"""
Not sure I follow you on that one, what freedoms are you referring to?
"""

The freedom for the small guy here to start a business without having to wade through so much red tape, rules and regulations he has no time to concentrate on making his said business work.(which the others don't have to follow by the way), one trip up and he's history. The odds for a small guy here in Australia are so stacked against him it's a miracle if he even gets off the ground.

For that one in a million - that through sheer determination does manage to get off the ground, he's just buried over night by some unscrupulous slime ball here that takes his ideas to china and then floods the market with exact copies at a fraction of the price, a price that can never be matched here because the rules are stacked in favour of the big guys operating out of said countries!

Oh and sorry Shadow Minister for hijacking your thread, but I guess it's all kinda related.

Rawmustard, I am sorry to hear about your personal misfortune.
I also acknowledge that business is tough, far tougher then many
realise, especially Govt bureaucrats with a big stick, who commonly
don't have a clue and are far more intent on stamping their own
career on everyone else's shoulders. They do far more damage
then they realise.

but this:

*I've dealt with multinationals in both China, and the Philippines and I can tell you that their wish to lift poor people out of poverty was the last thing on their minds*

That may well be so. For life in Asia is far tougher then life
in mollycoddled Australia. The rules of the jungle still apply
in many places. But what cannot be denied is the big picture and
in that Pericles is absolutaly correct. Hundreds of millions of
Chinese have indeed dragged themselves out of poverty, wheras 30
years ago, many of them were starving. I doubt if too many would
prefer to return to those times.

Things might be rough, but they are improving. That is the issue.

Ah but Yabby, their improvement has come at our loss. 500 million out of poverty there, 500 million into poverty in western developed nations. No more out of poverty, just evened out so as to make it look like good is being done.

*500 million out of poverty there, 500 million into poverty in western developed nations*

Rawmustard the total employed in western developed nations, would
be less then 500 million. So where are all these people living
in poverty?

You mean the people of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong,
etc, who have all powered their way out of poverty?

Did you mean the Americans, where 80% of the population are still
employed, earning some of the highest wages on the planet and leave
the dirty work to the Mexicans?

Or did you mean the Australians, where the average wage is around
1200$ a week and they are better off then ever before?

Show me where these 500 millions are, who were not poor before.
I would love to know.

The quality of comment in OLO our lost children section at least has dropped like a stone.
Sonofagun talks of poisoning our leader,raw mustard revels in the view he/she is hot stuff and wages war on those who disagree.
Fact is we no longer own banks, as in any business they exist for profit.
We seem to think people are lined up and forced to borrow money by these evil beggars.
But ignore those who hold shares as greedy.
And that after decades of bank reforms, remember our banks stood while others fell, we want what? American style banks?
Or do we want to introduce the Islamic system of banking.
What next? maybe regulate petrol prices, food, the very cost of housing, lets put a lid on silly unwise uninformed comments too.

Yabby:>> Secondly, manufacturing today is increasing specialised, with specialised machinery, huge investments and volume of scale required. So to make say a computer locally, might force you as a consumer to pay 10'000$.
If the poor were forced to buy Australian made clothes, shoes etc,
do you think they could still afford to dress their children?<<

Well Yabby I again find you defending those "with" and denigrating those "without", no surprise there.

Re your "informed" views on the positives of the world economy to the Aussie mum struggling to clothe the nippers, let me educate you on why it is so.

From the late 1950's technology decimated the workers on the factory floor, but productivity and output soared. The Union movements of all first world nations demanded better reward for the "few" left to run the machines and the result was the world wide union vs management strikes and tribulations of the early 1970's.

Having had enough of the labor unrest the "Money" then conspired with the UN Industrial Development Organization the World Bank and the IMF to cobble together the Lima Agreement, a protocol that set guidelines and targets for a "new economic order". This "new order" simply put sent all manufacturing to cheaper climes and dismantled national trade protection policies.

These commercial doyens of humanity then turned subsistence farmers into subsistence factory workers, and that is sharing the wealth according to the UN and the Money. Now what of that poor Aussie mum who according to you should be grateful for the cheap imports. If she lives in the mining boom stricken WA as of August this year 23% of kids are unemployed. If she lives in Vic then 28% of the kids are unemployed and I won't burden you with the NSW number. Thank god for fast food outlets and the service industry for youth unemployment would be 70% without them.

Yes Yabby we are certainly lucky imports are cheap, as cheap as your factional rhetoric.