"It is natural for us humans to be self-engrossed, all species are. But many of our contemporaries have become utterly self-obsessed and this has been reinforced by a contemporary psychology which focuses so much on the inner processes of the human. As the heirs of Freud and Jung, our culture is certainly a self-absorbed one. And this self-absorption has been deepened by a contemporary Christian theology which emphasises Christ as the primal image of God; it focuses on the human in Christ. This actually forgets or even ignores the Jewish and the Christian tradition that it is the natural world that is the primal image of God's presence."
—Paul Collins, Australian Catholic priest, environmentalist, and religious writer (Quote from the documentary God's Earth)
The problem
Too many people are taking the view that there is nothing free in life and you have to pay for practically everything; and it is okay to make high profits and be greedy when asking others to pay.
Trends supporting this view
The big banks
According to a paper published by the University of NSW in April 2002 on the Australian banking industry:
- Bank fees have increased significantly in the last 5 years, giving the bigger banks up to $2.5 billion in revenue per annum (and you wonder why banks can only afford cheap plastic pens stuck to tables by a piece of string to customers!).
- Interest earned on small business deposits and transaction accounts (and most consumer savings accounts) is virtually non-existent.
- Nearly one-third of bank branches have closed to consumers and small businesses since the mid-1990s.
- Approximately 90 per cent of the banking market for small business is dominated by the four big banks.
- Service satisfaction with banks has gone down and some banks have replaced the face-to-face contact with bank staff and managers with anonymous call centres (or just get on the internet to do your banking, or use an ATM).
UPDATE
22 October 2003
Another method for the major banks to maximise profit is not to advertise special bank loan deals to the average consumer as they would involve no application fees, annual credit card fees, account keeping fees, a lower interest rate than the one normally advertised and so on. These special bank deals are generally available to professionals taking out loans over A$250,000 (and only if they ask about them). For the average person on the street with a stable job looking for loans under $250,000, banks maximise their profits by initially advertising the loans to attract large numbers of people and once they are in are locked into a long-term contract of the banks choosing and terms of conditions, people will have to pay higher interest rates and fees.
These special loan deals are normally called "relationship banking" or "wealth packages".
UPDATE
25 October 2003
The days when fees and any costs incurred by the banks were taken out of the interest earned in your savings account and not the savings itself are long gone. Well almost. Now some new financial institutions have sprung up to compete directly against the big banks.
The only problem with these new financial institutions is the difficulty in attracting enough customers from the big banks because of a special loyalty program designed to give customers with accounts held in the big banks for a long time with slightly lower charges (not much though). Despite the loyalty programs, fees and charges are still too high among the big banks while the interest earned from a deposit account in the big banks is incredibly dismal.
This is where innovative new financial institutions such as ING Direct come into the picture. With lower overheads because there are no branches and everything is conducted over the Internet, the new financial institutions can provide interest rates in a term deposit of between 4.75 and 5.4 per cent per annum compared to around 0.01 per cent for the big banks.
Citibank has caught on to the idea with a new savings account that pays 5.0 per cent per annum and allows you two free anybank ATM and EFTPOS withdrawals per month. The only disadvantage is that the cost for every transaction exceeding the two free ones can cost a couple of dollars each.
If you want a transaction account, try HSBC. With more assets than the biggest Australian banks, this little known financial institution will pay 4.1 per cent and you get no account keeping fees and around 5 free anybank ATM withdrawals per month. You'll need a minimum of $2,000 in the account to truly benefit in a financial sense from this deal.
UPDATE
26 October 2003
The four main Australian banks have realised the importance of developing community trust and not just loyalty of account holders. There is talk of contributing more to the community beyond paying dividends to shareholders. Among the plans being suggested include helping the 1.5 million Australians living in poverty and the one million small businesses operating in the cash economy to become bank-ready by providing micro-loans and other micro-finance products in 2004. It is being described by some banks as building healthy Australian communities. A good start.
UPDATE
3 October 2004
It has only taken another 12 months but finally one Australian bank has decided to go against the trend by becoming the first bank to lower its fees. Remarkable really! The bank is called the State Colonial bank.
UPDATE
16 February 2005
Professional packages having no fees and lower interest rates plus other discounts designed initially for wealthy people have become more accessible to the average person. Now that more and more consumers are becoming aware of these formerly secret packages, banks are reducing the eligibility requirements. Now the loans can be as little as A$150,000. Ask for these packages from your local bank manager. There is big money to be saved if you are eligible.
UPDATE
29 September 2005
The big banks are losing too many depositors because of the very low interest earned in the accounts, the much higher charges depositors have to pay to the banks for the simple privilege of holding your money in a savings account (defeats the purpose of calling it a savings account if you can't save), and competition from overseas banks. Now the big banks are thinking perhaps too many bank closures in towns in the 1990s and too much emphasis on machines to handle all bank services is what's losing the customers (but continues to ignore the bank charges). Expect the banks to go the other way by (i) providing the human touch to banking compared to the high-interest earning no account keeping fee internet banks; and (ii) making their presence known and earn the trust of the public in fast growing regions (described as "seachange" places). It will take billions of dollars to get back the customers they have lost.
Also expect the return of the bank manager assisting people at the front line with their banking needs. As National Australia Bank executive Ahmed Fahour said:
"I remember not so long ago, whether it be my folks, when they were building a small business, that people could go to the bank manager for advice.
'Bank managers were real leaders in the community.
'For some period of time that has been missed." (Murray, Lisa. Bricks and mortals: The Sydney Morning Herald. 1-2 October 2005, p.37.)
Fahour will begin the task of establishing bank managers and more bank branches at the time this quote was made.
UPDATE
27 January 2006
In an attempt to attract new customers to the big banks, one big bank known as Westpac has upgraded its network. The move would see more efficient and quicker service from the bank. But guess who will foot the bill? That's right. It will be the existing customers. Despite its massive annual profits, Westpac intends to raise from A$1.50 to $2 the fees it charges to its six million customers to use a non-Westpac ATM so that its shareholders won't notice a drop in the price of their shares. It is thought this would have the least impact on Westpac customers (especially those who do use Westpac ATMs) and shareholders in the long run. As Westpac spokesman David Lording said:
"We continue to invest heavily in our own network and there are significant costs involved when customers use another organisation's ATM." (Turnbull, Jeff. ATM fees spark call from RBA action: The Canberra Times. 28 January 2006, p.3.)
Unfortunately no plans were revealed from Westpac to drop the fees after recouperating the costs. Unless the network is gold-plated and has diamonds attached to the computers of Westpac management, it is unlikely Westpac will reduce fees after say 12 months. To top it all off, Mr Lording said:
"We want to encourage our customers to use our ATMs." (Turnbull, Jeff. ATM fees spark call from RBA action: The Canberra Times. 28 January 2006, p.3.)
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of a bank willing to drop its fees any time in the future.
Not everyone was pleased with the decision. Consumers' Federation of Australia chairwoman Catherine Wolfhuizen has information convincing her the fees for withdrawing money from foreign ATMs should not go up. If anything, it should be going down. Ms Wolfhuizen said:
"We have argued that because we know the cost of processing foreign ATMs' transactions [is] much lower than what the banks are charging, the fees should be going down, not up.
'This should be a real signal to the Reserve Bank [of Australia] that they can't leave the reforms of ATM up to the banking industry." (Turnbull, Jeff. ATM fees spark call from RBA action: The Canberra Times. 28 January 2006, p.3.)
If this is true, then the only reason for raising fees on foreign transactions is because Westpac is recovering costs to pay for the rather expensive network upgrade. But without plans of a fee reduction in the near future, it is hard to imagine a big bank such as Westpac can justify the fee increase.
UPDATE
24 February 2006
Channel 7 current affairs program Today Tonight has mentioned some of the latest and sneaky ways the big banks will charge you for saving and accessing your money in a bank account:
(i) If you use another bank's ATM, not only will it cost you A$1.50 to $2.50 or more per transaction to withdraw money, but you will be slugged the same amount just to look at what's in your bank account.
(ii) You will get slugged a charge of A$2.50 or more per month to keep your account with the bank if the amount saved falls below a certain threshold determined by the bank. This is currently at A$2,000 for most banks. Fall below this value and any withdrawals will also be charged at A$2.00 per transaction.
(iii) If you use telephone banking and think it is free, think again. If at any time you need the assistance of a human operator to process your banking request over the phone, you will be quietly slugged A$2.50 by the bank. Do it again, and you will pay another A$2.50 until you figure out how to do it yourself.
UPDATE
1 April 2006
Not an April Fool's Joke. One of the big banks, namely the Commonwealth Bank, has abolished internet fees for online transactions exceeding three a month in the NetBank system. The $0.50 fee per transaction introduced in July 2006 had apparently confused and concerned customers enough to have it stopped according to Commonwealth's retail banking chief, Michael Cameron. As Mr Cameron said:
"We have moved to address their concern and simplify NetBank." (Irvine, Jessica. Bank scraps internet fees: The Sydney Morning Herald. 1-2 April 2006, p.7.)
UPDATE
24 February 2006
Still customers pay through the nose for bank charges as the big banks publish their huge profits for the year. As of November 2006, Westpac posted a A$3 billion profit for 2005-2006.
Ron Field of Bermagui in NSW couldn't help noticing the profits from Westpac. He said:
"Another bank has made a whopping profit and no doubt the chief executive will receive a nice bonus ("Westpac rakes in $3b profit", November 3).
'The workers who really made the profit will receive nothing and, of course, the customers will still have to pay high fees.
'Why doesn't the bank give something back to the customer?" (The Sydney Morning Herald: Nice work if... (Opinion & Letters). 4-5 November 2006, p.36.)
Unfortunately this isn't how a business is run these days especially when the bank executives have thousands of shareholders breathing down their necks for a share of the profits.
It is really the shareholders who are pushing the banks to produce high profits.
Speaking of shareholders, how many customers of the big banks have shares in the banks?
UPDATE
5 December 2006
Westpac is showing a positive side. Television advertisements are suggesting Westpac was awarded the most responsible bank in the world fifth year running. For example, Westpac claims it will only provide loans to businesses that don't cause harm to the environment.
A genuine change in attitude?
Or could it be that so many big banks are driven to make high profits through any irresponsible decision that it doesn't take much for one big bank to show some responsibility. Just mention an interest in the environment and you are already a winner.
We will see if this is true.
NOTE: Saving the planet requires all banks to follow the same principles as Westpac does.
UPDATE
26 July 2007
It seems the only television advertisements from the Australian big banks these days are from St George Bank. However, as St George emphasises on television about "being good with people, and with money" we find the bank is also "being bad with fees" by charging customers excessive fees for simple things like keeping their money below a certain threshold amount in a savings account, overdrawn accounts, or if the credit card has not been paid on time to name a few. So much so that Channel 7's current affairs program, Today Tonight, on this day has decided to inform viewers to send a legal letter to their bank if you think the fees are excessive.
UPDATE
13 January 2008
Banks are employing ways to keep their existing customers (especially those with a substantial loan) by raising fees for anyone trying to swap lenders. The Australian Federal (Rudd) Government is looking into ways to get banks to do the right thing by their customers and not just look at their own bottom line and their shareholders.
Alternatively, customers could consider joining an internet bank, such as the number 1 bank of this type known as BankWest. This bank has a TeleNet Saver account with the ability to earn at least 8 per cent interest on your savings. You won't see that kind of interest earning power from any of the major banks through any account.
UPDATE
12 May 2010
The law could be catching up with the profit-driven banks in terms of the amount of bank charges being taken out of people's account which is not a true reflection of the costs for the banks.
As a classic example of how banks are designed to run like a business by maximising profits for its shareholders, a growing number of individuals have noticed how the charges imposed on them by the banks for simple things like having an overdrawn account by a few dollars or not paying the credit card off on time are excessive. It isn't just paying on the agreed interest rate for money borrowed. Banks will take out additional fees with fancy names (in particular those demmed to be described as late or dishonour fees) claiming this is the cost to maintain your account while providing you with an alleged service. However a number of people are learning the true cost is actually in the cents, not AUD$45 or more as the banks would like to charge you on a regular basis.
As a result, a class action is being launched in Australia against 12 of the biggest local and foreign banks. If the class action succeeds, banks will be owing Australian bank customers amounts in the order of AUD$5 billion. This figure has been determined based on figures released by the Reserve Bank. As Bernard Murphy of Maurise Blackburn Lawyers, the law firm taking on the banks in one of Australia's biggest class actions, explained:
"It's a very substantial action because, for example, in 2008 alone the Reserve Bank state these exception fees totalled $1.2 billion. So there is an estimated claim value in the order of $5 billion." (Yahoo 7 Finance and ABC: Class action to chase banks for fees. 12 May 2010.)
Credit card companies
A similar high-profit mentality exists for the credit card companies issuing credit cards to Australian consumers. What is happening in Australia is that credit card companies are prepared to issue quite freely and easily credit cards to virtually anyone (even a 12 year old person can get one in some cases) without mentioning the true cost of borrowing the money (or may be hidden "in the fine print"). By not highlighting the costs in a clear and unmistakable fashion, the credit card companies can set an extraordinarily high interest rate (around 18 to 27 per cent), and ask Australian consumers to pay excessive annual fees. As Virgin Money managing director Rohan Gamble said:
"As a newcomer to the Australian credit card industry, we are shocked at the lack of transparency in credit card marketing.
'Credit card fees have skyrocketed over the last two years, yet too often we find fees and high ongoing interest rates either hidden in the fine print or not mentioned at all.
'It is difficult to compare products, and where charges are high [it is] too easy for some cardholders to build up unaffordable debt.
'We believe a national approach is required to bring greater accountability to card issuers, and would welcome the opportunity to present our proposal at a formal parliamentary inquiry." (1)
Virgin Money has confirmed Australia is lagging behind the international counterparts. The US and Britain already have legislation forcing credit card companies to fully disclose all costs to the consumers.
UPDATE
15 August 2004
Research by BIS Shrapnel, commissioned by Virgin Money, have found clear evidence of credit card issuers (e.g. Australian banks etc) increasing their interest margins and maintaining or increasing the interest rates for cardholders over the past eight years. While the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has reduced cash rates by 2.25 percentage points over the period and home loan interest rates had dropped to record low levels, the interest rate of credit cards has actually increased by 1.54 percentage points. As BIS Shrapnel pointed out:
"[Today's credit card interest rates are] around the same level or higher than in 2000 and 1996. But the RBA cash rate is lower today than at those times." (2)
As for interest margins, they have increased between 0.29 (e.g. St George Standard) and 3.79 per cent (Amex Rewards) over the same period. This is an extra A$240 million raked in by the card issuers from cardholders every year (especially from those consumers who don't pay the amount owing on their credit cards before the end of the month).
The research was carried out by surveying the interest rates and RBA cash rates at 30 June of each financial year and not when the RBA cash rates increased or decreased. No special introductory interest rates for credit cards were considered. BIS Shrapnel chose the standard interest rates after the honeymoon period.
A spokesman for National Australia Bank has tried to explain its own interest margin in a positive way by claiming it is stable for the last eight years and takes account of the possible cost to the bank through the risk of fraud and non-repayment of money borrowed, as well as the technology to run the infrastructure.
Yet Virgin Money somehow manages to provide credit cards at a much lower interest rate (typically 11.5 per cent) compared to the National Australia Bank or any of the other card issuers for the 10 major credit cards surveyed. Why is that so?
Mr Gamble is having a tough time trying to explain the rationale behind the interest rate figures for other credit cards unless profit is the sole reason for the high figures or are so inefficient:
"It's really hard to work out. I don't claim to have a good answer. I don't understand why in other markets the consumer is better off today than 10 years ago but in credit cards that's categorically not the case.
'The only two explanations I can come up with are: one, the incumbents are incredibly inefficient and have high costs so they are unable to cut costs to the consumer, or; two, that they have just decided that credit cards are an area where they will make excessive profits." (3)
Given how many of the major banks have gone to great lengths in recent years to save money by closing down hundreds of regional bank branches in the rural community (so why not credit cards as well), there is a general consensus that it has to be the latter situation: that card issuers are obsessed with huge profits.
At time of writing this update, the worse credit cards you can get with high interest rates and having the largest interest margin are ANZ Telstra Card and American Express respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, the better credit cards to have in Australia remain, naturally enough, Virgin Money and St George Starts Low Stays Low Mastercard (having the lowest interest rate of 10.99 per cent surveyed).
UPDATE
26 April 2005
Aussie Home Loans has entered the credit card market with Australia's lowest credit card interest rate of 9.99 per cent. Even better is the fact that this interest rate is a permanent rate, not an introductory thing!
UPDATE
29 May 2005
Virgin Money (Australia) Pty Ltd is offering an ongoing rate of 12.65 per cent per annum, and a six month introductory rate of 5.65 per cent per annum when you join, plus no annual fee...ever! Included is a 55 days interest-free period. At time of writing, it was described as Australia's cheapest credit card of 2005 as voted by the Money Magazine. But make sure your credit rating history looks good to get this card.
UPDATE
30 January 2006
Perth-based financial institution and owned by the British bank HBOS known as BankWest has issued the lowest ongoing credit card interest rate of 8.99 per cent, up to 55 days interest-free and a A$49 annual fee. While it is possible the interest rate could increase by the end of the year inline with other rate rises expected from the Reserve Bank of Australia, for now this has to be considered the lowest credit card interest rate available anywhere. Why the low interest rate? BankWest retail chief executive Chris Whitehead explained it as follows:
"Research shows us that Australians want a low rate credit card that really is low rate and without any catches.
'They want a card that meets their personal finance needs, without the unnecessary frills, programs and perks that are expensive and that the majority of Australians don't need or use." (The Canberra Times (Business section): BankWest ups ante in battle for lowest credit-card interest rate. 30 January 2006, p.12.)
The BankWest product is called Lite MasterCard.
The big banks are slowly catching on to the idea. Westpac presently offers an ongoing credit card interest rate of 10.75 per cent and ANZ has a low rate Mastercard at 11.75 per cent interest. But do check for annual fees and bank charges if you exceed the 55 day interest-free period or if you exceed the withdrawal limit on the cards. The Commonwealth Bank will soon offer its own low-rate card.
UPDATE
February 2008
The National Australia Bank (NAB), another of the big banks, has made a step towards improving its image to customers by abolishing bank fees associated with ATM use not owned by the NAB. However, a closer look at the fine print reveals a catch: you have to get a Gold member account at an annual fee of AUD$50.00 to benefit from this.
The commercial food manufacturers — profit ahead of children's health?
It has also been observed how a number of businesses are making billions of dollars in selling unhealthy, sugar-loaded, high-salt and excessively fatty foods to children.
Professor Paul Zimmet, director of the International Institute for Diabetes and head of the WHO collaborating centre for the Epidemiology of Diabetes in Australia, has warned governments and the general public in November 2002 of the increasing number of adult "type 2" diabetes appearing in children. Children who have this adult-type diabetes will face serious cardiovascular and renal complications as early as their 20s, Zimmet said. If the trend continues, Zimmet believes the problem will become a massive economic burden for Australia in the next ten years.
As Zimmet said:
"I predict that within 10 years there will be much more type 2 diabetes in children than type 1 diabetes.
'It's going to be a huge economic problem I don't think our Government is ready to face at the moment." (4)
While the trend has been directly linked to the explosion of obese children, Zimmet is careful not to blame any one business or individual for the obesity problem by saying it is probably a gene problem carried over from our ancestors when surviving the unpredictable extremes of feast and famine throughout evolution may have made it easier for some people to get fat compared to others and hence a higher probability of surviving.
Still, there are environmental factors to consider as well. We only have to visit school canteens and the way businesses market their food products to children using colourful packaging and injecting lots of sugar, salt and various types of fat to understand what we mean by this.
There is something about the combination of sugar and salt that helps to increase the attraction of the food to children. Must be to do with how tasty and sweet certain foods can be made with just these two substances. We see it in adults through foods such as salted caramel ice cream. Somehow adults can resist the flavour and sweetness on the taste buds. To further entice children to consume more, salt and sugar can make you thirsty more often and so you are more likely to buy more of the same types of food for that immediate and temporary satisfaction. A classic example is Coca Cola or Pepsi.
On the fat-front, certain types of fats can provide the right texture (e.g. creaminess or crunchiness) to foods to help increase the likelihood of the food being consumed by children. Extra fat also has a habit of increasing appetite, and that means eating more of the same fatty foods.
The other problem contributing to obesity in children is how junk food often speaks the language of profit to the schools. Because junk food tastes so good, is relatively cheap to buy, and saves time in preparing food for kids, the incentive is there for some schools to sell the stuff to children in huge quantities for the sake of raking in a few extra dollars. Even if schools are compelled by law to supply healthy foods for children (how will it be monitored?), the profit made from selling junk food is often too great to ignore for a number of poorly-funded schools, not to mention the businesses whose job it is to sell food. Excuses such as "children will eventually buy junk food outside the school" becomes the norm for some school principals and canteen supervisors.
This profit motivation is heightened when school canteens are run by private companies and/or poorly-funded schools searching for creative ways to raise extra revenue.
While it is true that every individual should have some responsibility to control their own food intake and to choose healthy foods (the current argument used by businesses such as MacDonalds to avoid a lawsuit from overweight individuals eating unhealthy, saturated fat-laden, high sugar and carbohydrate foods), children on the other hand are the most vulnerable of all because they do not have sufficient knowledge of healthy eating habits (more low glycimic foods and eat less quantities of all food), self-control (eating less sugary and fatty foods) and exercise (to burn off the excess glucose in the blood) to understand what they are doing. It, therefore, becomes imperative for parents, teachers, businesses (and ultimately governments) to do the right thing.
Unfortunately this is not the case as billions of dollars continue to drain from the pockets of parents and children to end up in the bank accounts of food manufacturers (and certain profit-motivated schools) while children continue to get more and more obese over time.
UPDATE
12 August 2003
While special laws are required in Australia to control advertising of junk food to children on television and in supermarkets, adults who are trying to apply the law of negligence to fast food giants such as MacDonald have had limited success. The tide of people insisting that corporations should look after other people is turning against them in the law courts to one of personal responsibility. As an adult, you must have the discipline to educate yourself on healthy foods and/or to choose the low-cost and healthy foods to eat. On the other hand, the corporations have not escaped entirely free from the law. McDonalds in the US has been asked to provide detailed nutritional information for consumers to make their choices easier.
UPDATE
18 March 2005
Some experts have suggested a possible solution to the junk food dilemma. How about putting an "unhealthy food" tax on junk food (the extra revenue from the tax could be used to improve people's health by making healthy foods cheaper and encouraging farmers and business food giants to grow and develop better foods). It is claimed that this would change behaviour for both consumers (so long as healthy food is cheaper than junk food) and food manufacturers (to encourage them to find healthier alternatives to their original unhealthy products).
The biggest problem we have without the junk food tax is how people on low incomes are essentially forced to choose unhealthy foods because it is cheap and convenient (as poor mums and dads with lots of kids have little time or skills to cook home meals). Walk into any supermarket in the late 20th and early 21st century and you will notice the minefield of so many sugar-laden, salt-encrusted, cooked in pure fat foods infused with preservatives and artificial colourings and flavourings. It is all about taste and good looks when selling food, but not necessarily about the nutritional quality. Taste should certainly remain important (no one wants to eat something that is untasty), but not at the sacrifice of good nutrition. Food is generally sold as if they are products to be mass-produced and sold as cheaply as possible so long as the taste is great and looks attractive, but not on the basis of good nutrition.
You have to look carefully for the healthy foods. Fortunately the fruit and vegetables are relatively easy to find. But anything else inside some form of packaging requires close scrutiny. Looking at the ingredients list often requires you to take out a magnifying glass to see what's on it. And when you do find the right foods, you wonder why they are few and far between and are so expensive. Not even ready-made salad packs in the vegetable section is cheap. Add a handful of lettuce leaves, through in a sachet of salad dressing and call it a "salad kit" and you can end up paying $6 for a small bowl of the stuff. Spend the same on junk food and you will have half a trolley full of food.
For people who earn lots of money, healthy foods dictate their buying choices. So don't be surprised if they spend for a family of four up to $900 per week. But people who don't have enough money, they are dictated by price. Unfortunately the low-cost foods happen to be the most unhealthy. So they spend at most $120 per week and seem like they have two shopping trolley full of food to last two weeks and later wonder why they are becoming overweight and unhealthy-looking.
The only way to stop this is to price healthy foods to be as cheap, if not cheaper, than unhealthy foods. Somehow we must offset the high price of healthy foods by taxing the unhealthy foods and directing the extra revenue to lowering the price of healthy foods.
Other experts aren't too sure saying more education is the answer. However other experts say the busy lifestyle of parents (and children) reduces the time to gain the right education.
Where parents do cry out for advice is how to get kids to eat healthy foods. Still not sure? Well, here's the essential advice:
1. Start early with the kids;
2. Don't give in to children's demands; and
3. Search for healthy food alternatives for children to enjoy at a price that won't break the bank balance.
For example, choose dried fruits (go on, give the little blighters a few prunes — they will love you for it) and nuts, or microwave a cored and skinned apple filled with sultanas in the middle and a dash of honey on top.
If all else fails, give the kids a financial reward for eating healthy foods. Is this a bribe? Not so if it is well-intentioned and improves eating behaviours.
Well, that's the basic advice. So what are parents waiting for?
Or do parents need a good kick up their oversized backsides by showing the damage junk food does to the body and how their children will live a shorter lifespan than their parents?
When a mother was asked would she stop buying junk food if the price increased due to a tax, she said no. But when she was asked would she stop buying junk food if she knew it was killing her children slowly and reducing their lifespan, she said "Yes!"
An interesting response.
Perhaps there is a lesson in this. Use shock tactics to get parents to see the reality of junk food by showing all the gory details of children becoming obese, getting diabetes and eventually die because of poor eating habits. If they don't listen and/or follow the advice given, showing the aftermath of bad habits should be enough.
UPDATE
May 2005
McDonalds and a few other competing fast food chains have begun to provide "alternative" foods. Described by the management teams of these chains as healthy foods, they include salads, vegetarian rolls, yoghurt with nuts and dried fruit to name a few. Only one problem: How do you get consumers to eat healthy foods? Simple. Throw in enough oily/creamy/fat sauces to increase appetite, and enough sugar (described as fat free) and salt to make the food taste great.
Mind you, it doesn't matter if it looks brown and smelly. Just add enough fatty sauces, sugar and salt, and perhaps fry it generously in oil, and anything will taste great (even to the point where people might call it "Deep Fried Chocolate!").
Recently, the Channel 7 current affairs program Today Tonight has found a number of advertised healthy foods have enough kilojoules (i.e. energy) and fat as in a typical Big Mac.
In the case of McDonalds, it isn't just switching over from trans fatty acids to healthier canola and sunflower oil blends. It is the amount of the oil which is important too.
Are the fast food giants serious at finding the best quality healthy foods having the least sugar, salt and fat possible?
Perhaps we are at the beginning of a new food revolution where fast food giants such as McDonalds are learning to find healthy alternatives. According to McDonald's newly-appointed Australian CEO Mr Peter Bush, his company is working with dieticians and GPs at the General Practitioner Conference and Exhibition 2005 in Sydney to find the healthiest foods to sell to consumers.
As Mr Bush said:
"We are engaging with the wider community. We have been at the dieticians and now we are engaging with the GPs." (Pollard, Ruth & Lee, Julian. Fast-food giant faces a grilling from GPs: The Sydney Morning Herald. 21-22 May 2005, p.11.)
Perhaps the fast food giants need more time to find the answers? Something suggests this is the case as Bush stated:
"While I am proud of the changes that we have made I believe we still have more to do, which is all part of this exciting journey we are on." (Case Study: McDonalds. http://ww.afrbiz.com.au/. 2009.)
UPDATE
22 July 2005
Some fast food giants want to take advantage of legal decisions going against overweight US citizens including a young boy who claimed the fast food giants were contributing to his obesity. Instead, some judges are coming down on the side of the fast food giants claiming it is the sole responsibility of the consumer for choosing to be fat. Ignoring the effects of highly effective advertising (especially on young minds), limited incomes and the poor education of many of its average citizens in the US, it would appear some judges are erring on the belief that people are sufficiently intelligent to make their own decisions.
Sounds like a good excuse for R-wing governments to get rid of schools in the US. Come to think of it, why does America need any protection for its citizens for things like tobacco and harmful drugs if people can make their own decisions?
The same could be said of the addictive caffeine in sugar-loaded Cola drinks. Should we add the alcopops to the list as well?
Might as well let the children decide what's healthy.
One fast food chain in the US known as Burger King has chosen to go in the opposite direction to McDonalds. The Enormous Omelete Sandwich from Burger King consists of a lavish serving of melted American-made trans fat and salty cheese, at least three strips of bacon, and two eggs all inside a large specialty bun appears to be the order of the day at Burger King. It makes the standard McMuffin and egg from McDonalds look like a snack compared to Burger King's monstrosity.
UPDATE
22 April 2006
As the Australian Federal Government targets children's alleged sedentary lifestyles as the fundamental cause for the obesity crisis with advertisements encouraging children to exercise more, a groundbreaking study of 5,407 students from 90 public schools across NSW has revealed conclusive evidence it is excessive eating, not exercise, of the wrong foods (i.e. junk food) which is the culprit.
Commissioned by the State Government to analyse the full extent of the childhood obsesity problem, the study comes as the Federal Government steadfastly refuses to restrict food advertising aimed at children, especially during children's time on television. As federal Health Minister Tony Abbott said:
"What we really need is more responsible dietary behaviour from parents, from individuals and school canteens. I won't...be demanding that they ban ads." (Robotham, Julie and Lee, Julian. Shocking truth of childhood obesity: The Sydney Morning Herald. 22-23 April 2006, p.1.)
The "urban myth" of lack of exercise as the fundamental cause for obesity was exploded when the study found children aged 4 to 16 years were exercising harder now than in the 1990s (more than 80 per cent in years 6 to 8 were adequately well exercised), yet their weights were still increasing. The statistics show 23 per cent of girls and 26 per cent of boys were overweight or obese in 2004, 21 per cent of girls and 19 per cent of boys in 1997, and 12 per cent of girls and 11 per cent of boys in 1985. Unless there is a widespread genetic problem, the study left with no doubt that over-eating is the only explanation for the obesity problem.
The man who conducted the important statewide study, Dr Michael Booth of the University of Sydney, said:
"In 2004 the picture started to change. [The obesity problem] appears to be accelerating in boys and slowing in girls." (Robotham, Julie. Overweight boys at greater risk than girls: The Sydney Morning Herald. 22-23 April 2006, p.8.)
The study has also analysed the blood chemistry of 500 supposedly healthy-looking Year 10 children for insulin concentrations, liver enzymes and cholesterol levels. Dr Booth found almost 20 per cent of both sexes in this age group showed high levels of insulin, indicating a high risk of developing diabetes. And around 42 per cent of boys with higher cholesterol levels in the blood than normal (described as medically obese) contained the liver enzyme aspartate aminotransferase, a chemical indicating fatty liver disease. In the worse cases, fatty liver disease could progress into cirrhosis or liver failure.
One of the recommendations by Dr Booth involve banning fast food giants selling high calorie and little nutritional value foods to sponsor junior sports claiming young minds are susceptible and will associate healthy living with eating junk foods. Soft drinks are a major concern. It is thought the high sugar content in soft drinks is contributing to a major extent to the childhood obesity crisis.
Medical reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, Julie Robotham, described the situation succinctly with the words, "Wedded to drinks, kids cop it sweet".
Yet as Collin Segelov, executive director of the Australian Association of National Advertisers, commented:
"[Sport sponsorship was] not going to make anybody fat. If someone pulls the plug, then the sport could disappear. They are the ones that approach us, not the other way round." (Robotham, Julie and Lee, Julian. Shocking truth of childhood obesity: The Sydney Morning Herald. 22-23 April 2006, p.1.)
We must assume he has a particular long list of evidence backing up his claim that images of junk food or an association of junk food with the branding name will not conjure up images in the children's head of sugary foods and drinks, fat-laden chips, and a double serving of fried chicken and so on during a sporting match. How many microns long would the list be?
Dr Booth also believes there should be a restriction in the number of ads during children's television time which show images of junk food.
Not on your fat nelly according to a number of food manufacturers and big brand fast food giants such as KFC and Burger King. Reducing advertisements would mean lower profits, and that would cost jobs. It would explain why the Federal Government is not particularly keen about the idea of restricting ads while at the same time are short-sighted enough not to see the cost to the public health system.
How about advertising healthy foods instead?
Haven't the food giants done enough research and development to determine the healthiest foods on the planet having the most nutrition as well as good tastes and at a good price? It is not a question of not advertising food on television for children. Businesses are not banned from making a profit. It is really a question of showing responsibility for the young members of society. The food giants are almost as bad as the oil companies who haven't done very much work towards finding alternative energy sources as evidence of their responsibility to look after the environment. They are the modern day equivalent of the dinosaurs that aren't taking responsibility for their actions and failing to adapt to the concerns around them.
Adults may have slightly more control and responsibility to decide what they eat and drink. But children need more help. And given the long hours adults have to work to support their children and mortgages, the last thing they need are businesses substituting the parenting workload with images of junk food to tempt young tastebuds and their money (which eventually comes out of the wallets of parents).
Businesses should act like responsible parents themselves. Would the managers of say MacDonalds constantly encourage their own children to eat their junk food? We doubt it. If not, why should everyone else put up with the same things everyday?
If there are no healthy foods to advertise (i.e. businesses can't be creative in finding healthier foods), it is far better for the health system and the future of all children not to show the ads at all. It is very simple.
Come to think of it, it might end up being better for the adults as well not to see these ads if businesses can't take social responsibility as well as the consumer. A poignant point was made by Hugh Thomas of Reid, Canberra, about the role parents play in setting an example to their kids, especially if the parents are obese:
"Seems the focus of interest in obesity has shifted almost entirely to kids [or businesses]. We're now hearing recommendations that kiddy-time ads for fast food and sweets be banned, and school food rendered "healthy" and so on. But the big reason kids are fat has hardly anything to do with Maccas ads and tuckshops. Even video games may be a symptom rather than a cause.
'This isn't just an epidemic of obese children we're experiencing. It's an epidemic of obese people. The number of fat adults and kids is increasing at similar rates.
'So kids are fat mostly because their fat parents encourage them to do what they do: eat way too much food, drink lots of sugary drinks and exercise way too little.
'Anyway, busy mums don't want their darlings biking to the park or pool because they know a paedophile will get them." (The Canberra Times: Fat parents at fault (Letters to the Editor). 6 May 2006, p.B6.)
UPDATE
27 July 2006
As Australian Federal (Howard) Government ministers call for the banning of books that "praise" terrorism, not one of them were prepared to ban junk food advertisements during waking hours for the children. You can try stopping would-be terrorists, but heaven forbid if you try to stop big businesses from selling junk food to the masses. Have these politicians lost the plot in policy-making?
UPDATE
10 February 2007
There was a push by the NSW Government in 2006 to impose stricter controls on junk food advertising to children during a meeting of federal and state health ministers in Brisbane. However, the Commonwealth rejected the idea as if the Howard Government was more swayed by the following reasons for obesity as suggested by the Australian Association of National Advertisers at the meeting:
- Fat parents passing their fat genes to their children.
- Industrial chemicals affecting human metabolism.
- Reduced tobacco consumption.
- Sedentary lifestyles caused by air conditioners increasing people's appetites.
The reasons conveniently covered the economic arguments of the Commonwealth under Mr John Howard. The Howard Government is erring on the side of self responsibility for the obesity epidemic and not any form of responsibility by businesses.
UPDATE
14 September 2007
In an independent review commissioned by The Cancer Coucil Australia, researchers have accused eight of the nation's largest food companies — Coca-Cola, Cadbury, Natural Confectionery Company, Kraft, Nestle, McDonald, Kellogs and Uncle Toby — on failing to deliver on their promise of showing responsible marketing to children (and teenagers) by controlling the advertising of junk food designed to target this age group. Instead, the food companies are still actively promoting unhealthy foods to children just as they pledge to do something about it.
The report concluded how governments should regulate junk food marketing to children as the only effective way of controlling the surge in obesity-related cancers.
As Terry Slevin, chairman of the Council's nutrition and physical activity committee, said:
"Use of online games, quizzes, competitions, cartoon characters, print advertising, premium prizes, toys and other marketing trickery makes promotion of unhealthy food a complex web that often goes undetected by parents who are doing their best to encourage healthy eating.
'And where advertising is apparently targeted at parents, the emphasis is often on an association with health and fitness, even though in most cases the products are high in sugar, saturated fats and salt." (http://au.news.yahoo.com/070913/2/14f58.html)
Colin Segelov, executive director of the Australian Association of National Advertisers, rejects the idea of "trickery". He counters this claim by saying advertising had a less than two per cent chance of influencing obesity in children. He calls on the Cancer Council to focus on the remaining 98 per cent or so "of other influences contributing to the obesity issue" (http://au.news.yahoo.com/070913/2/14f58.html).
Segelov also believes "...[the] advertising and marketing communication [is] appropriate to a democratic, free-enterprise society."
Well, not so if advertising turns out to be contributing to the billions of dollars it is costing society through the health system in fixing up people's health due to poor eating habits thanks to the slick art of persuasion marketing shown by food manufacturers. In which case every issue believed to be influencing the obesity epidemic will have to be tackled including junk food advertising.
UPDATE
April 2009
Leaving aside the selling of frozen crushed Coca-Cola as a dessert, McDonald is selling a slightly more reasonable range of healthier foods to consumers. Now the next biggest problem remains: the supermarkets and the food manufacturers wanting to sell unhealthy foods to consumers.
Profits still remain the overriding force controlling these manufacturers and supermarkets in the battle to give humans healthy foods.
The chemical cocktails found in commercial foods
By August 2003, a number of big food manufacturers (notably Kraft, Heinz and Masterfoods) are substituting real food ingredients with a chemical cocktail of similar tasting substances (from baby food to everything else we may eat from them). For example, a jar of guacamole dip made of the primary ingredients avocadoes and sour cream may contain less than 1 per cent avocado and the rest is filled with water and thickeners, salt, green food colouring and additional chemical flavourings. The purpose for this is to make the products last longer on the marketshelf and to reduce the business cost of producing the real organic and natural foods needed to create a quality product while still selling them at the same high price.
The Channel 7 current affairs program Today Tonight received secret and confidential documents from whistleblowers working in the food industry showing that a number of food manufacturers are adding artificial flavourings as replacement of real foods. The documents were available as of 17 May 2004.
To know whether artificial flavours are being added to foods, look at the label. If it says "flavourings" or "identical flavours", you can be sure it will have chemical replacements to the real foods.
UPDATE
1 March 2004
A further indication of how big food manufacturers (e.g. Coca Cola-Amatil) are quietly maximising profit by minimising the cost of making a product through various tricks is the amount of food going into cans these days. It is generally considered acceptable to have more food than water in a can. The percentage is usually well over 65 per cent for the food product with the rest composed of water. But more and more companies are using less and less food in cans. In some cases as little as 53 per cent is food and the rest is water while continuing to sell the can at the same high price as the competitors' better quality products.
Meat substitutions
As of 23 March 2004, the same tactic of substituting quality products with inferior or cheaper products is being used in the meat and livestock industry. One example of this is the production of so-called chicken nuggets. When the food packaging says chicken nuggets, you should not expect to find real chicken meat. Instead, expect to find fillers (water and flour), salt, chicken powder/flavouring and possibly some chicken skin and fat. Unless the packaging says chicken breast nuggets (the word "breast" makes a difference) in which case real chicken breast meat must be used, food manufacturers can reduce costs and maximise profit by selling chicken substitutes in their food products.
UPDATE
26 July 2004
The Channel 7 current affairs program Today Tonight has conducted DNA testing on selected diced ham products. While most consumers would believe the term "ham" implies smoked pork meat, the truth is, diced ham products will contain substituted meats. The primary meat of choice for substitution is mutton.
This is particularly true of cheaper ham products.
UPDATE
26 July 2004
Whether it is a coincidence or not, but it would seem an Australian abbatoir named Burrangong Meat Processors at Young, NSW, had to lay-off 65 workers in the mutton processing section because of the drought and "difficult market conditions". As managing director Grant Edmonds said:
"The suspension of mutton processing operations is a temporary measure only and has been forced on us by the effects of the prolonged drought on livestock availability and difficult market conditions.
'Our decision should not be read as a signal of any intention to permanently shut down our mutton floor.
'We deeply regret the effects of those employees directly affected, but can confirm that pork and beef processing, as well as other activities at the plant, will continue as usual." (5)
Luckily the business had diversified sufficiently to maintain profitability in its operations by processing other types of meats. The question that comes to mind is why couldn't the business restructure itself so that all the original staff could be employed in different areas?
Or the truth might be that the drought in Australia is hitting the business hardest and not so much because consumers have decided to move away from cheap ham products.
The drought has an unsavoury habit of reducing the numbers of animals for processing which in turn reduces the output of a business and the amount of profit it can make and ultimately the number of employees the business can employ.
UPDATE
19 March 2005
McDonalds is paving a positive path through the plethora of fast foods sold to the Australian people by being the first fast-food outlet in Australia to provide nutritional information on all its food products. Combined with a new range of healthy alternatives to the standard Big Mac and we can say the company is doing its bit to change Australian diets for the better.
Come to think of it, we may have no choice in the matter. New research published in the New England Journal of Medicine predicts life expectancy for the generation of adults and children living today will, for the first time in 1,000 years, decline as a result of the obesity epidemic.
On hearing this research, Australian managing director for McDonalds Guy Russo is urging governments and the food industry to lift up its game and provide clear labelling of all foods. Russo is particularly interested in seeing nutritional information regarding the levels of fat, sugar and sodium so consumers can make informed decisions about what they are purchasing.
As Russo said: 'I wouldn't mind [governments] legislating [for mandatory labelling]..." (Houston, Ben. McDonald's wants all fast foods labelled: The Canberra Times. 19 March 2005, p.12.)
Will it be enough to get people to change their eating habits? Probably not. Despite the voluntary labelling of food products, McDonalds managing director admitted he was selling more of its traditional products than ever before. This may explain why other fast-food outlets have not followed McDonald's lead. With this in mind, Russo is cautious to remind people of the importance of eating a well-balanced diet:
"McDonald's food can be part of a well-balanced diet. It's got to be eaten in moderation and you need to exercise, but I would say that about just about any food that anyone eats." (Houston, Ben. McDonald's wants all fast foods labelled: The Canberra Times. 19 March 2005, p.12.)
Perhaps what society needs is some shock tactics showing the consequences of eating poor foods and how it is affecting their bodies and society with a realisation that the current generation of children are becoming too fat and may not see beyond their fortieth birthday as the obesity problem causes strokes and heart diseases in plague proportions within society.
If we keep this up, the terrorists in other nations won't have to lift a finger to stop Westerners. We are already doing the work of killing ourselves through the fast foods we eat!
UPDATE
December 2005
A growing number of Australian schools will follow new education policy to be implemented next year where all foods sold in canteens must be healthy. Now if only the schools desperate for money can follow this policy and not be lured into selling unhealthy food to make a buck.
UPDATE
March 2007
McDonald's develops and sells 9 meals considered by the Heart Foundation as healthy (i.e. given the red tick of approval). A great move from the fast food giant. Now fast food doesn't have to be unhealthy.
Will the competitors follow?
Ethanol in the petrol industry
Then we have the rather scandalous case of ethanol being quietly added to petrol in large quantities to reduce costs so as to maximise profit without informing the consumers of the situation.
You see, ethanol — a flammable alcohol — is a relatively cheap product to produce for businesses. Petrol isn't. So naturally businesses will try to mix ethanol with petrol to create a cheaper product for consumers to buy at the same price as pure petrol.
Now it may be okay to have a certain amount of ethanol (no more than 10 per cent and preferably less) in the petrol if it will help to reduce the cost to the consumer and not just the businesses involved. And more importantly, the engines of cars (or humble lawn mower, brushcutters etc.) can run on this ethanol/petrol mixture without damage. However, the problem begins when businesses choose to add too much ethanol into petrol (up to 28 per cent in some cases) without informing the consumers at the point of sale, or even explaining the consequences of using this heavily tainted product over a long period of time to the lifespan of the consumers' motor vehicle engines.
Why do businesses do it? It saves them money which, in the end, means bigger profits. It is plain and simple. So long as the consumer is unaware of the situation, businesses can still charge at the same full price if the product is made entirely of pure petrol.
Add to this the fact that a car with more ethanol in the petrol requires the owner to refill the petrol tank more often and we can quickly see how businesses make a profit. This is because ethanol has a slightly lower boiling point than petrol and so gets used up more quickly in the high-temperature engine without giving back enough energy to run the engine properly. Thus petrol station owners and petrol companies will make more of a profit as car owners have to regularly refill the tank with more petrol. Yes, very clever indeed!
Did you also know service stations do happen to have a car repair service as well? Of course, you might be wondering, "How would the service station owners get enough customers through the repair shop?" Simple. By putting in more ethanol into the petrol, certain components in the car engine can corrode more quickly. When customers realise something is wrong with their car, they have to bring it into a local service station where they will be required to pay thousands of dollars to replace the corroded components, or in the worse case scenario put in a new engine. The businesses then reap the benefits of the sale with yet higher profits.
NOTE: And if for any reason this doesn't work, there is always the secret cartel approach of colluding with other petrol station owners and oil companies to fix prices. Just so long as nobody finds out. Evidence for this approach can be found in what is believed to be the first in a series of landmark decisions by the Federal Court in Australia. On 17 March 2005, the Federal Court has fined a cartel of eight petrol distribution companies and eight individuals representing them for almost A$24 million for fixing fuel prices in the city of Ballarat. It came after Trevor Oliver, owner of an independent two-bowser service station and garage shop revealed details through an ABC radio talkback program about his suppliers efforts to dictate prices by telling him to raise petrol prices to the same amount as everyone else in the area. This immediately sparked a detailed investigation by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) leading to the landmark prosecution. (The Canberra Times: Whistleblower hails petrol ruling. 19 March 2005, p.14.)
So how have businesses explained the situation with adding more ethanol than is acceptable or safe for motor vehicles? Some companies have attempted to show the positive aspects of ethanol such as how environmentally-friendly the substance is compared to petrol and so hopefully get people to accept the additive. But at the end of the day, standard car engines are not manufactured to handle high levels of ethanol properly. Also ethanol is not considered the most environmentally-friendly product for burning.
UPDATE
11 April 2003
Realising the possibility of a consumer backlash over the ethanol-in-petrol scandal which could affect the A$13 billion tax revenue every year from petrol sales, the Australian Federal (Howard) Government has moved to set a 10 per cent cap on ethanol in petrol and changed the Fuel Quality Standards Act 2000 to ensure labelling of ethanol blends is mandatory at all petrol stations. Well done! Although it won't solve the general business attitude in making high profits, it will at least ensure people continue to maintain the economy by going to work in their now better-protected cars without undue influence to have them repaired and refilled regularly.
The first scientific report on ethanol in petrol was commissioned by the Federal Government and has found 10 per cent or less ethanol blends is considered reasonably safe.
UPDATE
September 2003
Keeping true to their word in showing their profit mentality, the Federal Government's ethanol task force consisting of government officials and the FCAI (the representative for the major vehicle manufacturers and importers including oil companies, service station operators, producers and distributors of ethanol, and motoring organisations) are considering introducing an allegedly brand new hi-tech fuel for the benefit of the Australian community (it has been around for some time, except consumers weren't aware of it!) with up to 10 per cent ethanol content (E10). The secret aim is allegedly to entice those many Australian people with car makes and models older than 1992 to purchase new cars capable of handling the ethanol blend once vehicle manufacturers introduce the latest cars with the warranty to work with the new fuel.
The trick it seems would be to introduce quietly and innocently into the Australian community a list of current model vehicles considered suitable for using E10 fuel developed by the ethanol taskforce, but, of course, without the warranty to support the suitable car models and makes from vehicle manufacturers. In that way, owners of older car models would be enticed to purchase a slightly newer car or pay for the repairs. Once the E10 fuel is fully accepted by the motoring public resulting in an equilibrium in the taxes received by the Government and profit earned by the business community, the vehicle manufacturers will introduce brand new "fuel flexible" cars into the marketplace having the warranty to accept the E10 fuel instead of doing it immediately. Only thing is, before this happens, consumers must spend more money in buying the latest cars before the businesses can introduce the new engine technology.
So after the Australian public learnt how businesspeople tried to rip them off over many years by selling high ethanol fuel blends beyond the 10 per cent range without notifying the public, the Australian Government realised the taxes it was receiving from selling fuel was going to be affected. Hence the decision to cap ethanol to 10 per cent. Then the Government and business representatives in the industry got together to find ways to get the motoring public to accept the blended fuel while at the same time give the business representatives an opportunity to make more money by selling more existing cars able to run the new fuel without warranty, and later new cars in the future with the warranty to run the new fuel. If there is a chance to make a buck from the gullible public, you can be sure the Federal Government and businesspeople will be there to join the party!
This latest information has been gleaned from selected documents allegedly leaked by an unnamed source within the taskforce.
UPDATE
20 September 2003
Mr Bob Gordon, executive director of Australian Biofuels Association in Kingston, ACT, claims the documents were not "secret" and there was no mention on the number of cars that would not operate on the E10 fuel. Furthermore, Gordon claims a growing list of countries including New Zealand, US, Brazil, Japan, China, India and Thailand have embraced ethanol use in standard petrol a week before the Australian Federal Government established the ethanol task force. And Gordon says older cars can and have always run on 10 per cent ethanol. Just so long as the consumer remembers to ask a mechanic to check for water in the fuel tank, fuel hoses and seals before the consumer uses the ethanol fuel.
If that is true, then why aren't vehicle manufacturers providing warranty to car owners using the ethanol-blended petrol since 1992 in NSW? Why aren't the engines built to handle ethanol properly by now? And why was it so difficult for consumers to find out exactly how much ethanol is being put into fuel (in some cases as high as 28 per cent ethanol)?
Actually if cars can be compatible with ethanol, why can't we have pure ethanol running all cars? There is an industry in Australia already suffering greatly from virtually no export dollars known as the sugar industry. Can't we use basic chemistry to create pure ethanol from sugar canes?
Gordon is one of those business people with a vested interest in making money from ethanol-blended fuels. He was known to have emphasised the benefits of ethanol in petrol as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But as P. J. Carthy of Lyneham, ACT, said:
"As I understand it, the rationale for having ethanol in fuel is to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. Peter Brewer (CT, September 16, p.5) quotes Bob Gordon, of the Australian Biofuels Association, that motorists will notice a "modest reduction in performance and range per tankful".
'Given that this means vehicles will use more fuel, which in turn means more emission gases per distance travelled, can some independent person from the CSIRO or other scientific organisation advise the actual amount of extra fuel motorists will need to use/buy to travel the same distances they are now and, more importantly, the percentage reduction in greenhouse gases that can be expected from 10 per cent ethanol?" (6)
UPDATE
10 July 2004
Somehow we keep getting the impression many profit-motivated businesses in the energy industry don't want consumers to have free and unlimited energy supplies.
The latest information to support this view has come from a team of US engineers and biologists who have invented for the first time a solar cell made of photosynthetic proteins sandwiched between layers of conductive material. Unfortunately the protein solution will have to be regularly replenished to maximise the electrical power of the cell (which is where most of the profit will be made). But at least on the positive side it should be better for the environment than oil or coal.
The invention requires businesses to grow enough spinach leaves so scientists can extract a plant protein from the light-sensitive membranes of plant cells called chloroplasts to help with the conversion of light into energy. By layering this protein onto a glass surface coated with indium tin oxide and producing a sandwich effective on top of this comprising of the protein layer and an organic conducting material and finally topped with a silver electrode, it is possible to generate a measurable amount of electricity.
As one of the inventors — Marco Baldo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — described the solar cell, it can potentially produce as much, if not more, electricity than standard silicon-based solar cells. At the moment the plant-based solar cells are inefficient, converting only 12 per cent of absorbed light energy into electricity and generate an electrical current for up to 21 days. Nevertheless Mr Baldo believes it won't be too long before these cells eventually rival and possibly exceed the electrical output of commercial silicon cells with a conversion efficiency rate of around 20 per cent.
Limited lifespans of the silicon solar cells are another issue (well, if you mistreat them and don't protect them from excessive heat and ultraviolet light when exposed constantly to sunlight). Baldo believes the new plant-based solar cells will one day exceed the lifespan of silicon-based solar cells because all you have to do is replenish the protein solution as often as you like.
Hence, in theory, these plant-based solar cells could be manufactured to be cheaper to build than silicon-based solar cells. Well, they will have to. If consumers are going to have to replenish the protein solution on a regular basis at a cost (at least 21 days compared to the lifespan of silicon cells), the rest of the cell will have to be cheaper than traditional "almost permanent" silicon solar cells.
Or better still, why not put on a protective glass sheeting over the existing silicon-based solar cells?
The idea is to get a piece of glass produced from nanotechnology to allow light to pass through but not the heat. The material already exists and it should be used in solar technology. Put on an additional protective surface to stop ultraviolet light from getting through and the silicon solar cells should theoretically last forever.
Combine this with the ability to magnify the intensity of visible light hitting the solar cells by designing the glass sheeting to have a multitude of tiny magnifying glasses on it (i.e. circular-shaped bulbs coming off the surface slightly) and it should increase the electrical output of the solar cells to a much higher level.
Or what about converting the highly abundant and free radio waves permeating the entire universe 24/7 and on Earth (from free-to-air radio and television stations) to electricity? Think it is impossible? Well, think again! The patented invention already exists thanks to Sir Raymond Phillips.
Unfortunately, don't tell the businesses in the energy industry about ideas of this nature. Somehow we feel such businesses will not like them at all if a profit can't be made for all eternity!
UPDATE
28 August 2004
Melbourne inventor Angelo Di Pietro is doing some interesting work in developing a more environmentally-friendly motor engine. His invention may one day replace all petrol and diesel-driven cars, buses, boats and other vehicles with a new engine running on compressed air.
Instead of the conventional pistons moving up and down from the pressure of controlled explosions inside the cylinder chambers to help rotate a shaft for moving the wheels, the compressed air would directly rotate the shaft through a cleverly-designed rotary engine.
For air to be compressed electricity must be generated from somewhere. Currently the engine uses a number of batteries to compress the air, but the inventor envisages the engine will be more efficient and would allow solar cells to do the work of compressing the air. If this is possible, it would make the car one-hundred percent environmentally-friendly.
Among the other advantages of the new engine include a significant engine weight reduction. Instead of around 90kg for a standard petrol-driven car engine, the new engine could be as light as 13kg.
While tests with the engine has achieved 50km/h on a small four-wheel maintenance cart, two of these engines could provide adequate speed and power for a conventional small car.
Finally, if durability tests prove the engine will last for many years, we may have a serious solution to the car pollution problem. Until these problems are solved, we will be relying on standard motor vehicles for at least another 15 years (possibly 20 to 55 years knowing how slowly people change over to the new system given the high price of cars).
UPDATE
11 December 2004
The Federal (Howard) Government has released a technical report on ethanol. Despite the Government's attempt to cap ethanol to 10 per cent since 1 July 2003, the public's confidence was eroded thin over this scandal. Now the Government has issued another report providing more technical information to convince the public ethanol is a good product.
While some concerns were put to rest in the report, it would appear the only solution to the problem would be to buy the new flexible fuel vehicles available overseas capable of handling pure petrol or a combination of petrol and ethanol up to a maximum of 85 per cent ethanol if required. The report presents this solution in a highly positive way by saying:
"Sales of flexible fuel vehicles are increasing overseas, which point to considerable potential for increased uptake of ethanol fuel blends in Australia.
'These vehicles can run on petrol or a combination of ethanol and a range of blends up to 85 per cent ethanol." (The Canberra Times: Ethanol fuel report to ease fear, says Govt. 11 December 2004, p.9.)
The report also uses the confidence-boosting term "enhancer" to describe the ethanol additive in petrol.
The report unfortunately does not reveal the full price for one of these new vehicles but we can expect them to cost the same as a luxury car (i.e. A$55,000 plus).
In the meantime, the standard petrol-variety of vehicles trying to cope with 10 per cent ethanol blends are expected to remain on the road for at least another 30 years or until enough second-hand vehicles of the newer technologies get sold off to have any affect.
UPDATE
June 2005
With petrol station owners and oil companies finding it harder to make a profit through an injection of cheap ethanol of any reasonable amount (so long as the consumers don't know about it), it would appear some pumps are being let go to the point where the accuracy of measurement becomes faulty. This may seem to the advantage of the consumer until the authorities testing the pumps discover the faulty pumps are providing less petrol for the measurements shown to customers.
According to a recent test conducted by authorities in Australia of 1,200 pumps in 85 petrol stations and televised on Channel 7 Today Tonight on 6 June 2005, no less than 215 pumps were found faulty. And every one of the pumps were coincidentally providing less petrol than expected! Consumers wanting to know how to find out whether a pump is faulty will be virtually impossible unless you are prepared to carry around a large and highly accurate measuring bucket to collect the petrol (and letting it cool down) before pouring the petrol into the car.
As for the big supermarket chains — Woolworths and Coles — giving customers a 4 cent discount for petrol after spending A$30 or more in the supermarkets, the petrol prices charged by participating petrol stations will suddenly raise the petrol price to benefit from the extra profits. Consumers will discover the discounted prices are no different from the more independent petrol stations.
Less petrol to consumers? Is this a new environmentally-friendly policy from the business professionals? We doubt it!
UPDATE
25 June 2005
Petrol prices are expected to rise to A$1.20 in Australia in the coming weeks. With this rise comes the admission from Australian Prime Minister Mr John Howard of how important it is to rake in money from consumers through its tax excise on petrol. As petrol prices increase, Mr Howard claims he is powerless to act by reducing the excise tax of 38 cents a litre to say 30 or 35 cents a litre. Mr Howard prefers to blame the price hike on world oil prices and not on the tax his government imposes:
"The price of petrol is painfully high, I'm aware of that. That is the fault of world oil price fluctuations, it's not because of unreasonably high taxes." (Jean, David. Petrol won't hit $1.20 says expert: The Canberra Times. 26 June 2005, p.3.)
Mr Howard thinks the level of tax on petrol is reasonable. What does reasonable mean in his mind? Perhaps he meant the tax spent on the war in Iraq and on television advertisements explaining how great the government is doing is considered reasonable from his perspective?
How about doing something really reasonable by reducing the tax on petrol instead of giving a miserly A$6 in tax cuts to low and middle income families?
UPDATE
October 2005
Petrol prices reach as high as A$1.44. Prices will drop during the Christmas period to as low as A$1.06. However the price of petrol will have more regular and suddenly spikes from 2006 with average prices going quickly upwards because of another factor — namely the Earth is no longer yielding more oil deposits and the available deposits have reached or is about to reach "peak oil" as industry experts say. Soon oil supplies will go down yet demand for oil increases at a rate of approximately 2 per cent per year.
UPDATE
15 April 2006
It is becoming clear one simple fact. The lack of an alternative energy source for driving cars is permitting oil companies to monopolise petrol prices. Oil companies will claim petrol prices rise and fall with the world oil prices as dictated by OPEC and other oil-producing countries. But we see clear evidence during the Easter holiday how this is not the case. Oil companies know when there is a holiday or weekend, so prices just happen to increase by $0.10 or more on a Friday, or Thursday in the case of Easter. Not surprisingly, the cheapest time to purchase petrol is usually mid-week, or around Tuesday.
Until other energy sources are found, the monopoly shown by the oil companies in dictating petrol prices will continue into the foreseeable future.
UPDATE
21 April 2006
Political leaders don't want to offset the high petrol prices by reducing excise tax on petrol claiming every one cent reduction in the cost of petrol per litre would equate to a significant loss of revenue. In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard stated on radio today how significant the loss would be:
"The problem about giving a tax cut in relation to petrol is that...taking a cent a litre off excise would cost somewhere in the order of $300 million.
'With present high levels [at the bowser], people would say anything less than 10c was chicken feed, so you are looking at an enormous amount of revenue." (Crawshaw, David; Tasker, Belinda and Bunce, Jane. Cuts to petrol excise vetoed: The Canberra Times. 22 April 2006, p.9.)
Over what time frame are we talking about? If Mr Howard means 12 months of consistently high petrol prices, then maybe $300 million is lost for every cent per litre is reduced. But aren't the petrol prices going to drop anytime soon? Or is Mr Howard hinting the petrol price rise has well and truly begun as the last oil reserves are being milked for all they are worth and will soon be depleted in the next 7 to 8 years?
Meanwhile, the timing couldn't be worse for Mr Howard when Finance Minister Peter Costello publicly announced the land of Oz is completely debt free after earning unprecedented revenues from tax this financial year. So great is the revenue that people are predicting a massive budget surplus in May 2006 exceeding $13.4 billion. There have been calls for tax cuts, but it won't be in petrol excise.
Assuming petrol prices will drop at some point in time, worrying about losing A$3 billion in excise tax from petrol for a $0.10 reduction compared to over $13.4 billion and growing rapidly (and with compound interest Australia could soon earn as much as the US Government), it doesn't look like a major loss for the Australian government. But if it still wants to justify raking in the revenue, how about ensuring social services, education and the health system are propped up with some of the money?
And while Australia is doing particularly well for itself, how about building goodwill with other nations by helping people to survive, grow their own food, and provide security, education and technology? Who knows? It could even save the government hundreds of millions of dollars in housing so many refugees in detention centres.
In numerous reports from ACTCOSS and other social agencies, it is clear all of them are crying out for extra funding and more staff. This has to be clear indications there are people out there being hurt by government funding cuts over the past 10 years.
Talk of tax cuts by observers looking at this year's budget surplus usually benefits those who are already better off. It is better to direct some of the money to social agencies who can target families and individuals who aren't surviving well under the new industrial relations environment and welfare-to-work regimes as well as those who are simply so poor and lost of all confidence that no work regime will help until they have a roof over their heads, have food on the table and can relate once more with people in the community.
And just as importantly, start investing in new environmentally-friendly energy sources and technologies to help wean the population off petrol and natural gas and at the same time find ways to create natural and self-replenishing carbon sinks to reduce the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This involves planting trees and shrubs, and later allowing the wildlife to recolonise the environment without our interference where they can naturally transfer and deposit the next generation of seeds.
Yet Mr Costello argued the extra money will come in handy for helping to look after the aging population (i.e. people like Mr Costello and Mr Howard who will be among this group very soon and all needing extensive care). Yes, but at some point you need to spend the money to ensure the aged are cared for with a good health care system, education for an active mind, and social services for those aged people who may not be financially well-off. You might as well start siphoning some of the money towards these areas now before it gets too expensive and not enough time to fix up the system later.
If not, then it is probably an excuse for covering up the real aim for raising the revenue which is to spend it on how the government wants during the election year of 2007 in order to buy votes and get people to reelect the Howard team once more.
UPDATE
March 2008
Petrol prices in Australia rise to $1.54 per litre. One oil company was prepared to go on record stating that people should be prepared to pay $3.00 per litre in the next 10 years.
UPDATE
July 2008
Petrol prices rise to $1.80 per litre.
UPDATE
November 2008
After the financial crisis of October 2008, consumption of petrol went down forcing oil companies to lower prices to AUD$0.98 per litre. This is partly due to the excess supply and low demand situation, but also to help kickstart the economy and maintain the high profits of the oil companies. By December 2008, the oil company Chevron advertised on Australian television explaining the importance of oil to society as if encouraging consumers to buy oil and at the same time look good for the environment by mentioning it is looking towards solar and natural gas as alternative energy sources.
Petrol prices will rise again towards the end of 2009. If the consumption remains very low, the rise will be slow and steady due to the way oil supplies in the ground are being depleted. But if excessive consumption returns, we will notice the dramatic rise in petrol prices. Prices exceeding $2.00 per litre is likely by 2010. By 2011-12, prices could easily exceed $3.00 per litre.
We can only hope the car manufacturers get their act together and start supplying small motor vehicles running on electricity or become extremely petrol efficient (virtually running on the oil of an old rag).
UPDATE
1 September 2012
Petrol prices rise to $1.66 per litre for premium 98 octane fuel.The high price and high demand is probably helping to reduce the cost of regular and E10 fuels to below $1.50 per litre.
Public donations providing a healthy profit for some?
Even in the situation where members of the public provide financial donations to a bank or company for any publicised humanitarian aid, it can take months or years before the money is released to help people.
Why? Banks and anyone else who administers the money as part of the humanitarian aid want to profit on the financial donations from the general public through the interest earning investment schemes such as a 12-months investment account and/or dabbling on the world stock market.
It is only when media reports come out asking why it is taking so long for the money to go to the needy do banks and private firms suddenly realize it is time to release the funds.
UPDATE
21 October 2003
The Australian Federal (Howard) Government was also prepared to employ a similar tactic when it came to the $10 per plane ticket levy introduced in 2001 originally designed to pay the employees of the collapsed Ansett airline their lost entitlements (i.e. superannuation and wages). After providing a loan to the liquidators of around $334 million and having most of it repaid after the assets of Ansett were sold (around $190 million), the Government has still managed to successfully make $235 million from the levy and hence made a substantial profit of $128 million. Yet somehow the Government refuses to distribute this levy (and why not part of the profit) for any shortfalls to the employees. In the meantime, a number of employees have committed suicide and others are struggling to pay their mortgages while the Government line their pockets and superannuation with the interest earned from the levy.
Government ministers such as Mr Tony Abbott, the Transport Minister Mr John Anderson and Prime Minister Mr John Howard are keeping quiet when spoken to by the media about the issue. Actually, Mr Abbott is trying to wash his hands of the issue by saying the money is no longer part of his department now that he has moved over to a new portfolio.
UPDATE
11 November 2003
Transport Minister Mr John Anderson has defended the Government's actions to the media claiming the money earned from the $10 levy is being withheld on a legal technicality. As soon as a decision is made in the Federal Court in Melbourne can the money be released. In the meantime, Ansett workers continue to suffer and the Government continues to make more money by investing some or all of it in the right areas of the economy.
So what is the legal technicality mentioned by Mr Anderson? Why is it taking 18 months to decide on this one lousy technicality? Surely it isn't the issue of money which is holding up the process?
UPDATE
21 November 2003
It has taking three days of intense negotiations to resolve the dispute between the Ansett's administrators Korda-Mentha and the Ansett Ground Staff Superannuation Plan wanting to claim $180 million from the sale of Ansett assets. Although final approval is being sought from the Federal court on Tuesday 25 November 2003, the deal would involve altering the deed of company arrangements as required to legally liquidate the Ansett company.
The resolution was made possible only after Justice Alan Goldberg ordered mediation between the parties after noticing the cost of litigation was eroding the funds and former airline's staff agreed to the changes to the deed in the hope of expediting the release of some more of their entitlements.
The Federal Government, as Ansett's biggest creditor, will be a party to the proposed agreement.
UPDATE
25 November 2003
The Federal court has agreed to release $150 million to the former Ansett staff. This would now cover A$0.71 for every dollar owed to the staff compared to the average A$0.50 in every dollar. Another A$200 million is still owed in remaining staff entitlements.
Multiskilling
Want to know of another way to maximise profit within a business? How about quietly introducing extra "unadvertised" duties. If you look carefully, there is an increasing number of job titles advertised in local and national newspapers looking menial or relatively standard jobs having a fairly standard salary. But if you look more closely at the duties of the positions, they are in fact jobs requiring extensive management skills as well as highly advanced skills needed to perform the actual jobs. And if there isn't a management component in the position, you can be sure to receive a host of extra duties covered under "other duties" at the end of the duty statement. So if you think you are doing, say, a printing job, don't be surprised to find the employer asking you to do cleaning of computers, telephones and other work when you have spare time. Or why not design brochures and booklets for staff? There is no end to how far an employer can ask if they think you have time and they can save more money (and hence make a bigger profit).
This is affectionately known in the employment game as multiskilling.
You see, some employers will try to hide this high management or "other duties" expectation of a job by disguising it as an ordinary looking position with a relatively low salary. Once the employee is sucked into the position (if they have been without a job for some time), they will be subtly thrown into unexpected extra duties you have not asked for.
In other words, it is all about reducing costs and maximising so as to maximise profit for the business.
An American aircraft manufacturer giant aims for profit over safety
Another classic example of businesses behaving badly for the sake of making a few extra dollars in profit is Boeings' remarkable attempt at re-using an old jet aircraft design and putting in new systems that were not fully tested, nor did the company mention some of the new systems to pilots to prepare them in the event of failure of those systems. Facing stiff competition from the European Airbus, Boeing felt compelled to have an updated old aircraft available without doing enough research and coming up with a brand new aircraft design. Already the $$$ signs were in the eyes of American CEOs. However, they cut back too much on testing new systems and not properly designing a new aircraft. Quick modifications had to be done to the new larger engines to fit on the lower-to-the-ground old aircraft designs, followed by a range of new systems, most of which were designed to automate the aircraft. Unfortunately, the cost of providing extra training and new manuals to pilots to prepare them for the new systems and what to do was considered too much for Boeing. It preferred to keep quiet thinking the new systems are reliable and fully automated for any eventuality. However, when a system did fail and pilots were at a loss as to the cause or what they can do or have no means to bypass the automation in favour of good old human intervention by experienced pilots, the consequences can be devastating to both pilots and passengers.
We see this with Boeing's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmention System (MCAS). Utilising a single sensor to help stop a plane from climbing too quickly and stalling the engines, MCAS was designed to take over pilots' decision-making by forcing the nose of the plane to be pushed down if it thinks the plane was climbing too steeply. Unfortunately, when the sensor failed, there was little time given to pilots to make adjustments and instead would force the plane, against the pilots' wisdom and experience, into a 40 degree nose dive. Every 10 seconds, the pilots may be given 5 seconds to take over the plane, then MCAS would kick in again, forcing the plane to nose dive once more. The process repeats until eventually the plane crashes into the ground. Yet,. the incredible thing is, for the sake of minimising costs in the pursuit of maximum profit, the company thought it was not necessary to mention the new system to pilots. With no continuous bypass mechanisms in place (highly unusual for Boeing), we have seen two disasters take place when the sensor failed, resulting in the loss of more than 600 lives.
And all this to maximise profit.
Skewing the facts or evidence to make a profit
Another problem is how some tabloid journalists and reporters wanting to make a profit for their newspaper, television or magazine business will skew what they are seeing or hearing in order to create a sensational story so that people will buy and read their articles.
An example of this include the recent Martin Bashir's Michael Jackson interview where important responses from the famous star were left out by the British reporter in favour of presenting an unbalanced and more sensational view that made the pop star look worse than he is.
It may be true that Michael Jackson has had a difficult childhood while performing for the public and helping his parents become rich and also did some silly things later in his life, but at the end of the day a responsible reporter should be objective and present all the responses and the facts.
The fact that Bashir fell short of meeting this objective through responsible and ethical journalism meant it was nothing more than an attempt to make himself and the business he was working for more financially richer at the expense of making someone else look bad.
The gene real estate - making a profit from your genes
And how can we leave out the extraordinary situation of certain highly profit-motivated business professionals who are cashing in on the DNA real estate of every living thing?
For example, the Patent Offices of dozens of countries are somehow letting business professionals ludicrously patent large segments of the DNA owned by virtually every living thing so they can make extraordinary profits. The result of this outrageous patenting process is that these business professionals think they can own DNA and hence have the legal entitlement to ask for excessive licensing fees from any research centre, hospital or individual trying to understand DNA as well as providing low-cost life-saving gene testing for the consumers.
If this trend should continue, we would not be surprised to see one day every human being born into this world requiring their parents to pay business professionals a licensing fee for the privilege of their baby using its own genes to survive!
Business professionals have to use common sense. You see, DNA is owned by everyone. All benefits in gene research should be shared with everyone. Only the actual technology of testing the human genes for potential health problems, if it meets the requirements for uniqueness, being novel, and is something that has not been thought of before by anyone else at any time in human history, is what gets patented, not the DNA itself.
More than 95 per cent of DNA is not unique to all living things. And anyway, how can it be patented if it is owned by every living thing?
Should the business professionals continue with this attitude of making money from DNA, maybe the law should be expanded to permit the rest of the human race to ask for 95 per cent of the profits made by the business professionals to be distributed to everyone (i.e. now that's a brilliant way of solving poverty) and all the animals in the world (i.e. create an animal trust fund and environmentalists can use the money to rebuild the environment to help look after the animals and plants of the world).
You see, if DNA is owned by everyone, there should be laws entitling everyone to ask for a royalty from the profits made by the business professionals over the gene real estate.
While the remaining 5 per cent of the profits should be distributed partly to the business professionals (for patenting it) and the rest to those people who own naturally those parts of the DNA considered unique compared to other humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.
The commercial software industry
Did you also know major software manufacturers such as Adobe Systems, Inc. and Apple Computer, Inc. are prepared to sell commercial software packages (e.g. MacOSX and Adobe Acrobat 3.x-6.x) that are not quite completely clean of all bugs as part of a new marketing strategy to force consumers to upgrade to the latest software? Even when consumers complain about certain bugs, an update may be provided to fix some and then leave it at that. Then consumers who need the product are often forced to upgrade it to avoid the remaining bugs. But unfortunately, a new set of bugs will often plague the same previously-introduced features of the latest software version which for some reason has never existed in any previous version?
It is true that as soon as a major software package such as Adobe Acrobat comes out, the software manufacturer will usually provide a free update within about 1 or 2 months. For example, Adobe Systems, Inc. have provided patches for Adobe Acrobat 3.0 to 3.01, Acrobat 4.0 to 4.0.5, Acrobat 5.0 to 5.0.5. Certainly if enough consumers complain about a bug or any annoying feature which is blatantly obvious (and perhaps for a long enough period of time for the slightly more obscure bugs), rarely will major software manufacturers sit back and do nothing.
However, if possible the software manufacturers with the most popular and market dominant flagship products will try to leave something behind to annoy the hell out of the consumers so that hopefully people will see the benefit of upgrading to the latest software version at a cost. Then when you buy the latest version, that annoying feature may seem to have disappeared but you are often faced with another different set of irritations or quirkiness in the latest package which has never existed in the previous versions.
Take, for instance, Adobe Acrobat 4.0. This version had a really annoying problem of not being able to Touch Up text with a small font size after a page had been captured. This is a problem that never existed in previous Acrobat versions. Adobe Systems, Inc. received numerous complaints about this problem until it was forced to quickly and quietly deliver to their web site an Adobe Acrobat 4.0.5 Update 1 patch. While the problem has improved considerably, it has not been fixed properly. When consumers are forced to upgrade to Adobe Acrobat 5.0.5, the problem appears to be fixed giving the consumer greater confidence in this area. But the consumers will also notice another quirkiness in the latest software whereby during Touch Up editing, the text can suddenly expand beyond the confines of the text box and hence force part of the text to disappear. You now have to use the Text Attributes function to set the text width back down to 100% just to make everything look normal again and to see the entire text once more.
This quirky feature does not exist in Adobe Acrobat 4.0 or Adobe Acrobat 4.0.5 (or even Adobe Acrobat 3.0).
So why the differences? There is only one good reason for this and that's to force people to upgrade the software regularly to help the company maximise its profits. Otherwise any other explanation would make the company look either incompetent or foolish.
UPDATE
September 2003
Adobe Systems, Inc. has quickly released Adobe Acrobat 6.0 presumably to entice users of Acrobat 5.0.5 or earlier versions to see the benefits of upgrading to the latest version. Unfortunately some Acrobat 6.0 users are still noticing other problems with this latest package. And guess what? You have to upgrade your OS to MacOSX to run the bloody thing!
World trade policies of richer (economically developed) nations
Another classic example of greed gone mad among certain business professionals are the ones in the agricultural sector being heavily subsidised by their nation's Governments.
As the system of world trade currently stands, businesses of developed nations such as the US and Europe are ridiculously involved in growing and selling the same sorts of agricultural products as many of the poorer nations. Because poorer nations have much lower labour costs, you would think these nations would have the opportunity to get themselves out of poverty and debt by selling some of their food on the world market. Unfortunately this is not the case for 120 of the 146 member nations of the Word Trade Organisation. Why? Because the Governments of developed nations realise some of their own businesses will have their profits seriously affected by the products from poorer nations because of the lower labour costs.
So what's the solution? Instead of trying something different, the only way the Governments can do to protect their own businesses is to heavily subsidise the costs of local businesses producing the same sorts of products so as to price the poorer nations out of world markets.
The aim of subsidises is purely to protect local businesses in developed nations who aren't creative enough to find and produce alternative products than their poorer cousins in developing nations; to help the local businesses in developed nations have more exclusive control of the world trade of food with other developed nations through a guaranteed bilateral trade deal; to maximise profit by delivering high-volume food products to other developed nations; and to ensure the economy and standard of living for a number of people in a developed nation are healthy so that the Governments can win elections.
In essence, subsidies are the way for Governments of developed nations like the US and Europe to essentially dominate world trade in food production for the sake of higher profits and maintain political power.
It is true that sometimes the quality of the foods produced by developed nations can be better than the developing nations. But if the developing nations are to pay their debts to world banks and help improve the standard of living for all poor people governed by benevolent leaders, the developed nations should be given a helping hand with the delivery of essential technology and knowledge to poorer nations so they can produce high quality foods to the world at low costs.
Unfortunately as we have it at the moment, poorer nations continue to suffer under the current world trade policies imposed primarily by the US and Europe (a continent forced to create such policies to compete with the US).
UPDATE
20 October 2003
It looks like the US are getting a taste of their own medicine. Apparently the US wants China to float its currency on the market so its value can be varied by market forces and hence make the flood of cheap Chinese products into the US eventually look expensive. In that way, the US industries will have a chance to compete against the Chinese manufacturers. Oh well! It is nice to see a bit of balance in this world. For if the US is prepared to flood third world nations with cheap imports of its own through its own brand of a free trade agreement and at the same time not listen to those countries' concerns about their local industries being decimated, we might as well let China do the same with the US.
It is good to see China not giving into demands by the US to float the Chinese currency.
UPDATE
21 November 2003
Australian farmers (and the local film industry) are complaining almost as badly as third-world nations over the extent of the latest free trade agreement proposal between the US and Australia. A closer look at the deal suggests the US has a secret agenda. The Americans want to have greater control of the Australian market, culture and social development in return for letting Australia have slightly better access to the US market. The latest move by the US Government (under Mr Bush) is to encourage the Australian Federal (Howard) Government to reduce the quota of Australian-produced television series, programs and movies. With the Australian Government seeing only money in their eyes and all the economic benefits that come with it, it is likely they will agree to anything from the US. But what will replace the Australian programs? It is unlikely the Australian commercial television stations will consider televising world movies from Europe, India, the Pacific Islands, the Middle East etc just like SBS. If you're a TV executive wanting to get the highest ratings and hence the most money from advertising, you would almost certainly choose the American content. So expect Australians to be watching more American war movies, organised crime, terrorism, sex, violence and drugs etc.
Nothing like supporting your local US Government aim's in fighting the war on terrorism in its own way!
UPDATE
24 January 2004
The continuing saga with the free trade agreement proposal between the US and Australia is soon coming to an end with the US agreeing to let Australia have some access to the US market in return for access to Australian markets. However, because Australia is sticking to its tough quarantine laws, the biggest loser in this latest deal is going to be the Australian sugar industry. A major blow for an industry which is suffering greatly because of low world prices for sugar. We might as well call this the clayton free trade agreement!
Alright. So what else can Australia do? Any other restrictions? Or can Australia be smart enough to indirectly introduce sugar into the US markets in a different way? For example, why not produce real Australian foods from native plants learned from the Australian aborigines? Native bush tucker as the Australians call it. Now that could be something the US might clammer for given their appetite to consume everything in sight. And if that is possible, make sure certain US companies such as Arnotts don't decide to suddenly buy into this native Australian food industry or there would be no one else to blame but the Australian people for losing this opportunity to help a number of Australian industries.
Or better still, why not let the sugar industry turn sugar into an ethanol-producing industry? With basic chemistry, sugar canes can be used to create pure ethanol with ease, purity, low-cost and high quantity. All we need is the will from all car manufacturers to start producing and selling cars capable of running on pure ethanol. And if that can happen, we can save the lives of thousands of people dying from car fumes in the cities as well as give the sugar farmers a chance to survive with their intimate knowledge of growing sugar.
Or is the Australian Federal (Howard) Government thinking too much about winning the next election instead of doing the right thing?
UPDATE
8 February 2004
The free trade deal between Australia and US has been finalised. While Australia will have reasonable access to the US market in areas of manufacturing, mining and some agricultural products, the US will benefit more from the deal in the long term with greater indirect access to Australian markets. For example, the US will sell more American-produced television series, programs and movies on subscription television (i.e. cable and satellite through Foxtel) before Australians eventually accept them as the norm for free-to-air television. While it may be worth up to A$4 billion a year in exports for Australia, the US will make a lot more.
UPDATE
30 July 2004
The US has already agreed to sign their end of the free trade agreement (FTA) nearly two months ago.
Now it is Australia's turn to decide whether or not to sign this bilateral FTA and already it is creating quite a furore among the more left-wing types (the more arty-farty and environmentally-concerned individuals) and some right-wing people with a strong patriotic concern to protect Australia's unique identity. These are the people that seem to be splitting the Australian Labor Party in two. Labor's leader Mark Latham is trying to be sensible in giving more time and waiting for additional information to arrive from people like Senator Peter Cook. The only problem is that Senator Cook has his own health to consider and he refuses to write a firm recommendation of whether to go ahead with the FTA or not.
What can Mr Latham do? Well, let's look at what the FTA means to Australia and the US.
Firstly we have to realise the FTA will create new jobs for people in both nations. It is true some jobs will be lost such as in the Australian film and sugar industry. But the general consensus is that more jobs will be created (such as employing more lawyers to protect American intellectual property in Australia). This job argument is usually seen as the short-term view to supporting the FTA, but it must surely be at the forefront of Mr Latham thinking in this election year.
This is not the only thing the FTA represents. There is also a longer-term view. The view being that the FTA can affect the health of the environment and its people in both nations as well as the culture and identity and inventiveness of the people living under the FTA. Ideally, this health, cultural and creativity aspects should be at least maintained and, if not, possibly increased for both nations.
This longer-term view is actually more important for a smaller nation such as Australia which can easily be swamped by imports from a big nation such as the US.
Does the FTA represent real progress forward for both nations where all citizens benefit from it? There is a general consensus it will not for very good reasons.
Firstly, the majority of American companies that will benefit from the FTA are generally large and highly influential entities with massive market power driven by high profits. There is nothing in the FTA to suggest these companies will have the health and well-being of the Australian community and the environment in mind when, at the end of the day, generating high profits is the overriding aim.
For example, the US had wanted within the FTA the ability for American companies to hold patents on anything they can make money on, or have the potential to make money, and force Australian individuals and companies to comply with US patent laws which, in the end, would mean the end of Australian inventiveness.
The American companies can go one step further. When a patent is nearing the end of its life, there will be an attempt to extend the patent through any legal means called "evergreening" to stop competitors from providing generic alternatives.
Can Australia continue to be described as the clever country given how many American products and services protected by patents will be replacing the Australian versions under the FTA (simply because it will cost too much for Australian businesses to fight American companies in the law courts to sell similar products)?
Not likely.
As Michael James of Hackett, Canberra, pointed out:
"The patent provisions of the Free Trade Agreement will cut Australian inventiveness off at the knees.
'Large American firms use portfolios of readily granted, spurious patents to legally harass their competitors.
'For example, Microsoft have patented double-clicking! Never mind that they copied it from Apple who got it from Xerox.
'Who will stand against their army of lawyers and fight for common sense? Whether an Australian company is trying to enter the American market or just to survive in the Australian one, it will be a David in a field of Goliaths.
'Under the FTA, Goliath will hold the patent on slingshots." (7)
Let us take another example. If we look more closely at the FTA, we find there is nothing to stop some American companies from selling cheap and nasty stuff in the high-priced foods and drugs sold to Australian people. As a case to consider, there is debate now raging as to whether vegetable oils causes blindness. Now Australian scientists are saying the problem actually lies in the oils produced in the US.
How would the FTA control this kind of problem? Otherwise the impact on the available health budget of future Australian governments and the public over the long term will be serious.
Similarly, on the environmental front, some American companies benefiting from the FTA could be of the polluting type which could come to Australia to dump certain waste products.
The last thing on the minds of a number of US executives is to sell low-cost high-quality products to the Australian community or to allow Australian companies to compete on an equal footing.
Then there is the inescapable fact that FTA will see the cultures of the nations clash.
Now if both nations are of equal size and influence, this may not be a problem so long as the people of both nations are prepared to learn and support one another's unique cultures. However, in the case of the US and Australia, the US is incredibly massive, interfering, highly controlling through its intellectual property laws, and incredibly influential in how it delivers its American culture and point-of-view to the Australian people through television and radio.
What makes it worse is the fact that the FTA does not provide adequate safeguards or forms of evidence of the US preparing to support and promote Australian culture and identity among average Americans by, say, helping to pay Australian people to maintain and possibly promote their culture in the US as soon as the bigger nation starts flooding Australia with its own products and culture.
We can see why the US Government is so particularly keen to have access to the Australian television and film industry. This is the most powerful medium to educate Australians about the reality the US Government and its businesses want to promote.
Unfortunately there is no equivalent in the US television and film industry. Australia just can't afford to produce Australian-made films in the quantity (although quality is now comparable with the US) required to balance the US content. And there is nothing to suggest the Americans are prepared to support the Australian television and film industry to ensure there is balance in the two cultures.
It is in the Australian identity and cultural aspects where the Australian people could suffer the most under the FTA with the US.
Similarly there is a problem with pharmaceutical drugs. Apparently the US wants to do away with the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) where the Australian Government negotiates on lower drug prices and subsidises the cost of useful drugs to the Australian people. The aim would be to maximise profit for the US drug companies by getting average Australians to pay full price for the drugs (including the cost of heavy and expensive advertising by the American companies).
In other words, the rich gets richer and possibly healthier if they look after themselves (not likely if they keep consuming caviar and champagne and sit in front of a A$25,000 plasma screen everyday), but the poor gets sicker and quickly die.
Unfortunately the FTA is not water tight in a legal sense (i.e. lots of ambiguities) to the point where US companies will provide low cost and high quality "useful" drugs and will abide by strict health and safety regulations in Australia. Even the Australian review system for new US drugs entering Australia is extremely weak and subject to serious legal loopholes for US drug companies to exploit.
To put it bluntly, if we focussed entirely on the short-term, which Mr Latham must seriously consider in this election year, the argument is really about whether Mr Latham is prepared to lose some Australian jobs in favour of creating new ones under the FTA and hope to hell there is enough voters benefiting from the new jobs at the right time to look upon Mr Latham as the preferred Prime Minister.
Although it is quite possible voters may choose Mr Howard as the preferred Prime Minister because Mr Latham is not showing anything different from Mr Howard.
The hardest part about this FTA is how Mr Latham is kind of caught in an almost checkmate position where if he agrees with the FTA, he may lose voters at the next election. But he may also gain voters whose jobs are protected or will be created soon. Unfortunately the new jobs will probably not be created soon enough to help Labor get into government because of how close the election day is.
And people will find it harder to see any differences in the two major parties, so why change?
If, however, Mr Latham choses not to accept the deal and think long-term, he will lose quite a few voters in the business community who are expecting to gain a great deal from the FTA, not to mention the average citizens who are looking for jobs. This is to the advantage of the Federal Government. Either way, Mr Latham is in a conundrum.
And as the clever dick Mr Howard has understood, he has the upper hand in not declaring a date for the election while Labor is caught in a bind with this FTA. Mr Howard just has to sit back and watch how everything unfolds for Labor before he makes his decision.
What will Mr Latham do?
Will Mr Latham think differently to Mr Howard and take the long-term view for Australia and start protecting Australian businesses and the people's health and environment? Or will he think in terms of the short-term view of creating jobs to increase his chances of winning the next election?
Either way, Mr Howard will take advantage of the decision.
Or why can't Mr Latham make the decision after the US elections are held and a new Administration is in office? Who knows? Australia may regret committing itself to the FTA in its current form if there is a chance a new US Government might be a little more open to further negotiations with the FTA and give Australia a better deal.
Or better still, can Australia survive without an FTA with the US? Not that the FTA really matters all that much to the US given its shear market power and dominance on the world stage and its persistence in following the globalisation theory of economics on other nations. Even if Australia chose to have multilateral trade deals with other nations, the US might be a little upset but life would still go on.
Well, look on the positive side: the US is getting a lot of help from Australia in Iraq. The US should be happy if Australia chose not to go ahead with the FTA.
And anyway, if the US really wants to have increased trade with Australia, why can't Australia and the US work together to export the things they are good at and which each nation cannot produce?
The point of having trade between two nations is so that the thing being exported is of value to the nation receiving it because it cannot produce the item being traded or is willing to let the other nation supply the item so long as the people in the nation receiving it are not out of a job (if anything, the trade should actually create jobs). As for the basic staple of food and water, every nation can produce this to some extent and as such the people of each nation should create it for themselves to supply to people in their own nation. The only exception to this rule is if say a nation produces a unique type of food which the other nation would like to receive and vice versa. Also a nation which is poor and cannot export a great deal of things should be allowed to export a certain quantity of exports to help the nation find alternative and unique export products in the future which are better at protecting the health of the environment, the people, and the cultures and identities of both nations.
The aim is to create economic development based on preserving the local industries helping local people to survive, but giving people access to different products from other nations through a controlled trade scheme.
In essence, when the thing being exported is unique and different, there is no need to make a fuss over an FTA based on this approach. In fact, the term FTA would really mean what it stands for: a free trade agreement with no restrictions of any kind. For example, the US could manufacture hi-tech solutions in the field of energy recycling and environmentally-friendly wind-powered generators and solar panels and, in return, Australia can provide the creative research behind the technology?
Or why not sell unique Australian foods in all sorts of ways to wet the appetite of the US?
Or are we all so profit-driven to the point where nations have to force upon other nations the things other nations already produce for themselves as part of an FTA at such a low price as to decimate local industries?
UPDATE
Wednesday 11 July 2004
The Australian opposition leader Mark Latham has agreed in principle to the FTA so long as the PBS remains sacrosanct through amended legislation. Similar safeguards have also been added in other areas to prevent unfettered exploitation of the Australian market such as imposing fines on US drug companies for extending patents. The US Government will be looking into the amendments. But will it be enough to stop, say, the rampaging US pharmaceutical companies from taking control of the Australian health care system? Or will the US totally back down on the FTA because of Australia's inability to let go of the PBS?
Australian Prime Minister John Howard was quick to say to his Australian people how the Labor amendments could sink the FTA if the US disagrees with the changes. Funny that considering the amendments are nothing more than to keep the US companies honest, stop them from being greedy, and prevent the US from totally controlling the Australian health care system. For Mr Howard to come out and say what he did at this rather crucial time and without showing specifically how the amendments must be wrong or are not reasonable, it must make some Australian people wonder whether the original deal was a good one in the first place.
As Charles Wharley of Willoughby, NSW, said:
"If the Prime Minister [John Howard] is right and our American friends are likely to back out of the Free Trade Agreement because we tacked on a bit to keep the greedy paws of the US drug companies off our PBS, it makes the whole deal look a bit shonky.
'Makes you wonder why the PM signed it in the first place." (8)
Supermarket profits
Even when farmers of a developed nation are able to produce similar foods like the poorer nations and sell them locally, the farmers are still forced by dominant supermarket giants in their own nations to sell at near cost prices so that the food can be resold to consumers at massively inflated prices.
The standard markup for businesses selling food products to the consumers should be around 33 per cent. The reality for fresh food sold in giant supermarkets is a little different. The markup of a number of food products (mainly the fresh vegetables, fruit and meat areas) in the supermarkets of Woolworths and Coles can be as high as 500 per cent. It makes no sense for a farmer, for instance, to sell 1 kilogram of beef steaks at around A$3.00 and later the supermarkets try to sell the meat to consumers at A$15 or more.
The supermarkets should not be allowed to sell the 1 kilogram beef for more than $6.00, perhaps $8 or $9 if the supermarkets try to value-add to the product (e.g. cut the meat into strips etc).
Or better still, why not let the consumers pay the actual environmental and farmer costs of producing and delivering the food. Give farmers the proper 33 per cent markup profit they deserve for producing the food products and, depending on the season or condition of the environment, an extra charge called the environmental cost to repair the environment after growing the food. The final cost of the food can either be lower than current costs or higher. But at least the consumers are fully aware of the true costs to produce different foods on this planet.
Should the cost for foods be too high, consumers can always go for alternative foods or foods that are easier to grow and in season. Or consumers can learn to grow the food they want in their own backyard until there is enough of the stuff available.
UPDATE
3 March 2004
A report commissioned last year by Australian Agriculture Minister Warren Truss has found the reason for the high prices for fresh food in the big supermarkets is because of high management costs. The actual profit made by the big supermarkets are actually slimmer than previously realised. Apparently supermarkets are operating at a world-low 4 per cent profit margin with the cost to operate or run a supermarket averaging around 22 per cent of total turnover in Australia. Yet if we do the sums, 1 kilogram beef steak should still not cost $15 or more unless salaries were not included in the costs. However, the average supermarket staff on the floor (on cash registers and placing products on shelves) don't get rich. This leaves us with the managers working at supermarkets. Putting aside variations in international prices for imported foods and farm production levels, managers at big supermarket chains could be potentially adding anywhere up to 40 per cent or more of the total turnover to pay for management costs (i.e. another way of saying the manager's need a salary to live on). If this is true, then it isn't the humble staff working on the floor or even farmers making the food who are benefiting from the profit. Rather it is the managers themselves (and the shareholders) forcing the prices of the fresh food to high levels to help line their own pockets. It is either that, or there is too much value-adding going on which is raising the costs and somehow this has not been included in the total business operating costs and general expenses.
At any rate, if farmers are complaining of selling near-cost for their produce to big supermarket chains the Report is not expected to improve the situation. Farmers are advised to value-add to their produce to help raise their profits and increase the likelihood of selling the produce to consumers through greater convenience, better appearance etc.
Yes, the report has clarified a few things with the public.
UPDATE
20 May 2004
As supermarkets make a massive markup on selling meat in bulk to consumers, the humble independent butchers at the fruit and vegetable markets claim they have to raise the prices for smaller quantities of fresh meat mainly because consumers don't pay for the wasted parts of the carcass. The actual break down of the costs is as follows:
The price for one animal (e.g. a sheep) from the farmer is $90 (or roughly $3.00 per kilo). The cost to kill the animal and quickly prepare the carcass at the abatoir is $8.00 per animal. Add $4.00 per animal to transport it to the shops and the total cost to sell to consumers should not exceed $4.00 per kilo.
Where the price increases dramatically according to the more independent butchers is when they have to recover costs for the unwanted parts of the carcass which allegedly represents about 50% of the carcass due to the high fat content of the animal and some bones (some animals moving around on the farm must be fatter than some well-paid Liberal politicians sitting in Australian parliament).
So how are the costs recovered? Apparently the butchers have to sell the popular meat cuts such as lamb cutlets at a much higher price plus the 33 per cent markup. All in all, lamb cutlets could be priced as high as $30 per kilo to the consumer.
But selling the allegedly popular lamb cutlets at $30 per kilo seems to contradict a survey of average consumers recently that people are not buying the cutlets (in some cases for many years) because of the high prices. So how do the butchers still make a profit on selling the high-priced lamb cutlets if enough people are not prepared to buy it?
Wouldn't it be more sensible to spread the costs across all meat products? If so, what would be the true price per kilo for all types of meats?
UPDATE
13 April 2005
The two top Australian supermarkets (Coles and Woolworths) know how to maximise profit. At first it was to pay the least amount of money possible to farmers and later resell the products at a price the supermarkets can get away. Now the supermarkets will simplify the product range, choose manufacturers to provide the lowest price ingredients (if it means choosing imported goods, then so be it), introduce the supermarkets own food brands based on a three tier system (low, medium and higher quality), and sell the products at the same or higher price (depending on the quality).
Smaller Australian food manufacturers (e.g. Australian-made local honey, organic milk and other products) will be pushed to the wall thanks to this latest move. From the major supermarkets point-of-view, the solution to the smaller food manufacturers is simple: pay A$800,000 to $A2 million per year to the supermarkets to have the shelf space, provide the supermarkets with the ingredients they need to make the food products at a low enough price, or go elsewhere.
Or why not get together with other smaller manufacturers to sell the products in an independent new Australian-based supermarket chain, or join the farmers' markets in a new independent system of selling locally-produced high quality foods at an excellent price?
UPDATE
January 2006
As supermarkets choose big food companies to supply what are known as "contract marketed foods" at low prices to the supermarkets and later sold at high prices to consumers, they are helping to dictate the prices for everyone else growing food. The message coming through loud and clear from the supermarkets is this, "Either supply food as cheap as the big companies can or get out of the business".
Apart from creating job losses, this kind of attitude from supermarkets will also create another major problem. And it concerns the survival of humanity as a whole. What many people are not realising is that by driving out the small food manufacturers and farmers out of the food production process, we are effectively determining the fate of all human beings based on who can pay the highest price for food to the supermarkets and big food companies should anything go wrong with the economy.
Do we have a backup plan for humanity when it comes to our own food supply?
Ignoring for a moment there could be a disaster looming for the human race, already a number of small farmers are deciding to sell up their land and subdivide it for housing to mostly city people wanting a "tree change" or merely as an extension of suburbia for those who can afford the high property prices. And it is primarily because of this "monopoly access pipeline" created by the big supermarkets between selected food producers and the consumers which is decimating the small farmers. As Joe Boustani, a Sydney tomato grower and president of Greenhouse Vegetables NSW, said:
"Woolies and Coles control everything. We have friends leaving the industry because there's no money in it. The bottom line is that growers have no control over the price of their product — it's David versus Goliath." (O'Sullivan, Matt. Cracks in the glasshouse: The Sydney Morning Herald. 7-8 January 2006, p.25 (pp.25 & 28.).)
If this trend continues, more and more people will become so reliant on big companies to supply food to the big supermarket chains with no backup system in place that should something happen to the economy, huge numbers of people will suffer from hunger and a major recession will begin. There is already talk of world oil supplies going down causing massive problems for Western economies in the next 5 to 10 years. Longer term threats of global warming affecting coastal cities and creating huge environmental refugee problems will put massive pressures on Western economies. This in turn will increase the price of food, forcing more people to become poor and rich people to become more ruthless in making a profit.
The Middle class will continue to shrink becoming either the future managers and business people getting rich or will fall into the poor basket. While the poor must work for a pittance for companies doing exactly as they are told or join the Army to fight wars with other nations facing similar economic and social pressures of their own (e.g. terrorism). Otherwise crime on the streets will increase dramatically leading to a future French Revolution unless a big enough war destroys humanity as a whole.
Surely in this plausible and scary scenario the last thing we want are for small farmers to be disappearing for the sake of profit for the big businesses, the supermarkets and their shareholders (i.e. mainly city people sharing the same profit mentality because they can't see another way of living on this planet).
Every farmer must be valued in their production of food and efforts must be made to preserve and stockpile enough food in case the worse scenario happens where big food companies may suddenly collapse.
All the money in the world will not save humanity. But all the food in the world and more we can produce by looking after the environment and our farmers will. Our priority must change or many people will suffer.
The only hope for small farmers is to produce unique or different foods which cannot be produced through industrial methods. Perhaps a new secret combination of foods can produce the future KFC of the world? Or maybe use effective marketing to emphasise the organic and wholesome nature of the foods from small farmers compared to foods produced by big businesses. Something different has to be found in order to stop small farmers leaving in droves from farmlets to join the city folks.
This specialising in certain unique or different foods packaged in a different way could be the key to attracting consumers and supporting local small farmers in business for longer. So long as big businesses stick to the main staple of producing simple foods to avoid impinging on the livelihoods of small farmers can this system work. Otherwise legislation would be necessary to control big businesses from producing any kind of food in bulk at the expense of losing small local farmers.
Woolworths' director of corporate marketing, Bernie Brookes, denies his supermarket is a "monopoly" on the food chain when he said:
"There is 75 per cent of the [fruit and vegetable] market that is done elsewhere [other than Woolworths] — you certainly couldn't call that a monopoly." (O'Sullivan, Matt. Cracks in the glasshouse: The Sydney Morning Herald. 7-8 January 2006, p.28 (pp.25 & 28.).)
As for the contracts with selected big food companies, he says they are there to ensure better certainty in supply and allow retailers to supply a more specific range of fruits and vegetables to consumers.
UPDATE
15 February 2008
Woolworths is using a positive marketing strategy to make the company look good. The supermarket has issued stickers showing support for Australian farmers experiencing hardship through drought. It is called "Woolworths Drought Action: Backing our Farmers". We can only hope the next sticker from Woolworths will show the words "Paying our Farmers".
UPDATE
2 January 2009
The big supermarket giants (e.g. Woolworths and Coles) with their focus on maximising profit is one approach to running a business. The alternative is to set up a co-operative. In the European Union, co-operatives represent 8 per cent of the marketplace. Observers there have noticed the way the people who run the co-operatives and their focus on helping people in the community rather than maximising profit is helping to weather the financial storm of the economic recession since October 2008 better than companies relying on the sharemarket to get financial support from investors.
Co-operatives work best by bringing together various essential local businesses needed by the community (e.g. farmers producing quality food) and relying on the local community for workers and consumers to support the businesses. In return for the support, people in the community receive an income and profits earned by the co-operative are invested back into the community. This approach is so successful that despite the focus on people, co-operatives can earn substantial profits. As a result, the profits are used to build new businesses such as gyms, youth centres etc.
A classic example of a successful co-operative in Australia is Hastings Co-operative. The turnover of Hastings for 2007-2008 has reached AUD$750 million. The profits have not been dented by the economic recession.
UPDATE
4 June 2010
Australian farmers are fighting back. As people like the milkman find it too difficult to sell one basic food commodity to the community because of bulk buying power of the two big supermarket chains — Woolworths and Coles — a range of fresh fruit, vegetables, milk and meats have combined and sold to consumers direct from the farmers. Like a milk run, a van will come around and deliver fresh farm food once a week saving mums considerable time in doing the shopping. And the food will be guaranteed to be fresh within 48 hours of picking compared to 3 to 12 months storage time often employed for the same food before it reaches the supermarkets.
It is known as Aussie Farmers Direct. Further details can be obtained from http://www.aussiefarmers.com.au/NSW/index.php.
UPDATE
January 2011
Coles and Woolworths are taking a price cut on milk to $2 per 2 litres forcing the local milk producers to lose significant profits and struggle to survive. Great for consumers, but bad news for the local producers. Perhaps the Federal government should instigate legislation to protect the producers from this behaviour by establishing the minimum price for producing local milk plus a reasonable profit of say 30 per cent on top of the cost. Make this the standard price for all milk nationally including those imported from overseas. So if supermarkets want to drop the price to increase consumer numbers visiting their stores, not problems at all. It will affect the profits of the supermarket, but not the local and imported milk producers.
UPDATE
1 May 2015
The two biggest supermarket chains — Coles and Woolworths — continue to undermine the true cost to produce fresh food by local farmers. The consequence of pushing local farmers to reduce the price of their food because the supermarkets can easily obtain the same type of foods from international food manufacturers at a cheaper price is to underpay or not pay at all to foreign backpackers working on local farms. Until supermarkets take some responsibility for their hard business tactics, other people down the chain in supplying fresh food will continue to face great difficulties in making a reasonable profit and survive in this tough farming environment.
Mobile phone rip-offs
As of September 2003, the large telecommunication companies of Telstra and Vodaphone in Australia are clammering for clever new ways to get people to spend more money on their mobile phones (as if the constant and regular monthly minimum mobile phone bills are still not enough). Three of the latest secret ways to get people to spend more money involves getting consumers (i) to listen to extra voice messages from advertisers; (ii) to stay on the phone longer by forcing consumers to listen to the companies' telephone operator until they can press the buttons required to retrieve their voice messages; (iii) to pay their high minimum monthly phone bills for newer phones because the companies are paying monthly commissions to the businesses who sold the phones to consumers in large quantities.
And the explanation given by the telecommunication companies for doing this is to provide consumers with better service!
Fish substitution
Have we mentioned the technique in maximising profits for those people wanting to sell fish to consumers? The technique involves substituting an expensive fish for a cheaper one that looks the same, calling it the same name as the expensive fish, and selling it at the price of the expensive fish.
For example, some fish shop owners will import cheaper fish from Asia or Africa into Australia and try to sell them as genuine, fresh Australian seafood at double the standard retail price for imported fish. For instance, imported prawns sold as expensive Queensland prawns during the out-of-season period is common. Another example is how the more expensive barramundi may be substituted with the cheaper Nile Perch.
Another problem is that fish that is frozen can not only be kept longer allowing Asian fish exporters to sell the products to Australian businesses, but the Asian businesses do not have to label for how long the fish has been frozen. Then when the fish are defrosted, some Australian businesses will try to sell the fish as if it is a fresh product recently catched from the oceans. Or better still, cook them in an egg and flour batter that effectively hides the quality or type of fish or even where the fish had come from originally.
And that some technique will often command premium prices from Australian consumers.
NOTE: Do not be frightened into buying fish because of the substitution racket. You will have to keep your eyes open and choose quality fish based on appearance (learn what real fish names look like from different fish shops and look at the eyes and flesh), and whether the meat springs back into its original shape and has a subtle ocean smell (i.e. the fish is fresh). Or catch the fish yourself from clean locations!
UPDATE
September 2003
Australian businesses selling fish are trying to win the confidence of consumers by declaring the imported fish is of high quality. Yes, imported fish can, and often is, of high quality when it is fresh and delivered quickly to the Australian markets. And due to the lower labour costs, it can be a significant saving to the Australian consumer. But this is not the point. What is the real issue is how some fish shop owners are prepared to dishonestly market imported fish as genuine Australian fish while selling the food to consumers at high prices.
What's wrong with telling consumers the type of fish a business is selling and show a sensible price for it? Let the consumers decide whether imported fish at lower prices is better than the Australian variety or not. Businesses should concentrate on showing the benefits of both types of fish, and definitely not how deceptive they can be with consumers in the hope of making an extra buck.
If businesses are concerned insufficient numbers of consumers are buying the imported stuff, use some creativity! Try to make the imported fish look more attractive or do something else with it. Marketing experts call it value adding to a product! For example, if the businesses believe the fish is of high quality, then let a scientific laboratory test the fish for quality compared to the Australian variety. Display the scientific results at the fish shops or in advertisements as proof to the consumer of a quality product.
Also consider cooking the imported and Australian fish and give consumers a free sample of each one. Ask the consumers which is better? Can they tell the difference? Let consumers know high quality imported fish is just as good as the local variety and is readily available as freshly cooked fish in a basket at a good price.
The convenience of cooking quality imported fish should outweigh the costs to the consumer of buying Australian fish and later cooking it at home.
UPDATE
25 November 2003
The Australian seafood industry is taking another battering from the public when it comes to imported fish. The latest news suggests some imported prawns (allegedly from China) are tainted with a banned antibiotic chemical known as nitrofurans. The chemical is added by some countries mainly to improve the quality of the fish and hence improve the chances of selling it to consumers. However, those countries which add the chemical may not be aware it is a known carcinogen. You only need to consume a miniscule amount (as little as 0.4 parts per billion) of the chemical to cause cancer to the colon and liver.
The problem is believed to extend to other foods such as honey imported from places like Argentina, Pakistan, India and Mexico. For those Australian honey manufacturers wanting to use cheap honey imports to sell more products at a lower price (e.g. Capilano), it is time all products are scientifically proven to be pure. If not, only use pure Australian honey and learn to settle for a reasonable profit.
UPDATE
4 February 2006
Are Australian fish no better than imported ones? After four years of noticing the problem, the NSW Government believe the problem has worsened to the point where Sydney-siders have been banned from fishing in Sydney Harbour because of high levels of dioxin in the fish. What about areas outside Sydney?
We are none the wiser after this ban.
UPDATE
13 February 2006
Imported freshwater fillets called Basa from the Mekong River in South Vietnam (also known as Mekong Catfish, Vietnamese Catfish or Royal Basa as the preferred fancier name given by some fish shop owners) live in man-made dams using the water from the river. But there is a concern the river contains various chemicals used to grow rice and human sewerage according to some locals prepared to say so. Most Asian fish growers are happy to say the problem looks worse than it is and so the fish should be fine. Australian testing of imported fish is unfortunately limited to prove this view.
Pilfering food for profit
In the southwestern part of France, professional pilferers are secretly harvesting highly-prized artichokes at various times of the year and in the middle of the night. And it isn't all for private eating. With the price of artichokes going up in France and elsewhere, some people are seeing the financial benefits of illegally stealing the artichokes by slashing the heads and selling them to eager and waiting buyers throughout Europe.
In the past, a few pilferers did it for the purposes of eating the vegetable in private. The small numbers of artichokes ending up on the dinner tables of anonymous people were generally ignored by the farmers. Now the prices for certain foods including the French artichokes have jumped and a group of highly organised pilferers have taken it upon themselves to take a lot more than usual in an attempt to become filthy rich.
The pilfering problem has now extended into other forms of food such as truffles and snails.
Vigilante patrols with mobile phones as their weapon are currently in place to try to stop the problem. It is hoped a call to the French police will put an end to the pilfering.
Tyre replacements
Another cunning way to maximise profit involves some big car repair shops (e.g. AutoCo) performing tyre replacement work. While it is true many car owners are aware of differences in the price of tyres, they cannot always be sure the tyres being asked will be installed.
If an inexperienced car owner requests the mechanic to install more expensive tyres from say Dunlop (e.g. Le Mans 702 at $167 each), the mechanic may decide to put on cheaper tyres (e.g. Le Mans A5 priced at $115 each). Later the mechanic mentions in the invoice (can only be obtained after the car owner has paid for the work) something vague such as (2 x Tyres at $167 each). The car owners pays $334 for the tyres when in fact he/she should have paid only $230 if the mechanic placed cheaper tyres, or a $104 difference.
Unless you physically observe the tyres more closely and discover a difference in model number for the Dunlop tyres and verify the costs, it is very easy for car repair shops to get away with this technique as a means of maximising profit while allowing the customer to deceptively think he/she has paid for more expensive tyres.
And this is for a product which the car owner can closely inspect. If the item is embedded underneath the car or hidden in the highly complex engine section, there is very little chance for the car owner to know for sure what has been installed at what price.
Also some repair shops may not return the old parts from the car to the owner on the excuse that the car had to be repaired on a Saturday, but this happens to be the day old parts are sent to the hopper and removed from the premises. Even if the car owner physically asks for the old parts, it is possible some old parts are not provided because of this excuse.
This allows some repair shops to get away with allegedly doing extra repairs (which may well have been unnecessary or perhaps there had been no repairs done at all) at a cost to the car owner.
Cheap labour
In the largely unregulated building industry of affluent "developed" nations, businesses are maximising profit by minimising salaries of ordinary workers. The best way to do this is to entice people in poorer nations to pay a plane ticket to visit temporarily places such as Australia in the naive belief they will be paid significantly more than at home. In truth, the businesses take advantage of the poorer immigrants by forcing them to do dangerous and dirty work in buildings and later get paid a pittance for the effort (usually around A$7 to $10 per hour). In some cases, the immigrants may not get paid for over six weeks at a time.
When housing the immigrants, the businesses will usually bring them together under the one cheap roof to further minimise costs associated with rent.
Approximately 10,000 illegal immigrants are believed to be working in the Australian building industry in this manner as of April 2004, making it harder for young Australian apprentices to get a job.
The low down on washing machines
And how can we forget another beauty being practiced by certain white goods manufacturers (we won't mention any names, will we Electrolux?). This latest claim supported by the Australian current affairs program, Today Tonight on 17 September 2003 and whistleblowers of the industry are that washing machines are made essentially with the same parts. To give the impression the washing machines are different to the consumers and hence get consumers to pay more, the manufacturers will change the control board so they can give consumers what appears to be more features. But the guts of the washing machine (i.e. the motor and other parts) are essentially the same.
In essence, anything that you can see in the washing machine on the outside may be varied slightly to make it look different to the consumers and give the impression it is a better product. But anything you can't see is kept the same.
Try it. Ask the service division for a spare part you can't see in two seemingly different washing machines from the same manufacturer. Are the part numbers identical? If so, then the washing machines are essentially the same product with a slightly different outer packaging.
And when the packaging is different, expect the price of the washing machines to vary significantly.
Unethical globalisation
The idea of globalisation can be beneficial if it can bridge the disparity between rich and poor nations so long as businesses participating in globalisation are focussed on providing a quality, needy product and/or service at appropriately low costs to the masses (i.e. the global business should hold a socially-responsible corporate world citizen certificate).
However, Joseph Stiglitz, author of Globalization and its Discontents and chief economist at the World Bank until January 2000, has an argument against globalisation in that there is a tendency for businesses in developed nations to impose a fundamentalist dogma upon the developing nations for the purposes of maximising profit or other advantages.
Stiglitz believes this kind of interference without sensitivity to the cultural context and other social issues can be catastrophic to the people of the poorer nations.
For example, with the backing of the US, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides loan schemes to poorer nations only if those nations drop their tariffs. The result of nations following this condition without modification has been a flood of international imports from the developed nations (mainly the US) leading to the destruction of many local industries. Why? Because it allows businesses of the developed nations to replace the local products with the same sorts of products for selling at much higher prices. Only those nations able to modify the IMF policies through various government strategies have a better chance of prospering under these schemes (e.g. Malaysia, Korea and China).
Whether this is because the US wants to hide certain secrets from the world by keeping everyone preoccupied with their own survival or by maintaining the current Westernised system, or whether the US and other developed nations have serious problems in the Westernised bureaucracy and are suffering serious tunnel vision because of it, it is clear maximising profits is one solid reason for practicing unethical globalisation.
UPDATE
21 September 2003
What happens if the US cannot control the markets of another country because no loan scheme is required? The US Government will try to restrict the country's access to the US market or use government subsidies to reduce the cost of similar products produced by US businesses.
Then if the country being affected argues it wants fair and equitable access to the US market, the US Government will negotiate what is known as a Free Trade Agreement with conditions attached by the US Government to help US businesses give them unfettered access to the other country's market.
So things like quarantine laws, tariffs and other restrictions to US exports are removed through long negotiations in a Free Trade Agreement. Then if the country agrees to all these changes, the US market can flood the country with cheap US products. And where there are no equivalent products in the marketplace and competition is virtually non-existent, the US businesses will try to sell them at much higher prices than in the US itself.
Such an approach is taking place between the US and Australia in the current Free Trade Agreement being negotiated between the two countries. A look at recent developments in the negotiation shows the US Government is extremely keen to abolish Australia's tight quarantine laws and generally have unfettered access to the Australian market.
As Mr Arnold Jago of Mildura, NSW, Australia, said:
"Before the US will sign a so-called Free Trade Agreement with Australia, it wants Australia to abolish "single selling desk" arrangements for wheat, sugar, barley and rice. This would endanger Australia's industries.
'For example, at present AWB Ltd (formerly the Australian Wheat Board) is a large international grain trader, the sole exporter of Australian wheat. This guarantees supply and quality, therby gaining premium prices for Australian farmers on world markets.
'There must be no weakening of our "single desk" arrangements, especially while the US hands out huge (and increasing) subsidies to farmers." (9)
UPDATE
4 October 2003
To minimise damage to local industries by US (and now Australian) imports of virtually identical food products having free reign in all foreign markets without consideration of existing industries in those parts of the world, some farmers in the European Union want better protection for products named after their place of origin. Now the US (and Australia) are complaining about the possibility European laws may support the farmers! So aren't the foreign imports making enough money in other regions? Why should the US sell cheaper identical products only to disrupt the livelihoods of local EU farmers who are trying to survive by selling their own quality food products in the local market?
Why can't nations have a free World Trade Agreement based on the strengths of those nations in producing certain products in exchange for importing different products from other nations? Why does it always have to be the same? Unfortunately, the problem is that the US have the technology to produce just about anything they like and when they try to sell the products to another country which is producing the same type of products, conflict is inevitable as people's ability to make money and survive in both countries are affected.
What does the US expect? Why can't the US concentrate on selling something else to differentiate their own products sufficiently from those already being sold in another country naturally?
If the US or other developed nations are so technologically advanced enough to do so many different things on their own, then why not go a little further and produce something really different which other countries may want without affecting the survival of local producers? If they can't do something different, then sell the products in their own country and let other countries sell the same sorts of products for their own local markets.
Is it really so hard?
Governments of developed nations continue to sell weapons to developing nations despite US security concerns
Although some "R-wing" thinking Governments would like to sell weapons to specific people in the world in the hope of maintaining the "status quo" and retain big military secrets and perhaps as a means of population control for some heavily populated developing nations, when Governments continue to sell weapons even when those Governments complain of insecurity in the world because of terrorism, it can only mean one thing: they want to make an obscene amount of profit for the Governments.
According to the annual report, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Countries, 1995-2002, US-based arms makers accounted for nearly half (or 45.5 per cent) of arms sales to both developing and industrialised nations. In terms of a monetary figure, this is roughly US$13.3 billion (A$19.7 billion) of what is essentially a US$30 billion world arms trade in 2002.
The top arms makers were the US, Russia (to prop up an ailing economy) and China. Other countries involved in the trade include North Korea, Israel and South Africa. US officials were quick to emphasise North Korea delivered 60 surface-to-surface missiles and 10 anti-ship missiles to the Middle East between 1995-2002. But it doesn't make the US any safer or morally right in its judgement of other countries while it retains the unenviable position of being the world leader in the delivery of the most weapons to the world.
UPDATE
26 December 2003
Part of the problem in developing these weapons by the developed nations and having them sold on the world market is the tremendous feeling of insecurity many rich and powerful people seem to have in this world (if it isn't a profit mentality). Perhaps these people are hoping the selling of such weapons overseas will somehow reduce population levels in the poorer nations and so make the world a safer and more easily controlled place to live while allowing the rich and power to continue with its excessive consumption habits and in getting richer and powerful over time.
Another problem is the existence of a rather big secret held by the US and its military since the late 1940s in New Mexico. You see, by stopping any powerful new recycling technology system from being discovered by the rest of the world through an aura of intense secrecy, it helps the ones who know about the big secret to get rich and powerful by selling the non-recycling technologies. At first, the secret may have been kept for noble reasons to help prevent panic and hysteria among the general public. But now the secret has been kept hidden for too long because of more selfish reasons. And the best way to maintain the status quo is to sell the weapons, sell stuff to maintain a non-recycling approach to modern society, and so keep the world preoccupied with solving other problems.
And another problem is in the people who go to work everyday in supporting the current non-recycling systems and weapons technology of Westernised countries for the sake of having money at the end of the day so they can feed their families and pay the mortgages. These include a number of top scientists who, either forced or are willing participants, go about applying their knowledge and skills to developing technology capable of destroying large numbers of people and the environment.
Scientists are just as much to blame as everyone else.
In essence, the general public of many Western societies (including the Middle East) are a very weak lot of people very much afraid of changing the world for the better. The general public has grown to become mostly L-brain types easily controlled by the thought of making money. The public are confortable in what they can believe in now, which is the current system, if it is treating them good. But looking to the future far enough and learning to create a different and more balanced "self-recycling" future today is too scary to contemplate for many L-brain types because of this issue of power and being rich.
UPDATE
11 November 2006
On the day of remembrance, Gavin Date of Marleston in South Australia provided another perspective on this profit mentality and need to sell weapons on the world market by certain people. He writes:
"November 11 is a time to remember the viciousness and savagery of industrial civilisation, which encourages poor people to kill and be killed for the profits of the oil and weapons industries.
'It's a time to remember the foolishness of poor people who kill and are killed for psychopaths who profit from human misery, the government they own and their media.
'Without that foolishness, there would be no war." (The Sydney Morning Herald (Opinion & Letters): Lest we forget. 11-12 November 2006, p.34.)
Employers sacrifice on employee safety for the sake of higher profits
Or what about the situation of employers skimping on a safe working environment to save a few dollars (i.e. maximise profit). The building industry is particularly notorious for this approach. For example, a new young employee may not be given a safety harness because it costs too much for the employer to buy (i.e. despite costing as little as $100 for the item).
If the employee should get injured or killed, local government may eventually legislate employers to follow regulations forcing them to spend the money needed to create a safe working environment. Only those employers who complain about the regulations are often the ones trying to maximise their own profit instead of focussing on the safety of their employees. Everyone else usually have nothing to worry about. As Mary Porter of Hawker, Canberra, said:
"In his criticism of the Stanhope Government's industrial manslaughter legislation, the Chamber of Commerce's Chris Peters argues that such laws are unnecessary as employers are responsible people and always have the best interest of their employees at heart.
'Whilest I agree with Mr Peters that the overwhelming majority of employers are good corporate citizens there are demonstrable examples of those who are not.
'The death of the young man on a building site in Sydney for want of a safety harness and appropriate scaffolding is a case in point.
'This legislation is not designed to place unrealistic restrictions or regulations on employers who are operating appropriately but rather to prosecute those who fail to comply with existing legislation and subsequently cause the death of an employee.
'Every employee has the right to expect a safe working environment and employers who are acting responsibly have nothing to fear from this legislation." (10)
Governments increase land valuations for tax revenue purposes
Because property prices had increased during 2000-2004, some Governments are taking advantage of the situation by making their own valuation of the land purchased by investors and home owners. The valuations will look unrealistically excessive on paper for one purpose: to get people to pay higher land tax at the moment the land is sold. The actual market price of the land is often not the same as the valuation by the government. As a result, land tax for one year could be A$1,000 and the following year it could jump to $5,000 or more.
Some people have taken to court the governments and won where the valuations are clearly unrealistic.
Governments lose sight of the financial status of a majority of the population
Another case to mention how of profit appears to have blinded certain people is the way these people earning high amounts of money over a long period of time start to think a majority of people in the nation they live in are wealthy when in truth a majority of people are probably struggling to make ends meet.
A classic example of this are some of the statements made by the Australian Prime Minister Mr John Howard, the leader of his "R-wing" Liberal Government. For example, D. Banner of Coolbellup of Western Australia, said in September 2003:
"When Prime Minister Howard replied to Opposition questioning in Parliament, he said: "The escalation in real estate prices has increased the wealth of a majority of Australians".
'Can this man, who exhibits such an appalling ignorance of elementary economics, be the leader of our country?
'By what distorted logic has he reached the conclusion that every one who has some personal equity in a house will be wealthier now than if property prices had remained stable?
'If they owned a house 12 months ago, then they still own a house — unless they are living in the street. And if they sold their houses at current inflated prices, then they will have to pay the same current inflated prices to get another, so how are they any more wealthier?
'In fact, the inflationary pressures of skyrocketing property prices has massively diminished the value of everyone's savings, so in fact, a vast majority of us have been made poorer.
'Not to mention the tragic plight of first-home seekers, who have been pushed completely out of the picture with their hopes and dreams crushed." (11)
Mr Howard was also the person to have said to the media last year that many Australians either owned or could afford to own a modern luxury 4WD worth A$50,000 plus.
UPDATE
September 2003
It is claimed by some observers in 2003 that 30 per cent of Australians don't own or are not buying a home. Another 65 per cent of Australians who own a home or are paying off a mortgage are believed not to be better off from the rising wealth of their properties (because money is locked away in the property while people still need a place to live). While the remaining 5 per cent of the Australian population are benefiting from the rising wealth created in buying, renovating and selling homes quickly when having the right connections and the right marketing skills. The majority of the 5 per cent getting rich from property investments are essentially those described as professional business people.
Millionaires living in public housing
Maximising sales is one sure fire way of maximising profit. But did you know the other way to wealth creation is to reduce costs? Among the ways of achieving this include minimising the cost of living at home. For example, there are now rumours of a handful of public housing tenants managing to successfully get rich and/or earning a high income by paying a lower rent (subsidised by taxpayers) without declaring the income or assets they earn.
If tenants are rich, they should take out a special loan deal with the government running the public housing program so as to give the tenants an opportunity to have outright ownership of the property (at actual costs to build it plus standard inflation and nothing more). If the tenants are in a good financial position, they should be able to pay off the loan quickly and own their home without having to pay their low rent. Otherwise, they can find an alternative private property and get a loan to cover its true market value.
In that way, money can be returned to the government to help build more public housing without having it all locked up by tenants pretending to be poor.
Psychiatrists making people believe in some great trauma in the past
Did you know there are some unscrupulous psychiatrists and psychologists wanting to make more money by convincing ordinary people on the streets they have a problem?
In some cases, psychiatrists will try to claim "off the record" as believing in satanic cults and how exorcism is a necessary part of solving people's alleged personal problems. So they will convince many simple-minded (or gullible) people in the countryside or hippy areas of this just to get people to pay for the service. In other cases, psychiatrists will keep patients in private mental institutions for far longer than is necessary because families are prepared to pay money to help their loved ones get better (but apparently never do).
The same may be true of people who are made to believe in a traumatic childhood by psychiatrists in return for getting payment through a substantial compensation claim in some kind of legal case.
The case of the missing megabytes
What is believed to be another classic case of businesses reducing costs for the purposes of maximising profits, hard disk manufacturers will advertise a feature whose definition is not commonly accepted by consumers. As innocent as this device may look for storing digital data, frustrated consumers have taken a class action against major PC makers for alleging the hard disks they sell is of a certain capacity, when in fact it shows much less when initialised.
For example, you can buy a 20GB hard disk and the manufacturer will advertise this fact. But when the hard disk is initialised in the usual way, the actual hard disk capacity is always 18.6GB. That's a whopping 1,400MB gone (or should it be 1,433.6MB using the definition accepted by consumers?)! Why? Because PC makers want to use the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard of 1 gigabyte (1GB) which is equivalent to 1,000MB even though it is widely accepted by virtually everyone that 1GB is equivalent to 1,024MB.
So instead of saying the hard disk has a true capacity of 18.6GB, the PC makers prefer to advertise a 20GB based on the IEC standard. It may not be illegal. But it gives the PC makers an extra opportunity to lower storage capacity and make a profit on consumers who think they are getting a proper 20GB hard disk.
A similar tactic is also being employed by Telstra in Australia where it advertises in January 2004 a 3GB download limit for its broadband Internet access plan. With Telstra willing to accept the IEC standard introduced in 1998 for the gigabyte as 1,000MB, some consumers are running over their limit by 72MB causing them to pay excess usage penalties.
The only difference is that Telstra has made the effort to inform customers on its web site of its IEC standard definition for 1GB (i.e. 1,000MB). Unfortunately no such luxury exists with hard disk manufacturers.
The case of the missing property area
Another way of maximising profit can be found in the real estate market. If a real estate agent sells a property through an advertisement, make sure the property area (in square metres) is exactly as advertised. There have been reports of some dubious real estate agents advertising a property at a certain size for a given price, only for the buyer to realise when it is too late that the true property size is much smaller and therefore valued much less than the advertised price. To fool some buyers, real estate agents may use an old property plan to give the impression the property as at a certain size. To avoid this problem, always go to the property you intend to buy, measure the size, and get a second-opinion from an independent real estate agent on the true value of the property.
Executive chiefs of large profitable businesses say their earnings are not good enough
Then there is a situation of executives chiefs of major and highly successful businesses claiming profits earned is "not good enough" despite actually making a profit (i.e. all expenses and salaries of the people working in the businesses fully paid). Perhaps the chiefs are referring to the shareholders who are expecting a major return for the investments.
But even if it isn't, the short-term investment thinking of shareholders and chiefs who believe a profit made in businesses is "not good enough" is making some ordinary citizens wonder whether there are some individuals wanting to be greedy or become a perfectionist.
Take, for instance, the quote from Bryan Docherty of Garran, Canberra:
"Qantas chief Geoff Dixon isn't satisfied with the [net] profit results for the half year [amounting to A$458.4 million or 28 per cent increase on the expected net profit for the period].
"'It's not good enough,' he is quoted as saying (CT February 18, p.1).
"The attitude conveyed in the statement sounds to me like pure greed, particularly as these profits were obtained partly by the simple device of imposing a ticket surcharge as a hedge against fuel costs. A case of working smarter or just being greedy?" (12)
As Mr Dixon made this announcement on Thursday 17 February 2005, Qantas shares fell A$0.08 to A$3.50 on Friday 18 February 2005, giving a total drop of A$0.14 fall in the past two sessions. It would appear Mr Dixon's statement to the media refers to insufficient profits made to keep the hoard of greedy short-term thinking investors happy.
Health insurance industry profits
Instead of reducing or keeping premiums at their lowest for the members, health insurance companies are making up to A$100 million in profit by raising premiums and reducing the benefits of the health services given to members. A typical example of this is MBF. In this health insurance fund, instead of channelling a good percentage of the profit towards keeping premiums low, the money is being added with previous years profits and kept in an investment account where the interest earned helps to fatten the salaries of the fund managers. Where some of the profit is used for other purposes, it would be for the purposes of acquisition (e.g. buying out NRMA Health Insurance and other competitors).
The Australian Minister for Health Tony Abbott excuses these profit-motivated health insurance companies by stating there is no such thing as a free lunch and businesses are entitled to raise premiums for any good reason.
Greedy workers stealing too much money
If you think the above examples are isolated incidents and don't represent the reality of Western economies, we can also report of the situation where workers whose job it is to make money for the Reserve Bank are tempted to steal as much of it as possible. It isn't just a few coins to pay for food, but sometimes for some workers it can be in excess of A$100,000 over a short period of time.
For example, the Australian Federal Police has arrested a contractor at the Royal Australian Mint in February 2006 after it was alleged that he stole A$114,034 over a three-month period. What gave it away was the shear number of $2 gold coins the man was presenting to businesses and his determination to exchange them for notes which led to complaints to police. The man succeeded in getting almost $1,800 in notes before eventually police caught up with the man. He has admitted to police to stealing coins from the Mint and claimed he kept A$50,000 worth of coins in a garage at his mother's home. This was enough for police to obtain a search warrant where they found a further A$64,034 stashed away in four laundry buckets, two plastic containers and four carry bags.
The contractor was able to get away with it for a while because of a deficiency in security procedures at the Mint where he was able to hide the money in his shoes and lunch box. Mint chief executive Vivienne Thom has stepped up security since this case was reported to police and published in newspapers.
But one can't help wondering what would have happened if the man only took what he needed and didn't ask for notes, but instead used it to purchase small quantities of say food every day. Would anyone ever notice anything unusual for the life of his contract work? However because of the man's greed, his actions raised suspicions among businesses and the law enforcement agencies resulting in his downfall.
How many greedy people obsessed by profit have fallen for the same trick in other parts of the world?
Milk may be diluted with a cheaper substance call permeate to make it cheaper to sell
On 1 May 2008, Australian Channel 9 program A Current Affairs televised a story of how some milk manufacturers have added permeate (a watery substance) to dilute milk. Why? To make milk cheaper and so increase profit by selling the diluted milk at the same price as pure milk.
It is claimed standard milk brands from Pura and Dairy Farmers have added permeate. Milk that doesn't contain permeate include:
Country Valley Classic Milk
Paul's Parmalat Organic Milk
Pura Gold brand
All brands of A2 milk
Dairy Farmers have recently notified the media that it has removed permeate from its milk products.
City councils slugging rate payers with higher and higher rates and little to show in return
Nearly all city councils are raising council rates for residential users to the most they can get away with depending on the average income of rate payers and the market price of residential properties in various suburbs. Rates are rising rapidly to as high as A$1,250 per year with no forseeable end in sight.
In return for the money spent by rate payers, the heads of city councils may earn A$300,000 or more in salary and take numerous overseas trips on the assumption it is to learn better ways of spending the council money for the public. And if not, some councils will introduce and spend some money on unusual projects such as paying people living in the area to smile regularly despite paying higher council rates.
Want smiles? How about not paying council rates, or at least showing significant benefits returned to the community for the amount being asked of rate payers?
World governments stealing resources from other nations for greater profit
Another classic example of greed and profit overtaking common sense is the way the Australian Federal (Howard) Government continues to steal the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Gap. The Government feels justified in the action because it has freed East Timor from the clutches of Indonesia in 2002.
But after 4 years, Australia continues to take away the resources and pays nothing in royalties to the East Timorese Government. As a result, there are few jobs for youths and the rest of the population in the city of Dili. Only those who can find a job are with the police and Defence forces so long as the money is there to pay them. Then in May 2006, the Timorese Prime Minister Dr Mari Alkatiri had to sack elements of the East Timorese Government's army because of limited money (and to discriminate those soldiers living in the West because it is assumed these people support Indonesia whereas East Timorese people living in the East claim to be the ones who fought for independence and therefore entitled to the money), affecting families in Dili and forcing the unwanted solidiers to flee to the hills. Later they would come down to support one group to create chaos in order to create political change (e.g. remove the Prime Minister). Eventually unrest develops as one group of East Timorese start to blame another for the lack of jobs, poverty and limited opportunities (and discrimination). Outsiders look at the situation thinking it is purely a racial problem. However in this case it stems from one nation denying another access to the wealth of natural resources.
As Simon Hansford of Hallsville, NSW, said:
"The Prime Minister [Mr Howard] and Foreign Minister [Alexander Downer] speak of the "impoverished nation" of East Timor and the hope that it will not become a "failed state". When we consider the vast economic and social injustice perpetrated by our Government against East Timor with the Timor Gap oil and gas reserves, how much responsibility do they bear and to how much will they admit?" (The Sydney Morning Herald: "The truth hides behind semantics in East Timor". 27-28 May 2006, p.36.)
The greed of one nation can turn people of another nation on themselves by discriminating one another, affecting some people's ability to earn money and thus survive, and ultimately starting a civil war. Or the nation may decide to wage a war against the greedy nation (not likely in the case of East Timor).
UPDATE
19 June 2006
Australian ABC documentary program Four Corners alleges the unpopular East Timor Prime Minister Dr Mari Alkatiri is trying to maintain power by giving the orders to his Interior Minister to issue military weapons to a group of civilians known as the FRETILIN Secret Security Team to kill the sacked soldiers who are becoming an increasing political threat to Dr Alkatiri. Four Corners receives a faxed memo showing serial numbers of weapons provided by the government and the names of those on the team chosen by the unpopular Prime Minister to kill the rebels. Commander Rai Los of the FRETILIN Secret Security Team is abandoning his Prime Minister. He supports this view.
No wonder the East Timorese military rebels known as the partitioners want Defence Minister Dr Jose Ramos Horta to become the next Prime Minister.
Dr Alkatiri would be wise to step down from his position.
UPDATE
22 June 2006
East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao is recommending Prime Minister Dr Alkatiri should step down from his position following the revelations on Four Corners.
UPDATE
24 June 2006
Prime Minister Mr Alkatiri refuses to relinquish power. So the next question one must ask is, what contribution can Mr Alkatiri make to improve the situation for all East Timorese people? What are his plans for the nation? And can he fulfil those plans and promises to the people before the next election?
Beyond that, Mr Howard must be thinking what a great opportunity this presents to his own people. If such turmoil could be created by a President and a Prime Minister in East Timor, imagine what could happen in Australia should a President become head of state under the republican movement?
But the real problem in East Timor is the constitution — it wasn't developed properly to ensure the leaders are doing the right thing and have been chosen by the people.
The East Timorese constitution may allow a President to exist as the commander-in-chief but he has limited power to execute and do anything. He cannot, for example, call an early election against the will of the Prime Minister to let the people decide who they want as Prime Minister (and President). Neither can the President sack the Prime Minister (as the Australian Head of State can do in the Australian monarchy) should the majority of people express their view for another Prime Minister.
It is the people who should decide their leaders. Once the people decide, the leaders must work together to help the people.
The purpose of having a President and a Prime Minister in this style of government in East Timor should be to allow the Prime Minister to lead the nation and ensure the people have what they need to survive and achieve goals for the nation. The only time the President should get involved and, if necessary, overtake leadership control above that of the Prime Minister is when the Prime Minister is not helping the people.
The Prime Minister may be the leader for the people. But it is the President who is the leader of the people, the one who genuinely makes sure the Prime Minister is working for the people, not against them.
The only work the President has to do is learn about the policies of the Prime Minister and his ministers, understand the effect of those policies on the people, and to listen to the people for their concerns (including scientists and other experts who may provide solutions). If the President can see a better solution, he/she should communicate the solution to the Prime Minister who in turn must provide an independent assessment of that solution to see if it will work better than existing policies. And if so, those policies should be changed. Or the President must look more closely at the problem.
But if, at any point, the policies are found to be too draconian or harmful to the people when clearly there are other better solutions available and the Prime Minister still refuses to listen and take appropriate action for the people, the President must make the final decision on behalf of the people to force new policies or force an election to let the people decide who they want for Prime Minister.
If the Prime Minister is re-elected by the people in a fair election, then fine. The policies of the Prime Minister will prevail.
The President should actually do very little to run the country. He is really someone who does more listening than talking. He should be listening in on parliamentary discussions between ministers. But don't try to interfere in the process even if the President disagrees with the Prime Minister or his ministers. For it is the people who will make the final decision of whether something is right or not.
The President can consult anyone he wants. He can ask for any document produced by government. He can do many things behind the scenes but he cannot interfere in the Prime Minister's work or his chosen ministers unless he has clear evidence from the people and through his own analysis of a genuine problem. And if the evidence is serious enough, then he must have the power to affect the Prime Minister in a manner that is appropriate to get a response before any decision from the Prime Minister is implemented. And even if a decision is implemented, the President should still have the power to reverse the decision no matter how entrenched it might seem.
Because the Prime Minister should be there to serve the people, not his own world-view of how things should be.
UPDATE
26 June 2006
The impasse has been broken. Faced with a loss of key ministers, Dr Alkatiri has officially resigned from his position as Prime Minister.
From profit and intense competition comes extra waste
It is hard to ignore the fact that as people compete from the consumer dollar and marketing is applied to make packaging stand out and tnice consumers to buy, there is a consequence in all of this activity. The need to supply the products and make them standout from the competition results in considerable waste being produced. It isn't just the waste when some products are not used or consumed entirely that is the biggest problem (especially if the product can be recycled). It is actually the packaging that goes with the product and what to do with it all. If the packaging could be made of rice paper, a little chilli and salt on the side might help consumers eat the packaging and everything can be recycled. Unfortunately, this is not exactly the situation we have today.
The biggest culprit are those packaging made of difficult-to-breakdown plastic. Hundreds of tons of plastic packaging eventually end up either in landfill or in the oceans. And no one, not even the business that product the packaging, pays for it.
However, as the planet gets fill up with more plastic, the cost to the environment will eventually get back to taxpayers. We all have to pay for it.
What is the solution?
It may surprise some readers to know how many people who make high amounts of profit in Western countries tend to be Christian-based. For Christians who may not be familiar with the Bible and the problems associated with making high profits, it is probably worth reminding ourselves of the story of Adam and Eve and the inherent flaw we all have.
As the story goes, God placed a temptation in the way of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Its presence was either a test, or God had hoped humans were perfect since he created them. At any rate, God pointed out the tree over yonder to Adam and Eve and commanded the bare-breasted and happy couple to never taste the forbidden fruit on the tree. The tree is sacred, and the fruits have been set aside for another purpose and to never be eaten by anyone or anything. They are to be left alone. Of course, everything else was up for grabs so to speak, as the couple noticed when consuming a few things in the garden. As the couple only needed food from the garden (it seems everything else they needed was catered for), and noticing how much of it was around to make them realise this was a great a place to hang out and not have a care in the world, they were happy to continue eating and drinking from the great garden to their hearts content. More importantly, in the perfect garden, everything was in easy reach. Neither Adam nor Eve had to work to feed themselves.
Then, as time passed, Eve kept on walking past the tree and could not help noticing the temptation left behind by God. It was a pretty and rather unique looking tree with strange and attractive-looking fruits on it. All the other fruits in the garden tasted great, but she thought to herself, "What is special about this tree? Why can't we have just one piece of fruit on the forbidden tree and leave the rest? Surely it cannot be that bad." Despite having everything she wanted and was told not to touch the tree, she still wanted more. With nothing else to do in the garden, a time came when she felt God had not been in the garden for such a long that she felt greedy enough that she had to try the forbidden fruit. She managed to convince Adam to go along with her idea so she didn’t felt left out. Or perhaps she was hoping to blame it on Adam should God find out. Whatever the truth, and with a little further tempting from the talkative snake sitting in the forbidden tree (mainly to convince Adam it was okay), they both ate one of the fruits from the tree. Suddenly they discovered an abundance of extra knowledge had entered their minds. They looked at each other and became conscious of their own nakedness. Somehow they felt it was important to cover their private parts with large fig leaves.
Unfortunately, their greediness and decision to cover themselves after receiving too much knowledge turned out to be their downfall. Even if they could hide this knowledge and pretended to be dumb (a case of dumb and dumber) and tried everything not to care about their appearance in front of each other and to God, once corrupted will always be corrupted. Once they have the knowledge, there is a risk that the knowledge can be exploited at will and to one's own desires to the point where you start to believe you are God. For example, if you had the knowledge to make yourself perfectly invisible and could do anything in the world, what would you do? At first you might do silly things like listening to your friends to hear what they are up to and later tell them what you heard to show off your extraordinary powers of insight. But other people might then choose to steal something, or why not much worse? Talk of some males being creepy enough to rape women knowing they can get away with it is certainly not unheard of. That is why when humans are given everything they want, have nothing else to do, and then have temptations placed in their way, they will naturally be flawed like children overwhelmed with so much candy at a shop.
Furthermore, we do not know how to use the knowledge in an appropriate way. Until we understand the principle of love and truly know God, we will forever be corrupted by our thoughts and desires to have more and more when we can see how easy it is to get anything we want.
So, in the case of Adam and Eve, it was fairly easy to see what happened next (or perhaps their bodies could naturally react to this knowledge and appearance of each other to the point where things were sticking out and acting very firm). The fig leaves attached to their bodies was the first obvious sign. But the realisation that Adam and Eve were not acting (or appearing) as innocent children (and couldn't lie perfectly to this supreme and ultimate being), was enough to tell God what had happened. As soon as God found out, the couple was sent packing from the garden and forced to live the kind of life that is meant to be a metaphor of what we should be doing in life, as well as explain certain things that women and men have to go through to remind them of their naturally inherent flaw and what they must do to avoid this situation, so as to be back in favour with God.
As the old story goes, when Adam and Eve was discovered by God to have eaten the forbidden fruit in direct contravention to God’s will, the consequences for humankind was:
- Woman must endure the pain of childbirth.
- Men and woman must work to create and gather the food as well as achieve other goals.
- Men and women must constantly learn who or what God is through the work they do (while balanced with moments of rest, mainly by the man in his religious temple, to help better visualise and imagine God), so that we can better understand God.
Okay, so what can we learn from this story?
In terms of our profit-mentality and not knowing when enough is enough, the story tells us humans are naturally flawed in wanting to have more and more, and never knowing when to say enough is enough. We like to have everything, and we don't want to be told we can't have certain things. We think we can be God even when we are told everything else will be served on a platter. Yet if we are not too careful, we may continue to think it is okay to get richer and richer as if this is the only aim in life, which it isn’t. Then, if we don’t control our desire to have more, we will discover certain things we cannot have. Our corrupt minds will then push us to do and have more, even if it is done immorally or illegally. It is all because we think we can become God by having anything we want, when in reality we cannot be God. There has to be an ultimate limit. Otherwise great problems can arise after a while to affect all of life on Earth.
It is like a child left in a room by himself. He is told something is hidden inside a box resting on top of a table in front of him but he is not allowed to look inside. It is forbidden. Everything else he can touch and play with, even eat in some cases, but not the box and what is inside of it. Yet if enough time passes, we all know the child will get curious and eventually impatient. He imagines what it might be. Eventually he has trouble seeing what the fuss is about in not being able to look inside. He looks around and thinks no one is watching. The child then pretends to hide the fact that he is opening the box, sees there is some nice food, takes a bite into the food, then puts it away and neatly tries to hide the fact that he had already taken a bite into it, hoping no one else will notice. He then closes the box and thinks nothing further of it. Then someone comes into the room and asks what he did. He says nothing. He gets asked did you look inside the box. Oh no, of course not, or words to that effect from the child. Are you sure you didn’t eat anything inside the box? "No, I really didn’t," exclaims the child. Well, how is it possible for the child to know there was food inside? Then the person opens the box and has to ask the child, how did some of the food get eaten if you didn’t eat it? The child, in an attempt to hide what he did, will try to conjure up all sorts of stories of an invisible friend in the room that had eaten the food, or whatever. Yeah right! Give us another one. Children are such terrible liars.
It is the same with certain business people who think it is okay to be greedy and to make any kind of profit. We become obsessed by this greed. Like a child at a candy store, our minds soon get corrupted and we ask for more things we haven’t got. We just do not know when to let go and be content with what we have.
Basically, the moral of the story is that humans are naturally greedy, and eventually prone to corruption without adequate learning and understanding of our actions, as well as not knowing enough of the principle of love to do the right thing. We get to a point when we think everything should be served on a platter. Even when we are told we cannot have certain things no matter how much we can afford it, we still try to go for it. Eventually, like the child, we want everything.
When humans do not know where the limit should be, other problems start to emerge (as can be seen in other world problems).
Leaving aside this religious point-of-view, one thing is clear. There are certain people in the world who are obsessively driven to making excessive profits of a monetary nature. Indeed, the ones most likely to fall into this category are those described as business professionals, as well as R-wing governments (i.e., consisting mostly of business professionals or have benefited at some point in their lives from the profits obtained from businesses). In fact, any business leader running an organisation where there is a concerted effort to maximise profit are likely to encounter this obsession problem to the point where it can lead to corruption due to the power and benefits money can bring to the leader. And if not, there is this idea that making any amount of profit is okay and is the only thing that matters in life. (13)
So why the high profit mentality?
Philosopher and author Alain de Botton believes there is a reason why people want to make money. It isn't just merely to survive, or the fact that we are naturally greedy when we don't understand the principle of love. Rather, people crave that feeling of love in society where they are treated with respect, dignity and a sense of belonging and importance when having the money. It is called status. A powerful thing for a rich socialite.
Status and money are closely interrelated, but not the same according to de Botton:
"Status is closely connected to money in modern society but it's not solely about money because if you've just robbed a bank and got lots of money, you've still got no status, whereas if you've heroically saved a drowning child, you'll have status but no money.
What happens when you have status is that you're respected and treated with dignity, almost with a kind of love — not sexual love obviously — but you're treated nicely." (14)
Well actually, if you rob a bank and make lots of money, your status among the people who don't commit or support the crime may be non-existent, but you could still gain significant status among a different group of people (e.g. the Robin Hood supporters of the world or those who commit crimes of their own). Status is considered a relative concept.
The view people have of status does keep changing all the time depending on the ideas L-brain people (or R-wing types) come up with. As de Botton said:
"The rules keep changing, of course. In traditional Christian societies there was status in being poor and in cultures like Buddhism the prevailing idea is that you're closer to the truth by being poor.
In medieval times, the poor were considered useful, valuable members of society and the rich were regarded as sinful and corrupt — not a view that has much currency today."
Today, people do not see greed as a bad thing. Making lots of money is no longer seen as wrong knowing the benefits status and being able to survive easily and have anything you want can bring to yourself when you have the money.
This idea of status is more important for L-brain thinking types in modern society. It comes about because certain social L-brain types feel inadequate or lacking in the feeling of importance and love. Perhaps these are the least attractive people in society (i.e. old men). Or people who were poor at a young age and needed to work hard to make the money in order to prove to themselves that they can achieve and be important people in society.
The feeling becomes exacerbated by the fact that many L-brain groups develop a highly organised and hierarchical system in which some people have to be treated as less important for particularly long periods of time compared to certain others at the top. In that way, people at the top of the hierarchy are made to think they are important all the time and deserve more than anyone else. So how do we make ourselves feel more important within the group? Well, the easiest way is to make money. If you can make money, you are closer to the top of the hierarchy created by L-brain types. And it doesn't matter how you go about making money. If you can make enough of the stuff and it seems legal, there is a general tendency to believe you will gain a higher status in society.
Of course, there are many ways to make someone else feel important without having money. Talking up the positives of someone else in the abilities they have or the thing they sell helps considerably to increasing their importance. Or why not associate yourself with a particular famous or rich person or product to get that feeling of being important?
Even if you can't make lots of money, there is a tendency for L-brain people to purchase something with an appropriate branding to give that feeling of importance among the group. As de Botton quite rightly mentioned:
"Because people are impatient and will judge people very quickly, it places the emphasis on being able to have something to hand that can quickly suggest "I'm important", and a brand is one of those things.
We define a snob an anyone who judges people by one or two things about them, someone who makes a surface assessment, and most of our encounters with people are unfortunately going to be snobbish ones.
By using a brand, we're reaching out for a status symbol to protect us from snobbish judgments. It's not greed, it's emotional inadequacy and fear."
Then again, some people ,might be having a mid-life crisis and need to feel important again by buying something expensive and of a particular brand to get that importance back again because it seems fewer people in society are willing to give the same amount of love to others as before for whatever reason (are people worried of looking less attractive as they get older?). However, if you have the money and lots of it too, why bother with all these things just to make yourself feel important? There is still a high probability that you will automatically have the status you need because other people want to associate with you in the hope of receiving benefits from the money you have. This is common in sex dating sites. Women almost always look for those with money so they know that even if the looks aren't there, having enough money can make a difference in living an easier life.
So what are the consequences of being rich after getting the love we seek through status? Leaving aside the consumers who have purchased something to help other people get rich, what other benefits does society get from all of this?
Well, for some rich people, it may mean they have the opportunity to take out more from the environment because they can have just about anything they like. Thus there is a risk the environment can suffer in their presence. The other observation is that some rich people may not help others because they think it is a waste of money. They expect other people to work hard to make their own money. These are mainly the conservative R-wing types. This can be a problem in itself. Or some noble rich people may invest in helping other people and the environment to make things better. It depends on the person who has the money what they wish to do with it.
Already we see the problem with money. Profit, or making money, has the potential to create significant negative or positive impacts on the environment, people, and other world problems depending on the decisions we make in how we use the money.
How do we ensure money is used in the right way? The key lies in the education we receive.
A rich person needs to be well-educated and with sufficient R-brain skills (i.e., they must retain some semblance of imagination and visual skills for seeing the long term consequences of their actions and find original solutions) in order to make the right decisions and so bring about the most significant and long-lasting solutions to world problems.
But if you don't have the knowledge, what will you do with the money? Spend it of course, in whatever way you want. Legal or otherwise. Make use of other people in whatever way you like if they agree to if paid enough. Perhaps even set up any new business and make even more profit. Whether it is in gambling, the sex trade, or selling weapons to cartels. It doesn't matter. To the person who has money, profit is more important so who cares where the money goes.
This is a world problem in itself. And it affects so many other world problems. From the environment, to poverty and unemployment. It seems there are people who can never feel they have enough so they can focus their attention on something else, such as helping people and the environment.
In that case, how do we deal with these less educated people with plenty of money and a propensity to make more money and buying anything they want from not exacerbating world problems with their own poor decisions?
Provide them with more education. Or else legislate in all countries to get people to make the right decisions. If they don't know what those decisions are, they need to be shown examples of what needs to be done and how they will benefit them in the long term and outside of their familiar "making money" framework.
But what kind of knowledge is needed to change this thinking about profit and making any amount of money we like, as well as having whatever people want? It would have to be the sort of knowledge to show there is far more to life than materialistic things, and that sharing the wealth among the people can be a whole lot more beneficial to society and the rest of the planet in terms of genuine security, peace, greater love for all, and a better understanding of our purpose in this universe, including what will happen to all of us in our journey.
Sure, we must survive in this materialistic world. There is no choice. We need some materialistic things to survive. It means we must eat, drink, and have a roof over our heads to feel safe and comfortable. Fair enough. That's the price we pay for letting others provide us with the food etc. Yet people must also realise having money will not guarantee we will live forever. Death is inevitable. Not even the Egyptian pharoahs could cheat death by making lots of profit, acquiring so many things, and building pyramids. Likewise, if religious insights are true and people can believe in an after life, that on our return in a future life we may not continue to benefit from the profits if we decide to hoard it to ourselves. The mysterious balancing act of the Universe has a way of ensuring we experience the opposite of what we do and who we are in our next life as part of a long learning process.
So somehow the knowledge requires some insights into how R-brain people view reality and the universe and thinking more long-term, even beyond our current lives.
For example, R-brain people approach life in the opposite way. R-brain people already know they are important, but don't need to make a fuss about it because they know everyone else is equally important too. Otherwise they would not have come into this world in the first place if they weren't given that feeling of love and a certain sense of importance by the parents and from society for being allowed to survive into this world in the first place.
Therefore the need to make money so as to feel more important is not the driving force for R-brain types.
In a R-brain society, everyone already has status from the day we are born to the day we die. And once we are born, people will know society will value them and anything they can contribute for society. There is absolutely no need to compete or prove with others about who is better than whom, or the type of contribution we make. Each person is already a unique individual and with the potential to become an expert in his/her own field of endeavour and with many contributions to make to society. And his/her contributions will always be valuable and significant to society. It does not matter that those contributions are. If they help someone and make them happy, you have made an important contribution. For example, caring for a sick person is just as important a contribution to society as sending a man to the Moon, or travelling to the stars. All we have to do is give people the faith that he/she will achieve something great with time and adequate support (mainly by way of food, their own roof over their heads, and a feeling of love and belonging to society). Then that person will return the support in kind through his/her own love via the contribution she/she makes for society and all living things on this planet.
And there is one more thing.
R-brain people tend to believe that there is more to our current life than we know or can observe directly with our eyes. There is a strong belief among these people based on numerous indirect forms of evidence that there is something beyond death. Where we will go next nobody knows for sure. But the indirect evidence is supporting the view of a cyclic nature of life and death where there is a high probability that we will return in the next life. But due to the balance of the Universe, it is unlikely we will ever benefit from the profits in our current life if we try to hoard the profits to ourselves. The safer bet is to really share the profits with others to help them achieve greater things so that in our next life we can experience those achievements and work towards reaching higher goals. But if we don't share in the profits and allow everyone to achieve greater things, our next life might end up being the opposite to what we hope or are experiencing today as part of the balance of the Universe.
Perhaps this is what some religious people mean by hell? Either we make this planet a heaven, or we can turn it into a hell.
Basically, the R-brain view is do good now by helping as many people as you can with the profits you make and any tools you have at your disposal (they can always be re-built and new tools created) and you are more likely to benefit from the good in your next life. If other people do the same, we are more guaranteed to enjoy the next life.
So maybe here lies the solution to our desire to making huge profits: What are we trying to prove to ourselves and/or society by making so much money? And what happens if we return in a new life? Do you think you will continue to enjoy living a rich life as you do now? Probably not. Unless you do something great with the profits that helps many people, we can never be absolutely comfortable in knowing what are next life will be.
And if what we are trying to do with our efforts is for people to remember us, then maybe we need to think about something else. All the people in the current life are more interested in seeing the contributions we make to society. In other words, people will only remember our contributions given the passage of enough time. Not our names or what we looked like, and who we were in the current life. No one cares about that. Only the contributions are the things people will remember and be grateful for for the rest of their lives and for future generations to come.
For example, some people today and over the next 50 years may still remember the names of the Wright brothers who invented the airplane. But plenty of others will not. And over time, fewer of them will remember the Wright brothers. But what they will remember are the airplanes (i.e., the contribution the Wright brothers made to society to start this industry). Give it enough time and even the brothers themselves will be forgotten. To people, the ability to achieve higher goals through the invention of the airplane is what is more important.
So forget about trying to erect statues of ourselves in the hope other people will remember us. They won't. And nor do they care who you are. If you are alive today, all you need is love and you will have everything you need to be happy. Afterwards, it does not matter. All society seeks from you now is your contribution in return for the love we give to you. We should be like the quiet, unnamed shoulders of society for helping other people to stand on through our contributions as they reach further. Let other people reach for the stars, not the dictator by which others must look up to and support all the time and remember him to allegedly show how great the dictator thinks he is (or was). The dictator is not God. We are not God. No one can be God in the physical sense. We are not meant to be idolised. Every living thing combined in this entire Universe represents God. Individually we are part of God like a piece of a hologram that represents part of the whole picture, so we are all equal and important in the eyes of God (whatever God is in reality). And we are seen as important through our contributions. This is what is important, and is what will help others to see more of the Universe and solve problems in ways we can only imagine. Who we are and our names don't matter in the end. What he do to help is of greater importance.
This is why no one individual can be God. Humans are too easily corrupted on their own to have any kind of power resembling that of God. We only need to see how people use money when they have plenty of it in their possession to see what we mean by this corruption. We have so much to learn, and not everyone has the knowledge through education to know what to do, and do it right. We are just selfish children unless we see the bigger picture.
Not everyone has enough education to know exactly what to do with the money and what needs to be achieved. We must always remain the children of God still facing a life of continuous learning within the school and teacher of the Universe. But hopefully with enough time, we become smarter and more balanced children and perhaps young adults through education. Then maybe we can get beyond trying to be selfish all the time.
But remember, time waits for no one. We will all die at some point, and so we must make decisions now on what to do with the money when we accumulate it. We can only hope our decisions will be the right one. Certainly it will be the right one when the contribution and help we provide to others in society and living things on this planet brings greater happiness. And with it the potential for greater contributions to come from those who benefit from our help will be there given enough time, so we may benefit from those achievements today, and in our next life.
That's all we can do.
When we realise from this R-brain point-of-view that we don't have to prove ourselves to anyone and we must do things to prepare ourselves for our next life, we can begin to ask sensible questions such as, "What is it do I really need to do?", "What do I need to be truly happy?", and finally "What can I do to help others achieve their goals as well as mine?"
For example, is it critical for you to go ahead and buy an exclusive penthouse on the top floor of some skyscraper in the centre of the city, or to buy that massive diamond your potentially ungrateful or unloving wife has been lusting for? Or do you just want a small and manageable roof over your head, a loving family, time to think and help other people, and some nice clean healthy food for sustenance at the end of the day? What is more important?
Once you know what it is you really need, you will know how much sensible profit has to be generated in your business or in your life. Or if you still make a lot of profit, how that money can be better spent to improve society and this planet for the good of all.
Who knows? When you die, can anyone say for sure you will not return in the next life as someone living in a third-world country? Your contribution in the current life to solving these world problems could make a big difference in the next life after you die.
As for those business people today who continue to be caught up in this ethos of continuous and rapid change and nothing else matters as if they don't see a future after they die and need to make as much money as they can so they can have everything they want, are going to have to face their own day of reckoning. Our environment alone is telling us we need to change ourselves and our attitude to money. And this is before we even touch upon the issue of poverty and the impact poorer people are having on society and the rest of the planet.
We need to let go of this profit mentality. Or start looking at ways to distribute the wealth and profit to more people who can achieve greater things than the one who has profit. And only then will we have the power to solving all world problems, permanently.
As for the consequences of making profit and competing with others selling very similar products by way of waste, there will have to be a radical transformation in the way products are delivered to consumers, and how products are advertised (if any). The idea that non-recyclable packaging can end up in landfill and the oceans and not do anything about it when it is clear a lot of the packaging of not breaking down easily enough is just irresponsible and dangerous to the survival of the human race. It is time the consequences of making profit and asking as many consumers as possible to buy is dealt with. However, the ultimate solution is unlikely to support the economy in its current form. Perhaps a different type of economy? Or is it time a brand new world order should begin?
For example, it amazes some people to see how much packaging there is to cover products of a particular type. And we are not talking about the number of products needed for the population. Yes, that is a problem in itself, which gets back to the population issue. But if you were to walk into any supermarket and check the dairy section, for instance, just look at how many different food manufacturers there are producing the same yoghurt, or essentially the same milk. Sure, sometimes we need to produce a "lactose free" version for some people, and others might prefer a "fat-free" alternative. Nevertheless, even if you go for "fat free" only, you have to ask yourself, why do we have so many different manufacturers all producing the exact same product in different packaging? The reason is because of profit. The packaging serves two purposes: (i) to hold the product just long enough until it is consumed; and (ii) to attract consumers to buy the product. Other than those two reasons, the type of material used for packaging is totally left to the manufacturers to decide. If another business decides to sell a type of packaging that is difficult to breakdown in the environment, food manufacturers usually don't care other than it is low cost and has the ability to attract consumers to buy the product and keep the product as fresh as possible for longer.
And the other problem we have is the concern of some people in society might decide to tamper with the food packaging for whatever reason (probably because they are not being loved and supported) in a manner that could be harmful to consumers. As a result, new forms of extra tough plastic packaging have entered the market. Apart from needing to use your teeth to pull extremely hard to break open the packaging (or else use a pair of scissors, or tin snips), the nature of the materials used to make them tough is showing signs of how much more difficult it is for the materials to get properly recycled.
If we are going to solve all these problems, we have to tackle the packaging problem head on. And that means a radical transformation in the way products are held and delivered to consumers, and whether packaging itself should have advertising of any sort.
It is likely in the future that many of the foods we buy from supermarket will end up being supplied to consumers inside large recyclable vats on containers. When the food runs out, these containers will be easy to take away and properly cleaned by the manufacturers (or supermarkets) and get re-filled with the same product. Then consumers come with their own recyclable containers to have them weighed, filled and weighed again. In this way, you only pay for the product you want, not the extra packaging from the manufacturer. Sure, some advertising might still be shown on the large containers supplying the products. However, the problem is that there is only so much space in the supermarket to hold all these containers. And if we have a situation of different food manufacturers supplying their own containers and advertising for what is essentially the same product, there would be no room in the supermarkets to hold all the containers. It means that at some point, we have to let go of the idea that we must advertise the product through the packaging. We may have to follow in the trend of tobacco manufacturers in that the packaging should be plain or none at all. Just supply the food and that is it. Tobacco manufacturers still make a profit from their products despite the use of plain packaging. Therefore, it is unlikely that a similar approach to selling food will see profits drop anytime soon. If the food is of high quality, nutritionally-dense, has great taste, and is healthy and essential to consumers, the food will be sold in vast numbers.
Next, each food manufacturer should establish a factory in an area where there are absolutely no other similar food manufacturers, or a manufacturer that is making the exact same product. There should not be the same type of food manufacturers huddled together in the cities or in one general spot supplying the same product to the entire country. The food manufacturers should get out to where the local ingredients are being grown (or can be grown) to the highest standard possible. Similarly, the food manufacturers must make their own food products to the highest standard as well as demanded by consumers), and deliver directly to the neighbouring supermarkets and other outlets. This will also have an additional flow on effect in terms of providing jobs to local rural communities. Forget about delivering to the national or international markets unless there is a clear need, such as another food manufacturer getting wiped out by a cyclone, or the country in question is unable to grow the food locally and people require or need the product. And even in the latter case, all food manufacturers nationally should work together to produce one or two essential products into one or two large vats that can easily be delivered overseas, and people there can buy what they need without further contributing to the packaging waste problem.
As for waste from the product itself, so long as it can be easily recycled, there is no problem. Sure, if you can help needy people by making extra food that would otherwise end up as waste, that is fine too. But do not feel guilty if you waste some food (the worms need a feed too!). Just try to minimise the problem as best you can. In the case of food waste, every household with a small plot of land and a garden should learn the value of composting and using worms to transform food waste back into rich and fertile soil to grow food again (or sell back to the food manufacturer and farmers).
As for non-food items, the question other manufacturers will have to ask is, "Do we really need to supply packaging for the product?"
In other words, if the product is useful and built to a high standard and is durable, the product itself should sell on its own. Seriously, you just don't see a car dealer wrapping up a new or second-hand car in a large cardboard box with foam and try to sell it to the consumer, do we? It is just not practical, not just from the standpoint of the manufacturer trying to deliver the product to consumers, but also from the environmental perspective. There is just too much waste from the packaging to do anything of this sort with cars. All the people want is the product itself, to drive away and use straightaway. So why supply the packaging at all? It is just a waste.
Thus, things like purchasing a computer should not require packaging. All you have to do is inspect the product, buy it, and walk out with it, and nothing else is required. Instructions manual? What's that? Shouldn't it already be clear how to use a computer? If not, supply the manual as an attractive and engaging series of videos to explain how to use the computer and store it in its storage device. Warranty card? You should not need extra paper waste for this? Warranty should automatically and electronically supplied to the manufacturer at time of purchase.
If there has to be any kind of packaging to deliver something, make sure it is recyclable. For example, it makes sense when buying a tree to have some of the soil and all of its roots kept inside a "container" to retain the moisture and so on. Fair enough. But use paper or cardboard as the packaging. Let it breakdown in the soil and provide extra nutrients for the plant when it is well watered and put into the ground. That is all you need for packaging.
It all comes down to common sense.