Yes Rehctub, it seems that a lot of us posters on OLO are concerned about the same things , it's just that we see the causes differently.

It seems if you scratch around beneath the surface there probably is an Australian identity. An identity that we all commonly possess.
The fair go I mentioned is an intrinsic part of this and your right it is us that has let this slip, but Govt's driven by their own dogma are also responsible for making our country a far less fair place than it once was.

As an employee I would think my life was fuller and my time utilised more purposefully if I could feel loyalty, even affection towards my employers rather than the mistrusting, even confrontational atmosphere we now have in our working lives.

As consumers we have become suspicious and cynical and rightly so, given that consumer protection is all but non-existant compared to previous times. It is ludicrous how our leading pollies and business leaders run with a philosophy of never making an admission, even when they are clearly wrong.

In my parents Australia having the capacity to admit you were wrong, was a leadership credential, now it is perceived as a weakness.

But none the less Rehctub it is reassuring to know that that so many of us are essentially looking for the same outcomes whether we are the employed or employer. A return to consensus perhaps?.

Restoration of our previous system of belief would make me feel a lot better and this has to start at the legal level, for it is our now inadequate laws that create this environment of confrontation, mistrust and suspicion, exactly as they were designed to do, by a govt tainted by it's own twisted ideology. It was all very un Australian and it still is. The other useless side of politics has done nothing to change this and is therefore now equally culpable and too use a vernacular, tarred with the same brush. Bugger.

Much as I don't like big business, & try to avoid it, you go too far with the blame of retailers.

Don't forget the biggest business in the country, even if it is not too businesslike. Government is the main rip off.

I mentioned some time back, in the 60s, on the average wage, I payed 7.25% income tax. Add to that the huge extra take in GST, much higher excise on fuel tobacco & such. Add the hugely increased charges such in council rates, car registration, & other licencing by state governments. Then add the interest rate increases by a reserve bank, run by bankers, & you find why the average punter is much poorer.

When you have a good look, the retailers have nothing on the banking sector, but it's the public sector that's making us poor.

*Example 1: Downward price pressure placed by supermarkets on milk producers at the cost end by anti competitive pricing is disguised or offset by the profits at the petrol pump, their margins ever increasing. *

So you claim, Thinker 2. I have seen no evidence of this. Coles made
it clear, when it dropped the price of milk to 1$ a litre, that it
would not be at growers expense. But supermarkets are dammed if they
do and dammed if they don't, it seems. Milk processors like
National Foods are owned by the Japanese, they have plenty of margin
there to play with.

If you check the Coles annual figures, they work on 3c in the Dollar
as net profit, hardly a rip off, more like value for money to the
consumer. No wonder people flock there. I doubt if Rehctub would
be satisfied with a 3% net margin.

I personally prefer to buy my meat and veg at Coles, for good reasons.
Their meat is better then the local buther for a start. It takes
me about 2 minutes to fill my trolley with what I need in meat,
rather then stand around at the butchers, waiting to be served,
and have it cut and packed.

I am also a Coles shareholder, along with around half a million
other Australians. A large chunk of the rest of Coles is owned
by Super Funds, again benefitting millions of Australians.

Why should I not shop there?

Aldi on the other hand, are owned by a couple of rich Germans,
so that is quite different.

Absolutely Hasbeen,Govt is part of the problem as well. But Corporations have much more power over your small business than in the past, and today there really is no restraint on their behaviour or discouragement for their lack of ethics.

Even lawyers do not have to act according to the instructions of their clients because they have something known as discretionary power in Australia today. I myself was betrayed and stooged disgracefully by the lawyers of my own insurance company in favour of the party I was prosecuting because it saved money for both or either insurer depending upon the outcome.

This collusion obviously was crime, but the ombudsman explained that the discretionary power they now possess allowed them to ignore my instructions. In fact he said "Mr .... changes made to the legal practices act by the Howard Gov't virtually guarantee their BMW's." His words not mine.

The law society found my complaints amusing I think.

Anything digressive,anti social,lacking in forward thinking or vision is, and will be associated in some way with the short term needs of the Corporatasi,and not the citizens of this country or this planet.

In fact instead of giving them more power they should given less by way of regulation. Clearly they can not be trusted.

Todays news, speaks of the nuclear power plant in Sydney concealing accidents and endangering their employees, and that this has gone on for years. A classic example of abuse of power, denial of responsibility and lack of supervision/regulation by Govt of an important and dangerous private installation.

Are their any beneficiaries of this behaviour other than for the private owners of the plant?. No there isn't. I don't care how fat their bank accounts are and don't think supporting their obvious dishonesty and lack of accountibility and supporting their profitability has any upside for me and my family or any other taxpaying citizen.

If you can think of the upside Hasbeen could you let me know.

Of course Yabby the real reason for not squeezing farmers margins, is because there isn't any more fat left for them to squeeze.
They already have their suppliers of milk nailed to the wall. Many of them would simply find something else to do.

3c margin (declared) is relative to the size of the overall profit figure per annum. When you look at these numbers, these businesses are making too much money. Their profits are needlessly large and their social contribution absent. The social effects of their behaviour is the problem.

Pricing good quality food out of the reach of the less fortunate for example, causes the less fortunate and their family's to eat the less than good food, with lifelong consequences.

Eliminating the local butcher with predatory pricing is not romantic Yabby. And I disagree ," the meat supplied by my local butcher is far superior to the product offered by my local supermarket adjacent, and the service also ".

They have been trying to get rid of him for years, so they can increase their margins and sell rubbish as well in a monopoly.
Tawdry is what this is Yabby, not honourable or defendable even if you are shareholder.

Petrol pricing should be the subject of a whole post of its own. But it has probably been done to death Yabby. Nothing is more obvious than collusion.

A collusive corporatized Australian economy now exists. And all they have to do get their own way is to conduct $million dollar advertising campaigns designed to sway public opinion, and support oppositions, too any representative Gov't that stands in their way.

Abbott proposes that the mining tax is a tax on the people. Of course it isn't.
It is actually the people collecting tax for a change, from the multinational exploiters of our resources, instead of paying it.
Scare campaigns tell us of the economic ramifications of having more of their money, in our tin. Basically, just a thinly veiled threat.

Power and money, just for the sake of it, to my way of thinking Yabby, is not a romantic notion.

thinker 2
You haven't answered either question and are just ventilating irrational prejudices. If you answer my questions, I will prove your argument to be irrational. Please DEFINE (not exemplify) excessive profit, and state what should be the relation between cost and profit - on which your entire argument depends.

You ASSUME that income above costs is immoral. But everyone, including all workers, aims for income above costs, otherwise what would be the point? And everyone, including all workers, charges what the market will bear, in other words what other people AGREE to pay.

Corporations have NO POWER. No-one has a gun at his head forcing him to buy clothing or anything else. The only advantage any corporation has is if people PREFER to buy their goods.

The predominance of corporations in the market place is caused by government. This is because, the more taxes and regulations there are, the more on-costs to business, and the more on-costs there are, the more small businesses are driven to the wall. Large businesses have an unequal advantages because of the economies of scale.

Pelican constantly complains about the unfairness of corporate predomination but it is precisely the policies she is in favour of that are causing it.

In calling for a return to how it used to be, the leftists forget that how it used to be was a lot less government, and as usual they are blaming business for their own greed and ignorance.

What is really obscene is the greed of those who think the starting point is that everyone else's freedom should be illegalised, and then permitting only what they think would be to their advantage.