Competing for a competitive advantage?

Tabled in Australian parliament recently this little  thing:

http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/Repository/Legis/Bills/Linked/02110502.pdf

This "little" 691 page bill being tabled at the moment is aimed squarely at keeping the Australian labour market competitive with international competition. A noble endeavour? or is it?

The Howard government is attempting to give unequal bargaining power to companies over the individual. This will have the effect of lowering labour costs in Australia and making us a more attractive option for foreign direct investment (FDI). This is in an attempt to mitigate the competitive advantage that countries such as China, India and Bangladesh lord over us in labour costs.

However the reason they have such an advantage is because of poor labour laws that eliminate collective bargaining and minimum wage requirements and a low cost of living that permits families to be sustained on mere dollars per day (though by the slimmest of margins).

So if we're indeed to become as competitive in the unskilled labour market as China and Bangladesh then we must not only eliminate much of that which levels the bargaining power of industry but also reduce the cost of living in Australia to match those of our competitors, right? So how do we do that? I don't really know but somehow we'd have to make inflation go backwards, any ideas? Some kind of recession on crack?

Alternatively we could switch the focus from us to our competitors. Why retard our legal and economic system for the sake of lower business operating costs when we could pressure foreign nations into establishing respectable private property and collective bargaining laws. This would increase their labour costs and standard of living to the same degree as ours (long run) making them equally as uncompetitive. Believe it or not, organisations such as amnesty international may in fact be YOUR economy's saviour.

But both of these options are ridiculously infeasable, the best way forward is the tried and true methodology of Adam Smith. Why are we trying to compete with China in unskilled labour costs? if Australia gets to that level of socio-economic depravity then you can kiss goodbye any relatives that are ready and able to leave the country. We need to search for competitive advantages that we can feasably undertake, or we'll end up having a grossly disparate class seperation like in America. Who's up for earning $4 an hour? Why aren't we finding ways of using a relatively educated population and vast tracts of land?

If these IR reforms go through I won't be the only 20-something, university educated english speaker looking for a decent country to immigrate to, hell what am I waiting around for? there are literally hundreds of skilled migration programmes that sell their souls for native english speakers. Bye!

Science fact?

Recently certain Christian scholars in the US have been pushing "equal time" for the intelligent design theory to be taught alongside evolution in schools. Unfortunately what catches on in America sooner or later is perpetuated here. Brendan Nelson (Australian Minister for Education) has been quoted as saying that he would think it fair to give people the right to choose what they want their children to be taught.

I have no problem with teaching your child different points of view, but first they must know what is factual and how one draws scientific facts. Otherwise we are giving parents the right to teach their children straight faced lies, a course of action with modestly psychopathic overtures.

The way one arrives at scientific conclusions is that firstly one makes observations of the natural world, these observations must be verifiable, measureable and repeatable. If an obsrevation does not fill any of those requirements then it can only lead to inconclusive and usually incorrect conclusions.

Based on these observations one makes hypothesis', which are predictions or theories about how these observations arose.

These observations are then tested in as many ways as possible in order for the hypothesis to either be refuted or for it to gain more widespread acceptance. When the hypothesis has been accepted by the majority of scientists it becomes accepted as scientific theory.

If the theory becomes so well accepted that it goes without interpretation or explanation (such as Newton's laws) it becomes a law of science.

At present schools teach scientific laws and theories. Quite simply we teach what we know, not what we don't know. Hypotheses are never taught in school because we don't know them to be true, they are still subject to the progress of science.

So let us analyse Intelligent Design and the progression it has taken into the scientific world.

The "scientists" who came up with intelligent design knew that they had no remotely reliable obervations and that any hypotheses would be mere speculation without them, so they bypassed science completely and went straight to public opinion.

They approached mainstream media with their "theory" (they have no right whatsoever to call it a theory) and started claiming to have evidence of it (no real evidence has EVER been produced to dispute evolution theory, if you think there has been then check http://www.talkorigins.org and challenge those pieces of "evidence", alternatively go to any public library and try to find books written by real scientists on whatever pieces of evidence the creationists have produced and learn for yourself the ways in which observations have been wrongly produced giving warped and illogical hypotheses).

The media though, panders to the interest of its viewers in the ultimate quest for ratings, and in a world where values have been taught predominantly through religion people are somewhat predisposed to believeing the unbelieveable.

Bypassing the scientific establishment may be a way for these psuedo-scientists to gain some kind of wide acceptance, however if they'd like this taught in schools they have another thing coming. They must first produce verifiable observations of the natural world which lead to in-context hypothesis (http://www.icr.org is by far the worst offender I've seen, the observations they produce are at best 19th century measurements with bad equipment (the dust on the moon crap they spew) or straight faced lies (the crap I read about Carbon 12 being produced from high temperatures and not radioactive decay)). These Hypotheses must be tested against repeated observations to become accepted by the scientific community. This process is exactly the same for every single scientific theory that ever hopes to be taught in schools and intelligent design should not be given unearnt credibility, this is not objective reasoning.

It is little wonder then that these unverifiable, unrepeatable and often unmeasurable observations lead to warped and often ineptly drawn hypotheses which would be laughed out of any secular university.

What is driving this though? Are these people just Christians who are all to willing to publish straight faced lies to back up their theistic beliefs or is there something or someone driving this change?

Maybe you should read the wedge document? It was leaked from the Discovery Institute after it tried to use it to raise fund for it's subsidiary which is now called the Centre for Science and Culture, at the time known as the Centre for the Renewal of Scoence and Culture (CRSC) who are trying to get ID taught in schools.

Joke's on you, suckers.....

You may have heard in Australian news that Kazaa, owned by Sharman Networks, has been found to be in breach of copyright in Australian law, and that free sharing will now have to be performed under license from artists and of course, no longer free.

Regardless of whether or not you like/dislike this ruling a quick analysis of it from the position of a record label will show that this is potentially a very dumb move.

Why is it a dumb thing to do? There are many record labels that can now potentially pursue lost revenues from Kazaa, many of which are public companies with shareholders to appease. Money appeases shareholders, so the logical action is to sue.

Kazaa obviously can't pay these people and will file for bankruptcy soon after the trials start, and exit stage left without paying out a cent. Then what of the downloading public? Where will they turn? It's a good thing for the record labels that the world wide web is localised entirely within the confines of Australian national borders where legal precedents like this one can prevent future transgressions... oh wait up a sec.

This ruling hurts record labels, artists and the public alike. Pushing Kazaa to bankruptcy, or even just tying it's hands a little, will lead to it's replacement outside of Australian borders, where it can't be regulated or taxed or controlled in any way shape or form.

Today was an opportunity for the record labels and Kazaa to make amends, and start negotiations for realistically low download charges, shorter life spans on copyright infringement actions, and capping downloads per user etc. If the labels don't recognise Kazaa as an opportunity instead of threat then they will bury themselves along with kazaa. Pressure will be put on Kazaa to place charge fees to all users, not just those using Australian service providers, prices will be pressured up and potential customers of Kazaa and of the labels collectively will turn elsewhere to recieve downloading for free.

Judging by the attitude of Music Industry Spokesman Mr. Michael Speck, the businessman of today (in the record labels at least) is not the entrepreneurial leader that he was some decades ago, the people smart enough to know how to capitalise on this will not be making the decisions, they will be the ones moving operations to Venezuela. I'm sure the left leaning Chavez can see the lighter side of Australia handing him the seeds of socialist sharing and caring, to be planted on computer screens accross the globe. If I were him I'd start laughing my arse off right now and send Sharman Networks an invitation.

Mr. Speck told the media that "it is a great day for artists, and it's a great day for anyone wanting to make a living from music", but Mr. Speck I ask you, what about tomorrow? Your boasting today incinuates that you're escaping earlier held fears about the case, and if you have been making decisions out of fear then it's a braver shareholder than I that invests in your firms or those that you represent.

I read something rather odd in today's (june 11th) Australian Financial Review.

The article, by Emma Connors (page 18 "pirate site draws terror response") that the internet site http://elitetorrents.org/, specialising in the piracy of multi-media such as films, has been raided by the American department of homeland security, or the "ministry of truth" as some like to portray it. Don't believe it, check their website which clearly states that it has been shut down jointly between the departments.

Why was it that an internet site peddling pirated multimedia was raided by, not only FBI agents, but also by homeland security? What could he possibly be doing to warrant action by a department set up to catch terrorists? The answer is nothing, the DHS has no jurisdiction here. The most probable reason for their involvement is the immense power their department has to shut things down and arrest people for no apparent reason, saying the word terrorist negates questioning on the matter.

The next logical question is why would they want to involve themselves in the dealing with petty criminals? The answer is that they wouldn't, they have much more important matters to spend their valuable resources on. Then why have they? The only logical explanation is that companies being hurt by these pirates have powerful friends in poerful places.

This is a frightening conclusion and it's one that I hope for America's sake isn't true. Corruption in government is a sign of political weakness and can only lead to social and economic instability, especially where the misallocation of public resources are concerned. How easy is it for a few companies to pay for governance to benefit them at the cost of some civil liberties such as privacy of information?

My final conclusion: I'm lucky not to be American

I have done something rather stupid again.

I stopped an sat upon my couch and watched a program that could loosely be labelled as news in the proletariat's eyes, and have now lost intellect for doing so.

This was a true "battler story", about how those "little Aussie battlers" weren't given a "fair go" by a government that is seeking a "band-aid solution".

Their story can be summarised as: There are white people in Australia that are unemployed. These people are unemployed because they haven't been educated enough to perform basic job functions. This is the government's fault for not hurling millions of dollars at the issue. There are now Phillipino workers "taking these people's jobs".

Firtly, these jobs do not belong to Australian workers, they belong to the Australian employers. They are the ones who decide who to hire and who not to hire, or am I living in the former Soviet Union?

The truth is: The Phillipino workers don't get paid any less than the Australians so the employers have no real economic insentive to employ anyone over anyone else. The Phillipino workers aren't any more highly trained (actually they are probably less educated) than the Australian workers. The Phillipino workers get employed because they work hard, the white Australians don't because they are lazy sacks of shit.

Why is this? It's the drive to work or the drive to be educated that makes the difference between the Anglo-Australians that inhabit the Elizabethan areas and the new immigrants.

Australians grow up around a basically free education system that no one values, no one values it because they have never had to live in a country without it. Because they don't value it they don't value education and don't persue it past the obligatory age of 15. Then having left School with the amazing ability to perform basic writing and arithmetic, they are left wondering why no employer other than fast food chains will give them a job.

By contrast the average Phillipino has no access to any education and has to use any method they can find to be able to learn to read. This creates drive. They recognise that the large amount of effort that they put in has large rewards, in the form of not starving to death. These people have more drive to put in a hard day's work for a hard day's pay.

That is the real reason that you don't have a job, it's because Australians are lazy. I sympathise with you I really do, I too have little income. But I declare that you are no "Aussie battler" and neither am I, if anyone here is an Aussie battler it's those Phillipino immigrants.

Mr. Boy

P.S. I'm not against welfare, I think we currently have a good amount of welfare. I just want people to stop whinging. Whinging too much may make the government make your life even more comfortable and make you more lazy, making it more difficult for Australian companies to be profitable. Wait until the companies move offshore then you'll really have something to whinge about