Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
The world's fixation with Israel is weird.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Larssen wrote:

Your obsession with Israel is so incredibly weird.
i was about to say that it's weird a news story has been so prominent in australian life.

every country has these weird stories, which, for a whole sum of reasons, acquire a weird collective-talismanic power.

the UK was mad about paedophiles in the 'aughts. don't get me wrong, paedophiles are a Bad Thing, but the level of collective hysteria around them was really something else (podiatrist's offices were vandalized at one point).

god knows why the media push certain stories at such a high profile, and why masses of people quite unremoved from the issue go into convulsions.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Australia did actually have a proper go at investigating historical abuse via a royal commission, not like the whitewash that is the IISCA, people do take it seriously and the govt takes it seriously, no 'hysteria' involved at all.

A nation of immigrants does expect people to take citizenship seriously and not treat the place as a convenient second home when it suits them.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Summary and core recommendations.
After close to three decades of economic growth Australia’s luck has run out.

While today we are a wealthy nation - Australia enjoys one of the highest GDP’s per capita of any
nation – the economic model we have been following failed at the first serious challenge.
Much of our export income has held up during the Covid-19 pandemic, but our economy is revealed
as fragile to external shock, narrowly based, and crucially, lacking in the deep manufacturing
capabilities and capacity enjoyed by other advanced nations be they Germany, Israel, Singapore or
Taiwan.

Australia’s manufacturing capacity has been left to atrophy for too long, leaving Australia with the
export profile of a third world nation, an industrial complexity similar to Senegal and Uganda, and a
balance of trade deficit in elaborately transformed manufactures of $188 billion. Our appetite for
imported cars and iPhones has to be paid for somehow, putting intolerable strain on other sectors to
perform.

At the same time, our economy is becoming less innovative, with the R&D intensity of the economy
falling from above two per cent of GDP only eight years ago, to 1.79 per cent today. Most worryingly
business expenditure on R&D (BERD) which creates future wealth is also falling, down a massive 10
per cent in the latest year alone from 1.0 per cent of GDP to 0.9 per cent.

The good news is we start our recovery from a good place. While Australia’s manufacturing depth has
been shown to be thin, where it exists it is excellent, dynamic and globally competitive.
Our largest manufacturer, CSL, is the world’s number two biotechnology company, Austal is the
world’s number one in aluminium hulled ships, while our steelmaker BlueScope Steel is a global
leader in steel coating and painting technology.

In the technology sector sleep apnea company ResMed and hearing implant maker Cochlear
dominate their global niches, and tna Solutions is a global success story in food machinery
manufacture. And our defence producers are beginning to emerge onto the world stage. All this is
backed by a world-leading public research sector.
But to make more of the enormous potential of Australian manufacturing, our policy settings need a
reset.

We need nothing less than A New Deal Plan for manufacturing, a plan crowd sourced from Australia’s
manufacturing community and laid out in detail in the body of this report. The core recommendations
of our plan are:

Recommendation 1 – A national commitment to manufacturing. Manufacturing needs a rigorous,
game changing reimagination campaign launched by the Prime Minister and State Premiers as a key
part of crossing that bridge to a revitalised post-Covid economy.

Recommendation 2 – National Manufacturing Plan. Replacing the ‘transitional’ plans of the past,
a new National Manufacturing Plan can reflect the successful planning guiding the development of the
defence industry.

Recommendation 3 – Bi-partisan and national support. To achieve policy longevity, core
manufacturing policies should be negotiated and implemented as a joint venture between state and
federal governments.

Recommendation 4 – National manufacturing body. To overcome fragmentation of effort, a new
National Industrial Strategy Commission should be established to develop national priorities and
manage the implementation of industry-facing programmes.
A new deal plan for manufacturing.

Recommendation 5 – Sovereign manufacturing capabilities. Over and above Protective
Equipment (PPE), further analysis is needed to protect our sovereign capability in our critical supply
chains.

Recommendation 6 – Workforce development plan. A whole of industry workforce development
plan that clarifies what work, what knowledge, what skills, to what extent, when and where they are
needed, is key.

Recommendation 7 – Leadership. Industrial transformation rests on the skill of industry leaders, and
policy must focus on building capability in strategic planning, innovation, commercialisation and
technology.

Recommendation 8 – Government procurement. The emphasis of new transparent procurement
policies should be placed on value for money for the economy as a whole over the life of the product,
as opposed to initial upfront costs. Large private sector projects need local procurement plans in the
conceptual and design phases, not those implemented after the event.

Recommendation 9 – Superannuation as investor in manufacturing. Superannuation funds
should be required to invest a tiny amount of their funds in commercialising manufacturing research,
and manufacturing business scale-up.

Recommendation 10 – Accelerated depreciation. Manufacturers need incentives such as
accelerated depreciation to encourage them to invest in retooling plants with the most advanced
technology.

Recommendation 11 – R&D intensity. The key to future manufacturing success is innovation. The
government should declare a goal of boosting R&D intensity in the economy to three per cent of GDP,
through increased R&D incentives.
https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/wp-c … VFinal.pdf

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-07-23 04:33:49)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
And how on earth are you going to be competitive in the manufacturing industry? It's been a global trend for a while now that simple manufacturing has been outsourced to cheaper locales like China, who can produce the same stuff for 10x less cost. That equation hasn't changed.

In the west the only manufacturing that still goes on is either production of very high quality stuff for the luxury market or further finishing and assembly of more complicated products that have their basic parts produced in China. Like cars and ships. Or it's in protected industries like defence and space. Then there's very niche 'handmade' stuff.

I'm all for a reserve manufacturing capacity for crucial equipment in case of disaster, like PPE. But barring fully automated production facilities there is no sustainable economic model in this industry in the west. It makes 0,0 sense to produce basic stuff here. It would be a sinkhole for government subsidies.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Yeah, you'd think an iphone should be about $10
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
As if apple is the only example here. Literally all their competitors manufacture in China as well and with thinner margins.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Margins are generally huge, the consumer is seeing next to no benefit from Chinese manufacturing, the sale price of most things is many multiples of the manufacturing cost, the profit is being taken from the middle and offshored.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
lol. apple aren’t paying tax but they’re not offshoring all their money, either.

you should really do some basic research before you start using a ‘bete noire case study’. apple is just about one of the worst examples you could choose. for the last few years they have been pouring HUGE amounts of money into developing their own processor architecture and tooling up to include them in ALL their products. like apple did with motorola in their late 90s telecoms relationship, they have through close working with intel through the 2010s now reached a point where they’re going alone with their own processor manufacturing.

it’s one of the biggest changes in the processor market in decades. now a phone, tablet, watch, and eventually laptop/desktop computer will all have the exact same processor architecture, seamlessly integrated with the same OS architecture across all devices. apple have poured an insane amount of R&D money in this.

the funniest thing is that apple silicon/ARM has kept a lot of designers and engineers very busy and in work for the last half a decade. literally the thing you’ve been advocating for. making an entry into a market like the chip world, cornered by intel and AMD, takes an insane amount of money.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Thats relatively recent though 'half a decade', they can't have been unaware the govt was starting to poke its nose into the finances.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
i was spitballing when i said half a decade. has probably been longer considering ARM chips have been in their phones for half a decade at least. they were mostly motivated to do it by the sluggishness and inflexibility of waiting on intel’s product cycles. nobody was happy buying a ‘refreshed’ macbook with the same intel core as the previous model.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857

Dilbert_X wrote:

Margins are generally huge, the consumer is seeing next to no benefit from Chinese manufacturing, the sale price of most things is many multiples of the manufacturing cost, the profit is being taken from the middle and offshored.
Margins are mostly huge for apple. Anyway you still run into this basic problem: manufacturing elsewhere is many times cheaper. Say you develop a great product manufactured entirely in the west - what's to stop market competition from taking its course and a competitor undercutting you? Either through total or partial off shored production.

Are you going to implement wild trade tariffs? Like Trump? Cause that's working out great. Or do you want an economy more like Brazil?

Second problem is workforce. Where are you going to find all the low skilled labour to man your production plants? You would need more immigration than you have today Dilbert.

Something tells me you haven't thought this through.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
labour landslide in new zealand.

amazing what actual competent leadership and a good message will do.

bucks the weird narrative that right-wing populism and pissed off gammons and rednecks are inevitable, too.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Justin T. lost the popular vote in Canada but left parties won the overall vote IIRC. Clinton had 3 million more votes than Trump too. Out political system is just stacked against mass democracy.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Pochsy
Artifice of Eternity
+702|5513|Toronto
Canada has 4 major parties, 1 consolidated party on the Right, and 3 loosely on the left (National Democrats, Bloc Quebecois, and the Liberal (JT's party)). What we have up here is a minority government led by the Liberals, but buttressed by the NDP. They lose the support of the NDP on any matter of confidence (such as passing budgets) and an election is immediately called. We don't have the same type of democracy as the States.
The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I know you guys have a parliamentary system. But your prime minister position just seems a lot more stable than the other parliamentary system Americans are familiar with in the U.K. So we assume there is a presidential system up there since you guys keep things undramatic.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Pochsy
Artifice of Eternity
+702|5513|Toronto
So this is somewhat self-aggrandizing given that I run in the circle, but I think a major part of it is our bureaucracies, across levels of government, have built a reputation as being completely impartial and interested only in the public good. We take direction, and implement it in the best possible way in all cases. It creates a significant amount of continuity and stability between governments, as they come and go.

I do not mean to insinuate that the egg heads run the show. We don't. We just make sure when the bad ideas come around, we implement them in a smarter than moronic way.

Last edited by Pochsy (2020-10-17 07:18:22)

The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
uziq
Member
+492|3422
that was the UK system up until about the last 3-4 years when populism came to town. we had a permanent 'mandarin' class in whitehall, the home office, the foreign office, the intelligence services, etc. a sort of long-view continuity and stability. now the executive is openly at war with the mandarins. and what they want to put in its place is, of course, much worse.

we've had about 4-5 major news scandals in the last year alone where supposedly genius-level scientific 'algorithms' mysteriously fail or produce terrible outcomes. amazing, isn't it.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-17 09:28:50)

Pochsy
Artifice of Eternity
+702|5513|Toronto
A similar thing is starting to happen in Canada re: populism and the deep mistrust of politicians and their support bureaucracies. In at least my case, the bureaucracy managed to convince the political staff in the ministers' offices that we're not playing our own game: we play their game, by their rules, but we max the score at any and all opportunities.

Our prairie provinces are in worse shape, however. The brand of populism there is close to what you'd see in Texas, cattle ranchers and all. I get them on national calls and can hear the pain in their voices. I feel it.

Last edited by Pochsy (2020-10-17 09:34:53)

The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
Over here, in general, a strong top-down push by political leadership is not appreciated and rarely happens. The 'mandarin' class for lack of a better word hasn't been affected like in other countries, then again we've not yet had a populist majority.

In my experience the worst thing a minister can do is make promises that were not discussed or agreed to, or ruin deals because he/she was ill prepared. If they have shit ideas their advisors usually insist on convincing them that it's not the right approach.

I've been lucky so far that the ministers I've worked with were intelligent people who understood their roles.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

we've had about 4-5 major news scandals in the last year alone where supposedly genius-level scientific 'algorithms' mysteriously fail or produce terrible outcomes. amazing, isn't it.
Thats the sort of thing which happens when people with nil knowledge or experience or training have a stab at delivering things they don't understand.

You know what would be the best pick for health minister? Someone who studied arts and law.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Jenny_Mikakos_2018.jpg/440px-Jenny_Mikakos_2018.jpg
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

we've had about 4-5 major news scandals in the last year alone where supposedly genius-level scientific 'algorithms' mysteriously fail or produce terrible outcomes. amazing, isn't it.
Thats the sort of thing which happens when people with nil knowledge or experience or training have a stab at delivering things they don't understand.

You know what would be the best pick for health minister? Someone who studied arts and law.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Jenny_Mikakos_2018.jpg/440px-Jenny_Mikakos_2018.jpg
you do realise that bojo and co delegate that stuff right? it’s not boris and dominic in a room together writing code.

it’s almost as if society can’t be run entirely by algorithms.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
In the same vein what good is a medical degree when you're running an organisation of 10,000+ people. Some contextual knowledge may help but you're not exactly in touch with the day to day of doctors and surgeons in that role.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Pretty hard to manage something you have no clue about, thats the problem.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
I'm all for experts with managerial/political acumen getting a cabinet position related to their field, but let's not overstate the importance of specific expertise. Look at the australian minister for home affairs & what he's responsible for, as an example:

Australian Federal Police
Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission
Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre
Office of Transport Security
Australian Border Force
Emergency Management Australia
Australian Institute of Criminology
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
I don't think a generic degree in law is going to help him understand all aspects of intelligence work / operations, criminal financial analysis, border security or crisis management is it Dilbert. Even if the person in charge spent a lifetime in the field, being at the helm of a government department will have you confronted with subjects you're not intimately familiar with every day.

In that position there will be thousands of people working for you who do happen to be experts in those fields. You might want to listen to them most of the time. Also, clearly, other skills are required if you're managing policy on so many various topics. It's not about being the expert. It's about general knowledge, argumentative skill, political sensitivity, analytical capacity etc.

Board footer

Privacy Policy - © 2024 Jeff Minard