The demise of manufacturing in Australia

[Marc.com]

,Perhaps the people who are ocupying the city square have a valid point..

I think they have a valid point about using national debt to underwrite corporate investments. As for apprenticeships, not sure the youth of today finds the concept that appealing/

[oldyzman]

Difficult situation, i would love to blame it all on Gillard the clown or Rudd the dudd, But this has been going on right through the eightys as far as i know anyway.. No easy answeres... more than a bit sad to think about it. But were the guys in the 70's also worried and for that matter the 50's or did they have other things to worry about. We all love the easy out. I do wonder if Compulsory National service would help.
Brett

[Marc.com]

I do wonder if Compulsory National service would help.
Brett

No I think a haircut being told what to do would get the Aussie youth angrier than the Greeks and Italians.

So anyway the demise of a number of things including manufacturing is getting more likely everyday. Globally post Lehman we used the Visa card to pay off the Mastercard bill and we are running out of sweet options.

Every country has its own little shop of horrors, the EU has colossal debts in the South, the Germans and the French have the problem of being the ones loaning it, the States has horror unemployment and little idea how to fix it, the Chinese have the problem that people may get tired of living in a police state if the money dries up and Australia and New Zealand have the issue of a household debt level that would gag a horse and is totally reliant on historically low interest rates and that people generally keeping paying their mortgage even if the kids have no shoes.

[Nathan S]

What Marc said!

[Marc.com]

What Marc said!

So Nathan my friend the only question remaining is WTF to do next. There will be winners and losers but doubt VMX bikes ever going to be as expensive again so we are all winners on this forum.... well unless you need to sell.

[asasin]

Hers my slant on it ( nz perspective only)
1 stop telling all children that they are going to be IT techs and brain surgeons. Give the ones that arnt a chance to get into trade training at school ie bring back the encouragement for metal shop etc. Stop trying to give everyone a University outcome.And stop grading schools accordinly.

2 Stop trying to employ only the people with the paper quals , most good trades persons do not hold higher education and are often more creative and inovotive than those that do.
3 compuslery retirement !! The youth need the jobs . and dont ggive the they cant do my job speech , i know they cant but someone in their 40s can and then the 20 year olds move up allowing for the youth in the bottom, what we would save on social payments and social issues would allow to pay a hight retirement fund to those who have earnt it.We have 30% youth unemployment in some age groups ( arab spring anyone).
4.Control immigration for meanial tasks like fruit picking etc, give the jobs to the people here . if they dont take them without reasonable cause  , then no dole etc. But also try to create some pride in actually working .we also have to stop thinking we are better than those job ( again this starts at school)

I noticed in OZ that there is still alot of pride in being a tradie , we really need to reinstall that here.

Tarrif the F@#k out of what I call fluff. vases, paper decorations from overseas etc. Keep it simple Stop wanting everthing cheap ,it is our drive to have cheap crap that has caused the shops to go offshore.

Its got to be a grumpy friday eh!

[Marc.com]

Hers my slant on it ( nz perspective only)
1 stop telling all children that they are going to be IT techs and brain surgeons. Stop trying to give everyone a University outcome.And stop grading schools accordinly.
Its got to be a grumpy friday eh!

Yeah i would tend to agree about University outcome, the opportunities should exist for those who want to be there, BUT other opportunities like trades should be available/ again with the Germans they have two or actually 3 types of high school and you enter either a technical or gymnasium which prepares for University depending on your academic achievement and inclination.

But this requires you to grade students and word like 'elitist' and 'discrimination' tend to creep in shag things up. God help the world if we graded and had a lack of brown people at Gymnasium or save us from the parents if a couple of Chinese kids ended up at a technical school.

As for Universities once you get there, there are really two factions within academia, those who see University as purely academic promoting research, developing minds etc and those who see it as vocational training, preparing people for jobs. Given that it can cost about 40-60K to complete a degree I tend to lean toward vocational training being of greater benefit to society in general who finally is footing a good chunk of the education bill.

[Mike52]

Tarrif the F@#k out of what I call fluff. vases, paper decorations from overseas etc.

Not allowed to do that here in Aus asasin we signed a bit o paper saying we wouldn't.
Nz gotta sell their apples somewhere hey 

[TooFastTim]

1 stop telling all children that they are going to be IT techs and brain surgeons. Give the ones that arnt a chance to get into trade training at school ie bring back the encouragement for metal shop etc. Stop trying to give everyone a University outcome.And stop grading schools accordinly.

A friend of mine in Scotland, a graduate and fellow classic dirt bike fiend sat down and talked to his son about this and, as a result, son is now a joiner. No useless uni degree (B.Man.Sci?) for him.

[Mike52]

I have said this before.
"Someone has got to do the work."
We can't ALL be Chiefs.

[asasin]

Tarrif the F@#k out of what I call fluff. vases, paper decorations from overseas etc.

Not allowed to do that here in Aus asasin we signed a bit o paper saying we wouldn't.
Nz gotta sell their apples somewhere hey 

Food moving around the world I can accept no tarrifs , both countries would be stuffed if that happened, what I am refering to is trinkets , things we do not need to survive. even it it looses its tarrif if assembled in your country would be ok. but fully built up tvs,  etc should wear it. We need to keep both skills and machinery in our own back yard or what happens when it is all gone elsewhere? The price goes up!

[Marc.com]

No useless uni degree (B.Man.Sci?) for him.

Theres lots of ways to view this subject, at the moment undergrad degree like BSc is probably not enough to get you a good gig, you really are expected to have a Masters. If you team BSc up with MBA for example you have the technical and commercial education which would be the pre requisite for most senior management positions.

I think there is a pre conception that Universities offer no vocational skills whatsoever which is not the case. A part of there funding is decided by the schools success in job placement, which is the Governments way of keeping them focused on teaching relevant skills.  

Mostly depends on whether you are happy to be a joiner. Like it or not there are still benefits both social and financial in a terrtiary education.

[TooFastTim]

An MBA is now considered with some derision Marc. The qualification was originally intended to make engineers/scientists more financially literate after 5-10 yrs at the sharp end but when uni's started letting BA grads in it was cheapened.

[EML]

My boy did 5 yrs training in film and theatre during his high school because we asked him what he wanted to do. When it was time to go to Uni he wanted to continue with film and photography but was told he didn't qualify-but he would qualify to do physcology!!!!!WTF. He is now doing a trade in air conditioning go where the money is.
Marc, you can't say we don't value add enough here-our coal is the blackest around and the chinese can't get enough of the stuff.
I do worry though that by the time we're done, we will have nothing here but a big hole in the ground. Maybe it will fill with water and we can on-sell that.  

[TooFastTim]

Trinckets is probably the most apt description. You lot seem concerned that manufacuring of consumer goods is moving off shore. TV's, cameras and the like. The Asians are far superior at this sort of thing. The west must concentrate on niche products like earthmoving equip, big alternators/geneartors, specialized metrology gear and the like. Most importantly I believe we must concentrate on originality, whether of product or process. This is our strong point. The Asians, as we have discussed in tha past, are not very good at lateral thought.