Could Kevin Rudd/Kim Carr pursuade Ford to reverse shut down decision?

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by westy73

Article from May 09 2012 -

The government's outstanding stock of public debt was about $235bn in March this year. The government expects the total level of debt to remain below $250bn at the beginning and end of next financial year.

link is here.....so be very worried.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nati...-1226350371341

That's still a far cry from 300billion. It's still.only 20% of GDP, and is rather manageable. This article explains it better than I can
http://theconversation.com/the-truth...t-levels-13245

I also don't think it's pertinent to the topic at hand.

OT: Kim Carr is back.it seems. Let's see what happens next.

[KIWI-1]

Originally Posted by westy73

Article from May 09 2012 -

The government's outstanding stock of public debt was about $235bn in March this year. The government expects the total level of debt to remain below $250bn at the beginning and end of next financial year.

link is here.....so be very worried.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nati...-1226350371341

Vote for Abbott, that way you will get Turnbull in a years time when Abbott becomes the most unpopular Australian Prime Minister of all time when he makes the "cuts to the bone" necessary to reduce the debt.

[mr smith]

Originally Posted by KIWI-1

Vote for Abbott, that way you will get Turnbull in a years time when Abbott becomes the most unpopular Australian Prime Minister of all time when he makes the "cuts to the bone" necessary to reduce the debt.

Any PM who cuts the handouts, First home buyers, baby bonus, parental leave, etc. will get my vote.
Unfortunately handouts rather than good policy have become the way of doing things over the last decade. Stupid Aussies love the handout though, so in a way we get what we deserve.

[Maka]

Originally Posted by westy73

Yet let's have Kev open up the borders further. Why have borders ?
Also let's just keep spending and borrowing money. Only 300 Billion in the red so what's another 300 billion dollars. I won't have to worry about it jsut my kids and their kids. Sheesh. What's going on I thought people were sick of being in debt to their eyeballs. Yes wrong forum indeed !!

Just for a bit of clarity -

http://www.thebull.com.au/premium/a/...bt-levels.html

Cheers, Maka

[Lardman]

Originally Posted by westy73

Yet let's have Kev open up the borders further. Why have borders ?
Also let's just keep spending and borrowing money. Only 300 Billion in the red so what's another 300 billion dollars. I won't have to worry about it jsut my kids and their kids. Sheesh. What's going on I thought people were sick of being in debt to their eyeballs. Yes wrong forum indeed !!

If you haven't noticed or followed policy or statistics:

• Debt: Raw numbers mean ****. Compare it as a ratio to GDP and come back to us, you'll find we're doing perfectly fine
• If you looked at refugee intake, we're actually following global trends and they're increasing due to the number of conflicts worldwide.

tl;dr, debt isn't a problem, and refugee intake is going up globally. It's not just a problem here. We also are in quite a unique location, not to mention the incredible corruption of police forces in Indonesia and Malaysia and other SE Asian countries that only serve to make it more of a problem of illegitimate forms of transport, vs illegitimate refugees.

Originally Posted by vztrt

Actually they spent a bucket load in the areas were R&D is being done. The factory itself is decaying away and little money is being spent on there. It is only getting upgrades were its required.

If you've been in the both places recently you would see what I'm talking about. Ford is still hiring engineers while gutting the crap out of the manufacturing facility.

Lack of funds and also rising costs to blame, really. Not much can be said there. Rudd tried to address this by curbing the mining industry with MRRT V.1 that was far more aggressive - essentially, designed to de-value the aussie to keep us competitive with global markets.

Originally Posted by westy73

Article from May 09 2012 -

The government's outstanding stock of public debt was about $235bn in March this year. The government expects the total level of debt to remain below $250bn at the beginning and end of next financial year.

link is here.....so be very worried.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nati...-1226350371341

Why should we be very worried?

I'm more worried about the fact that both Fairfax have been spinning our public debt inappropriately to spur a political agenda when they're realistically just abusing a single statistic with no comparison.

Sort this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...by_public_debt by Public Debt as % of GDP, and even as a gross figure we're doing insanely well considering.

I'll even give you some examples:

Debt to GDP ratio, Net %

• Greece: 155.3%
• Japan: 134.3%
• Singapore: 108.1%
• United States of America: 107.8%
• United Kingdom: 82.7%
• Germany: 57.2%
• Bahrain: 32.7%
• South Korea: 32.2%
• Hong Kong: 30.1%
• China: 26.5%]
• New Zealand: 26.4%

And where are we on this list?
Australia: 11.6%

We're doing bang on perfectly. The ship is a little leaky, but our debt is not spiralling out of control as the media would have you believe, and our public spending is well within reason with no major acceleration or deceleration over the last few years (which is what you want to avoid. Stable spending is good spending!)

Originally Posted by Lotte

That's still a far cry from 300billion. It's still.only 20% of GDP, and is rather manageable. This article explains it better than I can
http://theconversation.com/the-truth...t-levels-13245

OT: Kim Carr is back.it seems. Let's see what happens next.

To bring my previous points back on topic: Why are more automotive bailouts out of the question, or why should more handouts be out of the question?

We're doing perfectly fine, Rudd has strong potential to bring back a strong manufacturing sector - It's not about Ford, it's about the on-flows to people in the manufacturing industry. Steel, Automotive parts, even the specialists like Herrod and KPM. Keeping unemployment low keeps taxes flowing and spending to other sectors.

What they need to effectively do is bring the rhetoric back on side to tell the public: as long as we redirect funds responsibly, more public spending will do better for our economy in the long run, ensuring high levels of professional workforce (as opposed to just labourers in the mines), and up-skilling people to ensure our economy is viable after the mining sector contracts.

I personally think a reversal to Ford's decision, as unlikely as it is would be good - Even if it wasn't the Falcon.

Anyone else that says the labor government was a disaster: They've recently been ranked as the most productive government in Australian history.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...prime-minister

495 pieces of legislation through a hung parliament. Not bad for a "Complete disaster", huh?

Originally Posted by bobthebilda

The Labour Government came into power with basically no money owing on the Federal Governments credit card. In 2007 the production Neanderthals in the Labour government probably had a bit of leeway into how much money theu were going to spend on supporting unproductive industries. They dont have that luxury now (or shouldnt think they have that luxury now). Whatever they were doing then, didnt work then, and theres no reason to think it would work now.

Actually we probably do have more of that luxury, nowso than ever before. Also, the Labor government coming into power with no money owing is all well and good, but did you notice how sovereign debt shot up globally during the same period when Labor came into power?

Global public debt exponentially increased during 2008. Don't simply spout the media rhetoric without understanding more in relation to global economics.

Plus with the 300,000 plus cars made in 2007 and 2008 they could probably justify the expenditure, with 2013 looking like it wont reach 200,000 cars made in Australia, and with Ford announcing that it is packing up in 2016, they will be flogging a very dead horse.

Plus whats the cost of keeping Holden (or Toyota) in Australia. Holden lost $150 million or so last year (and thats on top of the $180 million in subsidies they get), on 75,000 odd Australian made cars. One would think Holden doesnt even want a status quo in the amount of taxpayer subsidy they currently get, but somewhere close to double what they currently get (just to make a reasonable rate of return).

It's not about rate of return for the government - it's about keeping jobs here. The lack of rate of return was also because of our incredibly strong standing through the GFC and recent decade - I don't think many other countries went through an unprecedented mining boom whilst economies around the world collapsed under their own weight in addition to poor public policy.

Once again: Our debt levels are low. Why save more money when we can prepare for the future and put keep our country productive. We should take advantage of globally recovering economies that will be spending money, and increase our output to meet that inevitable demand.

Edit: and yes. It is in the public interest to know about our debt. But with nothing to compare it to, it is nothing more than a grossly misinformed statistic.

[KIWI-1]

Originally Posted by Lardman

It's not about Ford, it's about the on-flows to people in the manufacturing industry. Steel, Automotive parts, even the specialists like Herrod and KPM. Keeping unemployment low keeps taxes flowing and spending to other sectors.

If Ford used local components. The on-flows go to the people running the Asian sweat shops.

[Maka]

Originally Posted by mr smith

Any PM who cuts the handouts, First home buyers, baby bonus, parental leave, etc. will get my vote.
Unfortunately handouts rather than good policy have become the way of doing things over the last decade. Stupid Aussies love the handout though, so in a way we get what we deserve.

Isn't some of the handouts a form of mining boom windfall distribution? You are right though, the boom windfall could've been wisely put in longterm productive assets or a future fund.

http://www.percapita.org.au/_dbase_u...rty_Final4.pdf


cheers, Maka

[Lardman]

Originally Posted by KIWI-1

If Ford used local components. The on-flows go to the people running the Asian sweat shops.

And of the tax dollars from the employees? The employees that spend their income supporting their family, supporting local businesses in regional australia? The employees that get sent on mandatory training courses run by other Australians?

The money they all inevitably spend locally?

These are the real on-flows I'm talking about.

Think about the money you spend supporting your family, or your wife, so on. Where you spend that money. What things you buy.

Average that out, and multiply it by a few thousand.

That's where the real on-flows are, and is worth far more to Australia than a small portion of Ford's operating costs going to Asian suppliers (which again, is somewhat misinformed but if you insist)

[KIWI-1]

Originally Posted by Maka

Isn't some of the handouts a form of mining boom windfall distribution? You are right though, the boom windfall could've been wisely put in a future fund.

The $ collected from the mining tax wouldn't even reverse Ford's current loss! Did anyone think the big 3 overseas mining companies had paying tax in Australia uppermost in their minds when they did a deal with Gillard & Swan?
Costello was the last Treasurer to deposit funds in the 'Future Fund'.

[Lardman]

Originally Posted by KIWI-1

The $ collected from the mining tax wouldn't even reverse Ford's current loss! Did anyone think the big 3 overseas mining companies had paying tax in Australia uppermost in their minds when they did a deal with Gillard & Swan?
Costello was the last Treasurer to deposit funds in the 'Future Fund'.

The mining tax was heavily watered down after massive opinion poll drops as a result of a campaign run by mining companies in the media.

As for the Future Fund...

I dunno, maybe this had something to do with it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financi...7%E2%80%932008

To illustrate my point of why no money was put in the 'Future fund', this image shows Real GDP rates during 2009 - A measure indicating the value of economic output, adjusted for inflation. In other words, a nation's productivity.

[KIWI-1]

Originally Posted by Lardman

That's where the real on-flows are, and is worth far more to Australia than a small portion of Ford's operating costs going to Asian suppliers (which again, is somewhat misinformed but if you insist)

BALLARAT brake manufacturers FMP Group Australia, trading under Bendix, won't be directly affected by the announcement that Ford will cease manufacturing in Australia from 2016.
Bendix supplied Ford with brake products up until about five years ago, but since the company has been importing the products.

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1...dustry-bendix/

[Maka]

Originally Posted by KIWI-1

The $ collected from the mining tax wouldn't even reverse Ford's current loss! Did anyone think the big 3 overseas mining companies had paying tax in Australia uppermost in their minds when they did a deal with Gillard & Swan?
Costello was the last Treasurer to deposit funds in the 'Future Fund'.

Taken from the link i provided in my previous post-

In the first decade of the century, Australia struck it lucky. A voracious global appetite for commodities meant that
we could sell unimaginable quantities of our mineral resources at unimaginable prices. The result was a windfall
to our public coffers of at least $180 billion over the six years from 2002 to 2008. To borrow a phrase from a
prominent director of one of the big mining houses, it was “like being hit up the **** by a rainbow.”*
To be clear, Australia had positioned itself cleverly to take advantage of such luck. Two decades of economic
reform under Hawke, Keating and Howard had seen to that. But the material question is how we responded to
such luck. How did we spend the windfall of our mining boom?

In this paper, we examine the ten years of Commonwealth Budget papers to answer this question. We chart the
rise of the boom and its explosive impact on our federal tax revenues up until 2008. We see how tax revenues
fell away dramatically in the face of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), despite our terms-of-trade continuing to
rise for a further three years. Our estimate is that the pre-GFC phase of the boom delivered at least $180 billion
over and above long-term GDP growth trend.
What did we do with this bounty? Just over half of the windfall, $105 billion, was used by the Howard and Rudd
Governments to shore up the fiscal position of the Commonwealth. We paid off $36 billion of sovereign debt and
put $69 billion into long-term savings funds. This was the responsible course of action.

But the remaining $75 billion represents a big missed opportunity. The Howard Government gave at least
$25 billion away in tax cuts and concessions, on everything from fuel excise to voluntary superannuation
contributions. It used another $50 billion on inflated spending programs and various cash handouts, from the
baby bonus to the First Home Owners’ Grants.

This profligacy had two damaging consequences. First, we missed the opportunity to invest $75 billion in longterm
productive assets. We could have built a high-speed rail link down the east coast, or funded hundreds of
thousands of skilled cadetships, or rolled out solar generation farms to power our mining and aluminium sectors.
More importantly for the future, we have created a huge structural problem for our budget. The combination of
tax cuts and spending growth left Australia ill-prepared for a change in economic circumstances. Most of the tax
and spending changes were presented to voters as permanent benefits. No-one imagined that our tax take could
fall by four percentage points of GDP in the three years from 2008 to 2011. Yet when this happened, a structural
imbalance appeared in our Budget which will take years to redress.

Voters had come to see the fruits of the boom years as entitlements, making it difficult for government to wind
them back. The Gillard Government has begun this task – by means-testing family benefits, private health
insurance rebates, and tightening superannuation tax treatment. But the process will take years and involve much political pain.

cheers, Maka

[KIWI-1]

Originally Posted by Lardman

The mining tax was heavily watered down after massive opinion poll drops as a result of a campaign run by mining companies in the media.

Xstrata, Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton negotiated the mining tax with the Gillard Government on their terms. The so-called small mining companies who ran the ad campaign were not invited to participate.

[Lardman]

Originally Posted by KIWI-1

Xstrata, Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton negotiated the mining tax with the Gillard Government on their terms. The so-called small mining companies who ran the ad campaign were not invited to participate.

It was still massively watered down from the original flat tax on all mining profits

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by KIWI-1

If Ford used local components. The on-flows go to the people running the Asian sweat shops.

That's funny, I worked for a company for two years that made the cluster for all falcon and terries, the rse units for Terri, and molded an awful lot of plastics for Ford. I wasn't in Asia, neither was another company that we dealt with who built stuff for the locals...


agree lardman. I honestly don't see the issue subsidising the industry, like they do in every other country.

[monte.b]

I see we have lots of people here that lean to the left ,good on you ,but ive lived through the whitlam years, the hawk and keating years ,just vote rudd the dud back in and you will experience the woes that we faced then ,good luck with that ,hope you enjoy it ,keep your cash under your bed

[Lotte]

And my mum lived through the liberal years and would happily counter your claim. Your point?
Labor can barely be considered left anymore anyway.

[UberKnee]

Not unless the government can convince people to buy Ford and/or Ford accepts some taxpayer money.

[Lardman]

Originally Posted by monte.b

I see we have lots of people here that lean to the left ,good on you ,but ive lived through the whitlam years, the hawk and keating years ,just vote rudd the dud back in and you will experience the woes that we faced then ,good luck with that ,hope you enjoy it ,keep your cash under your bed

Can you care to explain some of these 'woes'?

[jpd80]

I remember listening to an interview with a former treasury adviser in that role when Kevin Rudd came to power, the two men had a very important conversation on the eve of the global financial crisis, Rudd recognized the danger of money supply freezing up and instigated funding to prevent that happening. Rightly or wrongly, Rudd's quick action saw Australia insulated from the worst of the GFC. He was also int the throws of adjusting his stance on the mining tax when he was over thrown, so we'll never really know what his plan was...

While not entirely a Rudd supporter, I think he is more to the right of politics than the administration who basically claim jumped him and called the shots for the last three years. The thing people really hated about KR was his micromanaging to the point of distraction with the ministers in charge.

I look with interest to see just what the heck Rudd pulls next, look for something very presidential and inspirational from Mr. Sheen as he seeks to snatch victory from the Jaws of defeat. and yes, Tony Abbott is that bad as a leader, missing opportunities to push and when to shut up and let labor fall over...

[jpd80]

No matter who you vote for, expect to be bribed within an inch of your life with promises you know the candidates can't keep.

[monte.b]

My point is the libs get to clean up the mess the others make and everybody hates them for it ,just check out the mess whitlam hawk and keating left ,now this lot are in the same situation ,remember jeff kennet in vic what he had to do to fix the problems they had there ,the labour party sent the state broke and as soon as he fixed them the people threw him out ,figure that one out ,same here in Qld ,we are now suffering from Blighs nonsense and NSW is no different ,wake up and smell the roses instead of looking through rose coloured glasses ,now we better get back on track or we will get locked

[menil]

Left or Right who gives a ,none of this has anything to do with the original thread question.

[jpd80]

It's not that simple, we get to clean up our own mess, politicians fiddle with discretionary spending
but the tax cuts and legislation brought in under Costello meant that income dried up after
Labor was elected and the GFC melt down happened and the dollar strengthened killing export revenue.

The Libs got out just in time...

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by menil

Left or Right who gives a ,none of this has anything to do with the original thread question.

After five pages and a zillion posts, I think we killed it ages ago...

While Rudd might not stop Ford's pull out, the fact that it's staged some three years away means that
the situation is not so intolerable as to warrant immediate stoppage, anyone who doesn't look at this
as an opportunity to extend or delay departure for a couple of years is missing a huge political achievement..

[monte.b]

Originally Posted by jpd80

It's not that simple, we get to clean up our own mess, politicians fiddle with discretionary spending
but the tax cuts and legislation brought in under Costello meant that income dried up after
Labor was elected and the GFC melt down happened and the dollar strengthened killing export revenue.

The Libs got out just in time...

Yep and this lot are going out just in time too, before they send the country broke

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by monte.b

Yep and this lot are going out just in time too, before they send the country broke

In just one week, Rudd has polled as preferred prime minister ahead of Abbott,
Imagine what he can do before September, Abbott is that useless as a leader....

Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals are home...

and I'm done.

[Lotte]

So did anyone else read about how it's been determined the Howard government was the most wasteful spender? Was reading some stuff on it at lunch.

This "mess" people are in a tizz about isn't as bad as it could be. We could have done austerity measures and ended up like... Oh... I dunno... A lot of Europe when the gfc hit.

[KIWI-1]

Maka
Was the bit about Labor turning a $20billion surplus into a $250billion debt deleted from that article?

[monte.b]

How did howard end up with 75 billion in the future fund if that is true ,you really dont have a clue ,being at uni too long will do that for you

Sorry kiwi i wasnt referring to you ,you beat me to it