RawMustard:>> Should the government have prevented corporates from leaving this land?<<

RM governments traditionally protected their nations manufacturing base with tariffs, they protected the nations "company" wealth with legislation regarding foreign investment and ownership. This did not stop OS investments, it just gave us the right to say no and call the shots. The Lima protocol of the seventies and every subsequent free trade agreement has torn down all barriers to stop the wealth generated by us going straight overseas as it does right now.

RawMustard:>> Are you saying the numbers of immigrants are reducing jobs.<<

What jobs? Youth unemployment is officially 30%....and the rest.

If we can't give work to our own kids, why bring "migrants" in, but as I said "refugees" are a separate case. The migrants didn't get rid of our manufacturing base, OUR politician, the UN Development Organization, the World Bank and the IMF teamed up by the "Money" to make them more money by sending manufacturing in first world nations to the second and third world.

RawMustard:>> Is your gripe with the government or the corporates, or both?<<

This week on the same news segment I saw a pensioner whose electricity bill frightens him to the point that he won't flick on a light switch, the poor old bugger uses candles to get around, and later a healthy pay rise for the bastards in government was reported. It is sickening, I heard some spin from one of our elected bludgers yesterday...we are cutting this allowance and doing away with that....pathetic rubbish....are you getting more money was the question, he just kept on going. He should have his tongue cut out and melted down for candle wax for our old pensioner mate.

Corporate or Government we are just clients.

Pericles:>> I can tell you that of the three builders who did some work on my place a couple of years back, two were university educated. I don't know what that proves, except that they were far from poor.<<

Pericles perhaps they did six years of medicine but gave it up because fixing your abode brings more self satisfaction and money.

P this is the TBC from previously.

Pericles:>> Ah, it's just nostalgia we're talking about, is it.
Hint: times have changed.<<

There is a vast difference between nostalgia and history, my nostalgia of that era is certainly not the ample employment.

Pericles:>> Amazing though it may seem to you, things have changed less here in Australia than in many other countries. We still have low unemployment, which has been a problem for Europe for decades, and is presently causing angst in the US. We still have a solvent country, which is a major worry in Greece and Ireland.<<

Low unemployment, that’s worth a laugh. The real numbers are buried in 100 different support and tutor programmes that don't show up in the statistics. Re the American "angst" and our solvent country, we will be a net importer of food in the next five years and we are selling our farmland to the Chinese, Argentineans, and anyone else with the money. We sold the Australian Wheat Board yesterday.

Yabby:>> Er not quite so Grim. In your limited worldview perhaps, not in the rest of Australia it seems.<<

Yabby you are a slippery character, you suggest that Grim has a myopic view while you quote to us carpenters in WA by far the fastest growing economy in Australia that has to lure tradies from the east with dollars to service the gold rush style sell off of our resources. They are certainly a lucky minority of tradies at the moment.

Yabby your source: Nick Sas of The Western Australian is an intrepid little journo, using his wordsmith skills to paint a picture of the opulence of having four motor bikes and a hilux ute. Certainly the high life for them in your opinion given you use this as an example of Pitt Street Tradies.

Yabby:>> Clearly plenty of tradies are cashing in big-time. My local
mechanic charges 100$ an hour for his time, hardly working poor stuff.<<

Yabby are you and pericles joined at the hip? P was crying about some scoundrel electrician that robbed her blind, just like your mechanic robbed you blind...are you twins also blind.

Yabby:>> Those with skills, will do ok if they have half a brain.<<

Thanks for that reassuring encouragement; you do know that youth unemployment is one in three officially. So as well as having a skill and a brain they have to have an employer.

*As a small businessman, my charge out is $140./hour. Unfortunately, I can't actually pay myself that much. By comparison, my accountant's charge out rate is $450./hour*

Sheesh Grim, and there was you, saying how people are no longer
middle class, but working poor. Clearly some are clearly
thriving and charging a fortune.

*If your mechanic is charging $100. he's probably making (or paying his tradies) around $30 to $40 an hour*

Nope, he keeps the lot. He owns a ute, a mobile phone and some
tools. He's part of a thriving industry of contractors who
don't have all those overheads you talk about, plumbers, electricians,
building workers, who cream it all the way.

They don't need a boss to sit in the office, playing on his computer,
who takes most of the profits.

BTW, Western Australia covers a third of Australia. But I did
ring central Qld to buy a machine a couple of years ago. The owner
would not even give me a quote. His tradies had all taken on highly
paid mining jobs, he was hoping that some Filipinos might want work.

Now it is possible that there is an oversupply of tradies in some
very nice spots by the seaside, along the coast. But for any
tradie worth anything, if he gets off his arse, Australia is a big
place and he can do extremely well. Not everyone can frolic by the
seaside and expect huge wages at the same time.

Now you are just being perverse for the sake of it, sonofgloin.

>>Pericles perhaps they did six years of medicine but gave it up because fixing your abode brings more self satisfaction and money.<<

Not so. One majored in Geography, as I recall. The other has an Arts degree of some kind. I was simply making the point that they were not disadvantaged in any way, and not poor either.

>>Low unemployment, that’s worth a laugh. The real numbers are buried in 100 different support and tutor programmes that don't show up in the statistics.<<

I'd be interested in any data you have to back that up. But presumably, other countries use the same basis of calculation, so we are comparatively fully employed here, as I pointed out.

>>...we will be a net importer of food in the next five years and we are selling our farmland to the Chinese, Argentineans, and anyone else with the money.<<

Why are we doing that, do you think? Is it because we can't be arsed to work the land any more? Or perhaps farmers can't make a living wage, because the prices we are prepared to pay for their produce at the shops are too low? Or because farmers can't get fat lazy Aussies to work on the farm these days?

Do you think that we should place a restriction on overseas companies buying Australian ones? How would that work, do you think, when there are a large number of Australian companies who buy overseas businesses. It is what multinational organizations do.

And this is a giggle.

>>We sold the Australian Wheat Board yesterday.<<

That's the company who bribed Saddam Hussein to buy our wheat, right?

I'm only surprised that they are still in business.

But they don't actually grow anything anyway, do they?

*We sold the Australian Wheat Board yesterday.*

We did indeed, Sonofgloin. Thank goodness for that.
So why do you have a problem with that?

I happen to grow a little bit of wheat. Not a grain
ever goes near the Australian Wheat Board.

They are just one of a multitude of grain traders.
But they do happen to own the Landmark chain, which
is what the buyer was after.

*They are certainly a lucky minority of tradies at the moment.*

Yes indeed Sonofgloin, some people do make their own luck.

*you do know that youth unemployment is one in three officially*

Sheesh, we have too many kids trained to flip burgers. What about
training them for skills that employers actually need?