Thread: The end of the Australian Ford

Several studies have shown that tariffs cause reduced economic growth to the country imposing them but there is a place for tariffs and one of them is to stop dumping by foreign companies or governments.
I am also in favor to impose tariffs were the manufacturing practices are used by the exporting country are against our ethical values like cheap labour done by children or by workers under inhuman conditions.
Globalization without equal ethical and moral working conditions between countries does not do any justice to those countries were these working condition are served well.

I was in Germany in a taxi. It was my wife's model VW Passat that she paid $50k for in Australia. It cost 17k euros there (a few years ago now).

The post of this Chinese worker summarize what we have to do here to compete with them.


“Work harder than a donkey;
eat food worse than pig’s feed;
wake up earlier than a rooster;
finish work later than a prostitute;
behave like a good grandchild;
try to look better than anyone else;
age five years faster than anyone else”

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Explain to us how tarrifs will help do anything other than make cars more expensive in AU???? (Bearing in mind they are already more expensive than most other countries).

work out for your self ...

is pretty basic stuff..

Originally Posted by Chucaro

The post of this Chinese worker summarize what we have to do here to compete with them.


“Work harder than a donkey;
eat food worse than pig’s feed;
wake up earlier than a rooster;
finish work later than a prostitute;
behave like a good grandchild;
try to look better than anyone else;
age five years faster than anyone else”

Or you can work smarter, designing and selling products people around the world are willing to buy. I don't see any of the major European manufacturers building cars in European plants paying workers third world wages.

Originally Posted by OffTrack

Or you can work smarter, designing and selling products people around the world are willing to buy. I don't see any of the major European manufacturers building cars in European plants paying workers third world wages.

.......but, Germans subsidize their car industry to the tune of about $US95 per capita and the $US260 the Americans pay per head. Australia only $AUD18 per capita.
We work smarter for sure, how much money in grants per capita we give to Ralph Sarich and at the end Sarich ultimately transformed Oribtal into a billion-dollar company on the New York Stock Exchange. Orbital products are now utilised by one of China’s major auto firms.
Soon we are going to import Chinese cars with orbital engines developed with you and the rest of the Australians money.
If, and do not dream about it, help with grants the development of smart cars or any other revolutionary product you can bet that our creativity will end overseas for the benefit of another country or multinational corporation.
I said it again, until we do not have politicians with balls we are going to be robed of our intellectual and material assets.
Perhaps what Inc try to say is that tariffs should be applied to products from countries that do not "play a fair trade game" and I, a person agains globalization in the current from tend to agree with him.

so pray tell how many of you buy your indonesian import coke at coles for 1/3 the price of the aussie made equivalent? same product, shipped further.

Aussie wages are the killer here, nothing else. As for the german comparison, their auto industry is massively more automated than it is in oz - less people make more cars.

falcons and commodores are bloated dinosaurs of cars, younger drivers simply do not want them and the rest of the world has moved on to smaller, faster, more efficient cars or taller "suv's".

Already having a 110, my second car would never be anything bigger than a hot hatch that I can drive hard and still be in front of the economy figures for a falcon.

Originally Posted by incisor

work out for your self ...

is pretty basic stuff..

...

Well if it is basic you should be able to explain it??? There are several well written posts (e.g. by JD) which explain why tarrifs will not help.

To me it seems pretty simple and goes llike this:
AU government imposes import tarrifs on imported vehicles.
Imported vehicles go up in price.
Australians keep buying the same cars they are buying, just pay more for them.
Ford still decides to shut down manufacturing.

The US retaliates by increasing tarrifs on imported holdens.