We knew times were tough, but when you see an ad run on News Ltd’s (News Corps Australian arm) news.com.au that looks like this….
Notably I’ve never seen news.com.au with background ads before (both sidebars, a common thing on some celeb blogs), but to force an overlay like this. Either the money was brilliant, or times are tough. I’m betting on the latter
Thanks to Mo for the shot, I couldn’t create one with the elephant overlay on my MacPro.
The above chart comes from Key Automotive Statistics from the The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.
With GM likely to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy before Christmas with the bailout package failing to pass the US Senate, and Chrysler and Ford not far behind it, how long now for the Australian Car Industry?
It’s getting so bad that even Toyota is starting to make cuts, be it primarily at the top, although reports from the States also indicate some production lines are stopping due to a backlog of inventory as well.
No amount of money from Rudd is going to save the Australian car industry now.
Ironically it may be our best export earner and best local innovator who may be the first to go. According to stats, the bulk of our export market is to the Middle East, with the bulk of those sales coming from Holden.
Maybe they might hold on to Holden even in bankruptcy, but don’t count on it. The chart above shows 3 years of losses leading into this year; the product might be good, but a couple of billion in exports doesn’t counter growing loses that are bound to be far worse this year with Australia slowly sliding into a recession (and we’re only not in one due to farm output).
Ford is the best placed of the US car makers going forward financially, but they still lag behind GM (Holden) locally, so the Ford plant will be at risk.
Toyota is easiest to swap out, after all Toyota makes Camry’s the world over, and the Aurion is just a Camry with a V6 engine and some different body work, not exactly hard to replace with an overseas plant.
My prediction: at least one manufacturer will quit Australia in the next 6 months, possibly sooner. If we have any car industry left by 2010, it will be either by miracle, or so much Government subsidy that each car could be given away for free.
So the Governments latest shiny media promotion tool is an Australian Bill of Rights, starting with a “nationwide consultation on human rights.”
I’m not quite sure where I sit on it, at least until what’s going to be in it becomes clear. The Libs have come out hard against it naturally, and any over extension of the nanny state caused by a Bill of Rights is something that should concern most fair people.
However I might be for it if it included one magic ingredient sorely missing from the Australian Constitution (and presuming a Bill of Rights would be enrished by Constitution amendment you’d presume it would have similar standing). Free Speech.
Free speech that includes freedom of the press and freedom for any citizen to speak within reason.
Sadly though it would appear at least now that an Australian Bill of Rights would result in a chilling effect on free speech, with targets including “promotion of religious tolerance and fundamental human rights” sounding an awful lot like you can’t speak out against a religion for example.
Free speech IS a fundamental human right. The fact that the Government hasn’t mentioned it isn’t surprising given they’re trying to censor with internet and they arrest journalists for keeping sources secret. The nanny state has a fringe of big brother about it in 2008, lets hope that a Bill of Rights doesn’t make the situation worse.
You’d think it was the end of the world when you see things like this crap from The Oz
“Ads in newspapers suffered the biggest two-month fall in the 30-year history of the ANZ job ads survey.”
Of course the newspaper figures are always quoted first
Jobs ads in newspapers fell by 12 per cent to 11,767, following October’s 12.1 per cent fall, and declined by a yearly pace of 42.7 per cent.
And then the internet job stats follow
Internet advertisements, meanwhile, dropped by 8.4 per cent in November, to a near two-year low of 199,433, following October’s 5.5 per cent drop, and falling by an annual pace of 16.6 per cent.
Notice the meanwhile, because the internet job ads are an after thought.
But look at the hard figures: 11,767 newspaper job ads vs 199,433 internet job ads.
Memo to Australian journalists: no reasoned objective view of these figures could possibly maintain the primacy of newspaper job advertising rates in any report on job ads. Indeed, the newspaper job advertising marketplace in Australia is so low, there would be a reasoned argument that they shouldn’t be mentioned at all.
You wouldn’t mention a drop in the sales of Alfa Romeos as being representative of the whole car sales market, so why in 2008 are Australian newspapers still doing the same with job ads.
Fail with a dose of delusion on top.
So my old Mac keyboard died earlier this week, or to be more precise the TAB and CAPS LOCK keys stopped working, so it was time for a new keyboard.
I’d seen the new flat key Mac keyboards before, but after 25 years of typing I liked having raised keys. However I wasn’t impressed by the non-Apple keyboards at StreetWise (a great Apple reseller in Hawthorn) so I purchased one of the flat keyboards instead.
Not the wireless one, because bizarrely Apple did away with the numeric keypad on that, and I need a numeric keypad, 2 years at Bankers Trust in 94-95 where I spent a couple of hours a day data entering numbers into Excel means today I can enter numbers with 99% accuracy blindfolded using the numeric keypad. Hence I also rarely enter numbers using the numbers on the Qwerty side.
First let me say a couple of days in: best keyboard I’ve ever owned. The flat keys make typing easier. I’m not sure if it’s the angle, the need to press them less, what ever it is….but I’m typing more quickly and my fingers are taking less stress.
But there was a catch: the F9 and F11 keys weren’t working.
F11 is Expose and F9 clears the Windows off the screen. Combined they are two of my favorite features of a Mac, and I use both constantly.
Stranger still, unlike my Macbook Pro, the new keyboard doesn’t have a function key, so that wasn’t the trick.
Hit Google, and here’s the answer if you ever get caught: F11 is now F3, and F9 is Command+F3. There’s even a little Expose graphic drawn on F3.
So the US Government bailed out Citibank. Add them to the long line of bailed out companies. They’re still blueing over the auto industry, but the likely outcome is more taxpayer dollars spent.
I know I’m not alone in thinking this, but has the world gone crazy?
Since when were Governments in the business of propping up failed companies?
If my business goes bankrupt next year, will the Australian Government bail me out?
I like the line from Romney on the auto industry: Chapter 11 bankruptcy is there for a reason. Why not use it.
A note of the political side: this is socialism at its worst coming from mostly the right, not the left, Australia and the UK excepted (although the UK is probably center right).
Big companies get tax breaks when times are good, but when times are bad the same taxes they avoided paying are used to prop them up.
The heads of the three US automakers flew to talks on a bailout in their private jets. Say no more.
I understand and respect the need to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression, but the message this sends to every person in small business who does it tough is beyond disgusting.
We live in strange times.
…and the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home.
Memories of my youth: Take on Me: A-Ha
First it was illegal content blocked in a clean feed that must be offered by ISP’s (Beazley 2006), but on an opt in basis. Then it was illegal and “offensive” content on a mandatory clean feed that people could opt in to (ALP Policy 2007 Election), then out of (Minister Conroy late 2007). Then there was no opt out, and instead it was illegal and offensive content blocked for everyone, and anything not remotely kid friendly blocked as the second choice (Minister Conroy).
But just when you thought it couldn’t get any better:
“The pilot will specifically test filtering against the ACMA blacklist of prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content,” Senator Conroy told Parliament.
Yep, now it’s “unwanted” content as well. Feeling like a fascist totalitarian society already? I’d say China, but I’m not sure they’re always quite so bad and blatant, because they at least go through the pretence of making most of their filtered content illegal under local laws.
I’m guessing then that perhaps the Liberal Party might find themselves blocked, after all their criticism would be “unwanted” by the Government. Newspapers; press the button, not looking for you.
That might be a little extreme, but here’s the catch: The Government won’t disclose who gets on the list and under what grounds, so it really does smell like fascism.
This is a joke that just when you think its bad, it gets worse again. Surely there must be some Human Rights treaty Australia has signed up to that the Government has now breached, and a Pro Bono lawyer who is willing to take the good fight to the United Nations or similar?
(the quote is via News.com.au who we’re not linking to after they threatened us over some pictures we ran on The Inquisitr, and who despite numerous requests continue to lift stories and the odd pic themselves unattributed from The Inquisitr….actually, maybe news.com.au SHOULD be in the filter 😉 )
Duncan Riley on SiliconANGLE Chiang Mai One
