[cobran20]

Want to reduce the Fed deficit? This is one place to start. A country of 20 million with 3 car manufacturers, supplying mostly the local market!

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Do direct bailouts of this variety serve to ensure a sustainable future for the car manufacturing industry?
The experience to date is that it steers it towards further external, tax-payer funded bailouts. We have a long history of providing these bailouts now.

Basically the industry has received about $500 million worth of assistance each year since 2001. That program of direct assistance was meant to run until 2015, but has now been extended to 2020. That will provide a total of about $10 billion worth of assistance to the industry.

All that $10 billion looks likely to achieve is an industry that is habituated to – and its critics would say addicted too – receiving continuing support of that kind.

I don’t think this situation will induce the industry to become sustainable on its own two feet.

[zaph]

cobran20, on 12 January 2012 - 11:00 PM, said:

Want to reduce the Fed deficit? This is one place to start. A country of 20 million with 3 car manufacturers, supplying mostly the local market!
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Sometime cult author John Birmingham has called for the same financial support being offered to the car industry.

The federal and South Australian governments are expected to soon announce a major investment in Holden's parent company, General Motors, to ensure car manufacturing bases remain in Australia.

But John Birmingham says his industry deserves the same support.

"JB directly employs at least one Australian right across the country and is a real economic driver of many pubs and cafes," he said.

Birmingham says over the past decade the automotive industry has received more than $12 billion in government support but he is being forgotten.

"There is a lot of regulatory burden and faffing around and Xbox distraction about actually getting things underway for book and blog writing," he said.

"I often struggle to get that development underway.

"It's about promoting me to the rest of the world and there isn't enough of your money going into my pocket and I could easily do with some assistance to promote my great assets to the world probably by flying all over it business class."

http://www.abc.net.a...ed/3771848.html

[mattau]

Regarding Australia's handout-addicted car industry, check out this comical cartoon picture by Larry Pickering, showing Gillard, GM, Ford, and the ordinary Aussie. seems like ordinary aussies may have to bail out the car industry - but is that sustainable?

Good quote from the cartoon: "Are you Crazy! Only a moron would finance a certain dead duck!"

[staringclown]

$500 million a year to continue producing big cars that less people will want as petrol prices rise. So much for supporting alternate energy technology.

Maybe we should renationalise auto manufacturing and produce an upgraded v10 Leyland P76 with huge rear view mirrors.

[savagegoose]

well i wonder if they let the car isdustry die, could we then drop the twarrifs on imported cars, and actually gain some benefit form this strong aud., and actually buy some decent cars?

[zaph]

savagegoose, on 13 January 2012 - 11:57 PM, said:

well i wonder if they let the car isdustry die, could we then drop the twarrifs on imported cars, and actually gain some benefit form this strong aud., and actually buy some decent cars?

I don't think there are tariffs on imported cars any more. apparently if you want to protect the car industry it's much smarter to subsidise local production rather than tax imports, wtf!

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So why is everybody so rubbish at making them? How is it that barely a car manufacturer in the world seems capable of operating without the kind of government assistance that would make even a 1990s Sydney first home buyer blush?

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But look around the world. Everybody is rubbish at making cars!

The world leader, China, protects its manufacturers with a network of taxes and duties, subsidises components and just last month announced a 22 per cent new tariff on imported SUVs.

Japan has just announced $3.8 billion in incentives for environmentally friendly vehicles, and cushioned its manufacturers during the global financial crisis with a cash-for-clunkers scheme far more lavish than the one euthanased by our prime minister last year.

Germany, Spain, the UK and France all paid their citizens to buy cars (France is not surprising - they pay people to buy newspapers, bless 'em, but you take my point).

Barack Obama paid people to buy cars, cut sales tax on cars, then made double certain by buying General Motors.




Brazil just instituted a car import tax of 30 per cent last September.






What do the Russians do? I'm not sure, but I have a strong hunch they do something, and it probably involves Vladimir Putin doing it with his shirt off.

So there it is. The global dirty secret. Despite just about everyone in the world wanting a car, it appears no company alive is capable of building one without having its hand held in some way by the taxpayer.

http://www.abc.net.a...-affair/3771826

an interesting read.

[sydney3000]

The most important question is what new tax scheme they will come up with for 2013-2014 to keep the ponzi that is the Australian economy going. It is almost May again and that means budget time.

I am amazed at my workplace. It is high times. Managers hide in their offices manipulating their spreadsheets. Workers hide in their cubicles manipulating their spreadsheets. Everybody is happy as long as the cash keeps circling through the coffers.

This post has been edited by sydney3000: 14 January 2012 - 05:14 AM

[savagegoose]

something makes foreign luxury cars twice as expensive here as in over seas countries. if it aint taxes, wtf is goin on?
ok i see that protectionism is strong over seas. but if we dont have it, why are imported cars so much more expensive here?

[cobran20]

savagegoose, on 14 January 2012 - 08:20 AM, said:

something makes foreign luxury cars twice as expensive here as in over seas countries. if it aint taxes, wtf is goin on?
ok i see that protectionism is strong over seas. but if we dont have it, why are imported cars so much more expensive here?

Luxury car tax for a start. I also suspect that manufacturers price their cars higher here than in large markets like the US. Manufacturers make special right hand drive vehicles for our markets when most countries drive on the other side of the road. That would probably add extra cost.

[Solomon]

There is an important factor in the car industry, I think you guys may be overlooking.
Over 60,000 jobs are directly affected if the auto industry is allowed to go down the gurgler.
Then there are all the ancillary jobs associated with the industry across the nation, and that is a lot of jobs.
No government in their right mind, can afford to commit political suicide by allowing those jobs to go.
It wouldn't matter what party is in power.
There are just not enough places available to take up the void left by their going.

Watch the scramble to subsidise the mining industry when it starts to falter later this year.
The mining industry is not even a major employer, but the thought of finding jobs for those laid off, will motivate many to find extra bucks.

We are reaching that period that Marx uncovered in his philosophy of the working class. What happens when you have an excess of workforce, and nothing for them to do. Its already affecting a large proportion of Europe.
"The idle only have mischief on their minds." 1 Timothy.

[sydney3000]

The people in the bottom 20% of the hourly wage scales wouldn't mind losing their job as long as the newstart allowance is raised. Society needs to accept to pay people not to work.

This post has been edited by sydney3000: 14 January 2012 - 12:12 PM

[Mr Medved]

Solomon, on 14 January 2012 - 11:44 AM, said:

What happens when you have an excess of workforce, and nothing for them to do.

Arab spring comes to mind. So does the Persian Gulf at the moment.

[cobran20]

Mr Medved, on 14 January 2012 - 01:12 PM, said:

Arab spring comes to mind. So does the Persian Gulf at the moment.

Yes. It never fails to amase me how disorganised & greedy those oil rich middle east countries are. They could use the money to invest in their population's education and create value added industries (just look at Israel as an example close to them). But instead those theocracies keep the money amongst the privilige few and use the rest to suppress freedom/liberties to their population.