Trickle-Up Economics?

[Loren Pechtel]

Quote;
''Of all the Free Trade Agreements that Australia has with other countries, none was more brutal than the deal with Thailand introduced in 2005. Since Australia agreed to lift the import tariff on cars from Thailand, more than two million Thai-made vehicles have been imported; from familiar brands such as Ford, Holden and Toyota, as well as Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda and others.

In other words, the only way a union can survive is with government protection from competition.

 

[DBT]

Quote;
''Of all the Free Trade Agreements that Australia has with other countries, none was more brutal than the deal with Thailand introduced in 2005. Since Australia agreed to lift the import tariff on cars from Thailand, more than two million Thai-made vehicles have been imported; from familiar brands such as Ford, Holden and Toyota, as well as Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda and others.

In other words, the only way a union can survive is with government protection from competition.

No.

Manufacturing cars in Australia became untenable because of a number of factors.....which are outlined in the articles I quoted. Too many players, population size in Australia does not support the number of manufacturers we had, low wages in developing nations attract businesses to move, etc, etc.

As I said, it is a complex issue.

 

[angelo]

Quote;
''Of all the Free Trade Agreements that Australia has with other countries, none was more brutal than the deal with Thailand introduced in 2005. Since Australia agreed to lift the import tariff on cars from Thailand, more than two million Thai-made vehicles have been imported; from familiar brands such as Ford, Holden and Toyota, as well as Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda and others.

In other words, the only way a union can survive is with government protection from competition.

No.

Manufacturing cars in Australia became untenable because of a number of factors.....which are outlined in the articles I quoted. Too many players, population size in Australia does not support the number of manufacturers we had, low wages in developing nations attract businesses to move, etc, etc.

As I said, it is a complex issue.

Toyota, which was exporting most of the Camry's built in Australia was just asking for a level playing field with the likes of Germany, not Thailand. Union thuggery made that proposition impossible!

 

[DBT]

No.

Manufacturing cars in Australia became untenable because of a number of factors.....which are outlined in the articles I quoted. Too many players, population size in Australia does not support the number of manufacturers we had, low wages in developing nations attract businesses to move, etc, etc.

As I said, it is a complex issue.

Toyota, which was exporting most of the Camry's built in Australia was just asking for a level playing field with the likes of Germany, not Thailand. Union thuggery made that proposition impossible!

You made that claim before.

I then pointed out that the issue is far more complex than you claim and provided information that gives some of the reasons why car manufacturing closed down in Australia, too many players, market to small to support them all, competition, etc.

It is no good just repeating your claim, you need to back it with relevant evidence.

 

[angelo]

No.

Manufacturing cars in Australia became untenable because of a number of factors.....which are outlined in the articles I quoted. Too many players, population size in Australia does not support the number of manufacturers we had, low wages in developing nations attract businesses to move, etc, etc.

As I said, it is a complex issue.

Toyota, which was exporting most of the Camry's built in Australia was just asking for a level playing field with the likes of Germany, not Thailand. Union thuggery made that proposition impossible!

You made that claim before.

I then pointed out that the issue is far more complex than you claim and provided information that gives some of the reasons why car manufacturing closed down in Australia, too many players, market to small to support them all, competition, etc.

It is no good just repeating your claim, you need to back it with relevant evidence.

Go back and read post #83. To expand on that somewhat. Toyota was exporting over 70% of Australian made Camry's. It was NOT relying on local sales. Toyota management told news reports that if a car could be produced here for the same price as it cost to build one in Germany, it would've continued to build them here rather than export them from Japan to their overseas markets.

 

[DBT]

You made that claim before.

I then pointed out that the issue is far more complex than you claim and provided information that gives some of the reasons why car manufacturing closed down in Australia, too many players, market to small to support them all, competition, etc.

It is no good just repeating your claim, you need to back it with relevant evidence.

Go back and read post #83. To expand on that somewhat. Toyota was exporting over 70% of Australian made Camry's. It was NOT relying on local sales. Toyota management told news reports that if a car could be produced here for the same price as it cost to build one in Germany, it would've continued to build them here rather than export them from Japan to their overseas markets.

Post #83 was your set of claims, I then asked you to provide evidence for the claim that it was in fact 'Union thuggery made that proposition impossible' and that is the claim that you should be providing evidence for.

Evidence is not just what one side or the other claims. Management may make claims that are not entirely true.

Combative unions may play a role, but not necessarily be the cause of Toyota's decision....which as I pointed out is a part of a much broader malaise in the car manufacturing industry in Australia. Which includes too many players, competition, market saturation, etc, etc.

It was not just one thing that destroyed the industry.

 

[DBT]

Other factors;

What really killed the auto industry

''The world is in the grip of debt and deflation, and firms that can't keep up with the rigours of falling prices are falling by the roadside, writes Alan Kohler.

The Australian car industry was not killed by the high currency. It's a victim of what IMF chief Christine Lagarde calls the ogre of deflation''

The world's new corporate elite are not industrialists or bankers, but the great price-cutters of the age, firms like Google, Amazon, Apple.

This new breed of corporate predators is rich because they are driving down prices, including in Australia. Google, Facebook and Twitter have ruined the traditional advertising market; Amazon has destroyed retail margins; Apple's iTunes, along with Spotify and BitTorrent, has collapsed the price of music and movies.

Everyday low prices are good, we would all agree, so why are leaders like Christine Lagarde afraid of it, and why is Janet Yellen trying so desperately to get inflation up?

Because debt and deflation get into a spiral: lower prices increase the value of money - and thus debt - and more debt means more production and less demand, and therefore more deflation, and so on.

So the ogre that stalks the world is not really deflation, but debt.''