*$110 Vanitas silk undershorts*

Ah TBC, you clearly don't have a business bone in your body!

Mecedes and BMW just had to recently employ a few thousand
more workers, to keep up with new demand for their most
expensive models.

Where is demand coming from? Along with demand for Rolex
watches, Hermes 5000$ handbags and perhaps even silk
undershorts?

China!

Those well paid European workers are laughing all the
way to their banks and so are shareholders.

Yabby,
you only strengthen the argument you trifle with. China and India are the new bourgeoisie. Once Australia is one huge exhausted quarry, it will fall rapidly to third-world status. Can't be the lucky country forever. The working classes may even return home to scrape a living. When that day comes, sad to say, we won't deserve a skerrick of sympathy.

Ah Yabby... keep with the times man....

'BMW opens China factory' Friday, May 21st, 2004
http://www.testdriven.co.uk/bmw-opens-china-factory/

"In a joint venture with Brilliance China Automotive, BMW has officially opened its factory in Shenyang, north-east China.

"The company will invest 450m by 2005, and expects the factory to produce 30,000 BMW 3-Series and 5-Series models annually.

"Over the next five years, the company is planning to increase its annual sales in the Asian markets from around 93,000 units in 2003 to 150,000 by 2008."

Gawd knows what they churn out now, in 2010.

Hang on a mo'...

"BMW Brilliance second plant to make new 5-Series"
September 05, 2008,
http://autonews.gasgoo.com/auto-news/1007657/BMW-Brilliance-second-plant-to-make-new-5-Series.html

"German luxury carmaker BMW's joint venture with Brilliance China Auto, will build a second plant in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, to meet growing demand in China, and the new facility is expected to make all-new BMW 5-Series models first, xinhuanet.com said yesterday".

Eyyyooop lad, there's even more!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aqgG2iYaOkaA

"BMW to Build New China Plant on Luxury-Car Demand (Update2)"
November 12, 2009

"Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world’s largest maker of luxury cars, plans to build a new China factory to meet rising demand for premium products in an economy that’s poised to surpass Japan in size.

"The 5 billion yuan ($732 million) plant will have an initial capacity of 100,000 vehicles a year by 2012, eventually rising to 300,000, BMW’s Chief Financial Officer Friedrich Eichiner said today in Beijing. Capacity at BMW’s existing plant in northeastern China’s Shenyang will more than double to 75,000 by the end of 2010, he said."

And of course, there is the South African factory too, with all those well paid 'blackfellas' driving to work in the Beemers from their luxury apartments after dropping their kids off at exclusive private schools.

It won't be too long before the Royce gets churned out in China, and then we'll really know that the West has finally lost its grip on Capitalism.

Actually, $110 for undies sounds quite cheap these days, they clearly should charge more even though they'd be sewn up in a Chinese sweat shop.

TBC, that is all old hat. You seem to know even less about modern
bizz then I thought. Of course car companies are going to build
plants in China, today its the world's biggest car market,
bigger then the US. Remember how Japanese companies went to the
US to build cars? It was not about low wages. GM, Ford etc
came here, to service our market. But where are the parts made,
the engines made, where is the engineering done, etc. If things
are booming in China for Mercedes, their workers in Stuttgart benefit,
for the above reasons. Auto companies act globally.

I watched a tv programme yesterday, about the building of those
football stadiums in South Africa. You had global workers on site,
already planning to head to the next job in Brazil. Cables and
those outside squares came from Germany, some materials came
from Mexico. As the world becomes more complex, its also becoming
more specialised. Those specialised companies can be located anywhere.

*Once Australia is one huge exhausted quarry, it will fall rapidly to third-world status.*

Squeers, so when will that be? There is an awful lot of drilling yet
to do, until we know what is beneath the top easy layers, which is
all we have focused on so far. I love these people who worry about
200 years into the future, when we can't even predict 20 years.

Nations that do run out of natural resources are forced to start
developing their mental resources. Japan, Switzerland, Germany
etc, are not doing well because of gold mining.

But whilst there is an easy quid to be made in Australia, few
will bother, so it won't happen on any grand scale for quite some time.

a Chinese follow-on story....

The ever so happy workers in China are revolting...

"The strike by 3,000 workers at the Tianjin Mitsumi Electric Co Ltd factory in the city of Tianjin began late on Tuesday in a dispute over pay and benefits.

"It was latest in a wave of labour unrest to hit foreign-run companies in China, highlighting discontent among the millions of Chinese who make many of the world's products but do so for low salaries and in poor conditions."

Ah yes Peter Hume, Yabby and Stern, the aboslute MIRACLE of Capitalism is wasted on these ingrates, isn't it?

Fancy that, striking over poor pay and conditions!

If only they knew how well off they really are, lifted from poverty, and a chance to make-good with their lives.

Tsk tsk.

Yabby... you lot are all over the place.

Who was telling us that it was so cheap to ship goods around the world a few posts back?

How come they build car plants in China, when it's so cheap to ship Beemers from Germany then?

NOT THE WAGES TBC... bollocks, of course it's 'the wages'.

But this is the bit I really relish...

"Nations that do run out of natural resources are forced to start
developing their mental resources"..aha.. there yers go.

No need to ever think with a quarry underfoot is there?

Shades of 'The Lucky Country', as in, the 'ironic (intended) meaning' not the populist one the goons all fall for.

And that comes through in these posts I believe, with the unthinking support for the status quo, and the absolute terror that there might be 'something else' that is not the same, yet not the dreaded Commo scourge either.