Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewJ
Gday Renato
I think a lot of the irish problem was all their eggs were in one basket ( bit like their prev effort with spuds :-) ), and they didnt see it coming.
We are going that way by killing off a lot of our manufacturing diversity.
Just remember, in the goldfields, the only guaranteed way to make money was to supply the miners with their various needs for equipment and supplies ;-)
I dont think anyone disagrees with you there for now. I think its more down to whether the status quo is robust, or we are living on tick, and it will fall apart ( to some extent ) if china etc goes down.
ie people like Skase, Bond, Groves, Tinkler, Edelstein all looked good when they looked good.
Andrew
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Hi Andrew,
I think you'll upset a lot of Irish about the potatoes. The destitute peasants were utterly oppressed and had no choice but to eat potatoes. It was the same story in much of Scotland and the only reason they didn't have huge famine casualties was because some people took pity on them and organized relief.
I still think Skase was very hard done by. I remember seeing an interview with him in Spain saying that the Channel Seven assets would cover his debts. As I recollect it, the banks foreclosed on him and sold off Channel 7 at $2 a share and took a loss on the debt. In almost no time, the shares doubled to $4. At that price, Skase would easily have paid all his debt and had tens of millions of dollars left over.
But I take your point about manufacturing. Australian industry policy has been a dog's breakfast. Places like France and Germany had policies to make sure they were competitive internationally. Germany for example has the government sitting down with industry and creating tight national standards and requiring all industry to work to those tight standards, and thus create economies of scale - which helps whichever manufacturer comes out on top. Whereas in Australia, people get together and create standards that are broader and which encompass what everyone is producing. What the German's do would be considered as unwarranted government interference in Australia.
Regards,
Renato