Is there a single person here who would be willing to sacrifice part of their income to become a factory labourer in one of these industries we so desperately "need"?
Bobby. wrote on May 12
th, 2018 at 11:11pm:
FD,
Quote:We should sell potatoes and degrees also. That's where the money is.
We have to move away from the dig it up & ship it out mentality.
I think if we don't value add we're doomed to move to 3rd world country status.
Do you have any particular reason for believing this?
Quote:So how does germany compete
Several ways.
They have lower wages.
They have 4 times the population and are very close to other large population centres, so they have economies of scale. This is particularly important for the modern car industry.
They are close to the bulk of their customers, in terms of transport cost.
They do not have relatively large mining, tourism etc sectors competing for employees.
Despite this, the Europeans are slowly losing out to the Asians who are better placed on all these scales.
And despite all this, Australia does actually still compete in the car industry in those sectors where we have a natural competitive advantage. Bolting the cars together is not one of them.
Quote:You don't always have to race to the bottom and make nickle and dime trinkets for the masses.
That's what cars are these days. They are old technology. They have been around for over a century. They have the imagery and emotional attachment to what made our nations great, but time have changed.
Quote:Selling degrees to foreigners who end up using it to put us out of business.
They are going to get the degrees whether we profit from it or not. Might as well profit from it.
Quote:Too many non-productive wordsmiths in this country getting paid too much to produce rubbish scribble on bits of paper.
Yes, that's why. We all get paid to much. We should be more like all those German labourers getting paid half as much to work a lathe.
Quote:we can't keep shutting down our industries
They shut themselves down because they lose all their good employees to better paying industries.
Quote:Yes - why can't we be a huge exporter like Germany?
Relative to our population, we are a bigger exporter and focus on the higher wage industries.
Cars are old technology? You might want to check out the technology in new cars. They are exceptional. Or id you are referring to the internal combustion engine, they are not even comparable to those 100 years ago. Its a bit like comparing the Wright brothers first plane and an A380 and thinking that planes are 'old technology'.
But the rest of your post was very relevant.