Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts

Any Excuse for Cheap Thai Labor But Not Economics

Aussie companies use cheap Thai labor.
Companies betray Australia by moving offshore. It is amazing what they will say to justify such "job robbing" behavior. Executives even lie to themselves and never admit that the move is only to make more profit. Thai cheap labor economics
Thai factory workers
A case in point is the company Fibre King. This is a family business. Pat Boland, the joint managing director, says that the culture of Thailand was the reason to shift production to that country. This is absolute rot! economic cheap labor

He is going to fly in engineers to oversee Thai factory workers. No doubt, the Thai workers will be treated like slaves as their low wages dictate. The company will use the tried and proven colonial style system. Design and sales will be retained in Australia. This is 25 per cent of the workforce. The Thai "automatons" will slave away in the sweatshop in Thailand.
 Economics 
 
oz, cheap, companies, fibre, fibre king, king, labor, sales, thai, thailand, trade, unskilled, economics, excuse

Australia's Blueberry Industry Increasing Output

Blueberries aren't that popular in Australia. They are certainly not loved, as in the USA. However, Australian farmers are growing more of them as Australians look for something different. There is also a thriving international market.
Blueberries
The Clarence Valley in Grafton, NSW is the main growing region for the product. At present Australian growers supply only a tiny amount of berries to the world. Yet, Australia uses the latest genetic technology to grow good blueberries.

Hard quarantine laws stop Australia getting into the China market.  Maybe this is quid pro quo for Australia's brick wall against New Zealand growers of fruit and vegetables in general. Four years ago Japan blocked imports into that country. It was only an increase in local demand that saved the industry.

Australian blueberry farmers are raising output despite there being no real overseas target market in sight. The recent summit at Coffs harbour did not change the existing state of affairs. Delegates from 25 countries attended. This was not a good investment for the Australian blueberry industry nor government.
Agriculture by Ty Buchanan
            Australian Blog   Adventure Australia
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Australian blueberry industry market demand domestic local international crop fruit world

More Temporary Foreign Workers in Australia than Aboriginals

Australian immigration is not a level playing field. If you have money you go to the head of the queue. This has been known for years but seldom mentioned. As we all know, the free market solves all of the world's problems - what a load of cobblers this belief is. Such a large proportion of world wealth has never been in fewer hands.
Foreign tiler working in Australia
Foreign tiler in Australia - no shortage of local tilers!
The idea that people from other countries are allowed in due to a skill shortage is also rubbish. Foreign workers are sponsored by abusive companies who give them jobs that Australians once did and underpay the slave labor.

A case in point is tilers in Sydney. People who cannot speak English work more than 60 hours a week for a pittance while Australian tilers now unemployed picket in the street. Over 100,000 new "skilled" workers are allowed in each year. Most of them duplicate Australian labor readily available.

"Get a job", the government says when it causes unemployment of Australian born workers. The point allocation system is secret. This is because it is manipulated to favor wealthy people and those who can be exploited. In other words employers make sure workers they get into the country cannot speak English.

What isn't commonly known is that 700,000 foreign workers have temporary employment visas. This means 3 per cent of Australia's total population are foreign temporary workers. This is higher than the Aboriginal population at 2.5 per cent.
Society by Ty Buchanan
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Google Dictates Word Use in Dictionaries

Google won a court case in Australia stopping others from using words similar to their trade name, for examples, boogle and doogle, etc. It seems Google is still intent on ruling the world over use of language.

It is interfering with Sweden's intention to put a word in dictionaries. The Swedish version of the word "ungoogleable" is "ogooglebar" and is widely used. Google says it should not be in a dictionary as it is because part of the word "google" is a registered trade name. This is silly consider the word "hoovering"is in the Pocket Oxford dictionary. How much more power does Google want? It already has too much influence on societies.

Google is not complaining about the word's inclusion. It wants a reference to Google being a trade name added to the definition. Sweden decided to leave the word out altogether. Google wants the word "Google" with a capital "G" shown , apparently to gain free advertising.

Swedish authorities point out that language has no bounds particularly when it comes to taking trade marks into new words.

Google said it intended to keep the company great. Does it means something like in Great Britain? A look will show the British Empire is long gone. No attempt to save it helped. The French tried to stop the franglais of English words like "le week-end". It failed.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Bushmeat Trade Is Depleting Natural Forest

Bushmeat is not just a problem in Africa. Asian countries have the same problem, as the demand for meat from wild animals increases. Taking animals from tropical forest changes the whole ecosystem. It is common sense really. As the number of creatures feeding on vegetation and other animals decline there is an abundance of vegetation growth and remaining fauna.  More growth kills off food for these animals.

While some plants increase, others decline.  Even the amount of vegetation not consumed can fall.  Uneaten vegetation crowds out growth for all, so saplings do not grow tall. Plants need animals to disperse seeds. Consequently, the variety of plants falls.

Just two decades ago the Lambir Hills National Park in Sarawak was pristine. There was an abundance of animals and trees. Now all the large animals have been killed off by hunters after a profit.

Once such dramatic change occurs there is no way back. The large animals will not breed back to original numbers. The damage also impacts on remaining animals who find their usual food source is no longer plentiful.
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Society
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EU-Thailand Free Trade Agreement Is Pointless

Negotiation between Thailand and the EU for a Free Trade Agreement in isolation from other Asian countries seems odd to say the least. What possible gain could there be for the EU? Yes, Thailand could flood the EU with cheap products thus helping European consumers, but the EU needs more jobs now to lift their economies out of recession. It seems counter-productive.

Another thing is Thailand will have to abide by EU rules which are very draconian and arbitrary in some respects. The EU is a bureaucracy out of control. Microsoft had to pay millions of dollars in compensation for not pushing rival search engines enough. This really doesn't make sense, with Google shipping its Chrome only Android.

Thailand allows cheap generic drugs to be sold to its citizens. If it wins a Free Trade Agreement this will have to end as medications fall under the umbrella of EU intellectual property rights. Paying more for drugs will reverse all the gains made in Thailand's health system.

The EU is ignoring public opinion and plans to extend patent terms for drug companies from 20 years. This will mean monopoly prices extend for much longer in EU countries and other countries will FTAs. Thai people are against any agreement that ends the supply of cheaper drugs.

Thailand exports food, plastic and rubber. It doesn't need the machinery and electrical appliances the EU exports. The question must be asked - Why is the EU bothering about getting a FTA with Thailand? There will be export gains by Thailand at the expense of a more expensive health system.  There appears to be no benefit to the EU.
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Society
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Housing Not Affordable for the Young

The concept of building one and two bedroom houses instead of the traditional three and four bedroom homes seems doomed to failure.  More adult children than ever are going back home to live with their parents.  A single person simply cannot earn enough  to get a loan for a house.  If you are a labourer or a TAFE trained worker this is  increasingly the case.  As many as 70 per cent of people aged under 35 cannot buy a  home of their own.

While specialists say tax incentives are needed to enable young people to buy, this is not the problem.  Australia will have a housing shortage for decades because there are  not enough qualified builders in outback Australia.  This is particularly the case in  booming Western Australia with mineral companies being forced to have accommodation  built at great cost.

Giving the young tax breaks and just giving them handouts is not a solution.  It is a  bottom up issue not a top down problem.  Getting trades persons from other countries will not make any difference either.  Countries have unique building codes.  For  example, in the UK houses are built in double brick where the two walls hold up the roof.  In the US they built much larger houses.  In Australia brick veneer is the norm  where timber holds up the roof and bricks are just decoration.

The next Australian government will probably be Liberal/National. They will not be inclined to give handouts.  Moreover, with the push toward a balanced budget next year the current Labor government has no money to spare.
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Blaming Australian Business for Inaction is Futile

It is claimed by "specialists" that Australian business failed to plan for the high dollar. They carried on without cutting basic running costs. With over 60 per cent of businesses being involved in international trade this is deemed to be a "sin". The American Express FX International found less than 40 per cent did nothing.

The research body said it was surprised at this. It is hardly surprising in the real world where costs are kept as low as possible on a constant basis. How can a business have a program to tackle this problem when it is a daily matter of trading? Common sense would inform you that not much can be done. The market sets the price. The high dollar means firms get less profit when they receive payment in foreign currency. Running costs inside the international barrier in Australia continue to rise. Most international trade is done in US dollars and this has become very weak.

It isn't much good longing for days passed when the exchange rate was less than 50 US cent to the Aussie dollar. It is quite astonishing that the employment rate is so high when times are really tough for manufacturing and retail. Prices are being cut to the bone, apart from food which people must have. Saying firms should have locked themselves in with future exchange contracts is dwelling on something that is impossible to change. The dollar is high and it is too late. Not much can be done now. Australian industry will shake itself out with bankruptcies until survivors can benefit from a weaker dollar which appears to be a long way off.
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Business