 1% (approximately). I discovered that this was because at this time the Bureau of Statistics (ABS) took over the preparation of the unemployment figures bringing in the very loose definition of “employed”. Before that the figures were compiled by the trade unions. May I suggest that the unions are unlikely to underestimate unemployment figures?

brightspark have you also considered the large numbers [percentage] of nurses working casual shifts.

This leads to uncertainty of income for nurses, increased staffing budgets for hospitals and unreliable service for patients. I played with a lass who worked in a large private hospital who said that the shifts were always rostered lighht and they always hired casual nurses for each day. That staffing practice shows. The reputation of nurses employed by private hospitals is so bad that patients with private health insurance chose their local public hospital. The purchaser of highest price house in Toorak was the owner of a nurses agency. The local public hospital now avoids using agency nurses on its wards and the level of patient care is noticeably superior.

A nurse I know lamented that her imminent move from Sydney would lead to a lose of income because the agency she worked for paid a shift differential to her for her extra certificates and she knew her roster a fortnight in advance. Which highlights the fact that casual workers usually don't have their extra certificates recognised and they are not paid for having them either.

There is also an oversupply of professional engineers in Victoria but I don't know any details because the unemployed engineers are considered work shy or problematic. The problem is of course that Melbourne has lost its knowledge of the Melbourne geology so the Burnley Tunnel was not properly constructed and it leaks. Who knows who is maintaining our water, sewerage pipes, rail networks and electricity supply as these utilities have laid off their armies of professional engineers.

The underlying thrust of my argument is that the treatment of workers in a range of industries indicates that there is not a shortage of skilled workers, quite the contrary, that labour has been commodified and just in time management principles have been applied to make units of labour interchangeable. This weakens our social capital.

If you want take this further contact me through Graham Y

While not having read "The Truth Matters" the stories above prove the adage "garbage in, garbage out".

I wonder about the value of stastics when such manipulation takes place. I for one take little or no interest in stats unless they're substanciated by scientific mathod. Then still they're viewed with suspicion!
Is this to be viewed as cynical?
I'm cynical fluff

runner I am not a victim, I grew up and establish a career when under a competent government, the Menzies Mckeon government, things were much then better they are now, for example my house cost 4 years of my salary, (now 10 equivalent salaries). Then, this country was paying its own way. The victims are the young people of today, who will be the first to be less well off than their parents. Unwanted victim status also falls on the many people who are underemployed and unemployed. These are quite visible if you look at “the faces in the street” as suggested by Henry Lawson in a similar period over one hundred years ago. Also leigh at this time we were a “smart country” for example we were the third country in the world to launch a satellite (wresat) from our own territory in Woomera South Australia.

Why do things seem so good now? Two main reasons, firstly advances in technology which have bought us cheap low cost and new products. And these were developed outside the influence of “free trade” in the highly protected and skilled economies of the US, Europe, Japan, China and India. The second reason is an unlimited line of credit to pay for goods produced by slave labour in China and third world countries such as Burma.

Billie you raise some very good points which have their roots in the same place the “free trade" notion perhaps we need another thread.

Fluff, very good point but these people use the garbage to make important decisions!

We are now living in a welfare state where the welfare is bestowed on the corporations, is this a form of socialism?

I think there are huge regional differences here, but it seems
people are unhappy, if they can't find a job a few minutes from
where they live.

In WA you virtually have full employment. Vacancies are everywhere,
its back to the little signs hanging out on store fronts, screaming
for workers. The 3% left on the stat books would include the ice
addicts and other simply unemployables. Our welfare system these
days effectively makes working optional.

I used to employ a whole bunch of housewives and many of those in
fact don't want full time work, they want a part time job which
fits in around their kids. That was easily achieved by letting
them decide on their own rosters, as long as the work was done on
time, was all that mattered to me. Amazing how good they were
at organising that between themselves, to create a win-win situation
for all.

Yup, corporations turn to labour hire companies for good reasons.
Once somebody is permanent on the books, all sorts of problems arise.
Its hard to fire them if they are useless, orders might quieten down
from customers, no point paying people to stand around and pick
their noses etc, that costs other consumers and margins are such
today in business, that that is only possible in Government
employment, where picking your nose at Govt expense is still pretty
common. Taxpayers will keep coughing up, after all, consumers
have no choice.

How to do we get people to move to where there is work, rather then
where they happen to want to live, because of family, friends etc?
I dunno. Bring in foreign workers is my answer, if Aussies clearly
don't want the jobs.

Scotty said: "When you think about how many people are doing voluntary,casual or part time work coupled with single parents the real figure in context must be at 15% or higher."

I once recall the tricksy Mr. Howard pointing to labour market deregulation as the key to lower unemployment by using Australia and Germany as the definitive comparison. According to the PM, Germany has higher unemployment than Australia because it has more labour market regulation. However, the folks at Crikey exposed Howard's fallacious assertions by noting that in Australia you are deemed to be employed if you work a mere one hour in the survey week, whilst in Germany you are considered unemployed if you work less than 15. Unsuprisingly, if Australia used the German benchmark, our unemployment rate would be only marginally less than Germany's.

Runner said: "I know that their are a lot of Howard haters on this forum but at least give him some credit (it does not mean you have to like him)"

Credit for what exactly? A tax system which heavily favours debt-intensive investment housing? A blowout in foreign debt without any increased export capacity to service those liabilities? A shrinking manufacturing sector? Some of the highest interest rates in the Western world?

Ooopps, silly me, I forgot Mr. Howard only takes credit for good things, like China's industrialisation in combination with Western Australia's geology and geography.

Record unemployment?
My understanding of unemployed is underemployed.
To-day in Australia we have an army of benefit paid unemployee by the Federal and State Governments.
Go to any Hospital,Tafe College,or Local Council and see the army of people who are WORKING for the dole.
These unfortunate people are called employed but are only unemployed
having to improve their SKILLS in some government run scheme to make the figures look wonderful.
There are country towns all around Australia that have Employment Providers who cannot find meaningful jobs and seem to spend there whole week giving people jobs on government benefit schemes.
Example Single Mum with two teen age children.
Forced to work over the Xmas Holidays in local hospital for no extra benefit just the single mums wage.
The children have to stay at home or walk the streets getting into trouble.
The following year the Local Police ask for extra manpower to control the kids. What sort of society that needs an army of security staff to control a country with record employment?

"the Menzies Mckeon government, things were much then better they are now, for example my house cost 4 years of my salary, (now 10 equivalent salaries). Then, this country was paying its own way"

Ah, the good old days, when Aus rode on the sheep's back, until the
poor old sheep collapsed from all the weight. Tariffs were high,
so the Melbourne establishment got rich, on the back of screwing
poor old consumers for every dollar.

How bad things are now. Consumers get to vote with their wallets,
unlike the "good old days", when they were forced to buy any old
crap manufactured in Melbourne and Sydney.

"How bad things are now. Consumers get to vote with their wallets,
unlike the "good old days", when they were forced to buy any old
crap manufactured in Melbourne and Sydney."
Come on Yabby! You must surely be having a laugh? Everything made today (and made overseas) is crap and made that way on purpose. Designed obsolescence I believe it's called. DVD's with a one year guarantee, CD players the same, TV's, washing machines....in fact, buyers of most white goods today only get a one year warranty and it doesn't stop at whitegoods alone. In fact, most things we buy today are crap and made to throw away. My mother used a Stamco washing machine up until only recently. It lasted for decades until a small part broke. It was consigned to the shed only because nobody stocks parts for them any more. I believe the machine was manufactured in Sydney. Her "Fridgadaire" refrigerator still runs well after 44 years and has never seen a repair man, although I seem to remember the interior light bulb had to be replaced at one time. At least when things were made locally, one could source parts for them and in fact most things could be fixed in the home workshop by dad, but no more! Now we're forced to throw items into landfills and be charged for the privilege. You can't even get $2 for an old battery at the scrap merchant any more. You have to pay to dump it, then the manager of the recycling/transfer station takes them to be sold. And you're trying to tell me todays "throwaway" world is a better place to live than it was even as little 20 years ago? Yep! You're having a laugh alright Yabby.

Ah Wildcat, what you of course forget, is that today I have
choice! I can buy an el cheapo dvd for 50$, or a flash
Japanese one for alot more. Given that the Aussie repair
man wants 100$ just to take a look to see what could be wrong
if it breaks down, on some items the el cheapo model, like
with dvds, is the prefered option!

My Holden used to give me 12 months warranty. My imported
4wd gives me 3 years warranty. If they made them not to
last, it would cost them bigtime.

Choices is what its all about Wildcat! The Melbourne club
boys got rich on those Govt monopolies, now they have to
actually pull their fingers out of their butts and let
consumers choose! Dread the thought...lol

We farmers compete on global markets, its time for you
city slickers to do the same.

The danger is that if Australian labour has to compete directly against global pricing tey will not have any money to buy Australian produce. Already tuna canned in Thailand is 66% of the australian price. The cheapest canned fruit is from South Africa, and you can buy fresh green beans grown in China. NOw why don't we import all our dairy products and apples from New Zealand and our bananas from the Phillipines.

Hey lets not horse around, the latest ABARE statistics say that australian agriculture contributes 3% to our GDP and gets 5% of our GDP in farm subsidies. This sounds like the grateful taxpayer is subsidising the farm sector.

Rest assured the gilded scions of the Melbourne Club are still collecting their primary producer rebates while the unemployed car factory worker is buying the cheaper imported food.

I personally don't think that Australia should subdivide all its best farmland into suburban tract housing and I don't think Asutralia should import food but in a globalised economy its cheaper for Australia to import food and ditch farm and droughht subsidies.

Well Billie, perhaps some of those car workers will have to move
industries, to where the work is. Meat companies are screaming for
workers, can't find them. In WA there are plenty of jobs, no takers.

All those mining developments mean another 70'000 direct jobs. Add
the many add ons, thats 250'000. But its not going to happen
in Melbourne.

Yup, I eat canned guavas and grapefruit from South Africa. Delicious!
Nope, I won't buy Chinese beans lol.

No 5% of GDP in subsidies sorry, where did you get that from?
Yup, some subsidies paid, nearly all over East, it doesent seem
to come to WA, the most efficient agricultural producer. We just
pay pay pay.

You are free to import your milk, dairy, wheat, meat etc, from
overseas. Only it would cost you heaps more.

So feel free to end farm and drought subsidies, most of that seems
to go to NSW anyhow, certainly not the West!

All we need is enough workers to run our meatworks. Politics gets
in the way of us flying them in from overseas, when we need them.
All the East is doing is holding us back from our potential.

“Ah, the good old days, when Aus rode on the sheep's back, until the
poor old sheep collapsed from all the weight. Tariffs were high,”

Yabby, this is anecdotal popular myth and the trade figures prove this.
Up to June 1974 the tariffs were high but averaged over 3 or 4 years our current account was balanced. That is the difference between what we all spend on imports and what we all earn on exports was zero, that is we were earning our own way.

In June 1974 the Whitlam government made the first across the board tariff reduction and immediately the unemployment began to climb and the third quarter Current Account (CA) was in deficit, we did not pay our way. We have not paid our way since for 32.5 years we have been running CA deficits.

We have use two methods to cover these deficits firstly we sell assets (akin to a family selling the family silver) and secondly we borrow (akin a family second mortgage and pawnshop). The assets we have sold include companies such as Arnotts, Speedo, etc. and physical assets such as mineral deposits in WA the east, the rest we must borrow at interest rates which are higher than US rates.

We are running out of assets and the US interest rates are going up. Now the banks borrow this currency on the world market to cover their deficits when converting currency and they are left with the Australian dollars that they converted. This is made available by the banks as endless credit enabling us to “vote with our [borrowed] wallets”.

Because we are running out of saleable assets interest rates must continue to follow the US rates up.

But we have a “Minerals Boom” oh yeah. Last year the CA deficit was 54 billion dollars even with the boom.

But we have “Economic Growth” oh yeah. Last year the growth was entirely borrowed and covered by assets sales and then some.

We appear to be the worlds first successful Cargo Cult. Long live Ekarnomic Groath, praise to the Cargoe Gods.

Yabby, I do hope that in your reply post to me, you're not assuming I'm a city type? Certainly not. I live in a rural bush setting where I grow quite a lot of my own food needs. I wouldn't say I'm a strict vegetarian, but I live well enough without meat on most days. I travel to my part time position in a car that's 16 years old and wouldn't part with it in a fit. It has no junky computer or fuel injection to pack it in and cost me a fortune and regularly returns 31-32 miles to the gallon. (Yes, showing my age there, lol). I come from a farming background and follow the interests of the farming community where I still have many friends in the Western district. I hate the fact that consumer products have such a short life span. As a world wide community, we should be attempting to reverse that trend and make items and goods that can once again be repaired in "dad's workshop." If we had any sense of global pride at all, we should refuse to buy such rubbish. Yes, you're right of course, we do have "choice" but few people will spend the money on the right choice. Most people blindly follow everyone else down the path of cheap consumerism which can only end in disaster. It's already rearing it's ugly head in the form of climate change and limiting supplies of cheap crude oil.

Part 2
What we're doing each and every time we buy another cheap and unnecessary consumer "toy" is rob our children and their children of a future. I'm too old to have to deal with resource shortages in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean I can forget about my grandchildren. I fear for them thanks to our obsession with ecconomic growth. At least I try to do my bit. I've downshifted considerably in the last 5 years. I'm attempting to make this place as sustainable as possible and putting any spare money I have into the project. I fix or get somebody else to fix anything that I can't and I try never to bring anything into the house that I can't reuse over and over again. Can you say the same Yabby? Yes, sometimes it's hard, especially since I lost my partner almost 3 years ago, but I struggle on regardless on my own and wake up feeling proud that I'm doing my bit against our consumer driven world.

Brightspark, I remind you that the Fed Govt has virtually no debt,
most of the debt we have is industry and consumer debt. Our trade
account is actually not so bad. But the current account includes
insurance, services, money going offshore from dividends etc.

So if you take a look at BHP and others, a large % of profits they
earn is sent offshore to overseas investors. Brightspark and other
Aussies are free to either buy those shares, or buy yet another plasma
screen. Fact is, Aussies are shocking savers, preferring to live it
up for today and bugger tomorrow. Our current account would look
quite different, if we were better savers.

Wildcat, I agree with much of what you say and in fact live a
"downsized" life myself. I tend to buy products that I can fix
and that last, even if they cost more. But I respect the rights of
others to make their own choices, its not my business to tell them
how to live their lives. Fact is, if iron ore is worth just a few
$ a tonne, it will be wasted until its far more expensive. The same
applies to oil. We humans have yet to learn to live sustainably
on this planet. Our population keeps growing at 80 million a year
for instance. So I am fully aware that whatever I do, is more about
a feelgood exercise for myself, then making a difference. Fact
is that if all Aussies were wiped out tomorrow, our present world
would replace our population in about 90 days. Sad but true.
But then reality does not go away, when we close our eyes and wish
it would.

Well Yabby, I can't find anything there to disagree with you about. Australians, or indeed, the rest of the "civilised" world will simply keep living it up and increasing their numbers until all of Earth's inhabitants are left with is destruction on an unprecedented scale. Maybe what I do is simply just a "feel good" exercise because nobody I know can understand why I shun the modern world. My kids certainly don't. It's full ahead "waste,waste,waste" for them and their families. I guess the best I can hope for is that I die in my sleep before the nightmare begins in earnest.

Wildcat, there is an economic theory, written some time ago, called
the "Tragedy of the Commons" I happen to think its extremely accurate
and tells us alot about the future of humanity. So its worth a read,
if you are interested in these matters.

So I think that people will need pain to learn and mother nature will
have to sort it all out in the end. We humans have been smart enough
to invent all kinds of amazing things, like me communicating with you
for instance, but we are not yet wise enough to use what was disovered,
in a sustainable manner. Everyone acts in their own
little patch of short term self interest, sadly.

As I cannot change some things, I've long ago learnt that I can't carry
the world's problems on my shoulders. Heaven is here and now,
so I live by my philosophies, but remember to enjoy ever day, for
heaven is here and now, its too late when the worms move in :)

Yabby, the declared reason for keeping the government debt low was that this would reduce liquidity and reduce the current account deficit. The current account deficit and associated debt has its main affect on the exchange rate and interest rates. Well this was the theory but events of the last 30 odd years have proven this theory wrong when the government debt is very low, our CA deficit is ballooning! Government debt has no affect!

We now have a run away current account deficit which must be borrowed. We are dependent on these borrowings for our economic growth. If our creditors realise that we are a bad risk we have a problem, or, perhaps they already realise that they have a problem. Our debt is around ½ trillion dollars!

Our balance of trade is also very bad, since 2000 I think we have only had 3 months with trade surpluses. Yes it is better than the CAD but still very, very bad. By the way the trade balance is for goods and services which includes insurance. The current account includes interest and dividend payments. The current account is the real bottom line and it’s been in red for 32+years!

We are going into debt (and trading in tomorrow for today) at the rate of just over 1 billion dollars per week in a minerals boom! This is a looming disaster, Paul Keating recently call it “the elephant under the carpet”.

We have great depression levels of unemployment!

“Free trading” is a nonsense it is not free or fair in any case.

I skilled yes skilled Chinese worker is paid around $A50 per week (at current exchange rates) you could not keep a slave in Australia for that. How can we “free trade” with that?

Who is the government looking after? Most likely the Melbourne establishment!

Long live Ekarnomic Groath, all hail the Cargoe Gods!

Ah Mammons slaves your knees will knock,
You hearts in terror beat
When God demands an answer
For the faces in the street.

2
That last verse was from "Faces in the street" by Henry Lawson.

Brightspark. Glad to see someone else who appreciates the works of Henry Lawson. I found "Faces in the Street" to one of the most haunting pieces of poetry ever written about a time that will surely return in due course.

Brightspark, the paying off of Govt debt has had a huge effect.
For a start, no billions of $ in interest payments, which means
billions that can be put to better use for everyone.

But yes, debt is huge, above all consumer debt. The figures are
astounding, consumers are spending up bigtime on plasma screens,
ipods and other bits and pieces at Harvey Norman, like there were
no tomorrow. A whole generation has never known high interest rates,
only 15 years of economic growth. Us older fellas know all about
Murphy's law, they clearly don't! So I guess many will one day learn
the hard way. Its my humble opinion that alot of people need pain
to learn, sadly.

Tariffs solve nothing, its exactly why we still have a problem today.
Countries like Switzerland, Germany etc, all have high wages and still
have efficient manufacturing industries, based on intelligence. Ours
grew based on high tariffs, pseudo monopolies meant lazy industry.

High tariffs mean much lower standards of living for the poor, they
also mean higher costs for efficient industries, making them even
less competitive in the global economy, due to higher input costs.
Industries like farming used to be able to carry those costs, not
anymore, the sheep has collapsed lol.

Given things like payroll tax, huge stamp duty on commercial
insurance etc, it seems to me that State Govts are doing whatever
they can to discourage people from running efficient businesses here.
Add a little hitler army of red tape enforcing bureaucrats, why
would one bother with creating an efficient export company in Australia?
I actually used to have one, in the end I sold it when
one or two little bureaucrats became a bit too obsessive for too
long. I figured why bother. No wonder our exports don't flourish,
if we do what we can to discourage them, out there in the real world.

Wildcat

I fear the times are here right now and getting worse every day, soon even Howard and Rudd will have to aknowledge this. From my "window sill" I see many more of Henry's faces than I have ever seen before. Todays Blundstone anouncement is indicative of the continuing rot.

As far as the Laboral partie's "work choices" could I recomend another work of Henry Lawson's "Arvie Aspinall's Alarm Clock" a short story. This is getting very relevant to now as days go by.

"Out beyond the further suburb, 'neath a chimney stack alone,
Lay the works of Grinder Brothers, with a platform of their own;
And I waited there and suffered, wated there for many ayear,
Slaved neath a Phantom Sighnboard, saying "second class wait here.

from "Second Class Wait Here" by Henry Lawson.

But at the present time many people think that they are safe and have an "I'm alright Jack" attitude.

Henry has an a word for them too

"But the lights on a wrecks since creation began
Have been shining in vain for the vagabond clan
They will never take warning, they will not beware
.......
Till they steer to their grave 'neath a light on a wreck."

from "The Light on the Wreck" by Henry Lawson.

Yabby you are correct that Australia's current account is in massive deficit. The balance of trade which compares australia's exports to australia's imports is also in deficit. When Qantas takes delivery of a new jumbo jet that purchase shows up on the trade figures. When a factory imports new equipment or we install new power generation plant or transmission lines or a hospital purchases a new MRI machine that's included on the trade figures.

Yes we need to export more and import less but the shifting of Blundstone manufacturing from Tasmania to China is not a move in the right direction. Likewise the importation of Melbourne's trains and trams from Europe and closure of the railway and tramway workshops are moves in the wrong direction.

Private industry is responsible for the overwhelming deficit in the current account as profits paid to overseas parent company, loans raised overseas and foreign investors take their profits and dividends out of our economy.

That said the balance of trade was in surplus in 2001 when Australia was in recession but the balance of payments was in massive deficit. The further closure/contraction of Australian manufacturing means that the balance of trade is growing and going further into deficit and probably won't show a surplus in the next recession.

How do the people who used to work in manufacturing or tertiary sectors pay for imported goods? Well they don't purchase plasma TVs or new cars because 55% of retrenched workers never work again, 10% retrenched workers get a better job and the other 35% are worse off than before they are retrenched.

People on welfare can't round up $2000 to travel to WA looking for work. I was looking for work in North West Australia in 2006 and all I could find was seasonal work, which was low paid and quite frankly not worth leaving my family in the east to pursue. I advise any one looking for work in a mining town to line it up in Perth. Mining towns are restricted areas.

Billie, the closure of Blundstone is clearly an issue between its
customers and the family who own it. They would have their reasons.
Around here, alot more people have been buying Rossi boots, so
perhaps the competition is an issue, I am not informed well enough
to comment. The same applies with your tram/railway story. Clearly
that was not about wages, seeing they are buying from Europe.
So what was it? Bad management? Union thuggery? The thing is,
if a business is not functioning profitably, change it or close it.

Yup, some workers are too set in their ways to change. Clearly there
arn't enough of them to affect Harvey Norman, as their sales are
at an all time record.

Last I heard, the Fed Govt was offering to pay people 5k$ to move
West, so that should cover any travel costs. I am not sure of your
qualifications, but there is a shortage of accomodation in the NW,
so the people up there that are required are mainly welders, fitters,
riggers, boilermakers, Haulpak drivers etc. Admin is mainly done
from Perth.

I was actually in Perth today, in the industrial area, picking up
this and that. I bumped into three people who had moved here, all
from Victoria, all were happy with their move. Clearly some are
seeing the light and not all are sitting over East, feeling sorry
for themselves. As they say, the most permanent thing in life
is change!

Yabby

Good point the low government debt is a good thing but this does not change the fact that the current account deficit is huge.
The problem is we trade for about two thirds of our needs, this is good, but we buy the other third on the never never, this is egregious.

We put people on the scrap heap and who benefits? Well the rich (Melbourne establishment) are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We live we a government deception that we have "low unemployment". This is simply not politically sustainable we have had several riots (including the Sydney "race riots") the cause of which can be put down to misbehaviour of unfairly disadvantaged unemployed youth. We have beggars in the streets.

I have found another deception in the RBA statistics; what is a manufactured good? Well pelletised Iron Ore and Alumina qualify, that is, slightly processed minerals are "manufactureds". And what do they call a pair of boots or a pair of jocks? "Elaborately transformed manufactures". So when Ian McFarlane says that we exported 115 Billion dollars worth of manufactures he does not mention that this comprises mainly, minimally processed minerals.

Perhaps I am flagelating an equine quadruped totally devoid of its original functionality. But something must be done and I care.

The closure of Blundstone poses some real problems for
- the 360+ workers who have lost their jobs about 200 will never work again and 125 will be worse off
- the australian community who has lost the taxation on the Blundstone profits as the company will have set up an overseas parent in a low taxing regime like Nauru to take their profit

- the current account which consists of the
- balance of trade deficit increase as the boots are imported
- balance of payments deficit which increases as profits are taken offshore.

Yabby if you don't know where Australian manufacturing has gone how can you argue with people who are keeping track of the closed factories?

Harvey Norman now sells computer goods and that's the only thing I have bought there. OK yes I have bounced and sprawled across their bed range.

Yes I was interested in the $5000 relocation allowance and dismissed it when I realised that it was restricted to people with specific skills who had already lined up work in WA. Of no use to people travelling to WA to look for work who weren't boilermakers, welders, fitters, riggers, Haulpak drivers etc.

I don't believe the current statistics because I have lived in WA during a previous period of "low unemployment" that was achieved by taking people off the dole for the duration of the survey period. Of the 50 kids from my street looking for work in Perth only 2 of us managed to establish ourselves but then my tenure was cut short by lack of family protection. I have sat next to the head of social security for north west who absolutely didn't want any dole bludgers on his books. I would never expect to be able to survive in NW on seasonal work, so if I couldn't get a permanent job I would only go for a holiday i.e. always have my fare home. When I left WA my salary qualdrupled.

Brightspark, I don't think that we put anybody on the scrapheap.
Its not the Govt's role to put nappies on people and babysit
them from cradle to grave. Govt can create certain economic
conditions, its then up to people to take the opportunities.

If say the Blundstone workers want to go on the scrapheap,
that will be their choice. From where I sit, I see opportunities
and possibilities everywhere, far more then I had 30 years
ago. The young who are prepared to have a go, are simply
thriving! But others expect Govts to do it all for them
and hand them life on a plate. It just ain't like that.

Over here all sorts of companies are screaming for staff.
Those going out on their own, to be contractors, are booming.
Kids of 22, with a few employees already, in the building
and similar industries. The only "fiddled figures" that I
know of is people on invalid pensions, many who simply don't
want to work anymore. They will offer to work for cash,
mind you.

You guys wonder why manufacturing companies close down in
Aus. Well I don't blame alot of them. They are lumbered with
taxes and charges and redtape, dictated to by some unions
and one day the owners have had enough, the figures don't
add up anymore, so they pull the plug. Well duh, what do
you expect! Operating a business, taking a risk and
providing employment, is not compulsory after all.

I certainly would not try to run a shoe manufacturing business
in Aus, unless I had a niche market, where consumers were
prepared to pay for all these rules, levies, laws and
conditions. A number of companies make similar boots to
Blundstones, so its become more of a commodity product.
Last I read, the average pair of shoes left China for around
5US$ a pair. Why on earth would I want to operate in that
market?

Yabby the mission statements of one WA mining company is "We are in business to maximise profit, in a socially acceptable manner". IE it is the role of government to regulate the conditions under which corporations operate. That same company said in its compulsory safety training that in 1902 when the employee was responsible for their own safety there was 2.5 fatalities per day in their single plant operation. By the late 1970s when the company had to pay hefty workers compensation for injured workers there hadn't been a serious accident for 18 months.

Yabby I am not sucking on the government t*t and I don't expect I ever will, but someone has to stand up for those people who are being trampled by the lies and deceptions that society allows to proceed because quite frankly the Australian unemployment rate is very high.

The hidden unemployment rate is due to the definition of employment being " completing 1 hour of paid or unpaid work in the survey period."

Lets unpack that statement, as they say.
- People are only looking for work if they are ready to work tomorrow so this precludes students and other groups in training programs like work for the dole programs
- it doesn't matter whether you are paid or unpaid because you work in a family business or unpaid because you are a volunteer
- the survey period is a fortnight

ie so if you work for 30 minutes in a week you are by definition - - "employed"

While you continue to delude yourself that there is plenty of work to go round then you will permit great injustices to be perpetrated in this society.

As a babyboomer I could never understand how people tolerated the inequitable social conditions of the 1920s that lead to the rise of facism in the 1930s and the unbelievable cruelties of World War II, but I think I know now as that we are living in similar times.

Billie, you are quite correct. Businesses are not the Salvation
Army, nor the Red Cross. They risk shareholder capital to make
a profit. The other option would be to stick to safety and buy
Govt bonds. Clearly those shareholders who take that risk, should
have some reward if things work out. A large number land up losing
their shirts after all.

I don't believe that the Australian unemployment rate is as high as
you think it is. Yup, there are people sitting on their arses in
Sydney and Melbourne, blaming the system, as the world passes them
by. There are opportunities out there, if they bothered to look.
Meantime there is a large pool of unemployables. The ice and speed
addicts for instance. The people with mental disabilities etc.
No employer could afford to pay all their benefits. At the end of the day, all those benefits have to be paid for by consumers, or the guy
is out of business.

To suggest that people are living under similar conditions as in
the 20s, is quite laughable. Do you want the Govt to just put
your nappy on your butt, or to change it every few minutes for you?

Its up to people to get off their arses and make stuff happen.
The Govt is not a nanny after all..

Well Yabby I can't argue against an entrenched belief so I am not sure there is any point directing you to economic analysis of the derivation of the Australian employment figures.

You are quite correct to say there are more employment options in WA than the eastern states so if you are in the eastern states and you are interested in more work get onto the recruitment websites and start applying for jobs in the west. Remember that mining companies employ their workers on a "fly-in fly-out basis" IE fly in work 14 days then fly out for 14 days. So if necessary you can leave the wife and kids in Tasmania. If the shortage is as dire as its reputed to be then potential employers can conduct phone interviews and you can use familial support until the job comes along

There is seasonal work with small employers that you can pick up on the spot, tourism operators want clean smiley people in their 20s, and there is always harvesting work in the season for the rest.

Ah I see this thread has gone the way of all things, the left beating their breasts, demanding that employers employ Australian workers on Australian conditions and according to Australian Union demands.

One would think, to read come of these posts that workers owned the factory or manufacturing businesses in which they work.

One would think they shared in the risks of commerce.

One would think employers were merely there to provide a nursery playground.

And bugger the “economic viability” of the business.

Billie “the australian community who has lost the taxation on the Blundstone profits as the company will have set up an overseas parent in a low taxing regime like Nauru to take their profit”

Does the “Australian Community” or do individuals own the company?

Should Australia dictate to Nauru the nature of their tax regime or should the “Australian Community” accept lower tax assessments from business to stay here?

Maybe the employment terms and conditions which the unions have demanded be retained slice through the commercial viability of the business case?

One of these days the left might come to understand, Australia is on the path of “free trade”. The “Protectionist model” had a good run but, like big government and union interference, people have rejected it.

People like cheaper consumer goods. Why should they be forced to pay more because of government policy?

The issue with current accounts is simple. It is private debt.
Private debt is capped by the amount a creditor is prepared to lend. Public debt is not. Public debt creates inflation by government spending on our behalf. Private debt is people spending on their own behalf and bearing the consequences of it.

Whilst private individuals borrowing may be foolhardy, we are not a nanny state and everyone is entitled to arrange their finances to suit themselves.

My daughter was delighted when advised her earnings were enough to secure debt on a new investment property in her own name. She was comfortable funding the $100 - $200 a week it will cost her.
Her borrowing,
her debt,
her opportunity,
her responsibility,
her choice

My analysis of Blundstone's actions was a strictly Economics 101 microeconomic treatment. If that analysis makes me left wing, so be it.

What will make me revolutionary is floating the idea that if corporations are taxed on their turnover rather than their profit then the corporations might pay a fairer share of the costs of providing the infrastructure within which they operate. Making companies pay tax on their turnover rather than permitting them to take their profits offshore makes outsourcing of manufacture less attractive.

The Blundstone board has previously made statements that the reduction in tariffs had reduced their ability to operate profitably.

The question that still remains - how can you sell goods and services to customers who have no money? When you retrench whole factories of people they lose their income and can't purchase your goods and services.

Col, can I take out a mortgage from you with no income? You must be the last businessman in Australia who pays income tax.

Why do the large miners want employees on contract. If the mine is closed, because the commodity price drops, then the subcontractors don't get redundancy pay. Mining is inherently dangerous and mining companies are self insurers. They can save themselves money by making the individual responsible for their own workers compensation insurance. Mining is so dangerous that traditionally miners were unable to secure mortgages.

Billie “turnover rather than their profit then the corporations might pay a fairer share of the costs of providing the infrastructure within which they operate.”

Now what a good idea, maybe we could call it VAT or, I know, better still, GST.

As for the other silliness, it is simple, the costs which contribute to the generation of income always have been deemed a deductible expense. Even the infrastructural costs are recouped as depreciation over the time of their useful life. If you mean the cost of public infrastructure, I guess it is simple

Company premises pay rates
Companies pay for power and other utilities.

Your suggestion that they are “favoured” by the nature of deductibility of business expenses is laughable.

“The Blundstone board has previously made statements that the reduction in tariffs had reduced their ability to operate profitably.”

That basically translates to “the cost structure of operating in Australia does not justify continuing because of competition form imports”. It sounds like they would have benefited from more flexible work practices and fewer state taxes – eg. Payroll tax. Do Chinese companies pay payroll tax? I doubt it!

Billie, anyone can have a mortgage provided they have a quality asset to secure it against, even if they have no income (hint reverse mortgages).

The laws pertaining to mortgage finance have become more flexible. The rules which you claim, where miners could not get a mortgage because they were miners would not apply today and might even be illegal (not sure but anti-discrimination legislation may well apply). Same too, women and people over the age of 65 can still get mortgages.

“how can you sell goods and services to customers who have no money?”
One door closes and another opens. Check out how many new jobs have been created in the past 10 years and then compare it to the previous ten years, when Labor fiddle as the economy was reduced to ashes in the “recession we had to have”.

Oh I have insurance for workers compensation and income protection. pay it every year and it is a tax deduction

I seem to recall billie that you said somewhere that you do not work for the government, but your statements here are straight out of the Department of "I've no idea how businesses run".

To start a business, you have to have capital. Most businesses start small, therefore by definition their owners first go into debt in order to kick the thing off. When I started my first business, I also went nearly a year without paying myself, which put a lot of strain on the family as they watched us go deeper into the red every week that passed.

Once you are through that phase, there is the constant battle to remain profitable. Some of the battle is the result of the natural coming-and-going of employees - after all, they have an inalienable right to walk out on you whenever they feel like it. Some is induced by government actions and bureaucratic requirements... the tax office, ASIC, State Revenue (oh yes, the state governments extract a 6% tax on your payroll every month, regular as clockwork - and send round auditors anytime they feel like it). That's all whether or not you have sold a single widget... I could go on, but unless you are familiar with business basics (as opposed to "Economics 101 microeconomic[s]") it will be meaningless to you.

When you take all this into account you might just start to understand why business owners sometimes decide that the hassle of trying to keep a bunch of (relatively) overpaid bootmakers in employment is just not worth the candle.

Frankly, if I was them I would simply sell the whole business to a bunch of overseas financiers and be done with it. Mincom just did exactly that, despite having taken the odd taxpayers' shilling along the way.

And where oh where did this notion that "corporations [should be] taxed on their turnover rather than their profit" come from?

How would that benefit a) the unemployed and b) the country? Any business that operates on wafer-thin margins (i.e. most small businesses) would go straight to the wall.

"The question that still remains - how can you sell goods and services to customers who have no money?"

Billie clearly people have money, or Harvey Norman sales etc would
not be at record levels. Manufacturing these days is not a large
% of GDP, services are. Besides, alot of it is specialised,like
Austal ships, producing catamarans, they are booming and screaming
for staff. Low tech, high labour commodity products like footware
are better produced where labour is cheap, consumers benefit massively.

Of course companies prefer contractors. Its so hard to dismiss dud
staff, so expensive with all the redundancy payments, I too would
avoid hiring them if at all possible. Today business is uncertain,
so employment is uncertain. Thats the nature of our world. Only
Govts, with monopoly powers to tax, or a few monopoly businesses,
can afford to provide certainty.

Right now its not just WA that is booming. Most of the meat industry
around the country is screaming for staff. In Queensland in the
North, things are booming too, due to mining. I tried to buy a
machine from a company in Toowoomba recently. He could quote me
a price, but could not supply this year, as alot of his staff have
gone into the mining industry there, where coal etc is booming.

Billie, the world changes, get used to it. 12 years ago, I was
the first one around here on the internet. People laughed at it,
I figured it would grow. Look at the many jobs that it now provides!

If you had a million $, would you invest it in Australian manufacturing of footware?

Col_Rouge I know you are a great proponent of small government and the right to be left alone but what sort of society do you want to conduct your business and live in?

Do you want to find tutors to educate your children or are you happy to concede that the state licensing of registered teachers is probably a better process than you can do?

Are you happy to pay a toll every time you drive on EastLink or any other privately built road?

Do you want the state to test and license car drivers of a requisite skill level or do you want to play dodge-em on Whitehorse Road?

Could your businesses run efficiently with no gas, electricity, sewerage or do you have your own rain water tanks and dispose of your own waste?

Do you want to defend your property yourself or are you happy that the police deter crime most of the time?

How do you know that banks will honour the mortgage contracts that you write? Victoria has seen banks collapse in the 1890s and 1990s. In the 1880s half of Melbourne starved but in 1990 the bank collapse was underwritten but in the Pyramid Building Society collapse many people lost money?

If, God Forbid, you or members of your family are injured in an accident do you want to face a user-pays Accident & Emergency like the USA or the current Australian system? Of course the American G-d-botherers will keep you alive and suck all your assets out of you without allowing you to declare bankruptcy or stop treatment.

Apologies Politics 191

Well billie “I am happiest knowing I control the level of education my daughters received and not leaving it to someone else to decide what is “good enough” for “society”.

“Are you happy to pay a toll every time you drive on EastLink or any other privately built road?”

No and we know who to blame for that, the lowlife deceitful scumbag Socialist government who lied to the electorate and turned a freeway onto a tollway and lost $400 million in the process.

“Do you want the state to test and license car drivers of a requisite skill level”

We expect to be tested to drive a motor vehicle, the same as we expect doctors to have a licence before they open us up and lawyers and accountantgs to be properly certified in their professions.

“Could your businesses run efficiently with no gas, electricity, sewerage” they probably could but I would not and we have privatized power supply.

I hold a particular view of water which I have espoused on other threads.

Police – we all pay for police and the same with a defence force, public servants and a whole lot of other things. Interestingly a lot of those services were not the idea of socialists but capitalists, example the first fire brigades were established by capitalist insurance companies.

Oh billie, banking regulations, like corporate regulations are a lot tighter than a hundred years ago, you really should review them sometime instead of “firing from the hip” but I am pleased you mention pyramid (it is like a little gift, all for me)..

You must remember the Pyramid failure and how every Victorian motorist was taxed a petrol levy by the Miss Piggy government of Joan Kirner to cover the fraudulent and stupid promises of Rob Jolly, the state treasurer who went and endorsed Pyramid a day before it collapsed.

We certainly need none of that "political incompetence" to shape our “society” or we will all be destitute.

I have insurance Billie, I had it when I had a stroke whilst living in USA too.

Any other questions?

Yabby, Col Rouge, and Pericles
What I think that all of you are missing is that the country is the sum total of all the corporations and people and like a corporation it should have on average a profit and a positive cash flow. It should also make sure that all of its available workers are gainfully employed to ensure this cash flow and profit.

What board of a corporation could report to shareholders that 5% of its man hours are lost (to nose picking etc) when the correct figure is more like 20%? (unemployment)

What board of a corporation could leave all decisions making to the market and not the executive unit? (market economy)

What board of a corporation could claim that all is right as long as the executive unit does not overspend? (fiscal policy)

What board of a corporation could incorrectly classify products in its annual report. (“Elaborately Transformed Manufactured”)

For the last 32+ years Australian governments of both political persuasions have been doing these things and we are running record unemployment, spending more than we earn, continually borrowing to meet earning short falls even borrowing interest. Also we are suffering losses as we sell assets. And governments claim “economic growth” even though the growth figure is exceeded by the borrowings which we use to cover the earning short fall.

It’s a good thing that the International Monetary Fund looks only at the executive unit’s spending, and the market control madness and not the employees spending, together with the country’s cash flow and the country’s bottom line as would a corporate regulator.

Sure there’s lots of money about if we are actuall employed the banks almost plead with us take out loans so that we share the burden they bear as they borrow the 1,000,000,000 dollars a week that they must borrow to cover the Current Account Deficit.

The imminent Interest rate rises are the looming consequences of all this.

Col Rouge you left out one item re your daughter’s loan “her risk”.

Brightspark “like a corporation it should have on average a profit and a positive cash flow.”

Disagree. People are not employees of government and government is not the ultimate employer of people. Your analogy is as erroneous as comparing human organization with the organization of bees or ants.

Actually in the relationship of Master and Servant, Government is the servant of the people, not the master. For your analogy to function, we would have to assume government was “Master”. Go ask someone from one of the old communist block countries how well that works.

As for CA deficit. As I said the ability of private individuals to borrow is capped. The ability of governments to borrow is not, hence inflation.

We have seen the incompetence of government in running corporations. The good idea ends up as the economic sheltered workshop for a few which the rest of the community pays for and thus, where the resources, including employees, could have been used more productively elsewhere, they have been tied up in an underperforming punlic corporation.

I would note, Telstra have shed staff. Why?
Because Telstra’s economic circumstances have changed.

Increased competition has meant Telstra must improve the corporations internal efficiencies to remain competitive. That means shed staff. That means skilled staff available for other businesses, instead of those staff leeching off the inflated prices charged to tax payers in a government owned monopoly environment.

The nanny state has been rejected. Government should respond to the electorate not direct it. Socialism is as discredited as its ugly twin, communism. Capitalism rules for one reason and one reason only

Because it works and delivers, through the chaos of individuals making individual plans and decisions, better overall outcomes for everyone than any of the five year plans, egalitarian dictates and paternalistic edicts of socialism.

As for my daughter’s risk. Yep she is comfortable with it. I said, her responsibility. She is a good investor, she has studied her target area and will go find a good mortgagee property. I helped with advise but she has the knack, like father, like daughter I guess

Brightspark, your corporation analogy is a particularly bad one.
People are free to join or leave corporations, free to buy or
sell their interest in them.

Sorry, I'm not a control freak and control by Govt has shown
itself in history to be a particularly bad idea, for they
usually got it wrong.

The world is awash with cash right now, so I doubt that
peoples borrowings will be cut off tomorrow. But as an individual,
I went through the 18% interest rate story, I learned my lesson
and paid off my debts as fast as possible. Perhaps it will happen
again one day, then others will learn their lessons too.
Mind you, today reserve banks focus on inflation above all.
If inflation increases, expect interest rate increases.
There will be the usual screaming and and yelling by those
who do not allow for Murphy's law in life :)

If we borrow too much and the $ goes down, then exports industries
will benefit. At some point perhaps, people will start to realise
the importance of having healthy export industries and that taxing
the life out of them is not such a good idea, as happens now,
where they are clearly not valued at all.

As to employment, the problem with our system is that we have
made employment optional and pay those who decide not to work,
enough so that they don't need to bother. There are heaps of
jobs, but people might have to actually get off their butts,
move and go to where the work is. Many simply don't want to do
that. If work is not available, a few minutes from where they
live, its easier to not work.

These days I spend my time fooling around as a hobby farmer.
The company where I deliver my lambs, has had 50-100 jobs
vacant for some years now, with no takers. They have lost
valuable export orders to Japan, because their are no takers
for the jobs. Fact is, young Aussies would prefer to play
video games or get an office job.

"Fact is, young Aussies would prefer to play
video games or get an office job."

I don't blame 'em either Yabby. I'd much rather die than become an animal murderer.

"I don't blame 'em either Yabby. I'd much rather die than become an animal murderer."

Wildcat, I've discussed that one at length before. The other option
I guess is to just let nature take its course, let them die a slow
death by starvation, when the population becomes too large.
Out of sight is out of mind for many.

Personally I believe in outcomes which involve less suffering then
that. I also accept that we will all be recycled in the end,
including me and you. So the worms will get stuck into you and
me, if some other species doesent. Thats life, heaven is here
and now, so best to enjoy whilst you experience it!

"I don't blame 'em either Yabby. I'd much rather die than become an animal murderer."

Said somewhat tongue in cheek Yabby and like many others on this site, I like to stir the pot sometimes lol. The original gist of your previous post was about getting people to move out of their comfort zone and move to areas of work. My take on that is why should they? Not everybody wants to kill animals for a living. Not everyone can stand the heat of outback mining jobs or the overbearing "machoness" of such places. Mind you, you'll always get people who will do anything for the right amount of money, yet look what happened to those people working in a Qld. meatworks following the introduction of workchoices! Rather than be rewarded for working in such an appalling job, the company attempted to exploit them further. I hope those very same company heads end up on life's scrapheap themselves so they can suffer like the "commoners" they tried to exploit. The reasons for people NOT wanting to move to find work can be many and varied. If they prefer to suffer the indignation of jumping through Centrelink's hoops like a trained show dog, then so be it. It can be extremely daunting to have to pack up and move away from the security of family and friends to work for sometimes very minimal pay in some godforsaken outpost, especially in these times. Oh,yes, I am interested in reading "Tradegy of Commons" and will seek out the literature.

Yabby, just read "Tragedy of the Commons" and found it a rather bleak piece of literature which holds little hope for an malcontent like myself.

Wildcat “My take on that is why should they? Not everybody wants to kill animals for a living. Not everyone can stand the heat of outback mining jobs or the overbearing "machoness" of such places””

I would agree with that.

Let those who choose not to make the effort live according to their standards.

Let them not assume any form of government assistance or support.

Let them stand on their own two feet, that they cannot afford shoes is up to them.

Let what might have been paid to them from public funds be used to pay the foster parents of their children. Obviously, the destitute (morally as well as materially) who do not participate in handling their own affairs, including supporting themselves, are in no position to care for their progeny and children should not be held responsible for the shortcomings of their parents.

Only one problem, we would have a white “stolen generation”.
So, how does a responsible society care for those who lack responsibility? Not altogether sure except, pandering to irresponsibility is not the answer and it represents the real challenge.

Ah Wildcat, you've made my point for me. Clearly there are jobs
out there, but Aussies have it so good, that many choose not to
work or to go where the jobs are.

Meantime, export $, about which brightspark worries, are being
lost because of it. Thats why I have many times mentioned that
seeing Aussies don't want these jobs, lets bring in people who
appreciate the money and work, from China, the Philipines etc.
It is ridiculous to hold up export industries, which we are
short of anyhow, because of bad ideology. Its a lose lose
situation. Next thing people are complaining about the live
export industry.

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory, based on
what we know about human nature. What it basically implies
is that eventually we will destroy ourselves and old mother
nature will have to sort it out and thin the species out
bigtime.

Col Rouge, surely even a person as cranky as yourself towards those who won't move for the benifits of a job, couldn't be so cruel as to deny those without employment and their children enough tax payer's money to avoid starving on the streets? Haven't we as a society learned that's not the best message to send to the rest of the world....."Hey look!" "Australia starves it's dole bludgers!" "The good old US of A system isn't so bad after all!" If I had the power, I couldn't do it any more than I feel you could despite your grumpiness. It's simply not right or "human." Better to give them allowance vouchers that may only be traded for food or necesities and not for smokes or booze. I think you'd then find a whole different attitude to those who won't work, but having said that, there is still an unemployable minority out there that will always require assistance.

Yabby, if you actually believed the principles behind Tragedy of the Commons, then perhaps you wouldn't be so keen to export our abundance of goods and exportable material to countries who can't produce for themselves? If they've overpopulated themselves into a corner, let the overburdened buggers starve themselves back to sustainability. More for us producing countries then! But, I guess it's all about the money isn't it? Doesn't matter if you're a landholder or a shareholder, it's always about the money. That's why we have the big push for the export dollar.

Wildcat, I believe people, faced with acute loss of employment, should be entitled to unemployment benefit. Those people should have benefits especially if they have children or other extended dependents to support.

However, someone accepting unemployment benefit is under a moral responsibility to mitigate their income shortfall and do everything humanly possible to get off the dole and back to supporting themselves.

Unemployment benefit is not intended to “support a life style”, it is intended to substitute for absence of a life style.

I guess, despite my trade and should I face no other choice, I would rather dig cesspits than take unemployment benefits. I might, in time, just impress the boss and get made up to foreman, where as if I stay on welfare, I have to suffer the ignominy of having to explain myself to some wet, demotivated bureaucrat who holds sway over my dignity.

As for “Australia starves its dole bludgers” well it might discourage some of those illegal immigrants who come here from India and Pakistan but throw their papers over board to better pretend to be Afghanis. Every cloud has a silver lining.

As for “there is still an unemployable minority out there that will always require assistance.”

I recognize there is always an “unemployable minority”, I could name a few I know who are not as able as others and struggle day to day. However, some receive a disability pension, some do not. The point with the “unemployable minority” who do not qualify for a disability pension is I do not expect the same people to be part of the unemployable minority tomorrow as are there today.

Oh my comment to a “white stolen generation” is the natural consequence where people who do not take responsibility for their circumstances, do not care for their children. It is not the childs fault. All efforts of support should give priority for the child, possibly at the expense of the parents. Although I would consider separation of parent and child as an absolute last resort.

Wildcat, making a living somehow is part of nature. Everyone
does it their way. Those who don't, starve in nature. A fox
which runs alot slower then rabbits, will have problems making
a living etc etc. I make a living too, enough for my needs.
Now what is your problem with money? I don't work for the
sake of money, what I do now I actually do as I enjoy it
and would rather do it then go play golf.
Thats why to me its a hobby.

Regarding the rest, you have to separate what is a feelgood
exercise to satisfy your emotions and what is rational.
Fact is that if Australia never exported another thing
and was wiped off the map, in a global sense we hardly
matter. Thats the reality. The problems with humanity are
global problems, not regional ones. Its one big ecosystem
now, when it crashes, as they do when overstretched,
it will affect everyone. It probably won't happen in
my lifetime, but it will eventually happen. We humans
are clever enough to invent all sorts of things, not yet
clever enough to use them wisely all the time.

I've learnt long ago to stop worrying about the things
that I cannot change. I try to make a difference, where
I think I can. So I try to enjoy every day, heaven
is here and now, its all too late when the worms move in :)

"I would rather dig cesspits than take unemployment benefits."

Yes Mr. Rouge, I feel pretty much the same way myself. There's been times in my life when I've almost sweat tears of blood simply trying to keep a roof over my two boys heads whilst at the same time feeding us and keeping clothes on our backs. I think I did a pretty good job and was too proud to accept a Government "handout." I had many friends who used their kids to obtain welfare and it used to piss me off no end. I often bit my tongue while they told me they were out of smokes and could I lend them a packet until "pay day." Pay day? PAY DAY? Paid for what? Sitting on their bums smoking, but I bit my tongue. I started down a rebellious path at an early age and for decades never had tuppence to rub together, my friends all being of low social standing, but out it came two fine, strong lads who now have good jobs and great families of their own. Yeah they've got "atitudes" too, but they were the sons of a biker after all. However, I had originally had a sound education and so one day about 7 years ago decided to better myself in life's ratrace and left a poorly paying job to do so. Because of circumstance, I was forced onto the dole for two years and hated every minute of it. I saw first hand what some people go through and felt sorry for them, but only some of them. Now I'm doing fine again, but my love is writing and I'd dearly love to quit work so I could pursue my hobby to bigger and better things, but at 53, I can't quite figure out how to survive while I type my short stories except to go back on the dole......and that I refuse to do at all costs.

Wildcat “I started down a rebellious path”

Me too, whilst possibly appearing fairly conservative, the rebellion still flows through the veins. I just channel it to where it will be more useful to me.

“decided to better myself in life's ratrace and left a poorly paying job to do so.”

The right to Dream and aspire never stops. We should all follow our dreams.

“but at 53, I can't quite figure out how to survive while I type my short stories.”

24 hours a day, we work for say 8-10 of them, sleep for 6, it still leaves you a few to devote to your passion.

I recall a story I heard about 40 years ago. It was a fellow who worked as a sweeper-up in a factory. He enjoyed his job because it placed no demands on his mind and left him free to think through and plan his real purpose and passion, which was as a designer silver-smith.

We work to live but we live to follow our hearts.

You can find a way resolve the need (top earn) with the want (to write your stories). Best of luck with it.

From The Age

January 24, 2007 - 6:44AM
AdvertisementAdvertisement
Nearly 30 per cent of working-age male Australians - more than 2.2 million of them - were not in a job at any one time in the past year, it has been revealed.

The rate at which men are outside the labour force, neither in work nor looking for work, has increased fourfold in the past century, a Productivity Commission report found.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Over-22m-Aussie-men-not-in-workforce/2007/01/24/1169518742421.html

Billie “Nearly 30 per cent of working-age male Australians - more than 2.2 million of them - were not in a job at any one time in the past year, it has been revealed.”

your post establishes nothing unless you can find comparable figures for say 5, 10 , 20 and 30 years ago.

I would expect more people to be momentarily unemployed in any given year than say 40 years ago because the workforce is far more flexible now, Work attitudes have changed, we no longer look for a job and stay there until we retire, as was the practice with previous generations.

Maybe the reason
“The rate at which men are outside the labour force, neither in work nor looking for work, has increased fourfold in the past century,”

Is because

there were no social security benefits 100 years ago
Nowadays, men complete with women, who used not to “work” 100 years ago.
The rates of “self employment” influences statistical measures.
People have a different attitude to leisure time and travel pursuits than our great grandfathers.

Ok so unemployment is low for the current period, granted.

Yabby in my recent analogy I did not use any employee analogy, I only compared the government’s performance to that of the board of directors of a company. Also like you I am not a control freak, but I do however believe that the government has responsibilities to make laws and regulations to ensure the wellbeing of the people and protect the value of the currency for the good of the common wealth. I feel that only a part hack (Liberal, National, or Labor) cannot see that things are amiss.

We are in a period of unemployment now that is only equalled in the 20th century by period of the great depression.

We are going into debt at a faster rate than the current economic growth rate.

We are dependent on skilled workers in China etc who are paid only $50 per week.

We borrow $54,000,000,000 per year or about $52 each per week each.

We have almost completed a period of dumbing down and we have little more to offer technologically than third world countries.

We are dependent on a controlled communist economy (China) for our “prosperity” both to provide dumped goods and buy our dirt.

At the URL below I have posted the unemployment graph from the RBA site with lines added showing average rates for the various periods. Note up to the mid sixties the statistics were prepared by the union movement and as such are likely to be exaggerated after this the they were prepared by the ABS defining “employed” as one hours work in the survey week and as such greatly understated.

I wonder where Mr Rudd expects the very well educated people he intends to produce will find employment when we have no “industry” that produces significant quantities of high tech products, I feel the one reason that some process jobs (eg abattoir workers) goes unfilled is that people consider themselves over educated already. Perhaps a Labor party hack out there can enlighten me.

http://users.tpg.com.au/bobarmst/unemploymentrate.jpg

Source: Document at Reserve Bank of Australia website, http://www.rba.gov.au/PublicationsAndResearch/Conferences/1998/BorlandKennedy.pdf.

Clearly its not just WA that hasn't got enough meatworkers.
According to this story, the same applies in parts of NSW.

http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=39990

It seems that lots of Aussies think that working in a meatworks
is below them, or that they would rather wait for a job
where they can be CEO or something :)

Yabby, I don't know if it's a matter of Aussies believing that working in a meatworks is beneath their dignity, perhaps it's more of a case that people are scared of being confronted about just where their food supplies actually comes from. I feel that a lot of people would be turned off ever eating meat again if they saw the abject cruelty of animals in total terror as they're being forced along a production line. Everybody has to eat, that's a fact, but humans have totally lost respect for the land and the animals that feed them. They breed meat producing species en mass simply so greedy humans consumers can stock their huge freezers to the hilt for their B-B-Q's and over indulgent lifestyles. Little wonder the world is chock full of obese children.

You say you learned a long time ago not to worry about things you cannot change, yet you seem to have a real bug up your bum about people refusing to take on jobs in the animal killing sector.

Wildcat, I remind you that people have eaten meat since forever,
but obesity was never a problem, until American junk food came
onto the market. So you are going to blame it on meat now?

Fact is that farming plays a large role in Australia and in
exports and meat is one of our main exports. If we export
them live people protest, if we try to process them locally
and need staff, you are amazed. Perhaps you are just stirring
once again for the sake of it :)

I think you want to inform yourself a little better about the
"terror" thinggy. A modern well run meatworks will go through
lots of effort to make sure that animals stay calm before
slaughter, it improves the meat and its kinder to the animals.

There was recently a story about a woman in the US, who had
autism, but could see the world from cows perspective. She
has become a consultant to the meat industry, to devise
handling systems to achieve exactly that. She's had great
results.

If people eat meat, why should they not accept how its produced?
Fact is that on this thread people are saying that there are
no jobs, that we lack exports. When I say well here is an
industry that can provide both, you say well Aussies can't
really be expected to do that job. Sigh.

Some things can be changed. Like enough political pressure until
the powers that be see reason. If Aussies don't want the jobs,
so let us bring in contract workers from overseas, for seasonal
work. Tens of thousands of Australians depend on the meat industry
for a living, stop holding us back from doing what we do well.
For that however,we need workers, Aussies or overseas ones.

Fact is that if there had been enough workers, there would have
been less stock standing in paddocks, hungry from the drought.
So it would be kind to animals too, a win-win situation. Only
stupidity holds us up from achieving that, it seems.

I don't know exactly why meatworks can't find workers Yabby. The major town near where I live once had a huge meatworks and half the town had worked there at one time or another, suddenly, it had been bought out and sold. Gone for good and all the jobs with it. Economic reasons they claimed.
It seems to me from what I can gather, todays meatworks are attempting to exploit workers into accepting low wages and nil entitlements for performing the crappy job of killing animals. Look what happened at the Cowra Abattoir. 29 meatworkers had been sacked and invited to re-apply to the abattoir for 20 jobs on new employment contracts that involved pay cuts of up to $180 a week. Surely, if abattoirs are making good export money, then they can afford to pay better rates, not the opposite by using draconian and outdated Work (non) Choices. That way, more people might be tempted to move to do unpleasant jobs, but then again, perhaps it's because of the mess our workplace security is in these days. Someone posted that workers no longer see job security as an important issue. I don't know anybody that thinks like that. I have a 28 year old son who is very worried about job security and I know many more like him. Why bother to go to all the trouble of moving to another area or State to find work only to end up on the dole in a strange area far from family and friends? Moving anywhere is very expensive and while the Government will pay a sum to get you there in the first place, I bet the curs won't give you a cent to get you back home after the job's finished. Oh no! Then starts the bastardisation of Centrelink and that's certainly not a pleasant experience.

Wildcat, I think there are various explanations, not just one.
Its in fact a trend in high income Western countries and was
the case in Switzerland, a rich country, over 30 years ago.
They used to bring in Italian workers, to do work that the
Swiss no longer wanted to do, for life was too easy. The same
applies here now. Govt benefits of every kind are overwhelming
here.

The situation in Cowra was a one off, they went broke in
the end and are now restructuring, as companies do, when they
are badly managed. Pay in the meatworks that I know something
about is around the 40k-50k mark for a 37 hour week, with
all sorts of entitlements. But I admit its not for everyone,
some people have more of an aptitude for it then others.

I am amazed that you are so terrified of the idea of travelling
anywhere, to find work. I've known heaps of people who packed
up their swag and ute and went around Australia to explore the
place. A friend of mine has been everywhere and never without
work. If he was stuck for a day, he'd volunteer to the next
employer he could find to work a day for free, if the employer
would consider him for a job. Most employers were so impressed
by his attitude, that he was given work immediately! Having
been on both sides of the employment story, I can tell you that
its really hard to find good staff and when you do, it pays to
look after them.

The whole world is a less secure place and will keep on that way.
If you want security, make sure that whoever you work for is
producing something that consumers actually want, then your
work will be guaranteed! Unless you work for Govt of course.

Yabby, northern Australian meatworks operate during the dry season. The abbattoir operators live in St Kilda Road Melbourne from Dec to May.

So if a worker travels across Australia for work in northern Australia what do they do in the wet season?
Leave? have you got $2000 to get home
Go on social security? DSS is loathe to give the dole to blow-ins.
Get another job? 95% of jobs only operate in the dry season.

I have never met any one who humped their swag around Australia but then I am a post-war baby boomer.

re the Cowra abbattoirs - the owners have a local reputation for being MEAN, so they used work choices to take the opportunity to reduce their wages bill.

Far from being a one off event, a bit of background research about other large employers named and shamed for ruthless treatment of their employees shows systematic erosion of wages by very profitable companies who want to reduce wages. For example SPOTLIGHT has sponsored the new headquarters of HAZBOLLAH the Jewish Ambulance.

Yabby, Billie & other interested parties, I'd love to discuss further just why people won't move to find work since I still believe security is a big issue. I'd like to discuss how the "mean and tricky" policies of the Howard led Government has attempted to destroy people of low socioeconomic standard and of how horrible it treats those who find themselves on Newstart benefits. Is there a better way? Yabby, you seem to have the unrealistic expectation that ANYONE could find work ANYWHERE if they were prepared to move. Billie thinks otherwise. I don't have to move. I have a resonably secure job as a nurse looking after societies worst outcasts. I only work part time since at my age, it's actually hard to obtain full time work in my field. I often take home little more than the aged pension, but I do ok because I'm a home body. The shortage of nurses is a myth. It's simply propaganda. I agree with you on one point Yabby. The Australian economy is at present on a high and there are people too lazy or proud to take certain jobs. I spend a great deal of time in my job washing crappy bums and cleaning up urine spills, washing people who are so mentally unwell that they cannot wash themselves. I've been spat at, had things thrown at me, forced to react quickly to fights between burly men whilst at the same time having heaps more regulations and paperwork.....yes, the dreaded paperwork heaped upon me in ever increasing workloads. We get students through who usually say they'd never want to work in this field. And yet I love my job. It suits me, but at the same time I understand just why others don't feel the same way.
However, we've hijacked the original context of the discussion and I must appologise to Brightspark for that. Maybe, if you want, we can take it to another discussion, but perhaps you feel it's already been done to death.

"re the Cowra abbattoirs - the owners have a local reputation for being MEAN,"

The place closed down as it went broke Billie. We'll see if
the new business plan, under new ownership, will work better.
Last I heard some locals were negotiating with the administrator.

If you are saying that Aussies don't want any jobs that are
seasonal, well thats most of agriculture. Best then we just fly
in people from overseas on contracts and leave the Aussies on
the dole, if they refuse to do the work.

Given that meatworks are happy to pay airfares from China etc
and guarantee a minimum of 42K a year, I'm sure they'd pay
somebody's airfare to and from the south, which is just a
few hundred bucks.

The meatworks I know are not in the North of WA, but the South,
some right on the coast, regional but pretty country, working
11-12 months a year and they have for years. Still no workers.
Fletcher brought in 160 from the Philipines in the end, but
still unions complained, even though they can't provide the workers.

A large % of the cattle upnorth are now simply sailed out on
boats to Indonesia etc, thats solved the problem in the North.

Wildcat, I admire the work that you do. Lots would not do it,
they want an office job, something easy, with little work
and huge pay.

Just about everyone I know in WA has moved around the place,
changing where they live and where they work over time. Perhaps
thats why we are such a go ahead state with go ahead people :)

Yabby people on Newstart can't afford to take seasonal jobs because they are penalised for doing so.

1. They may have to wait 6 weeks to get back onto Newstart
2. People moving from welfare to work pay an effective tax rate much higher than everyone else, maybe 75%.
3. Newstart is so paltry that people on Newstart may not be able to fund a move to WA to search for jobs,
4. The federal govrnment will pay the moving expenses of silled workers who have found work in WA, a very different proposition to travelling to look for work
5. Employers avoid hiring older workers
6. People who have worked in offices are prone to injury when they move into manual labour and employers know this
7. The labour shortage is a furphy in nursing (wildcat), teaching, work in northern Australia (me), professional engineering, computing.
8. according to figures released on Thursday one third of working age males in Australia did not work for some period of 2006.
9. In Australia a person is counted as employed if they work for 1 hour paid or unpaid in the survey period. So volunteers, work for the dole and students are not unemployed. Very liberal use of statistics

So because Yabby's local abbattoir is short of workers, although I do remember the Fremantle and Kwinana slaughtermen being laid off. Actually the Cowra abbattoir has no difficulty filling its positions at lower pay as there is a shortage of work in the district.

To get back to Brightsparks initial premise, this is not the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years.

" The labour shortage is a furphy in nursing (wildcat), teaching, work in northern Australia (me), professional engineering, computing."

Ok, so those hospitals in WA screaming out for nurses, are but a dream. Those mining companies advertising daily for engineers, don't
do it because they need staff, they do it just for fun. Billie wake up!

" although I do remember the Fremantle and Kwinana slaughtermen being laid off."

Billie, that was 20 years ago! a failed Govt run works, as usually
happens when Govts run things. Do you have any idea of today's
situation, or are you living in some dream ideology of the past?

Fact is every meatworks that matters in WA is looking for staff!
Sheesh, perhaps we should get back to seceding from you Eastern
Staters, living in your dream worlds, and just paddle our own canoe
over here. If you won't get off your butts, why should we keep sending
you money?

Wildcat, not at all, the subject is employment and I have learned much from all of the contributors. I first got interested in this topic when I realised that, what I was observing, was not consistent with the government and opposition’ claims of a well functioning economy. Government and opposition only differ on the point of who should take the credit (I prefer the term “blame”).

I do think that the problems you are describing all have their roots in this economic mismanagement.

I would like to make the following observations:

We benefit from recent technological advances and low priced sophisticated consumer goods.

I believe that many of the part time or officially unemployed workers (1/3 of the official workforce) fear leaving their family nest for what they see as insecure short term employment in the regional areas and loss of local opportunities. In any case they can not afford the cost of relocation. I think full time abattoir work close to home would not be a problem for these people.

The government’s “work choices” adds to the insecurity for the vulnerable.

The unions formerly made available a disciplined work force. Now with industrial law of the jungle, many employers are feared by the workforce.

One method used to moderate the high unemployment has been to retain teenagers at school.

Now when these extra teenagers gain a VCE/HSC even without having to actually pass any examinations they form a lifelong opinion that they are ready for an executive job at BHP, and a meatworkers job is out of the question. The education system is misleading them. Dare I say in the sixties a failed round of examinations would teach the student a valuable lesson about their own limitations leading to realistic career choices some of which, in the fullness of time, have lead to high prosperity. Better students are also poorly advised causing the skill shortages detailed by Yabby.

After thirty years of “free trading” we do not need more education as proposed by Kevin Rudd we are no longer an industrialised country.

Mostly we need a new political party.

I would like to make this point.

In the era which was ended by the Whitlam Government;

We didn’t need to spend much on “Newstart” because we had real unemployment of around 1%.

We were technologically sophisticated being the third nation in the world to launch a satellite into orbit.

We genuinely educated people from disadvantaged countries,

We ran a balanced foreign account.

We were a more caring society.

The “sheep’s back” was really not important. (a furphy of today)

We had more equitable distribution of wealth.

We compared well with other countries.

We earned our economic growth and did not borrow it.

There was no trouble in recruiting people to work on outback mining developments.

We had plenty of nurses, doctors and engineers.

Nurses were valued, respected and given better working conditions.

There was no trouble finding meatworkers.

The “Melbourne establishment” had to give up some of their wealth to workers who had powerful unions.

The governments ran some fiscal deficits, which, even in real terms, were miniscule compared to the current account deficit.

Now the “Melbourne Establishment” and others give themselves seven figure golden handshakes.

No we have skill shortages.

Now we have dumbed down and we bludge off the rest of the world in an unsustainable way, soon we will need to privatise air and water.

Wake up everone.

We need to look at the big picture! We need to look at the road ahead and not the speedo.

He was none of your dolts,
He had seen them brand colts,
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock
Made him one of the flock
It must surely be something like branding!

From the Bush Christening by A. B. Patterson

"Nurses were valued, respected and given better working conditions."
Very true Brightspark and I'll say it again. There's no shortage of nurses......but I'll add a little more that I should have added in a previous post and didn't due to word constraint.......there's simply a shortage of nurses who WANT to work under sometimes terrible conditions.

I don't know anything about the meatwork industry, but I do know about nursing. I also know of two domestic staff members who work in my section who were once nurses, but grew tired of the way nursing was going, let their registration lapse, then joined the domestic staff. They find cleaning and preparing meals preferable to washing dirty backsides, dodging angry drunks (A&E), being abused by client's parents, family and anyone else who might decide to join in. Then comes the paperwork. More and more each year simply so as to convince the Government of the day that the clients in your care are worthy of receiving the paltry sum needed for their care. Next comes Workchoices. When first announced, morale dropped considerably in my area of nursing. Some of the people I work with in our specialised field have been in the job 20 & 30 years. Fortunately, the Brack's Government has decided to keep things as they are concerning conditions and wages, but what happens next election should a Liberal Government take power, which I would say is most likely. I might add that those ex nurses who are now domestics, are receiving just $1.95 per hour than I'm getting as a registered nurse. Work that one out! No wonder young people won't tackle nursing as a career.

Yup, the world has changed Brightspark, but I doubt that you
will put the genie back in the bottle, for its a global
change, not just an Australian one.

Govt by overregulation won't work today, as it never has.
If you overtax capital, it will go offshore, if you overtax
high wage earners, they will do the same and you'll lose
your brightest and best.

If you try to susidise inefficient manufacturing, somebody
has to pay, so standard of living drops, those industries
that could be competitive, become less so, etc. The
old labour job creation schemes solved nothing, they
are short term band aids, no more.

What has changed is peoples expectations. In the 60s,
people had a fibro house, a holden in the driveway and
not much more. No plasma screens, internets, ipods,
mobile phones, etc. Today people expect these things.
Last year alone, 8 million new mobile phones were sold.

The cost of medicine has risen through technology.
Hip replacement operations, open heart surgey etc,
which are hugely expensive, are seen as the norm these
days, available to anyone.

In the 60s, you never had the huge welfare network that
you have today. Last I looked Govt spends about 90 billion
a year on it. People realised they had to work, if they
wanted to eat. Today working is basically optional.

So its ok to lament about the past, as we remember the
good things and forget the not so good things. Today's
kids have far more opportunities then kids in the 60s
ever had, they just have to get off their butts to
make things happen. But then our expectations have
changed. Many expect Govts now to wrap us in nappies
and solve everything for us. Too many Aussies have
become softies. I blame the parents, for bringing
up kids, often with little discipline, just give
them more money. How can those kids ever learn the
values that the last generation had?

Yabby, I agree with most of your last post, all except the part about work being "optional." Obviously, you haven't had to go onto Newstart (dole by another name) lately? People under 50 have to go through a most horrible set of Centrelink "hoops" simply to get on the books. After that, it's all work diaries, training schemes, work for the dole etc, etc. It's damned hard and nobody would take it as an option. I've seen the results in psychiatric units where young people have been driven to attempt to take their own lives because of what Centrelink has put them through. That's a shocking endorsement of the Government's welfare system.
And yes, it's true that back in the 60's, people had to work to get on, but there were plenty of labouring jobs around. It's successive Government policy that's driven jobs off shore, Government policy that means women can't afford to stay at home and crowd the dole cues. It's Government policy that's locked us into their ridiculous policy of growth and wealth creation, but as you well know, the answer lurks just around the corner. Nature will correct the imbalance soon enough with climate change, or peak oil and most likely a combination of both.

Yabby I would make the following points.

All this may be great, …. if it were sustainable!

The world has been globalised for over 100 years our shops have had products from all over the world since around 1880, its not new!
The plasma screens and phones you talk of are actually much cheaper than AM radios were in 1920. The price of one radio could get you a complete set (plasma screen phone the lot). We came much closer to paying our own way then.
This cheap electronics is giving an illusion of prosperity just as a heroin shot gives such an illusion to a drug addict.

You have missed my point!

I am not pining for the good old days. For things are probably better for me personally but for how long?

I am disgusted by government mismanagement of which most people are unaware and for which most party hacks (Liberal and Labor) are ignorant apologists.

The current situation cannot continue as we are borrowing year after year. (For the last 32 years to be exact.)

We are one of a very few country’s in the world that continually borrows and never actual makes any nett repayments even needing to borrow to make interest repayments every year.

Anyone who thinks that this can continue is living in a fools paradise or just plain stupid.

On government regulation; we are now dependent on the regulations and market and currency manipulations of Communist China. (Eg. exchange rate gives Skilled worker Australia $700 same worker in China $50). Could you tell me of a more controlled situation?

We have more Australian government control on individuals not less. Less government regulations and control on corporations of course.

Trade protection benefits the workers of most other countries and shackles their “Melbourne Establishments”.

Our unilateral “Free Trading” is like making blood donations to the vampire’s blood bank. Hurting the most vulnerable while reducing our technological capability to below that of a third world country.

Many people are hurting right now, I care.

I fear for the future . Look at the big picture.