Replying to LO30550 --
Terje,
I've been reading your comments about buying price etc. You might be
interested in something which is occurring in Australia.
We have three main political parties, one which roughly represents a
conservative sector, (Liberal Party), one which represents a sector
wanting change to a more equitable distribution of wealth (the Labour
Party), and one which represnts the rural industry sector (the National
Party).
In our prferential system the National Party usually directs its
preferences to the Liberal Party.
The other day the Federal Liberal minister for employment said that he
considered people in country areas should be prepared to accept lower
wages than their city cousins.
The Victorian Government has just brought in laws to control exploitation
of children on farms. The National Party is getting political mileage
from this.
If you go to our local supermarkets, the prices are very high for food
items. I suggest, high enough to pay farmers and their employees a
reasonable return.
Fact is though, the farmers are often paranoid about unions, and when they
do form a cooperative, even the leading members will sell below any agreed
price. These farmers are back in the 19th century when even tennant
farmers had decent returns. So Who's winning? I suggest that if our
rural industry needs the kids all working, to be viable, we've done
something really wrong.
Perhaps this 'free market' thing isn't so good.
What I think is that both the 'mark-up' on goods, and the ratio of profit
to wages bill of companies should be monitored and controlled.
Best Regards,
Alan Cotterell
--Alan Cotterell <acottere@bigpond.net.au>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.