Country towns not well

Just back from a long promised long weekend out of Sinney.

Bell's line, then the old Tarana road to Bathurst, twice round the mountain
as homage to sacred ground, then the back road past Abercrombie Caves and
through Tuena (the front road, through Oberon and Taralga, is now wholly
sealed and the locals at Crookwell say its got the better views).

If that's so, then those views would want to be pretty good as mine were
spectacular for about 80k - a bit of ok dirt on my road less traveled but
the Chook loves that) - into Crookwell for a late lunch and booked at a room
at that most curious of institutions, the pub with no licence (nothing so
sad as being the only guest in a once mighty pub).

Into Goulburn to watch a movie (Australia, 6/10 if you like overdone
melodramas - the indigenous bit is interesting but will be lost on the
film's target market in the US).

And they charged me $7 for a ticket - less than half Sydney prices.

Bought a pair of warmer gloves in Bathurst (the calendar said "Summer" but
no one had told them that on the southern tablelands) and walked the main
street looking for a place that might stock them. Both Bathurst and
Crookwell really showed signs of struggling, much more so than when I last
looked.

Stopped and had a good look at the wind farm outside Crookwell - on the
highest point on the dividing range, one side drains to Sydney, t'other to
Adelaide. The have plans for 200 more generator units in the district, hell
knows they have the wind for it. Not many permanent jobs generated though,
and that's what's needed.

On and off the slab as soon as possible at Marulan, tourist road to
Robertson for pie and coffee, not as smooth as I would have liked through
the turns to the coast, over the sea bridge and the Royal National Park back
home.

Recommended therapy - anyone tried the Tralaga road recently and can say if
its good?

Best, Andrew

 

In 1974 I did a bike tour from Sinny to Cairns (staying inland till
Rocky). Did the same trip again in 1983. I was literally shocked to
see the degree to which the towns along the way had gone into decay.

Some had become ghost towns, others looked terminally ill. It was
quite depressing. I don't hink it's ever picked up much since then,
and now that our mad embrace of globalisation means our rural
industries have to compete with places where workers are paid a
pittance, I don't see a real lot of hope for them.

Tourism? Forget it. It won't generate enough to keep those places
viable. And anyway, in the prolonged global recession we're in, there
won't be the hordes of tourists need to prop things up.

"Say goodbye to Hollywood... Say goodbye, my baby..."

Onya bike...

Gerry

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:38:14 +1100

I don't think country towns ever did things that compete with workers
in other countries.

They were mainly agriculture. They profited a lot from tarrifs and
from other rorts, and they profited from unsustainable farming
methods.

The problem for Oz will be that much of the land isn't useful for
anything but housing and we aren't putting houses on it... And if we
did, there'd be no water for them.

In 50 or 100 years time you won't see much inland at all unless
there's a way to farm roos and rabbits, but you might see fewer people
in Oz generally and them starving as they've built on the ground with
good soil and water.

Given the high demand for meat in developing countries, raising and
marketing roo might be a boom industry. Won't employ that many
people, but then farming hasn't either. The days of huge demand for
seasonal labour in the wheat and canefields is long gone. Fruit
picking doesn't sustain country towns either.

Zebee

 

I don't think tarrifs are necessarily a bd thing.

I do think a lot of our manufacturing and primary industry has been
hurt by cheap imports. And I do think it has affected the rural
economy. Of course, I could be wrong. I aint no expert on these
matters.

And I'm opposed, in principle, to globalisation. Call me an economic
luddite...


Onya bike...

Gerry

 

They tend to backfire when countries you want to export to impose
them.

You're an economic Luddite. But so am I to some extent. OTOH,I bought
a new pair of jeans this week. $23.99 in Big W, not made in Australia.
My main criteria was cost.

Theo

 

A world with zero tariffs across the board has lower deadweight losses
(1) to both the consumer and producer than a world that has tariffs.
So in that sense they are bad - they make everyone worse off.

On the other hand, in a world that has tariffs it can be sensible for
you to impose tariffs - they are a "beggar your neighbour" exercise -
if someone can produce it cheaper than you but the govt imposes a
tariff that forces the price of the cheaper goods up to what your
country's producers can (or will) sell it for then both producers are
producing on an equal footing and hence the ability to keep producing
that continues in your country. The consumer is worse off though
because they pay more for the goods.

If you value keeping that production in your country (ie you want to
have a local car manufacturing industry for some strange reason) more
than you value the cost increases you are forcing on the consumer then
there may be an overall benefit to the country, even if the economic
outcome is poor.

Of course it has, if you can't compete on price then you have to
either find some other way of convincing people to buy or go out of
business. On the other hand the consumer has benefited mightily from
the dramatically dropping prices of numerous items (electronics,
clothes etc)

Possibly, but I doubt it's been significant to be honest - rural
townships have primarily been based on supporting agricultural and
mining industries, both of those have been more impacted by the
mechanisation of production over the last 150 years than anything
else. When it takes 5 people (now) instead of 50 (50years ago) to farm
a couple of hundred thousand acres in the far west then those people
have to find something else to do.

It's an inevitable consequence of the Industrial Revolution and has
been happening since the 1700s when thousands poured off the farms
into the cities. Capital and labour are substitutes and agriculture is
now capital intensive.

<shrug> Depends on what you mean by globalisation and what it is you
object to. Self interest and optimisation of economic outcomes are two
very different things

JL

 

Well, that's just a problem i think we should learn to deal with
rather than let the steamroller of globalisation completely **** a
huge swathe of our indistries and thereby our ability to be self
sufficient (to a reasonable degree.)

I think we'd be better off with a smaller but more self-sufficient
economy. That way we'd also be less of a leaf being blown about by
global money winds... More like a rock than a leaf...

But I know that I'm naiive....

I'd rather pay $70 bucks and get Australian jeans with Australian
cotton in them, made by Australian employees who have the right to
belong to a trade union. But such jeans are hard to find...

I used to buy Rivers shoes and Blundy boots when they were made here.
But that dream is dead thanks to globalisation... Now I pay a pittance
to Chinese workers and safeguard the wealth of foreign investors
whilst our workers have to queue to get part time jobs giving blow
jobs to foreign tourists, no, I tell a lie, they don't even have a
chance there because of the trade in foreign sex slaves, the profits
of which tend to be funnelled off shore as much as possible. I tell
ya, it's bad for our economy... No wonder I'm a cynic...

Our economy's running way too much on tourism and service/leasure
industries. These are the first ones to take big hits when there's an
economic drought happening. We're going to be suffering big-time here
soon, wishing we'd kept our more "real" industries protected by
tarrifs, I'll wager.

Obmoto: Why can't have an Australian motorcycle industry (the
development of which could be subsidised my modest tarrifs on
imports)?

Our gurus have sold out to globalisation, hypnotised by the mantras of
the WTO and the IMF.


Onya bike...

Gerry

 

We save a bit of money and lose our independence. Nice trade - in a
Ferengi kind of way...

Oh I don't know... I think employed consumers can afford to pay more
than those who've lost their jobs because their empoyment (and
expertise) has gone offshore.

We don't have a truly local car industry. And the foreign owners are
soon going to take their bat and ball and play in a cheaper country.
At the moment Rudd is using tax payers' (workers') money to pay
foreign companies to prop up our automotive workers. It's workers
paying to keep their mates' jobs alive. How is that different from
tarrifs? Easy. Tarrifs protect Australian industries, Rudd's
tax-funded bail-outs by and large keep us working for foreign
companies.

And at what cost to our economic independence?

As I said, we've traded freedom for cheaper goods.

Tell that to dary farmers who now comete against imported dary
product. Tell that to meat growers cometing against imported meat.
Ditto fruit and veg growers. Australian owned canneries have all but
disappeard. That's a hell of a lot of rural jobs...

Well, if that mechanisation was Australian owned and operated, the
jobs would have been there, protected by tarrifs. And less brain
drain as well. We're being fucked by foreign owners via the WTO and
the IMF.

All very well, on paper... Tell that to the dudes who are losing
their jobs. Neocon economics is just one way to do economics, not
the only way, and not the most people-friendly way. It's just the way
which suits globalised Big-Business. And at the end of the day,
globalised Big Business sees humans as nothing more than a commodity
to be exploited in order to make a buck for the fat cats. The rest of
humanity is there merely to be exploited to the max.

Even there we have a dilemma: There are many ways to interpert what
is "self interest". There are many ways to interpret what is
"optimisation of economic outcomes". Have we REALLY and CORRECTLY
identified, factored-in, and priced ALL of the COSTS and PAYOFFS in
these deft and holy-looking economic equations? Hmmm?

Have you ever thought about whether or not you've been fed a crock of
shit dressed up as "economics"?

Have you read "Shovelling Fuel for a Runaway Train" by Brian Czech?
Most informative and amusing in a cold-sweat-panic kind of way...

Onya bike...

Gerry

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:00:46 -0800 (PST)

The major reason to keep things in your country is war.

If excrement encounters airconditioning, you need to be able to make
things you can no longer easily import.

Oz was able to make weapons and clothing in WW2 and be self sufficient
in food. There was enough manufacturing capacity that we weren't
helpless.

Of course there's no way to know if there'll be another war or what
form it will take.

The other reason is money.... We are at the end of a long supply
road, things are cheap now but if freight becomes very expensive then
rebuilding manufacturing without something to bankroll it (like
wool and meat...) will be tricky. Supposing importing costs
quadruple, how many things will need to be made in Oz to be affordable
and can they be?

Zebee
- figuring that crippling import costs will mean a lot more old bikes
on the road!

 

<shrug> And a number of other countries are dependent on us producing
food for them (net importers of food, we're net exporters), in a
choice between having food produced here and cars produced here I know
which one is going to be more important if China and Pakistan start
shooting nukes at each other.

Sure, but that assumes that no one can ever do a different job to the
one they did at 18, which is manifestly untrue. I've retrained myself
through 4 discretely different job groups in the last 20 years, I'm
sure I'm not the only one (because the ABS tells me so)

Baah humbug, ownership and production are two very different things -
I thought you were arguing we should have local production. It matters
not a whit who actually owns the shares, the argument you've broached
so far is about where its produced and in my opinion that's far more
important than who reaps the profits. Skills are hard to replace,
capital is easy.

Not true, there's absolutely no difference between a subsidy and a
tariff in real outcomes although there can be minor differences in the
deadweightloss (DWL)

<shrug> No economy is truly independent. The more important question
is about independence of the truly critical areas - food, electricity
generation, critical manufacturing capacity, critical electrical
manufacturer. We have most but not all, we're a lot better off than
many countries.

What do you want me to tell them ? Be competitive or die ? Your
statement is a non sequitor to what I wrote.

That's nonsense, the mechanisation is often aust owned and operated.
Presence or absence of tariffs doesn't make any difference to that.
You're confusing the difference between the capacity to build the
machinery, and the ownership and operation of the machinery displacing
the manual labourers.

To some extent you're right, we're being stuffed by the US when it
comes to stuff like copyright law (why are we protecting US companies
with no benefit to us), but mostly you're wrong - we're on the whole
net beneficiaries of reductions in trade barriers, because we are
potentially net exporters (and are in the good years).

Ahhh Gerry, you really are painting with a black and white brush.
Labelling me a neo con is about as insulting as you can get (alright
you could call me a Dubya/Howard lover that would be worse)

Free trade is in a perfect world the best outcome for everyone. But in
the compromised world we live in all countries need to protect their
interests - where lines get drawn depends on what the people making
the decisions is likely to happen. If you want to plan based on an a
post apocalyptic world then it makes sense to protect every industry
so you can keep making things when the rest of the world no longer
exists. Most governments don't plan based on those parameters, they
assume that world trade will continue and that we can trade with other
nations. Hence we specialise in the things we're good at,exporting
them, and import the things we're less good at.

Indeed, I'm surprised to see such subtlety from you, but I applaud it.

No, of course not, but you're the only one representing them as such.
The rest of recognise we make the best decisions we can on the
information available. The current setup is intended to maximise the
benefit to the majority given the world we live in (and it does so).
If it is short sighted in some way then perhaps you should be
specifying where it's failings are, rather than going with mysterious
"hmmm"'s

<shrug> I've done an economics degree (among others) - I can untangle
the spin doctoring back to the basic principles better than most. I
understand the main cause and effect correlations. Do tell exactly
what I'm misunderstanding ?

To the best of my understanding I've not been fed any shit - I've
considered a number of alternative explanations of economic and social
behaviours some are better supported by evidence than others, I can
deconstruct the validity and efficacy of the various models and their
supporting assumptions if you like, but you need to be a little more
precise about which bit you're objecting to.

I'm afraid not, perhaps you could provide a synopsis or if not, I'll
drop by your place and borrow your copy to read over Xmas ?

JL

 

Indeed - that's exactly the best non-monetary reason to subsidise
local manufacturing capacity that exists. Of course the most likely
scenario for a war is one we have a snowball's chance in hell of
winning (although if I'm physically capable I'll be bloody well on the
front line with whatever weapon I can lay my hands on) - which is a
Chinese invasion in about 10-25 years pursuing more land and
resources- it's the only realistic threat we have in the near future
unless Indonesia finds an unexpected pot of gold that would allow them
to finance the venture they'd love to execute but can't afford to.

True enough, it's very rare to see it coming. It behoves a nation to
be prepared, and Little-Johnny wasted a lot of money sucking up to the
yanks that could have been better spent building our capacity to
defend (Abrams tanks for fucks sake ? You can't even move the fuckers
around in Oz without breaking a bridge or a road)

Mmm. Possible but I suggest unlikely - I think we're more likely to
pay in time than dollars - you can sail from Japan to Oz in under a
year if diesel became prohibitively expensive, how long before sails
(albeit in a high tech format) make a come back ? The only reason we'd
be cut off is war, not cost. Wind and tide won't abate any time
soon.

Even in your scenario, we can build manufacturing for most things
reasonably easily and those we don't currently have capability for
like RAM and LCD/plasma screens are relatively high value per Kg - ie
the shipping costs are a relatively small proportion of their value by
weight.

The big danger is we continue the dumbing down of Oz that has been
going on for the last 10 years. If we lose the knowledge we lose the
capability. We need to spend significantly more on both higher
education and trade training (tafe and apprenticeships). The current
situation where we are engaging fewer apprentices than we need and
then have to import them is unsustainable and bloody madness.

Can't be a bad thing ! Every cloud has a silver lining and all that !!

 

Don't forget the underground concrete bomb shelter

JL

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:43:33 +1100

Well, they could maybe resurrect the small arms factory at Lithgow.
Do we have any tanneries left to make the overhead belts?

Zebee

 

I used to own a .303 made there.

Yeah we do actually. Last I looked there was one in Gunnedah and one
in the upper Hunter (errm Muswellbrook ?) I'm sure they're not the
only ones - there's economic advantages to co-locating them with
abattoirs - and I know we still do that !!

JL

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 2 Dec 2008 00:42:35 -0800 (PST)

I think the Brisbane Line idea is still viable. There's a whole lot
of nothing between Asia and the usable bits of Oz.

The Chinese probably have enough naval power and enough boots on the
ground to make a good go of taking the North, but holding it and
prospering is another matter altogether.

On the other hand, if there's a serious amount of fighting and a
number of failed states along the freight lanes, we could all be
living in the Gulf of Aden... Plenty of pirates already after all.
Have them with better kit and training and it could get nasty.

Not to mention all those expensive fighter planes that can't make it
North because they can't carry the fuel, and can't land at the
airstrips we have.

Maybe we should see if anyone still has any F111s in a cave somewhere?

(Cue a quick chorus of the F111 song!)

They are already using sails to help freighters on long relatively calm
legs, I wonder what the costs will be generally given that the trips
to Oz can be ugly for sailing vessels. When would it be cheaper to use
mostly sail?

War and pirates, and lack of reason to sell here perhaps.

I wonder what we do need. Solar panels come to mind, and heavy
machinery. But see your point below...

Yup. The number were cut in the last recession, and when there was
plenty of money we just hired "trained" labour. Now there's not the
money or the people to train them.

I suspect that the only way out is going to be to revamp the
apprenticeship system. IN good times the pay's too low, in bad times
the profit is too low.

One way is, of course, to bring back the big government training
workshops. Heaps of tradies got their start in the railways for
example. The govt can do the training without the short term profit
requirement.

I suspect a lot more would be done for the country if this
infrastructure money had requirements for apprentice training in
trades attached.

I think of the first GP in 89. Oz had been in a recession for some years,
the dollar was low, and you hardly saw a new bike. Of course the bikes
that were "old bikes" then were 70s, they'd be "bloody old" now. When I
went to the Gp in the mid 90s all there was was brand new bikes. Not even
old red bikes never mind bevels! (and few 10yo Hondas either....)

Maybe there will be a market in courses on maintaining a bike more
than 5 years old in Sydney.... Or maybe not, maybe dealers will have
to service old bikes now!

Zebee

 

Well Doug didn't like it when I pointed out all the reasons why I
shouldn't be here and then didn't leave, so I dunno if I'll be able to
argue the case without flak...

Financially and logically, the best should leave Oz as things
currently stand, we give them no reason to stay other than than it's
your birth place (and that is admittedly an emotional argument that
has some impact). In all fairness it's not just Australia, NZ suffers
it worse than we do.

Setting that aside, even though we don't have all the best still here,
I think we do still retain most of the skillsets, I don't think we're
dead in the water yet, but if we don't turn around the brain drain and
the lack of attention to skilling our population we will reach a
turning point where it is too late, and we will be unable to do so.

JL
(and yes most of the people I know who topped my subjects at Uni are O/
S - my anecdotal evidence supports your observation as well)

 

Now you're just TRYING to upset Doug - telling him he's
expendable ! ;-)

To be honest though, I disagree, if you look at the global warming
rainfall shift trends, we need to huddle north and south, large blocks
of Oz that are currently heavily populated are going to be
increasingly hostile (and hence less valuable to protect). Arthur C
Clarke's(1) water wars are looming (and he said 2020 too...
prescient). I think the map of what's worth defending is being
redrawn, and in 50 years time it may well be that Sydney and Melbourne
are far more expendable than Briz-Vegas(2).

I think the military reality is that we can't possibly defend all our
shoreline, but like the Russian winter the climactic harshness and
lack of development of the north protects the more remote southern
population centres from easy invasion by land. Of course if they nuke
Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane they wipe out, what, 60% of the
population ? Might make an invasion a bit easier (or make the
remainder dig in and become really intransigent).

I'm not quite sure I follow that - if you mean we could have troubles
receiving our freight due to dangerous freight routes, then yes, in an
apocalyptic scenario, sure. It's not however terribly likely.

Don't get me started. Our military are supposed to be here to protect
Oz last I looked.

Have they implemented that already ? I saw the articles when it was
mooted but didn't realise it was "in production" (what's the correct
phrase there ?).

Mmm does it really matter - profit will drive people to find solutions
to move freight, and it's not really that bad a sailing trip from Asia
to Oz as long as you avoid the reefs as I understand (but I'm not a
navy guy so take with a grain of salt.

War and pirates yeah, in an apocalypse, but in a civilised world no
real dramas - the Sudanese pirates are under serious attack and that's
about the worst we've had since the Malacca Straits were cleaned up.

Lack of reason to sell ? Money talks, always will. Has for a couple of
millenia anyway.

Mmm but we have either the existing factories or the capacity to build
both those - yes BP shut down a factory, but we still (just) have the
skills in unis.

Can't argue any of that. Yes, I agree.

JL
1 assuming I'm correctly recalling the author in question - it's been
a couple of decades since I read any SF
2 although I don't think it's very likely - Brisbane is more likely to
suffer population constraints from limitation to water supply given
they are already struggling

 

Yep, last Saturday - and the views were indeed lovely. The clouds were low
and black and occasionally they leaked and spoiled the view a bit, but it
was a nice ride. The last of the unsealed bits are now sealed, and a few of
the old sealed bits need resealing. Around Black Springs there are some
impressive potholes.

betty

 

Lots of snippage mainly because you're getting too deep for me to
respond.

I think there's a lot of what I call "re-invention fatigue" out there
i.e. when you hit the wall and lose the plot because you just can't
cope with re-inveting yourself yet again. Great for the
psychologically strong, but devastating for the psychologically
fragile. But hey, it's the law of of the jungle, so who cares about
the losers, right?

Oh I don't know, I think when wealth keeps bleeding out of the country
that's as detrimental as jobs or skills leaving the country.

I think you need to read what I wrote more carefully. I think
there's a HUGE difference between protecting an Australian owned and
operated enterprise via tariffs and chucking megabucks of our
hard-earned at foreign companies make it cosier for them to stay here.

And we could do it a hell of a lot cleverer too.

Huh? It is totally on topic. I was pointing out how the withdrawal
of tariffs has damaged the rural sector in ways you were ignoring.
I almost detect in you a "who gives a **** about the rural sector"
attitude. A sort of a cold pragmatism which sacrifces humans for the
bottom line on a balance sheet. It's that flavour of economics I
detest.

Oh? Often? I thought its becoming alarmingly rare... Silly
me...John Deere is an Australian company? Internationa harvester is
Australian? Komatsu is Australian? Etc. Etc.

I beg to differ.

I'm saying that as machinery was displacing humans, there was an
increase in jobs at the machinery manufacturer's end. and I was
saying that most of those manufacturing jobs were offshore, but if the
farm mechanisation was done with Australian owned and operated
companies the net job loss would have been less whilst at the same
time enhancing our manufacturing capability rather than just importing
John Deere tractors. And keeping more bucks in Australia.

And you neatly gloss over the fact that the WTO and the IMF play a
huge role in shaping the Australian ecomomy to suit our American
masters. And the more dependent we become on America, the better they
like it. I don't see any of that being in Australia's best interests.

Patronsing shithead. Go **** yourself.

I'm NOT the only one. An ever growing number of people are starting
to question all sorts of stuff in the airy fairy fictional world of
"econonmics". Many of them are economists. Paradigms are collapsing
everywhere.

That's the propaganda of justification. Nothing more.

More propaganda.

There's no pont. You'd just dismiss or invalidate what I'm saying.

Here: >>> http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9057/9057.ch01.php

You can read the first chapter. If you want to read more, I'm sure
you can figure out how to buy a copy or get one via a library, but I
seriously doubt your interest is genuine. More likely you'd dismiss
the book as crap. All the more reason not to bother lending you my
copy.


Onya bike...

Gerry

 

Zeb wrote -

And that's almost as much respected ground to me as Mt Panorama.

In about 1910 the infant military and the gov't of the day here worked out
that our total dependence on Mother England for armaments was a bit of a
strategical risk and Australian manufacturing requiring real skills was born
there - if you call in there have a look at how we did a lot with a little,
and perhaps as importantly, took our first baby step into not being totally
reliant in a sycophantic way to the major power of the day.

It was the first step on a journey towards national maturity that will be
continuing for many years yet.

Another small step that will I think be seen as hugely important was Rudd
apologizing to the first Australians earlier this year - ... "from little
things ..."

Best, Andrew

(still buzzing from the run; wonder if I will like the first day at my
[track] school day next week?)