Hi Mikk,

If you and your fellow travelers are going to continue to link everything you fear in your lives with a demonized target, in your case Tony Abbott, you will need to find some new material or start the process of critical thinking.

As fellow travelers you promote that you are “the thinkers” of our society and pontificate your “objective truths”, which are founded on a socialized (moral and value laden) fabric. Whilst these can be of certain value to issues, they are relevant only after critical analysis and not as a substitute.

Your greatest fear is the thinking capacity and rationality of the Plebs because it is you who are strangled within your own rhetoric, your adopted perspectives.

Some of the hallmarks of your analytical dysfunction include:-

A polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.

Crisis Creation, tactics designed to create or deepen confusion, fear, guilt or doubt.

Creating a false sense of righteousness by pointing to the shortcomings of the outside world.

Opposer Warnings, you believe that your selected target, Tony Abbott, is a "Satan" that will cause catastrophic problems if he cannot solve all the problems you have listed for him, but actually your greatest fear that he might solve them. (Otherwise known as “reflective angst”)

You exhibit extreme obsessiveness regarding your orthodoxy, resulting in the exclusion of almost every practical consideration.

Whenever you and your fellow travelers are criticized or questioned it is characterized as "persecution".

You and your friends demonstrate a propensity for rhetoric, platitudes, loaded language, thought-terminating clichés, rejection of rational analysis, absence of critical thinking, aversion to constructive criticism, denial of rationalization or justification and your embrace of wishful thinking.

You do this because you know your thinking process was bypassed and replaced with moral and value based criteria, therefore any conclusions you draw are impossible to defend and must be reinforced with rhetoric delivered with angst, venom and belligerence.

Turn your rhetoric engine off and start thinking.

on the beach

Gladly give them all a spray, no discrimination with this topic. We have family in the US who worked for Ford in their property maintenance teams, in other words painting the buildings, lawns gardens etc. (amongst other family in other employment)

They told us 12 yrs ago Ford had dropped the ball and were building cars folks didn't like. This we have all witnessed as Ford well and truly dropped the ball in the last 10yrs.

Irrespective of the facts of the past, we find jobs aka industries being vacuumed out of this country and far away. We will be a land of consumers not producers.

Comments on this thread allude to greedy unions etc etc. Plain truth here lot of govt interference too. Lot of small minded greedy Federal Governments with an eye on cheap media grabs.

Am not one for consumerism, For example: if it gets to the stage where I buy my milk from an US or German or UK supermarket chain, trucked by an overseas transport company, grown (for want of better phrase) on Australian soil by overseas owned cows on overseas owned land. We have a serious problem....Don't laugh part of this 'equation' we are already doing!

Am all for industry, am not for a poverty line wage for people doing the leg work whilst management and owners swan around in luxury. Its frankly a regressive move in Australia. IF you can live on $2.50 an hour, working 4 nightshifts a week do so. As I said we have family in the US and they are struggling. Men and women in their 40's who should be at the top of their game, but pushed out their chosen career path.

Tony abbott the man who killed bambi, coming to a Murdoch media outlet soon. Kids! look out for the overseas made silcon toy with your meal deals

Hi very curious (but not curious enough),

The USA has been steadily repatriating much of its overseas industry and commerce over the last couple of years. It is shifting back to the USA those industries that were shifted to “low labour cost” markets previously, they are now shifting back to “low energy cost” markets which is playing to their own competitive advantage. Gas prices alone are 60% less in the USA than in the EU. Even VW’s new plant will be in the USA!

We should also recognize that if Australian customers of Ford/Holden are not buying them in sufficient quantities to keep them viable we can hardly lay the blame on their foreign owners.

I do however think that both manufacturers locally stuffed up on marketing. They made the classic and I suspect fatal error, of not knowing who their competitors were. Whilst Holden and Ford we so busy fighting each other over a dwindling market, they let their real competitors grow the new markets.

We can all pick our favorite villain to blame however, this has been a collective effort by every player and who are all equally to blame.

No worries OUG, I understand your shock as it is a shocking conclusion.
Never the less that is where it is all heading.
As the number of passengers starts declining due to the increasing
cost of fares the number of bankruptures, mergers and co sharing will increase.
Ultimately the airlines will only cater for 1st class business travelers, and politicians.
There are a couple of areas where declining traffic is already noticeable
but I think that was because of rail competition.
There are only two investment grade airlines, the rest including
QANTAS are junk investments.
I saw the writing on the wall and sold my QANTAS shares when they were over $5 !
At the time QANTAS was considered a good investment.
Know anyone who recommends buying airline shares ?

You know, it was inconceivable to Romans that Rome would collapse.

The reality is we have spent the past twenty odd years ruining the joint, and we are now starting to see the mess unfold.

One the one hand we automate the car plants, then, we turn around and pay operators $100K to do less than they used to.

At the end of the day we simply have to accept that manufacturing here in Oz is finished.

I heard somewhere that if Qantas cut wages by just 3%, the company would be saved.

The unions just won't allow flexabillity and accept that while wages may go up in good times, they must be allowed to fall in tough times.

Curious I'm sure your family of gardeners in the US know all about the auto industry, just as you do, & their thinking is just as superficial as yours.

You are right, these manufacturers have crippled themselves by giving wages & conditions they can no longer afford, to their staff in the good times. This is a mistake our miners made, & are now recognizing.

Our auto industry is in a high cost country, & the US industry developed it's own high cost environment with the magnificent retirement benefits they gave to their employees. Here ours compete against imports, in the us, they compete against recently established foreign owned manufacturers with much lower wages, & no hangover of retirement benefits, the real killer in the US.

Cars are really all the same. 4 wheels, 4 lots of suspension, brakes etc. for each, 4 windows, 4 motors to work those windows, the same steering, air conditioning & on it goes.

The difference in cost for a larger car, with a bit more tin, & a small car is not that great, but the sale price is. These high cost manufacturers can't compete on low cost cars, they can only survive with the high price & profit larger cars. That this strategy no longer works apart from SUVs in the states, is simply forecasting the end of an era.