Friday, August 01, 2014

Jericho making sense, again

Business leaders should stop whingeing about Australia’s competitiveness | Business | theguardian.com

Greg Jericho is in fine form having a go at big business and its complaints, particularly the odious way Gina Rinehart pines for low wages for her mines and funds climate change disbelief.

Speaking of miners, what's with the ridiculous excuse for a newspaper The Australian and its thorough tongue bathing of Andrew Forrest and his welfare ideas this week?   Sure, Forrest has a  reputation for being genuinely concerned about poverty (unlike Rinehart, who gives the impression she's been envious since childhood of Uncle Scrooge being able to actually swim in his money,) but even so, why has the paper been so busy promoting his welfare report?   And then, it seems today that Shanahan's job has become to explain to the public why the Abbott government won't adopt it.

It would be intriguing indeed to see the emails (or listen in to telephone calls) that go into and out of the head office of The Australian at the moment.  

Update:   I see that Andrew Bolt tries to be helpful [/sarc] today, by criticising Forrest for saying aborigines are "economically jailed" (an oversimplification, I would agree), but then goes on to say it's not the fault of white people - it's the entire dysfunctional aboriginal culture that's at fault.  (!)

Well, that'll earn him points in the aboriginal reconciliation stakes.   It's entirely their fault they're stuck in poverty and a cycle of drug dependence, hey?

And here I thought my take on the matter (that in large part it is to do with aboriginal communities being often stuck in areas with extremely limited opportunities to do anything of economic value, and a reluctance to have policies encouraging them to move to areas where their children may have a future job) was an oversimplication.



1 comment:

nottrampis said...

please note Greg shows labour productivity is right up there with any other nation.
this is what unions and a re-regulated IR system could influence. Capital productivity when examining total factor productivity is nowhere near as good. Bad Capitalists here!