Showing posts with label industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label industry. Show all posts

Keeping Australia's Car Industry Afloat Is Not Economically Rational

There are calls from many quarters for keeping Australia's car industry alive. I am not so sure that a country needs its own motor industry anymore. Times have changed. No vehicle is made entirely in one country today. The days of getting prestige from it are long gone.

Propping up a floundering car sector is against all practical economic and social theory. It doesn't make sense to spend taxpayers money in such a wasteful way. Holden and Ford continue to take handouts while still not making any profit. Ford has already gone. The days for Holden are numbered. Holden was never a truly Australian car. It was an old General Motors design left in a drawer collecting dust until it was thrown on the table at a meeting in Australia.

Australia has never been a manufacturing country. It is not like Britain which has very in the way of natural resources so must generate income somehow from industry. Large businesses have only been in the primary sector. Exporting what comes out of the ground has always been the way Australia survives.

Those who hang on to so called Australian icons are sentimentalists. Things do change and old things fall away. Vegemite and Billy Tea are foreign owned. This doesn't stop us from claiming these icons. If Holden dies in this country that will be it. The car is not composed completely of Australian parts anyway. We can always rebadge an American designed car and race it at Bathurst.
Economics by Ty Buchanan
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Society by Ty Buchanan
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Revolutionary Mineral Drill Rig Announced

Drilling techniques in industry have not changed for decades. Oil rigs are built in he same old way. Now something has come along that will improve drilling enormously. The Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre based in Adelaide has announced a new type of drill. It is constructed with coiled tubing.

Costs will fall dramatically as drilling is faster.  Australia's mines are mostly over 30 years old. New mines have to be established. We can only rely on the old mines for another 20 years.

No longer is it necessary to keep stopping to add a new drilling section. The new drill is a continuous coil of tubing. Being smaller and lighter transportation is easy. The motor is at the bottom of the shaft, not at the top. The tubing no longer twists during drilling. Any twisting will occur in the other direction as the motor pulls the tubing around.

Less drilling power is needed as the tubing is being pulled around in already drilled space. A lot of torque was lost with the old system as the engine had to force the whole length of the drill around. Drilling will continue with fewer drill breakages. Thus, downtime will be reduced.
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Technology by Ty Buchanan
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The US No Longer Diagnoses Narcism

The decision by the American Psychological Association to strike narcissism out as a mental disease is a mistake. Physicians in others countries continue to see it has a disorder many people suffer from. Even the lay person can identify those in society with the malady. The most blatant characteristic is an exaggerated love of self, particularly the continual preening of one's body and dress.

Just why the association has made such a drastic decision is not clear. Perhaps those in authority in the psychological body have been offended because they have been identified with the complaint. This would be a logical conclusion.

Some see those who moved West to new lives with new ways as having been unfairly marked as being narcissistic. This interpretation is quite without foundation. Rockefeller, Jefferson, Edison and even Bill Clinton have had narcissistic claims made against them. A little thought will give the reason why, but it is drawing a very long bow to say all migrants are and were narcissistic.

This unusual identification with early US settlers is odd.  It does show, however, show that Victorian people did believe it to be present in society.  Underneath the self love the narcissist believes he/she is in some way unacceptable to others and must fight back. This can result in intolerance toward others to outright verbal attack.

The most common trait is a lack of empathy with others. There is a connection with autism here. Many dictators are seen as narcissistic. They rule with an iron glove and live off the fat of the land while those they rule are treated badly and starve.

The entertainment industry is rife with people who really love themselves. Pop stars have to be pulled from the stage as they return to be applauded again and again. Furthermore, there is not much doubt many movie stars are narcissistic as they bathe in public admiration.
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Health
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Problems in the Cattle Yard

There are problems in the cattle yard due a non-caring board. Richard Ogilve was voted off the Herefords Australia Limited (HAL) board. This infuriated members of the society because they believe Mr Ogilvie is the only one who knows what they want.

Richard Ogilvie owns a 5,000 strong cow herd in Millicent, South Australia. He says 10,000 of HAL members will leave and form their own association. This is nearly half the total membership of HAL.

Present members are upset by the board arguing political differences and passing time by running cattle shows, not concentrating on improving the Hereford industry. The industry for Angus cattle is booming. Many feel the Hereford market is not being managed properly. Mr Ogilvie is seen as a strong leader who can improve matters for Hereford breeders.

This is another case of those at the top fighting each other and concentrating on irrelevant issues while not doing what they are paid to do.
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Society
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Vaccinate All Cattle to Stop Food Poisoning?

Why bother to be hygienic. We can feed cattle all sorts of filthy stuff, and when we eat it we still remain fit and healthy. This is the message being sent by the president of company Bioniche. In order to promote his new product the president is making dramatic claims. Cattle can all be vaccinated against e.coli, can eat anything and wander around in rubbish, apparently. Such is Mr Rick Culbert's faith in the success rate of his product.

The e.coli "bug" lives in all of us both humans and animals. Only dangerous species make us sick. This vaccine will kill all e.coli in the body. Wait a minute! Don't antibiotics kill useful flora in the gut, so we must not take them regularly? What happens to a cow with no e.coli in its system is unknown. Eating such "clean" meat could be dangerous to our health.

Outbreaks of food poisoning occur in every country. The fight for cleanliness in food handling must continue. If beef is guaranteed free of e.coli wouldn't butchers have less pressure to work in a sterile environment? Radiating ingredients in manufactured goods is widespread now. There is a cost. Buy a frozen pizza from a supermarket. Take it home and put it in the oven. It looks great. The tomato is a nice bright red color, the cheese looks appetizing, but everything tastes the same. It tastes just like cardboard.
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Food
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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
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Google Beats a Small Business into Submission

Dangle, Dingle, Dongle. They are all out according to the Great God Google. It has taken a business "minnow" offering alcohol price comparisons to court and beaten it to death, well into submission, until it agreed not to use the name "Groggle". This means that Google owns by default all new business names that contain "gle". The result of this courtroom debacle is disgraceful. There should be some way where the little man has the resources to fight a giant like Google. The little business cowered in the corner and quietly murmured "Drinkle! That is what we will call our service." Only then would Google put the big stick down.

What is the world coming to when there is no protection from economic monsters like Google. Though this business wasn't even in the same industry as Google, financial muscle won the day. He had to make an out of court agreement of SILENCE! The owner of the business said he couldn't afford to go on with the court case and Google knew it.

In reality Google is breaking the law. It has not right to control use of similar names. Take for example "Palsonic" that uses a Similar name to "Panasonic" and is even in the same industry. Panasonic knew, of course, that Palsonic had the financial resources to fight, so it backed off.

There have been several cases in Australia where MacDonalds has lost the court battle in regard to similar business names. Thankfully the outcome is uncertain enough to make many large companies think before they act.
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