Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Carbon Tax is generating more heat than Global Warming

Posted to Letters To Editors, Monash Weekly on 13/9/2011
Carbon Tax is generating more heat than Global Warming

http://www.monashweekly.com.au/content/letterstotheeditor/

Contribution of carbon dioxide towards global warming is negligible. A degree or so increase is no comparison to 10 or 20 degrees Celsius difference in daily minimum and maximum temperatures. When somewhere in the world experiences drought, another part will receive the extra rainfall, which means while somewhere experiences higher temperature, another part of the world is colder or else the rain will not fall.

The reason why Australia is high on carbon dioxide production per capita is because of her small population. In any business, there are always fixed and variable costs involved. The same principle applies here that certain amount of carbon dioxide produced is fixed no matter how small the population is.

Compounding this is transmission of power over vast distances to generally very low population density cities and towns, unlike many smaller but higher population density European or Asian countries.

If coal power plants are closed, the brown coal will either laid buried in the ground in Australia, or dumped in the world market.
The latter option will be a total disaster for the future of our planet - assuming that coal power plants are evil. Developing countries will be buying the coal to power their generators, likely to be dirtier than our existing plants, creating more pollution than anyone can ever imagine.
Australia plays tough and acts as the good guy, but it actually is an accessory to the murder of planet Earth!

Coal power plants use a lot of Australian resources and labour - good for our own economy and employment. The resources are not overseas import and the labour cannot be outsourced overseas.

Starting from mining the brown coal to the final stage of burning it, involves a long chain of industries - transport, fuel, supply and maintenance of all related plant, equipment and vehicle, food and beverages, uniform, accommodation, etc.

It is undeniable that China is the factory of the world. Anything or component can be built in a country can be built in China at much lower cost.

China is going to release her new aircraft C919 at USD50m each in less than 5 years time to compete with Airbus A320 at USD93m and Boeing 737 at USD80m respectively, is a clear demonstration that any equipment and components used for renewable energy power plants will likely be manufactured in China at a fraction of the cost.

Loss of employment is disastrous and NOT renewable. Don't be a statistics!

Year after year, utilities and rates charges increase at a rate higher than the CPI (or loosely speaking the inflation rate), while the increase of the inflation rate itself remains relatively low. This only means that the imported goods are cheaper or getting cheaper, and that spells doom to our self-sufficiency and manufacturing industries.

For the past decade, Australia has been riding high on the primary and tertiary (service) industries. On the contrary, the secondary (manufacturing) industry is fixed on reverse gear. Business confidence and consumer confidence had been very high. Although Australia is a large island far away from the rest of the world, it is not isolated from them economically. It is time Australia has to face the music.

Australia has been blessed by the increasing demand of coal and iron ore in China, Korea, Japan, and India. However, the fortune of some these countries have changed and will change negatively as a result of the financial misfortune and financial mismanagement of other countries or natural disasters that have occurred within. The demand of minerals will decline because Australia's buyers are experiencing lower demand of their products.

Service or tertiary industries flourish during boom time, be it local, national or worldwide. This is evident in the downturn of Australia's tourism industry. On the local scene, retail and housing industries have slowed down dramatically, too.

In recent weeks, the world climatic conditions have gone topsy-turvy. Soaring heat waves hit many states in USA as well as large part of Europe. Scandinavian and Baltic countries experience many more warm sunny days than usual. China has unusual big floods that affect millions of people. To a smaller extent, Australia did not escape the destructive force of Mother Nature.

How can things just happen so suddenly? Is it due to global warming, extra-terrestrial influence or activities taking place under the surface and within the Earth? During the last few years, large earthquake, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions cause immense damages to many cities and affected neighbouring countries. There is no way in the world that these natural disasters are caused by global warming. On the contrary, these could be the cause of global warming!

Carbon tax is a nonsensical tax. Will Australians be taxed for polluting the planet by exhaling carbon dioxide every time they breathe out? Some Australians may be a few dollars better off the first year of carbon tax implementation, but the benefit will go sour in subsequent years because inflation will swallow up all the miserable handouts.

Few years ago, Target 155 was introduced by the former Victorian government to encourage people to save water during the drought. It was a very successful campaign. The success of the campaign lied not on taxing the Victorians; people used over 155 litres per person per day were not penalised, and yet majority of the Victorians wanted to save water. Saving water and energy should be a way of life, and NOT political or economic policies imposed by the Government.

If the government really want to flex her muscle, deadlines can be imposed on industries to clean up their act, invest in alternative power generation or their business registration / licence will not be renewed. Taxes on any industry will have a flow on effect on ordinary people. No business wants to be shut down!

By ignoring the poll is a sign of arrogance to the nth degree, self-centredness and disrespectful of the intelligence of the Australian public.
Will Julia Gillard continue to ignore what the rest of Australia is telling her that she is NOT on the right track?

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

China's economy about to overtake US

Posted to Monash Weekly (25/4/2011) on 26/4/2011 at 1:35 PM (Not published)
Resubmited Part 2 of 3 on 15/10/2011 9:23 PM
Commenting on “China's economy about to overtake US”

http://www.monashweekly.com.au/news/world/world/general/chinas-economy-about-to-overtake-us/2143313.aspx

Good on China. This is a great example for many countries to follow! Unfortunately, far too many countries adopt the NATO’s motto - Talk Only No Action!

With a population of 1.3 billion people to support and yet can win the economic race is definitely a modern day fairy tale. Australia has only 23 million people, but keeps whinging about the size of the population – this is just laughable!

While Australia still needs to resolve the NBN rollout, China has already built the highest rail track in the world linking Beijing to Tibet, the fastest bullet train, a modern international airport bigger than London’s Heathrow Airport, thousands of wind turbines, booming automotive industry building electric cars, rockets to send satellites and astronauts to outer space, and the most awesome one is that China is the factory of the world now!

End Part 1 of 3


Is there anything China cannot excel in? China is progressing at lightning speed – thanks to technology transfer, it is rather unstoppable. What is more concerning is that China will soon be the office of the world. With the unprecedented speed of technological advancement, a modern office is no longer an enclosed space with fixed locality - staff can be situated in other parts of the world, and documents filed and backed up in computer servers remote from the source.

Can you imagine the benefit of outsourcing office services to overseas companies? Just compare that with buying goods online from other countries – there is no GST if the value is under $1,000. Outsourcing office work saves on payroll tax, compulsory superannuation guaranteed contribution, office expenses, union interference, etc. What is going to happen to employment?

End Part 2 of 3


2009-2010 $19.1 billion international education industry has become the thing of the past. Australian government move to change the visa and permanent residency policies have led to a drastic decline in international students coming to study in Australia, causing a financial blackhole in our economy. This subject has not been raised openly and treated urgently by both political parties.

With economy of scale and determination, China can train more people in China per week than probably all the Australian learners / trainees trained in one year. It is just a matter of a decade or so, professional trainers in China will lose their accent, and international students from all over the world will be pursuing their qualifications in China. After being an educator / trainer in the industry for about 15 years, I can only say that future learners will probably get higher quality training in China than Australia, and at fraction of the cost.

After all that being said and written, are there no negatives about China especially the way she deals with human rights and social justice? I can only say it is a matter of opinion, and this is not relevant to the subject in discussion.

End Part 3 of 3

Friday, 21 January 2011

Future of Australian Graduates

Posted to Letters to the Editor, Monash Weekly 21/1/2011
Title: Future of Australian Graduates


Australia is truly blessed by abundance of minerals, and the vast land was terrific for large-scale farming. In addition to minerals, wheat, sheep, cattle and wool became the major exports and moneymaking items.

As an English speaking country, Australia benefited from the spin-off of the Industrial Revolution. Large factories were set up which absorbed almost anyone and everyone who wanted to work after the Second World War. As the national wealth grew, so did the standard of living. In fact, blue-collar workers were making more money than the white-collar workers.

Machineries introduced earlier required replacement and cost a great deal. Compounding the problem was the rise of industrialisation in Japan, followed by other Asian countries. Due to the cheaper labour cost, many countries began importing goods from these overseas instead of manufacturing them. One by one, our manufacturing business closed.

Primary industries and mining kept the country going. The service industry replaced the manufacturing, and then came the I.T. Revolution. Many I.T. gurus predicted that the computers would create employment and give us more leisure time. Computers help to create many new jobs on one hand, and take away many more blue-collars jobs, too. They also make us work day and night.

Since the global village has no boundaries, using a computer with multimedia capability and Internet connection, any Australian office can be located somewhere else in the world. Consequently, office jobs have been outsourced to overseas countries, for examples, call centres and I.T. jobs being outsourced to India.

To overcome the problems of conforming to the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) or legal requirement, entrepreneurs in Australia or overseas set up overseas companies, where labour cost is low. They employ ex-overseas students studying in the Australian TAFES or universities, or students trained by institutions which sent teachers / lecturers overseas on secondment or exchange program.

China - the factory of the world now; China - the office of the world, soon! I am truly concerned about the employment prospect of our Australian graduands!

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

China banning lobster import from Australia

Posted to Letters to the Editor, Monash Weekly on 1/12/2010
Title: China banning lobster import from Australia


Australia's economy is over dependent on China, the largest trading partner of Australia - China relies on our iron ore and coal.

Australia is holding a trump card at present, but probably until China owns enough mines in other offshore countries. The decline in students coming from China is a huge blow to our economy, but has been swept under the carpet.

Now, out of blue, Chinese are banning the lobsters. What's next?