No 579, that's only one case.

You see, the risks in small business are far greater today than ten years ago.

In many cases, businesses have had to slash margins in order to stay competitive.

There are many reasons for this, the dollar and Internet direct sales being just two.

Also, at the same time they have had to get their head around IR laws and pay additional wages and employee entitlements.

The end result for many has been loss of profits. (owners wages)

Now the worrying part of this is that there will be less people willing to take that risk and, considering they are our largest employer, collectively, where do you propose the future jobs will come from.

Mining won't last forever, and in any case, labor is doing it's best to excelerate that.

We recently came of a construction boom. This boom drove wages to record highs, driven by the supply V demand issue.

Well, the demand has gone, but the wages stay. Why?

What is unskilled.
I know a person working for a biscuit factory. Their job is to stand there and reject any biscuits that don't look right.

$25 per hour

You're kidding!

Another works as a lackie at the entertInment center. Casual, $22 per hour.

Sundays, $44 per hour.

This is the problem, unskilled wages are so high, it is little wonder why there is a skill shortage.

Why bother when you can earn that sought of money, while listening to your favorite band on your earphone.

Now you can disagree with me, and I respect your views, howeve, I will simply say to you all. WATCH THIS SPACE!

Pelican,

Making flexible working hours might mean a reduction in penalty rates, but enable more hours to be worked, and more productivity. Highly skilled workers and good managers are not as threatened by unemployment, but salaries also decline.

Labor is risking the jobs of the unskilled, and making more unemployed poor.

Pelican, I agree that ALL LEVELS of wages should be reduced.

The mining industry has created a faulse labour environment, in a few ways.

Some years ago, about the early 2000's, they started to pay huge wages to lure out top line traddies..

This allowed the less competent traddies to step up and fill the void, whereby many of these (now top tradesmen) were a few years earlier almost unemployable, due to the lack of skills.
No doubt we have all had a problem with these guys, you know, not really sure what's wrong, resulting in you paying their time for searching and or making and receiving phone calls

The other proble caused by the mines is the perception that many now have that, it's ok, I will get a job in the mines. The lowest paid are usually on about $90K per year, 2 weeks on 2 weeks off. Try competing with that if you own a business.

Now while that's great for the mine workers, it makes the hiring of staff for regular businesses, say hospitality or retail, almost impossible.

In fact, many caffees and restaurants don't open Sunday's of public holidays, as it simply is not worth it. Now that's a shame, because most of the staff, despite liking the wages would rather work for the time and a half so they at least have a job, as they realize, unlike the government, that the business can't affor it.

Remember, when a rest closes for the day, none of the staff get paid

Now as for us chasing the cheapest price, it's all due to our standard of living, it's very high.

The trouble is, this high standard of living has been passed on the employers.

I hold the belief that governments motives are to get people of assistance, by increasing wages and placing the burden of finacial assistance on to the business.

As I said in an earlier thread, 2012 will be th last year in business for many.

The writing is on the wall.

*As I said it is the whole system including neo-liberal thinking around free markets of which the rot started with Keating who forgot his grass roots and the inherent problems with rampant capitalism. It is impossible to compete in a market where the rules and wage levels are disparate, so don't try and do it.*

Pelican, I will always give you a gold star for empathy and meaning
well, but when it comes to understanding economics, you really
are a sad case :)

Luckily for us, Keating and not you was treasurer at the time.

Now imagine if farmers, who export most of what they produce, still
had to buy their machinery and other inputs at massively inflated
prices. The extra costs would send them broke en masse.

Wages are only a smallish component of modern manufacturing. We don't
buy our headers from China for instance, we buy them from America
from the John Deere factory, where you have the most innovative and
amazing new technology producing these machines.

We used to make them, we just could not compete. Our farmers now
benefit from all this new technology, it makes them more productive.

Manufacturing today is about megaplants, highly automated, running
24/7, with increasingly complex technology. You land up with
cheaper and better products, everyone benefits. The investment
in these kinds of megaplants simply cannot be justified in Australia,
with a population of a piddly 21 million.

You, seemingly want to send us back to the days of the screwdriver,
hammer and spanner. Sorry, but those days of manufacturing are over, unless
you want us to go back to crappy, overpriced, underperforming
inputs, which will make Australian agriculture totally uncompetitive
in the world of global sales.

Pelican, much as you mean well, the unintended consequences of
what you propose, would be quite frightening to any modern day farmer.

That is just farming.... The same principle applies to other
industries.

What we are seeing here is what happened in the US from about 2007 as
the price of oil rose and caused the switch to ethanol. They use
maize to make it in the US and as maize is used in many foodstuffs it
had a big effect on the price of food.
As the price of oil rose it started consuming more and more of their
GDP. The same has happened in Europe as the higher cost of fuel took
away their GDP and they were no longer able to repay their debts or the interest on the loans.
Growth stopped and it is quite likely that, averaged over the world,
it will never restart.
They were warned but the bankers and politicians knew better and just kept borrowing.

Our government is doing exactly the same, borrowing about $2,000,000,000 every week.
Likewise we are eating into our GDP at a faster rate than the benefit
we are getting from the mining. Thats why the government needed the
mining tax. The mining tax was renegotiated and is now not really
enough so now you know why Julia went back on the carbon tax promise.

Globalisation is ending but it will not be quick enough in
regenerating our manufacturing. We need to push it along by bringing
back some tariffs industry by industry.

I suspect that very few economists understand the real situation but
there is an increasing number that do and hopefully they will start
to have influence where it counts. Most economists believe that we
are living on a magic pudding and higher prices will make more oil and coal.

Where do the politicians come into all this ? Well I suspect they are
not really understanding just what is happening, certainly I suspect
that the RBA and Treasury are not aware of the GDP factor.
It may be they do but like most at those levels haven't a clue what to do about it.

To all subscribers
We are now a de-regulated economy which means that our government's have progressively relinquished the control mechanisms over the last 30 odd years. We are now totally subject to the volatilty of the global market economy and are trapped in the considerable gap between the internal costing of our own economy and that of the very poor countries. Our consumer market has been flooded with cheap product which is manufactured in free export zones in China, Vietnam. Indonesia, Philipines etc. at labour costs as little as $A2 per day. As a result, our existing manufacturing base has been anihalated and left Australia with a huge legacy of under-employment.There is no way that the politicians of any persuasion can "create" jobs under these circumstances. To exacerbate this situation our state government's have made very poor bargains in the granting of licences for the extraction of our natural resources. Correct me if i'm wrong but as little as 15% net gain to Aust. from the billion's going to mining companies who employ only 1.5% of our workforce.The ABS. shows the current account to be around $A21 billion. Add this all together if you can.If you are interested to know where I am coming from I respectfully recomend reading Naomi Klines book The Shock Doctrine.
DEN71