Ageing population

[SirRumpole]

You should probably agree that having less goods and services available over all is a bad thing for all.

Depends on what goods and services we are talking about.

In terms of discretionary expenditure, ie stuff people don't really need but want to buy, then I don't really care where it's made.

When we get to essential goods, medicines and the like , I think it's important to have a capability here in cases of emergency.

But then "essential" is a fairly broad description these days, eg are mobile phones "essential" these days? For making emergency calls they probably are, but there is a lot of junk on phones that people never use that just increase the price and make people feel good because their phone has something others haven't. Consumers are easily led.

 

[dyna]

This scenario brings to mind countries with closed borders such as Haiti (perhaps not closed borders, but impoverished though), North Korea, Albania just to name three.

Reading this got me thinking of thinking of ... Russia !
A terrible place when I visited in the late 1970's ....in the shabby back streets of Putin's hometown , lots of drunks in the middle of the day and ( I swear this is true ).....women with bruises and black eyes .
A poor country with nukes.
( Nice culture , though . )

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Reading this got me thinking of thinking of ... Russia !
A terrible place when I visited in the late 1970's ....in the shabby back streets of Putin's hometown , lots of drunks in the middle of the day and ( I swear this is true ).....women with bruises and black eyes .
A poor country with nukes.
( Nice culture , though . )

crap culture.

 

[JohnDe]

Reading this got me thinking of thinking of ... Russia !
A terrible place when I visited in the late 1970's ....in the shabby back streets of Putin's hometown , lots of drunks in the middle of the day and ( I swear this is true ).....women with bruises and black eyes .
A poor country with nukes.
( Nice culture , though . )

My friend lived through that, he still talks about it today. It wasn’t poverty, it was excessive taxes and controlled wages by the state. It was corrupt ideology from government, that required vasts amounts of money and resources to start and fund their ideas.

My friend now says that he’s seeing the same thing starting in western democracies.

 

[Value Hunter]

I don’t so much have a believe in my own opinion about battery factories as much as I believe in the markets ability to work out where it deploys capital. (Indonesia is lower cost production that WA nickel, even if we built a battery factory here it would struggle against lower cost materials)

We didn’t have to legislate that a McDonald’s appeared on the corner near my house, or a petrol station down the street, they just make sense, so they appear.

If a battery factory made sense it would appear, but as I said if you think it’s a great idea put a team together and invest, and prove me wrong.

If it works out I am happy too.

My whole point is having thousands of Uber eats drivers, baby sitters, dog walkers, pet groomers, mobile car washers, Uber drivers, etc is only economical for customers due to the supply of cheap foreign labour.

You act as if the market exists in a vacuum. Stop importing cheap foreign labour and the price of the services will go up a lot, far more people will drive to collect their own food, will wash their own cars, etc and the people who would have done those jobs will now be employed in more productive higher value added jobs that pay higher wages. I don't see how its a bad thing if people spend an hour less time per day watching TV instead of outsourcing basic tasks while people who would have been employed performing those tasks are instead working in higher paid jobs producing more value to society.

If you take what you are saying to the extreme the logical conclusion becomes third world countries like the Phillipines or Colombia where every middle class family can afford to have their own live in maid (and many do). Is that what we want Australia to become?

According to your asinine way of thinking that is good outcome because the maid gets employment and that family gets more leisure time.

The solution is very simple. You do not need to tell people what jobs to take or what businesses to have. Just STOP THE IMMIGRATION and the market will sort out the rest. Unfettered immigration is a drug that is leading Australia into terminal decline. We will probably be a 3rd world country within 50 years.

 

[Value Hunter]

Unemployment isn’t sky high.

And who is to say what jobs are needed, you might value a Taylor swift concert and be willing to pay $300 to attend it, some one else might want to spend their $300 on 6 dog walking sessions or uber rides, what’s the difference?

"Seek job ads fell by 10.7% in October 2024, when compared to October 2023. On a monthly basis, job ads fell by 3.1% in October."

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www.staffingindustry.com

And yes there is a big difference between a Taylor Swift concert and dog walking. A Taylor swift concert brings in a lot of foreign tourists (and foreign currency) into Australia and those tourists/fans are going to spend a lot of money on other things while in Australia. Secondly its highly profitable as a business enterprise (as opposed to marginally profitable activities) which means high profits/dividends for shareholders and high wages for employees involved in providing the services (event organizers, audio technicians, specialized event security, etc).

Again do you want Australia to become a third world country where every upper middle class family has a maid in their home, catches taxis everywhere, etc. When I go to cheap countries half the time I don't even shave my beard I just pay the barber to do it because its so cheap lol. But in Australia I always shave my own beard because I am not paying $15 - 20 to get my beard shaved lol! The fact that people shave their own beards etc is a sign of economic strength not economic weakness!!

 

[Value Collector]

View attachment 188836

"Seek job ads fell by 10.7% in October 2024, when compared to October 2023. On a monthly basis, job ads fell by 3.1% in October."

Loading...

www.staffingindustry.com

And yes there is a big difference between a Taylor Swift concert and dog walking. A Taylor swift concert brings in a lot of foreign tourists (and foreign currency) into Australia and those tourists/fans are going to spend a lot of money on other things while in Australia. Secondly its highly profitable as a business enterprise (as opposed to marginally profitable activities) which means high profits/dividends for shareholders and high wages for employees involved in providing the services (event organizers, audio technicians, specialized event security, etc).

Again do you want Australia to become a third world country where every upper middle class family has a maid in their home, catches taxis everywhere, etc. When I go to cheap countries half the time I don't even shave my beard I just pay the barber to do it because it’s so cheap lol. But in Australia I always shave my own beard because I am not paying $15 - 20 to get my beard shaved lol! The fact that people shave their own beards etc is a sign of economic strength not economic weakness!!

I don’t believe there is a chance that Australia will be a third world nation, and I am not saying get rid of the Taylor swift concert, I am saying there is not much difference between you paying $300 for dog walking service vs buying a $300 Taylor swift ticket.

Except for maybe the fact that a larger percentage of the Taylor swift ticket money gets exported over seas, because a Taylor swift concert is actually an import.

You might not shave your own beard but you would be spending money in service industry all the time, and it improves your life, how many more services do you want to give up so that you can say your undies are Australian made?

 

[Value Collector]

My whole point is having thousands of Uber eats drivers, baby sitters, dog walkers, pet groomers, mobile car washers, Uber drivers, etc is only economical for customers due to the supply of cheap foreign labour.

You act as if the market exists in a vacuum. Stop importing cheap foreign labour and the price of the services will go up a lot, far more people will drive to collect their own food, will wash their own cars, etc and the people who would have done those jobs will now be employed in more productive higher value added jobs that pay higher wages. I don't see how its a bad thing if people spend an hour less time per day watching TV instead of outsourcing basic tasks while people who would have been employed performing those tasks are instead working in higher paid jobs producing more value to society.

If you take what you are saying to the extreme the logical conclusion becomes third world countries like the Phillipines or Colombia where every middle class family can afford to have their own live in maid (and many do). Is that what we want Australia to become?

According to your asinine way of thinking that is good outcome because the maid gets employment and that family gets more leisure time.

The solution is very simple. You do not need to tell people what jobs to take or what businesses to have. Just STOP THE IMMIGRATION and the market will sort out the rest. Unfettered immigration is a drug that is leading Australia into terminal decline. We will probably be a 3rd world country within 50 years.

I don’t see why you think the service industry is a bad thing. Even people in the service industry spend money in the service industry.

I mean yes we need basic food, water and shelter to live, but after that we move up the list Spending on higher and higher luxuries, eg hot water, then eventually maybe a car, all the way up to all sorts of things that get very specific to individuals.

 

[Value Collector]

When we get to essential goods, medicines and the like , I think it's important to have a capability here in cases of emergency.

well, then you have to decide how much extra you want people to pay for these goods to ensure they are made here, and what the benefit of that is, and what we are losing.

For example Hawaii has some of the highest cost of living in the USA because it’s a victim of a national security rule that says foreign ships can’t deliver cargo between USA states.

So only a USA ship can service Hawaii, which is expensive compared to just getting a ship returning back to Asia to drop off cargo in Hawaii.

This rule is designed to protect the USA ship building industry, but the cost is unfairly dropped on Hawaii.

 

[Value Hunter]

Except for maybe the fact that a larger percentage of the Taylor swift ticket money gets exported over seas, because a Taylor swift concert is actually an import.

Except you glossed over the fact that I already mentioned that on a net basis its actually an export product because it brings a lot of tourism revenue. A lot of people travel from other countries to watch a Taylor Swift concert. This money is likely far more than the earnings going offshore. If a tourist comes to Australia and spends $300 on the tickets for the concert, they are likely spending thousands on flights, hotels, food and transportation and shopping in Australia while they are here. Not to mention Taylor Swift would have to spend a big chunk of that $300 ticket price she receives on local services such as event security, venue hire, etc

 

[Value Hunter]

I don’t see why you think the service industry is a bad thing. Even people in the service industry spend money in the service industry.

How many times do I have to explain this to you. You are arguing in bad faith. It is a bad thing when you have a lot of uneconomical service industries proliferating on the backs of exploited foreign labour.

Just stop the student visas, backpackers and migrants and the market will sort this nonsense out by itself.

People can and should do more productive jobs otherwise you end up being a 3rd world country.

 

[Value Collector]

Except you glossed over the fact that I already mentioned that on a net basis its actually an export product because it brings a lot of tourism revenue. A lot of people travel from other countries to watch a Taylor Swift concert. This money is likely far more than the earnings going offshore. If a tourist comes to Australia and spends $300 on the tickets for the concert, they are likely spending thousands on flights, hotels, food and transportation and shopping in Australia while they are here. Not to mention Taylor Swift would have to spend a big chunk of that $300 ticket price she receives on local services such as event security, venue hire, etc

What percentage of people at a Taylor swift concert are international? I don’t think it’s a high percentage especially vs the amount of money that heads back over seas in Taylor’s pocket, the promoters pocket, the foreign owned ticket sellers etc etc.

100% of the dog walking income is local.

 

[Value Collector]

How many times do I have to explain this to you. You are arguing in bad faith. It is a bad thing when you have a lot of uneconomical service industries proliferating on the backs of exploited foreign labour.

Just stop the student visas, backpackers and migrants and the market will sort this nonsense out by itself.

People can and should do more productive jobs otherwise you end up being a 3rd world country.

I am not arguing in bad faith, you are just wrong.

But I am tired of this discussion now.

 

[sptrawler]

So if the batteries aren’t cheaper, how are you going to get people to buy them?

I guess you could put a tariff on the imported ones to force me to buy they local battery, but then we get back to the situation where I now have less money in my pocket to spend at the cafe.

So you basically took my barista away and made them work in a battery factory, and I miss out on my coffee because I paid extra for the battery.

That’s been my point all along, when you force a less productive industry into the economy by forcing locals to spend more on it, you lose some spending power, another industry takes the hit.

The only batteries I'm concerned about are the container based large scale batteries, if we continue with the renewable push as I'm sure we will, the electrical grids in Australia will be heavily dependent on very large scale battery installations.

These wont be one of installations either, there will be an ongoing demand for them to be refurbished, renewed or replaced, these batteries aren't batteries people buy.

They are multi mega watt installations that will be the backbone of our grids and will be owned by the Govt's or large private power suppliers in Australia.
For example:

Construction starts on one of Australia's biggest batteries in Collie | Western Australian Government

Construction has begun on Synergy's Collie battery energy storage system, which will be one of the biggest grid-scale batteries in Australia when complete and will provide significant security to Western Australia's main power system.

www.wa.gov.au

Can you explain why we recently built a vaccine manufacturing facility at Tulamarine airport, when we can quite easily buy the vaccine in from overseas cheaper.

Answering that question, may facilitate us moving the debate forward, rather than just banging heads over cheaper is always better.

 

[investor13]

My whole point is having thousands of Uber eats drivers, baby sitters, dog walkers, pet groomers, mobile car washers, Uber drivers, etc is only economical for customers due to the supply of cheap foreign labour.

You act as if the market exists in a vacuum. Stop importing cheap foreign labour and the price of the services will go up a lot, far more people will drive to collect their own food, will wash their own cars, etc and the people who would have done those jobs will now be employed in more productive higher value added jobs that pay higher wages. I don't see how its a bad thing if people spend an hour less time per day watching TV instead of outsourcing basic tasks while people who would have been employed performing those tasks are instead working in higher paid jobs producing more value to society.

If you take what you are saying to the extreme the logical conclusion becomes third world countries like the Phillipines or Colombia where every middle class family can afford to have their own live in maid (and many do). Is that what we want Australia to become?

According to your asinine way of thinking that is good outcome because the maid gets employment and that family gets more leisure time.

The solution is very simple. You do not need to tell people what jobs to take or what businesses to have. Just STOP THE IMMIGRATION and the market will sort out the rest. Unfettered immigration is a drug that is leading Australia into terminal decline. We will probably be a 3rd world country within 50 years.

Albo and Charlmers can claim a growing economy then, every immigrant that comes in needs a place to live, food to eat & require services of some for or an other and a job and taxes are attached to every one of those items. its a ponxi scheme