Toyota is Gone. Goodbye Australian Car industry 1896-2017.

@Jester
I thought it only fair to memorialise you in my sig, Reaper style.. Anyone know what happened to Dakster?

 

Funny you mention Principals. Way back in the seventies the principal of our school gave us rights. Yep, Marist bros gave us rights. JMJ. It was a good thing, students got to put foward what we would like to see, learn etc. We got to build rockets and make their fuel then set fire to them on the school oval. Build model planes and have a couple of hours a week flying and discussing them and other aero ****. Smoking age was 16 then, upper highschool had a smoking room. Bet that's gone! Onya Br. Timothy.

Edit: Churchlands MB boys from those days might know him as Stringer. No better bloke to cop the cane from, it was a badge of honour! Top bloke.

 

Marist Bros, now thats another story on its own.:boxing:

 

That sign reads like on of those self help/empowerment tapes from the 90's. Haha.

 

You're right, businesses are intelligent - why large multi-nationals are so smart in the US that most of them pay 0 tax and screw over the whole country!

The Corporate Rape of America | Bud Meyers

Facebook Has Figured Out How to Pay $0 in Foreign Taxes. Here's How. - PolicyMic

Businesses run to increase their own bottom line, not yours. You are in fact a liability, a cost to be reduced if possible to 0 and if that's not possible to $2 an hour in India or China.

 

I will accept your arguments to a point. However, taking the first one into account, (ie the US), to my knowledge, Australia doesn't have tax havens like the Virgin or Cayman Islands for companies to register from or send profits to. Our banking systems are far more regulated than the open market system the US employs and their taxation system operates differently too. We have restriction here which the US businesses would never tolerate because they consider them to be "socialist", anti free-trading, or just plain illegal. (such as large duopolies being part owners of fuel supplies.)

The second point, regarding utilisation of foreign labour, has validity, because so many Australian companies have ceased local production and utilise foreign plants to manufacture goods under well known Aussie brands. This applies particularly to clothing, for example, where you pay a typical Australian type price for a shirt made in China or India, so the profit margins are probably enormous. But why did the company go to an overseas firm in the first place? Probably because legislation and wage demands made local production uneconomical and the firm would not have survived if they had tried to stay in Australia. Hardly "raping the workforce" - more like rational economic thinking. If local manufacturing costs exceed your sales capacity and profits, what else can you do? And is it really the employer's fault that those costs are too high?

 

Come one, get real.

5 second google

Australian Brands' Use Of Cheap Overseas Labour Has Investors Worried | Business Insider

Qantas outsources its labour | Courier Mail Vital Interest Blog

Telstra tipped to outsource another 1000 Australian jobs

Your last point, if you are already rich you can benefit from moving operations overseas as trade restrictions continue to fall exposing our local farmers, manufacturers etc to wages pressure from sweat shops and slave labour in india and asia. If you are a regular joe - you're stuffed quite frankly.

Foreign firms flock to China despite business risks - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

I think you're on the money here Calaber

You answered yourself it in your first paragraph I think. Domestically it's not always that we've priced ourselves out of the market. It's that you can import cheap stuff and make many times the profit.
You still make a profit selling Aussie made...just not as much.

 

then you need to re-read the thread.

too many of us live in this first world bubble.

 

Ok - me being what some on here would consider the capitalist anti christ let me share a few things with you.

I have recently outsourced several jobs in my company to SE Asia and have imported people before on 457 Visas. Why outsource jobs? Regular occurrances in Australia:

1. guy arrives 15 min early for work, sits in the lunch room till 1min before start time, clocks on and then heads off to the rest rooms for a 20min dump
2. most stop work 5 min early for smoko/lunch and tend to drift back 5 min late nearly every day unless there is somebody there to crack the whip
3. For some reason they need to take a whole day off to take (insert some random relative here) to the airport for a late afternoon flight. Further this is often with little or no notice
4. Absenteeism on days surrounding public holidays are just crazy
5. Add the on costs for the multitude of additional costs of employment in Australia (eg payroll tax, superannuation, work cover, penalty rates etc etc etc) and employment costs in Australia are just un sustainable. The base hourly rate is usually not so bad, but when you add all the above it is often just not economic to do the job.

For my OS employees, none of #1 -4 are a problem what so ever. They no work, they no get paid or sacked thus mostly they are ultra reliable. As for #5 - actual costs are slightly less than the direct hourly wage in Aus without any of the on costs or hidden compliance costs etc.

As for 457 visas: Anybody who thinks it's an opportunity to import cheap labour doesn't know what they are talking about or kidding themselves

 

If someone told you you could pay them $10 a day tomorrow would you?

I'm not calling you a capitalist anti-christ if that's what you think either.

 

Get real?

What the hell do you think I said in the second paragraph? You gave examples of companies exporting jobs to cheaper labour supplies, which is precisely the point I made.

And plenty of "Joes" make the move, rich or not. Many of them actually start out with nothing and succeed overseas. Likewise, many migrants manage to do exactly the same thing here.

 

Savvy

Do you, like me, get a surprise when you buy an article of clothing that says it's Aussie made?

 

Probably however I doubt I'd get the education level and experience for that rate. Most of these places are starting to wise up and although super cheap now, their wage growth is ramping up steam because they are seeing what the rest of the world's living standards are like. Expect the "cheap" labour to move to some of the more developing nations of SE asia and Africa later this decade. I'm starting to see more from South America too.

 

No one looks behind or in front for the next gen,learn from your mistakes and other people's,first mistake the Australian wool, booming industry why did it fail,because they thought how much $$$ they would make ,by sending our best sheep over seas,they didn't think of the next gen of sheep shearers, now to what i see from past to future,olden days the supermarket would pay someone to put the groceries in a paper bag, 2 workers per cash register ,now you have to buy your owe bags and have 1 worker, future would be you have to scan it and bag it yourself ,cheaper to hire a security guard to watch 3 checkouts then 1 worker per check out. so me making a stand for the next gen is i refuse to scan it and bag it, i will wait in line for as long as it takes,to help save that persons job.car industry has been also been done over by the new hoons laws ,and you cant have p's with a v8 e.t.c. In the future i see my self riding scooter and getting home delivery.