CONSUMED BY POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND CORPORTATE GREED, CORRODED BY UNETHICAL PEOPLE
DON'T BLEAT ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN OR BEEN PART OF
Would you ignore the insults, and jibes, of Wayne Swan and the
Australian government
if someone was going to give you a million dollars or more? So why would you assume that the Board
members, and CEO, of
companies like Bonds would ne swayed to forgeo the benefits? Would you forget the
nature,
and
tenets,
of your role, assuming that you or they even knew what they moght be? Money is a big persuader and living comfortably for your life is a far better
option than being ethical or giving a damn. Wayne Swan has no influence and power over self interest and greed. The human instinct in the modern era
over rides al other things.
The larger part of the Australian population is powerless against the controllers of politics and wealth in the nation. We stand and wit for the crums or we
make moves, and plays, to gain a slice of the action. The labor and lberal parties are
corrupting elements
within our democracy. They are incompetent along with their bureaucracies as we see in NSW and in
Queensland.
The Board of
Telstra
and the CEO did not, and do not care, for the Australian consumer,
nor does the Board of
Bonds
and its CEO. I do not know these peo
Unfortunately government Ministers, and others, have to deal with them.
Does their skin crawl? Who knows?
ustralian corporate
human resource
management approaches, communication to the workforce and actions like that of these and other companies,
demonstrate what they are. They only react to money. Thus the Australian government has only one
attractive thing that influences. To give them money. What the Australian population can do is not buy their products and services.
This will starve them of money.
Let us not assume that it is only politicians and corporate types who are bent. The union leaders it is felt by many, feather their own self interest and nests at the
expense of their members. The decline in union membership is caused by a range of complex factors. I think the greatest reason for the declone is the lack of knowledge and
thinking capacity of the average wroker who thinks they are skilled enough to look after themselves, and the myopic professional who
has a blinkered view of unions and their roles and place. The unions go us the awards, the holiday pay and the sick leave etc. but we are not loyal consumers and we are not grateful people.
We are as self interested as those whom we bleat about. So do not vote for either labor liberal. Do not bleat if you are victimised by your employer,
ignored by your government or sacked by your employer. You have allowed the system to become what it
is and have actively participated or ignored it at your peril.
Canadian academic, and philosopher,
John Ralston Saul
has written much about human nature, politics, corporatism, globalism and greed. I wonder what the author of this letter, in 2004,
would say today, in 2009. Do they feel a fool?
"John Ralston Saul's claim that globalization has collapsed is hardly substantiated ["The Collapse of Globalism," Essay, March].
Whether measured by direct foreign investment, trade, the movement of money and financial assets, the migration of people and laborers,
the spread of American consumer culture, Internet access, the outsourcing of white-collar and service-sector jobs in the United States to
Bangalore and elsewhere, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear fuel cycles, pollutants, greenhouse gases, and virulent
diseases, globalization continues apace. American IT companies signed $119 billion worth of outsourcing contracts for white-collar..." (source:
The global pillage.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor), http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-117424440.html).
Malcolm Turnbull (laeder of the federal opposition in the Australian Parliament), is a former investment banker,
Peter Costello, a lawyer and former federal government Treasurer, who rode the false wave of apparent wealth. He did notactually manage the economy
when this type of crisis was upon us, for there is none like it. They are bot hardly credible in the debate. Kevin Rudd's experience lies in diplomacy and bureaucracy. He has no experience of
the larger world and its complex elements. He is a deep thinker and analyst. he too is hardly credible. So where do we go?
It is one thing to be able to
predict with uneering accuracy what will happen and when.
It is quite another to jnow what to do. There is a simple proposition here. Everyting is over valued and falsely categorised. Labour, material, resources, property, housing,
the value (worth) of a trinket such as a mobile phobe or a blackberry and other feckless pursuits.
These will fall to their real level. To know wjat that is, look at prices and goods for 1996 or there abouts. Then you will have a measure of where you are going and what to do about it.
There is no growth that the governments dream of. The economy was never at the heights that were stated for the books were cooked, by governments, corporations and the people selling us the stories.
We are in indeed in the age of consumption, but it is the people, the morality, the ethics and society itself, that is being consumed.
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AUSTRALIAN LABEL LAWS NEED CHANGING
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Needs Ability to Demand Companies Tell The Truth
The bureaucracy will tell you that Australia has some of the most stringent and demanding content laws.
This may be so. However have you ever looked at a product description on the front that implies something mothwatering or fashionable?
Organic? Low Fat? Raspberry Cordial? How about sweet chiili and fafir lime marinated salmon? Then when you look on the reverse you find the key ingrdient description is actually only 0.5% or 1% of the
contents. This is typical and is unethical. The law allows the company to mislead in this way. The Food and Grocery Council is a powerful lobby and politicians across
Australia dance to its tune. If they do not then why do they not tell us a different story. I am open to being convinced.
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A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAP (LESS) NEW YEAR
RETAIL CHAINS TO GO TO WALL
As Christmas comes, and goes, in 2008 a number of retailers will disappear in
February 2009, if not sooner, as the recession hits Australia. Unemployment will rise. The nation's workforce is 20% casual and 20% self employed they will suffer first and the
cascade wil begin.
These are largely the electronic discounters and the cheap imported Chinese made clothing products, and other trinkets, that infest the malls of the nation.
Why Australian consumers demand and buy low grade products isa behavioural science exercise in its own right. The greater volume of their purchases are junk and rubbish.
Australia has too many shopping centres, and common junk chain retailers, for the size of population.
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WHY CAN'T QANTAS LEAVE ON TIME AND ARRIVE ON TIME?
I am captive to Qantas. I am a QF member and a One World member.
I have only ever flown Qantas and its international partners. Obviously to reach the pinnacle of the requent flyer status.
By comparison my girl friend flies Qantas and Virgin. I note that her flights with Virgin have always left on time and arrived on time.
Here I am waiting for her at the airport. She rings to tell me that the Qantas flight, I booked for her,
is leaving late. canberra is a small regional airport which bills itself as an international one.
It is a two bit
tin shd with mediocre facilities and a crammed
uninspiring architecture.
They are building new infrastructure and a runway in the bleak hope that they can attract tourists.
They should read the web and see the traffic that is exchanged about Canberra as a destination.
During the past year I have waited for several hours for a
flight to leave and watched cancellation after cancellation. The service from qantas is deteriorating and the food and nerainment on the
Australian internal domestic flights is simply not worth talking about. Of cours the food in business is better. But even then
it is extravagantly over priced in the ticket cost. I have never found celebrity chef Neil Perry, the Qantas Executive Chef, all that inspiring.
I think there are many better chefs in Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia.
Qantas has been suffering from bad press and questions about maintenance. Its reputation is tarnished. The long time
CEO, Geoff Dixon, has moved on and we have a budget CEO, from Jet Star, in his place. He is originally from the budget capital of the world
Ireland.
maybe that is why he was appointed to thsi role? To match the down grade in service, quality and reputation?
If I have an early morning meeting in Sydney say anything up to eleven am, I will fly out of Melbourne,
the night before just to be sure that I am at that meeting. Melbourne is one hour to a little more by jet plane.
What does that say about Qantas and its reliability? Still I am captive to it in the forlorne hope that one day iots management may realise the gem that they are
in charge of and do the staff justice. For it is Qantas general staff and not its management that I respect. This attitude may one day prove costly as they withdraw my
privileges for bagging them.
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MEET THE FUTURE - IT US
Australian companies in the retail game have blinkers on. Whether it be the commercial radio, and television stations, happy to
fight over a 12% share of the market and think that is great or the shops that cater to kids and anexoric women (Size 6, 8, 10 and 12) or the telecommunication companies that
believe we are all besotted with technology gadgets, they all operate in oblivion to reality.
The actual truth is that the Australian populatioon has an aged group, with far more disposable
money, than the teenager or young hot shot professional. The older group also enjot stability and security whereas the younger generation live from week to week not realising that
there is a financial hurricane
about to engulf them.
The next irony, and surprise for the commercial gurus, is the proposition that an older population has cottoned on to psychological
programming. They know that retailers like Woolworths, and Coles, Myer and david Jones, advertising creative types and others,
are using
carefully crafted techniques.
In the
Consuming Australia
web site I have an article called "the Future is Us". It is about the psychological manipulation of the
consumer. What I think these people do not realise is that technology, the web and human networks, are colaescing to counter these artful dodgers.
Just as governments, their strategists and advisers, think that it is all about spn and manipulatioon without substance, so too do the commercial practitioners.
Note the instability of politics and voter behaviour. What causes this of late? Is it that they are simply jaundiced and disengaged? Or could it be that
they are reading, thinking, assessing and communicating, a different set of objectives, needs and wants?
There are thensof thousands of cheap oulets selling Chinese made rubbish, the castaway cloting era. They are a dime a dozen, here today and gone tommorrow. Why?
The population they are marketing to has so much choice, and is limited in volume, that they bankrupt these
poorly prepared enterpreneurs, aptive to their own inadequate reading of the market and the
future. These shops die on the vine, like communities that do not cater for the
Australian tourist,
the food and wine lovers of the nation. Dying with the clutter retailers are the professional sales men and women.
Instead of people with experience, and a love of selling, whether it be in Myer (a few left), David Jones (a few left),
Woolworths (spare me there are
none there) Coles (similarlly so) and the myriad of common chains, the major brand hotels and many restaurants etc,
we are served by young, inexperienced, sometimes dim witted, uncaring casual employees. They are under trained and under motivated.
Australia has no sales/service culture and no does not value same as a profession. As a result Australia loses out in tourism, hospitality, retail and every sector.
We are a mining nation that dabbles in other things, kidding ourselves that we are well governed, on top of it and are using all of our
available talent.
The small to medoum business sector in Australia needs to value its employees, innovate and
look at what it is selling and whether or not it is quality.
Australian Media at the Cross Roads
The quality of Australia's commercial broadcsaters is quite low grade.
This largely arises due to the narrow minded copying of US media style, content and programming. There is a lack of innovation and creativity.
A cheap mentality, demonstrable by the rise of reality television. This is the domination of
management decision making by a myopic few who think themeselves to be personalities in demand and experts in their field.
To the informed observer it is obvious that the population of Australia is aging. Yet you could not tell this from the advertising focus or the programming.
Maybe the decision makers and managers are young? The largest demographic,
with the highest disposable discretionary income, is outside the demographic target range of most of the commercial broadcsaters.
They target teens and people aged in their twenties to their mid thirties. The ABCs JJJ has a wider demograohic.
Talk back radio leads, the ABC and SBS broadcast quality and wider content, community broadcasting and cable/satellite television and radio
are fast assuming control of the ratings. The true situation as to listener preference is masked by a rigged system sold
by rating agencies that use a statistical approach. It is not real time linked to digital feed. The capacity to do this will
not be implementede for it is not in the interest of the commercial bradcsaters to have the facts known. Advertisers will flee.
However they advertisers will force the commercial owners to justify their charges and claims. Time is running out.
Channel Nine, once the doyen of the commercial sector, has been degraded, and humiliated, by the prodigy of its owner Kerry Packer.
At the hands of James packer, the station is now in the control of
equity capital investors based in Asia who appear to have little understanding of quality, culture and human behaviour. PBL moves into gambling
and leaves the broadcast, and print assets created, and maintained, by Kerry Packer behind.
The commercial channels of Seven and Ten fair little better in prestige, and quality, as they play to perhaps unkindly a
feeble minded, undereducated population.
It is not the internet that is killing Australia media. It may be due to the proposition that programming, and influence,
is in the hands of people with limited experience and cerebral capacity to understand that youth is not the new spending generation.
The commercial radio media haggle over a few percentage points.
So why are advertisers putting their dollars into commercial media? Because the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) does not take paid advertising.
The reason is that if it did the commercial stations would be bankrupt within a short period as advertisers floceke to where the real buying power can be found.
In the meanwhile celebrity jocks, journalists and hosts delude themselves that they are high rating stars.
In 2008 and through 2009 - 2010 there will be an awakening.
Some broadcasters will go broke and others will simply disappear, along with their short term
stars.
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The Mediocrity of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Below, in this web site, I state that
I believe the domination of Australian retailers Coles, and Woolworths, is not in the national interest. The Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission (ACCC) enquiry into this
sector (grocery) was therefore of keen interest to me. They have demonstrated their stupidity already by allowing Wooolworth's and Coles to enetr into the petrol supply
market. In the blink of an eye the two retail chains dominate thta sector also. The ACC supports the Australian government;s Fuel watch web site and policy.
So stupidity seems ingrained in the Commission what can I say.
The
report
into the Australian grocery industry is now complete. Being a cynic I did not
have high expectations for the 2008 enquiry or the ACCC's
capacity to inspire. I was not disappointed the trend continues.
The report, the conclusions and recommendations are limp wristed, a large serving of rhetoric and in some ways
demonstrative of the inability of the ACCC to attach comprehensive investigative processes concurrent
with the talk fest to explore the submissions and testimony. By attaching investigative processes I mean seeking to find out if there is any truth to allegatoons
by detective work. For example, the Australian Farmer's Federation made claims
about the arm twisting tactics of the major retail chains, namely Coles and Woolworths. The ACCC Chairman was apparently frustrated because there was no hard
evidence given to support this. Mr Samsules noted that the major chains were hard negotiators.
Is he naive enough to expect that a farmer, or two, would go out on a limb against thugs in the corporate world?
Real police investigators struggle with this every day. The Chairman of the ACCC Mr Samuels and the ACCC panel have not demonstrated value for money in this enquiry and in many areas for the ACCC itself. They do bring in revenue though well beyond their cost to the taxpayer.
The ACCC prosecutes the big cases of competition manipulation but the grocery world is grass roots and by comparison a lot of little
manipulations.
There will be a new web site of course called
GroceryWatch.
This is a useless utility for it takes little, or no account of demographics, and the science,
of human behaviour. The ACCC report is serious;ly lacking credibility. Where are the refernces to the seminal work of
Randolph E Bucklin and David R Bell
The extensive
study of buying behaviour that
categorically proves that price is not in the top ten determinants of why we purchase.
It is about brand and perception.
This shallow and glossy approach to problems within society is consistent with the Prime Minister's penchant for bureaucratic action (we have Fuelwatch coming)
that can be expressed in a pretty picture. Give citizens a copious amount of information relevant or not. A debate and consculsions true or not can then be wrapped around this.
The art of political speak can be employed and the spin merchants deployed.
Deal with any senior bureaucrat and one gets this type of response. Inundate us with references, statistics and propositions
requiring our assessment and decision. Meanwhile the Commission, and by its ommission, the government can avoid hard decisions,
accountability and responsibility. The ACCC noticed that leasing practices in major shopping centres and
the planning and objections practices in local government are perhaps in some ways rigged, manipulated and exploited. Smart people have known this for years. The ACCC is quite obsessed, in then report,
with horticulture and proposed new codes to
add to the existing ones that work quite well without really stating why these were needed. The Minister said the government would work closely with the industry on the
13 recommendations. This is so exciting.
Aldi received high praise and the
proposition that this chain exerts downward pressure on prices. Really? As at August 2008 Aldi has 170 stores in a limited number of states, carry about 500 - 700 lines of griceries. Coles and Wollworths and their subsidiaries have 80% of the market, 25,000 product lines and
a machinery designed to protect their commercial interests. They operate what is known as local monopolies. This is where there is
one major choice retailer in a geographic location. Where I live there are two Safeway (Woolworths) stores relatively close within close proximity
suburbs and no Coles supermarket, or subsidiary, within a convenient timeframe. The ACCC also discovered the Metcash monopoly. The supplier to the independent retailers. It smargins according to the ACCC were high
affecting the ability of the independents to price compete.
The ACCC also knows how to curry favour with its political masters aping their lingo using endlessly overworked exclusionary terminology:
"working families" (throw up if you have had enough of that one), there waas also "future proofing" the new mantra fom the Prime Minister.
The federal Minister, Assistant Treasurer, Chris Bowen, woked very hard to make some political mileage out of a rather
innocuous and valueless effort.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council, the industry representative body is politically powerful.
It is one of the best examples of practicing "lobbying and influencing" bodies in the nation. It not only can affect
the government of a state and territory it can also actually exert pressure on politicians within their electorates. Within its membership are 5,000 indepnedent retailersa nd the very large chains and corporations.
The 5,000 independents are not all that well organised and are a disparate lot, many of them migrants who have established valuable businesses in thir communities. However they struggle with language and
awareness issues, with ethnic barriers and knowledge, lack of capital and so on. They cannot employ the breadth of skills used by the large corporates. Similarly the oil industry is so pwoerful that the ACCC and government stand mute and whimpering before its sohisticated borderline manipulation.
So all in all maintenance of the domination of 80% of the retail food market is in someone's interest. Just not the ordinary citizen's.
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COLES AND WOOLWORTHS DOMINATION OF AUSTRALIAN RETAIL SECTOR IS NOT IN NATIONAL INTEREST
ONLY THEIR OWN
The Coles, and Woolworths, retail chains cover food, commodities, clothing, tyres, motor vehicle accessories and products,
homegoods and general retail, electrical, alcohol and petrol to name a few. Together they command, about an 80% market share
"The National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia (NARGA)
released a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers yesterday that finds
grocery market concentration in Australia is the highest in the world, with Woolworths and Coles having a combined total of almost 80%." (Source: Smart Company,
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/, Monday July 7, 2008)
operating their enetrprises in a
dominant fashion.
That domination
need not be only price.
They manipulate on a scale that is complex, overt, covert and insidious.
Their power is so vast that they dictate tenancy agreements in major shopping centres, which require a big corporate tenant to draw the shoppers. They can literally set rents, and conditions,
by default. They can bring direct, and indirect, pressure and influence on suppliers and use proceural demands such as
health department related regulations with onerous conditions added. They create their house brands and threaten competing brand industries livelihoods. They use a mix of permanent, and casual,
employment to their own benefits. They threaten the ongoing existence of independent retailers. Both enterprises have been
fined
for misconduct,
of varying nature, under the Australian Trade Practices Act.
Woolworths probably leads
in the number and value of fines, totalling millions of dollars. This is my perception and it may not be fact.
The fact is they appear oblivious to significant million dollar fines and this lays claim to question the Board, Enterprise, and Store, Management's ethics and moral compass.
The Australian Competition, and Consumer Commission, began an enquiry into the sector (January 2008) receiving
submissions
that reflect both public and corporate opinion. There have been previous enquiries particularly the Dwason enquiry and
some obervers think that
Woolworths presents misleading information
to influence.
"The Dawson Committee was so influenced by such misleading statements that in their final
report they stated;
“It was said that consumers are benefiting from the competitive environment……”
Dawson Committee Report (Trade Practices Act Review) 2003" and "No doubt these same players, guilty of these past deceptions, will be up to their old tricks
attempting to again hoodwink this inquiry by claiming that their “efficiencies” and “buying
power” are reducing prices, when actually the reverse is occurring.
It should be expected that their submissions will be riddled with the old furphies of “vigorous
competition” and claims Australia has the “world’s most competitive retail market”. (Source of extracts: Public Submission
to
ACCC Grocery Inquiry, By
Southern Sydney Retailers Association, 11th Feb 2008)
This perception, and claims, might not be far fetched given Woolworth's propesnity to attract fines for unethical behaviour under the Trade Practices Act cited herein.
On the positive side of the ledger they (Coles and Woolworths) employ, and train, thousands of people
across Australia including leading the way in the
employment of people with disabilities. They do purchase a lot of product though they seem to have a surfeit of loow wuality imported content in their
home brand and other stocked items. For the employment they should be applauded. However I believe that they do not, on balance, operate ethically nor
in the national interest. They should be limited in catergory share, and market
control, to no more than 20% - 30% for each of the companies, in all of the sectors of retail in which they currently reside.
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TELSTRA SHOULD BE BROKEN UP IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
The greatest threat to Telstra's monolpolitsic and arrogant positioning in the Australian market place is an argument to break up Telstra under the public interest test and provisions of the powerful parliaments of
Australia.
I say parliaments because there is enough legislative fire power in the states, and the Commonwealth, and the constitutional powers of the Commonwealth and the States to
force Telstra to divest its monolopoly network. This would be in the interests of competition. Requiring Telstra to divest its physical transmission
networks to a third unrelated party, perhaps even a publicly onwed entity would have significant economic and social benefits.
This haas been proven in the case of
privatisation
and
segmentation
in Victoria. There is also a
study
into the social and economic benefits and disadvanatges of privatising
infrastructure that is applicable. The Senate should open an enquiry within its Standing Committees or better still they can
do it through the House of Representatives, with a view to getting a comprehensive, and definitive, paper on the
public interest value.
If Telstra was broken up it might then actually concentrate on a quality customer, and retail service, rather than wasting resources defending an indefensible
status quo and
a debilitating, and somewhat arrogant, political agenda. Beyond the horizon are the threats to Telstra and they are not necessarily sitting
in
Australia's parliaments.
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DECAYING MORALS AND ETHICS
WHY DO WE ACCEPT ROT AND DRIVEL?
Australia is in decline morally and
ethically. Nowhere more evident than in New South Wales.
At the heart of the malaise is greed, limited education and
poor judgement. Along with an acceptance that one can do whatever it takes to get what they want. Again epitomised by the cabal that runs the Australian Labor Party in New South Wales.
The cabal that takes as its own democracy and government at every level delivering suffering, misery and incompetence in return. Yet we mught say that the Australian population gets what it deserves.
Myopic and inward looking the majority look only to their little world of self. The under educated, and unaware, tolerate
the corruption and degradation of our most precious asset - our government. They bleat when they lose their livelihood or when their small world is affected.
But they do little else. The Australian community is divided and suspicious.
The governments of the nation, and the people therein, are exceptionally poor role models. The expertise in our political class,
public sector and enterprise has declined dramatically to the point of disappearing. Economy, money, money, money - we live for pleasure and gratification, instant and now. More, more, more.
It consumes us literally with feckless pursuits and material possessions. All else is secondary and thus the decline in government goes unfettered.
Labels abound created by spin merchants who turn our politicians into sycophantic echoes - working families, first home buyers, low income families. We never hear of working singles, non working families and peolple.
This is quite simply dribble "going forward" - in a dying planet gripped by climate change, every day a crisis of interest rates and inflation.
We live in a constant cacophany of pending doom and significant
trouble that only the super political class can deal with. What rot we accept. The politicians spin us political conusmption drivel.
Too many people in government, and enterprise, are so driven in self interest that they will engage in misrepresentation, and massive theft, as evidenced by the
Visy, and Amcor, price fixing agreements by their management, and perhaps board members, and the behaviour of Beville's and Proud's Jewellery retail management (refer to the
Australian Competition and Consumer web site
for these cases and the litany of other offenders.
Many decision makers, on the fron line and in the back rooms, in Australia's business sector have never heard of the Trade Practices
Act let alone read it. They are oblivious or they choose to ignore it. Many staff in the shops have never heard of the act.
Australia's governments, also
corrupted and corroded,
have failed to protect consumers. The governments leave us exposeds. They even participate in
legalised theft. There are no gaol penalties for theft through lies and misrepresentation.
If our politicians can rip off democracy and government then why is it such a crime for business to steal from us too?
Beyond the lack of service lies the comedy. The proposition that Australia's banks are focused on customer service and enhancing our experience. There is a fantasy in theior world. It is the public relations theory, the spin and throwing money at glitzy advertisements.
Then the managers, the political gamesters and the rich and powerful go home warm in the glow of their own smarts. The parasites of spin marvel at their own dexterity and ability to lie and manipulate.
The consumer, well many believe what they hear and see on television. Don't they?
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LEGALISED THEFT
BY AUSTRALIA'S STATE AND TERRITORY GOVERNMENTS IN THE GAMBLING INDUSTRY
Australia's state, and territory, governments reap billions of dollars annually from gambling. The system is rigged to ensure that it is the punter who assumes all of the risk.
In addition to the casinos and
lotteries Australia
s governments licence to operate there are the totallisator agencies (TAB's). They are a mix of publicly owned TABs and licenced Pub Tabs operating in hotels.
Under the system the agencies do not give starting price odds.
They make sure that they cannot lose by the act of gambling themselves. They manipulate the price payout from the pool of betting money so that if a punter is lucky enough to
back a huge combination the full benefit wil not be paid. They take bets based on the total of the pools of money wagered. The pool is divided amongst the gamblers. They are thus betting against other people.
For me to win I have to take money from some other gambler not from the operators or the government owners.
They adjust the pools for tax take, operating management fees and other regulated exonses. The balance is then given back to the punters according to a complex set of formulae designed to benefit the TAB, government and operators. The price on offer for the various categories and components
can change after the race has run, or at any time prior. There are three major racing pools in Australia - NSW, Unitab and Supertab.
They are not linked and each offers differing returns and products.
The governments, through these TABs, want people to gamble their moeny, bearing all of the risk, while they the agencies bear none.
It is made more disadvantageous to the pnters by the varying quality and management of the oulets. Queensland is particularly sub standard in its pubtabs.
In one pub in Brisbane I enquired where the race sheets and form guides were. The answer was that there were none because they
liked to "keep it neat".
The punters relied only on the television screen prices and their own knowledge of banter on the commentary media channels being broadcast.
In another pubtab in the Gold Coast, on Flemington Melbourne Cup day, there was a trainee and one vbar staff member working. The satff memebre was erving the bar and hotel guests as well. Of the three machines only two were turned on and used. When the staff member was bsuy in the bar the
punters had to wait because the trainee could not manage two machines and could not fix mistakes and could not take verbal bets.
Thus the punters were disadvantaged.
Many pub tabs use the same staff to run the bar and the beeting machines. They are too often undertrained, often busy elsewhere and thus
disadvanatge punters through lack of service, attention and ability. On the otehr side of the coin many pubtabs take the thing seriously have dedicted staff, goods ervice and they are skilled. The hotel at the Flemington shoppping mall, on Racecourse Road in Melbourne, has such an outlet.
On Tuesday 29, January 2008 a long shot won a race being run in Wtsern Australia. It paid in Victoria $A68.20 for the win. The second and third horses paid quite high dividends. The favourites ran nowhere and the fourth horse was at a large price.
The exacta (first and second in correct order was shwoing about $2,500 for a $1 wager. The trifecta for a one dollar wager was over $10,000. The dividend for picking the
first four showed $2,400 or thereabouts. To pick the first four you must first pick the exacta then the trifecta and then the fourth horse. One might exoect a veru hefty dividend much larger than the exacta or the trifecta?
Not so. The agency in this case Supertab paid a lwoer dividend because the pool of funds was lower than for the exacta and the trifecta. Thus they "managed or manipulated" the dividend to suit their own benefit. The punter was grossly disadvanatged and to my mind
robbed. There was no indication that a punter picking all four would suffer a major, and costly, disadvantage simply because the odds are manipulated to the
TABs benefit. State owned enterprises such as these are not governed by the federal government's tarde practices and competition laws.
Australia's state and territory government's are reliant on gambling and not only do they prey upon the less well off, in concert with the lkicensed operators. they engagte in shady parctices, tolerate poor management and
sanction legalised theft. The lesser perfrming and attentive Ministers are given gaming portfolios. Write to them about this and they will be all at sea for an answer. They have little power in cabinet and are usually under the thumb of the
major enterprises involved in gambling and under the thumb of the state or territory Treasurer.
|
WOULD AUSTRALIA BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT TELSTRA AND ITS CONFONTATIONIST CORPORATE MEDIOCRITY?
Telstra was until a year ago (2007) a government owned enterprise. The Board and the management of this company embody the
corrosive and divisive mature of modern management ethos. They are an ignorant lot in pursuit of egotistical objectives defined by their own
jaundiced views. They are aided in these pursuits by people who appear to lack ethical standards, moral compasses or basic management and administrative skils. Poorly educated in a narrow world of experience and ideas.
I have been with this telecom (for my home phone) for decades. Once was a time there was no other.
Some fantasy of the government years ago and a bureaurcratic imagination created a hybrid competition market, but Telstra was always a monopoly.
Telstra has hired, what for me looks like, international second ranking expertise and has become more thuggish as well as stupid. Fat and ignorant would not be an over the top statement. Then again the majority shareholders may not be
all that bright since they have kept these people on the payroll.
I have all of my web sites with Bigpond (Telstra). That is simply stupid and so I organised to migrate. I created them in 1997. We (Teltra and me)
were learners. I pondered the early days of the
Internet and who I would go with - the thug monopoly or the dreamers who think they can compete. Well I chose the thugs because they
had a monopoly at the time. Bad choice but what else can one do?
The prices are way over the top and the company are your typical boring rip off merchants with little imagination at the top of the pinnacle. Apart from that they are seriously
ethically challenged.
Do they care? Probably not since there are many corrupt company board membersand executives in Australia today. Does Telstra
price fix too?
The Telstra Board, and management, spend more time, money and effort fighting with the
government than they do on customer service. The CEO and his three chosen senior executives appear to control, the board. The Telstra board may well be puppets to the master tactician. To me they seem to be.
They never respond to correspondence, it is all done through the web site. Mexicans cannot read? Yanks cannot think and reply? Who would actually know. From my perspective the clown who writes and says that the very senior person asked them to respind
demonstrates that the people at the top are are spineless delegators and unlikely to take accountability.
So based on what I now think are Telstra's misreprepresentations, in 1997, I built my personal web sites on Telstra's Bigpond.
They have fine print. All companies that set out to consumers off have fine print. They, like many big Australian companies, no not many, all, have lawyers and in house staff and external spin doctors whose parasitic
function is to lie subtly. Like all corporate snakes they are cunning.
As I ponder what it must be like to create a web of deceit, I note that that most peopel's existence is shaped by their work.
Look at Telstra's mediocrity
here.
But back to the rip off by Australia's monopoly. Telstra people, as I said, were learning. If you pay peanuts... welll.. But that is only true at the senior leevel.
The peanuts inculcate. And there are a whole raft of peanuts at the top.
Anyway Telstra's idea of a personal web site, at the time, was a name, a picture, mayne list some hobbies and a few links to web sites you liked. Simple stuff, not surprising now as I reflect on today.
Telstra is a company defined by the paucity of its senior corporate
intellect. They assume a hubris regarding their position in Australia and the capacity of their management and Board.
If you are a person who want to be inventive and creative I recommend that you do not use Telstra. I have migrated all of my sites
to a US service provider. I only keep Telstra because of the Google indexing and I have too. I am trapped.
It is my opinion that if Telstra, and their hubris consumed arrogant Board and
management (at senior and mid level) were to disappear, along with the company, Australia would be better off. I wouldn't care if I had to tarde a decade of effort and cost.
LIke the Australian government of John Howard I would be pleased if Telstra simply disappeared into history's dust bin.
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CANBERRA - THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU SPEND YOUR MONEY
Canberra, a facade masquerading as a capital
A place for public servants and politicians
but not a value for money tourist destination and experience. This is the national capital and the standard of hospitality is indeed patchy.
There are no hotels of exceptional quality and service. The only five star hotel in town, the Hyatt Canberra Hotel, struggles with the proposition
of customer service and making one feel at home.
Lounging in a comfortable room taking a drink before dinner I am told that "this is $500 hire fee room" and it is being closed. When I ask if
it is expected that
I, and my friends, go into the standing room only, few seats, very drab bar - the answer is yes. When I cheekily state that this is not a real Hyatt
the staff member demonstrates a lack of humour. The response is "I think it is Sir". Well it does not feel like the Hyatt that I am used to.
Don't like the feeling of the place, and the air of indifference, when paying $A400 a night? Too bad, it seems that complaining falls on deaf ears.
I have tried that avenue, so now I just write them up here.
I arrived to book in at the hotel at 9.30 was told the restaurant is still open.
Sitting down you look at the food buffet. Fifteen minutes later at 9.45pm I am told that the buffet will be cleared in fifteen minutes and I
should swelect what you want and load it on your table. At 1am in the morninga loud band may bash away in the back of the hotel.
I have
stayed at the Rudges (both), the Novotel, the Crowne Plaza (where a questionable very por looking
casino can be found)and the Carlton Crest. At the altter I walked into the restraurant with with people at 9.30pm to be told that it was closed.
Olim's Hotel is a an old world hotel where the service may be better and I might feel more at home. Will have to try it.
What use is the Hyatt Gold Card in my wallet? All afacde and no show. This is Canberra where the real money is on the parliamentary
hill and there is no service or quakity of substance, there either. It is not a memorable place except for the War Memorial, the National Gallery,
the High Court, Old Parliament House
and the National Library. The old institutions are the heart and soul of Canberra and without them it would be just a big country town.
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Woolworths/Safeway and Coles
There are two major supermarket chains in
Australia, Coles and Woolworths/Safeway.
They also own a number of lower level retail outlets that trade as discount stores. These two mass market chains are boring , lazy and incompetent.
I often go into supermarkets and watch what staff do and what consumers do.
My colleagues actually survey consumer attitudes and purchases. I rarely if every see a manager in the asiles and am never ever spoken to by anyone.
The shelves are packed with varietry. Cluttered in arrays of endless variations - lots of stuff no real presentation and no guidance for choice.
Coles has been under the management of a Board, and CEO, who over the years worked hard, and very assiduously, towards trashing the company and
its value.
Not that it really had too much to praise in the last decade and perhaps two. The supermaket chain stores are unimaginative. They demonstrate
the paucity of thought. Have self proposed, and media lauded, gurus of retail ever had their eyes open here in Australia, looking at their
stores or at the independents who make them pale into stupid irrelevance? Do they not see
what could be when they travel? Obviulsy not. What is their benchmark, the hypermart, the soul less US supermarket?
Similarly at Woolworths and Safeway there is a dull clutter of shelves wher product is simply stacked. The delis are lack lustre and the butchery
reflects a boring soullessc place.
Safeway advertise they are the fresh food people. Bullshit! This is taking
lkiberties in the exterme and should be questioned by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The time from production/picking to shelf works against the credibility of such a claim. It is not fresh. And "fresh food people" - how would we
know if there are people running these places if they are hidden away watching us never interacting?
The choice and presentation, of the Australian chain supermarkets, is bland and mindless. The buyers of product seem to lack an
understanding of the local market (area)
consumption as do the local store managers. The possibilities elude the Board, the senior executives and the store managers. Woolwoths/Safeway and
Coles work to a formula and it is a crappy one. The farmersa nd factories do not get the money, the
wholesalers, the middle men and the supermarkets do. They rip the value out and deliver mediocrity in its place.
Nearby in the strip shopping centres value adding independent grocers, butchers, fruit and vegetable, wine and other merchants ply their
trade with imagination and zest. They make the kings of retail look like emperors without any clothes.
I have never seen a senior manager of Qantas in the lounge or airport talking with the customers. They too, are faceless like the supermarket
management. How is it that Qantas, one of the world's great airlines cannot seem to leave an airport at the alotted time? I fly lots,
so much that I have not had to pay for membership of an airline lounge club for many years.
Not that is any consolation because they are crowded, full of people who should not be allowe dot be anywhere near such places and they are
turning surreptiously into
retail outlets. I live in airports sometimes, watching eveything. The food outlets outside in the airport charge exorbitantly for little
value and even lesser service. There is no quality in these places.
If people are waiting hours for a plane why is there no high qaulity restaurants and bars in an airport? May be like
the supermarkets the managers lack imagination and
information about consumers?
Virgin, cheap and all dancing gets away on time as does the cheap Jet Star, owned by Qantas. Qantas goes nowhere sometimes as planes are cancelled.
On occasions I have made it down the runway only to have the plane stop unexpecteedly and return. That was in
Canberra. No surprise given that this airport, euphemistically named, Canberra International, looks and behaves mire like a
bush landing strip. Qantas charges top dollar, serves awful food, and sometimes no fo9od really just a biscuit and a drink. They tell you there will be refreshment during the flight.
They carefully limit the dinner, lunch and breakfast zone times. Every so often they send me a questionairre, because I am invited to be in a survey group about how well they are doing, what I like and how I think things should be. Running an aitrline surely is not easy and the complexity is staggering. The fact that they run such an iconic one is a credit.
The arrogance and the disreagrd that seeps through the enterprise is not a credit. The Board, during an attempted take over (mid 2007) showed that they are out of touch, and distant, from the reality of the people who fly.
Still, I always fly Qantas and always will unles they do not fly where I want to go..
These are no frills and no service and you are out of pocket if something goes wrong so there is a risk.
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Annus 2007: Responding to the arrogance and victimisation metred out by corporations
There is a decline in both ethical and moral imperatives in today's business world. Visy and Amcor, the dominant packaging companies in Australia
engaged in price rigging.
The most senior people in these large well known Australian companies stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the rich and poor alike, from every
man, woman and child. Were they sorry?
Did they exhibit remorse? It appears only at the fact of being caught. Fined heavily they escape gaol for they are the mates of politicians and members of the club. Theft is a white collar crime and it
does not tarnish the perpetrator. Why would it when one
looks at our Australian governments?
In the parliemnst of the nation and the cabinet rooms sit people who have corroded and corrupted our
democracy and by example demonstrate that ethics is a no show against political self interest and the
pursuit and retention of power.
The extensive decline in morals, and ethics, may well be a byproduct of the rise of individualism and the
notion that people assimilate the perecption of the power of the corporation into their psyche. It could also be a result of the down grading and
corrosion of our institutions and the
general tendeancy to mendacity and self grandiosement of people who derive most, if not all, of their influence, power and ego from their job.
Who knows? In any event there comes a time when such people
should be told in simple and compelling terms that society may well be better off witout such commercial entities, and the people who work in them
continuing in the fashion and ignorance that they do.
An interesting aspect is the level of naivety and/or capacity for being unaware and the failure to anticipate what the
the tactically minded
response
to their actions, and decisions, might be. They may think they operate in a limited, and controlled vacuum, where they think they hold all of the cards. Perhaps they simply do not think at all.
In the case below a corporation manager has invited a breadth of attention onto the enterprise he is paid to manage and work within.
Angus and Robertson (ARW Group) is an Australian chain of book shops which has a mix of franchise and corporately owned stores. It has a view
of its place in the market and a set of corporate objectives. I do not shop in these stores because they lack what I am looking for,
expertise and knowledge, breadth of offering and environment. However that is my opinion.
In July 2007 the Commercial Manager of
ARW Group, Charlie Rimmer, wrote to a number of publishing houses stating, inter alia, that some of them fell into the category of "unacceptable
profitability". No doubt, a
valid statement from his perspective. Mr Rimmer then invited the company, in the case below, Tower Books to make a "gap payment" that would move
the company into the accepted profit range. If this was not done then Mr Rimmer would remove the
cmpany from their list. This is an interesting concept and provocative move. I personally wonder what constitutes blackmail within the legal
precepts and also what constitutes
unconscienable conduct under the Australian Competition and Consumer legislation - Trade Practices Act? Below is the response of the Director of
Tower Boooks, Michael Rakusen to the A&R correspondence, which ahs been extensively published by Australian media.
"A&R dumps books: Angus & Robertson's demand that small- to medium-sized Australian
publishers and distributors pay amounts said to range from $2,500 to $100,000
in order to have their books stocked in the chain's stores has brought angry reaction from the book industry and book buyers." (The Sydney Morning
Herald, Fairfax Digital Entertainment Blog: http://www.smh.com.au)
6 August 2007
Mr Charlie Rimmer
ARW Group Commercial Manager
14th Floor, 379 Collins Street,
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Dear Mr Rimmer
We are in receipt of your letter of 30 July 2007 terminating our further supply to Angus & Robertson.
As you have requested, we will cancel all Angus & Robertson Company orders on 17 August and will desist from any further supply to your stores.
I have to say that my initial response on reading your letter as to how you propose to "manage" your business in
the future was one of voluble hilarity, I literally burst out laughing aloud. My second response was to note the unmitigated arrogance
of your communication, I could not actually believe I was reading an official letter from Angus & Robertson on an Angus & Robertson letterhead.
My reply to you will perforce be a lengthy one. I hope you will take the trouble to read it, you may learn something.
Then again, when I look at the level of real response we have had from Angus & Robertson over the past six or so years, I somehow doubt it.
The first thing I would say to you is that arrogance of the kind penned by you in your letter of 30 July is an unenviable trait in any officer
of any company, no matter how important that individual thinks himself or his company, no matter how dominant that company may be in its
market sector. Business has a strange habit of moving in cycles: today's villain may be tomorrow's hero. It is quite possible to part
from a business relationship in a pleasant way leaving the door open for future engagement. Sadly, in this case, you have slammed and bolted it.
More to the point, however, we have watched our business with Angus & Robertson dwindle year upon year since 2000.
We had to wear the cost of sub-economic ordering from you through ownership changes, SAP installation, new management,
and stock overhang. In summary our business with you has dropped from over $1.2 million at the end of 2000 to less than $600,000 in 2007.
You would be quite correct to question whether our offering to the market had changed in any way. The answer can be derived from the fact that
during the same period our business with Dymocks, Book City, QBD and Borders continued to grow in double digits, our business with your own
franchise stores has grown healthily, and our overall business during the same period has grown by more than 50%.
Six years ago we were allowed to send reps to your company stores and do stock checks. Then these were "uninvited" and we had to
rely on monthly rep calls to your Buying Office. Subsequently even that was too much trouble; your Buying Office was too busy to
see us, so we were asked to make new title submissions electronically. Every few months the new submission template became more and
more complex. This year, we have been allowed quarterly visits to your Buying Office at which we were to be given the opportunity to
sell to all your Category Managers. At the first, we did indeed see all of the Category Managers - but they didn't buy any of the titles offered.
At the second, one Category manager was available, and again no purchases resulted. At the last (only last week), two Category managers attended.
Through all of this, your overworked and under resourced Buying Department never got to see, let alone read, an actual book.
While one may be forgiven for believing that Angus & Robertson is actually a company purveying "Sale" signs, I do believe you are
still in the book business?
That Angus & Robertson is struggling for margin does not surprise me. It amazes me that the message has not become clear to your "management":
there are only so many costs you can cut, there is only so much destiny you can put in the hands of a computer system, there are only so many
sweetheart deals you can do with large suppliers. After that, in order to prosper one actually has to know one's product and have an appropriately
staffed buying department. Most importantly, one has to train sales people of competence. You will never beat the DDSs at their cost cutting game,
you will only prosper by putting "books" back into Angus & Robertson. And it would seem to me paramount to stop blaming suppliers for your misfortunes, trying ever harder to squeeze them to death, and actually focus on your core incompetencies in order to redress them.
How a business that calls itself a book business is going to do without titles such as the Miles Franklin Prize winning book or titles like Rich
Dad Poor Dad (according to this week's Sydney Morning Herald it is still the fifth best selling business title in Australia nine years after
publication) is beyond me. And how in good conscience Australia's self-purported largest chain of book shops proposes to exclude emerging
Australian writers who are represented by the smaller distributors, is an equal mystery.
We too have expectations Mr Rimmer. We have had the same expectations for many years, none of which Angus & Robertson have been willing to deliver:
That we are treated with equal respect to the larger publishers within the obvious parameters of commercial reality;
That your Buying Department is able and willing to assess our books with equal seriousness to those of the big publishers
and buy them appropriately;
That you recognise thefundamental differences between the smaller distributors and the larger publishers and stop demanding
of us terms that we are unable to deliver;
That you would support and help develop Australian literature.
Had you made any effort to meet these expectations you would have found the niche we should have occupied in your business,
as have all other book shops, and you would have found our contribution to the profitability of your business would have been dramatically different.
In summary, we reject out of hand this notion that somehow, even giving you 45% discount on a Sale or Return basis, with free freight to each
of your individual stores, where we make less than half of that on the same book, puts us in the "category of unacceptable profitability".
We have seen Angus & Robertson try this tactic before - about 12 years ago Angus & Robertson decided that unless we gave them a 50% discount,
they would not buy from us any longer. We refused. Angus & Robertson desisted from buying from us for seven months. We survived, Angus & Robertson
came back cap in hand.
We have seen Myer effectively eliminate smaller suppliers. We survived and prospered but look at the Myer Book Departments today.
We have seen David Jones decide that it had too many publishers to deal with and to exclude the smaller suppliers. We survived and
prospered but look at the David Jones Book Departments today.
David Jones and Myer sell other goods; Angus & Robertson does not.
That the contents of your letter of 30 July are both immoral and unethical, I have no doubt. That they probably contravene the
Trade Practices Act, I shall leave to the ACCC to determine. (Five percent interest PER DAY !!!)
If you wish to discuss any of the contents hereof you may call my secretary for an appointment at my office in Frenchs Forest.
I shall be marginally more generous than you and at least allow you to pick a convenient time.
Michael Rakusin
Director
Tower Books Pty Ltd
Carpentaria, Alexis Wright : Winner of 50th Anniversary Miles Franklin Literary Prize, 2007
Copy: Graeme Samuel, Chairman, ACCC
Rod Walker, Chairman, ARW Group
Ian Draper, ARW Group Managing Director
Rickard Gardell, Managing Director, Pacific Equity Partners
Simon Pillar, Managing Director, Pacific Equity Partners
Barbara Cullen, CEO, ABA
Maree McCaskill, CEO, APA
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July 11, 2007: The leader of the Australian labor party at the
federal level, Kevin Rudd, if elected to office in the
Australian federal election
will direct the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)
to conduct research, and enquiry, into the price of food and staples in Australia, exposing the
mechanisms
that
drive those prices. As an example Mr Rudd wants to know why things are dearer in one state versus another and
why fruit and vegetable prices have risen sharply? How common retail petrol pricing works.
The price, and reasons, discoveries will be posted on the ACCC web site.
The question is "why bother"?
Choice,
the Australian consumer commercial enterprise, known as Choice,
already undertake these activities. Mr. Rudd is not proposing to give the ACCC pricing powers, and extra intervention
regulations, except wher existing trade practices and consumer laws are violated. It seems that this is a time and resource wasting exercise, on an already over burdened regulator.
Mr Rudd's proposition reinforces the perception that he is besotted with summits, enquiries and conversations requiring a lot of work
whilst limiting political risk and delivering questionable, if any, value outcomes.
|
July 9, 2007: Australian retail corporation boards, and their senior
managers, appear to be behind the times. Coles Myer is a vivid example.
In the most significant general retail outlets there is a
concentration in Australia on lowest common denominator.
These corporations employ their staff, from check out to store management, on the cheapest possible wages, and salaries.
They focus on the minimum resources they can get away with to service the customer at the
check out and on the floor. One only has to go to Coles or Woolworths supermarket early or late in the day
too see this perception as reality.
It would seem that they assume that the buying population that has little knowledge of
quality. When you walk into a Woolworths or Coles Supermarket,
a Myer store and even the iconic David
Jones, Harvey Norman, Dick Smith, Target, K Mart, Borders, JB Hi Fi, the shopping malls of Australia.
Retailing in Australia is primarily a mass marketing exercise focused on quantity and price.
This attitude to product layout, presentation and service is not limited to the retail chains. The major airlines Virgin, Jet Star,
Qantas, the telecommunications companies Telstra and Optus, the commercial television stations,
the newspapers, the banks, governments and the public service,
are focused on miniminal, cheap but profitable pursuits, before service and quality.
Dull, boring, plageuristic and barely ethical, the discerning consumer might question whether these are standard traits of the
Australian business and the mentality of institutions, governments and bureaucrts. Advertising implies that there is a focus
on service and quality but the reality speaks
volumes. The public relations agencies and the advertising conulstnats are about managing the message not the end result.
They run the risk of being ethically challenged.
Want service and innovation? Then seek out small, private entrepreneurs.
You will find a small number of innovators at Independent Grocers of Australia (IGA)and in the regional towns where tourism, food and niche
offerings thrive. There is innovation in smaller suburban shopping strips and villages. Innovative butchers and green grocers.
You can see innovation at the Palace Cinema chain which makes the cinema centres of the major enterprises such as Greater Union, Vilage and Hoyts look
bland. The Europa cinema at Village complex in Southland shopping Melbourne and the Rivolli at Camberwell are examples of what is possible within the
larger megaplexes.
The gold class venues which combine food and beverage with stadium style reclining chairs is an example of how some in the reatil industry
put price before product. The charge of $25 to $30 per entry (effectively the charge for the recliner) plus food and beverage is not greate value. The
confectionary offered at exorbitant prices might be considered a health risk.
It is hoped that Bunnings, which recently acquired the Coles
chain of stores will demonstrate the real art of retailing, food and consumer goods. This is howvere unlikely goiven Bunnings runs barn style retail outlets with
shelving heights that require ladders.
The Australian media lauds average performance. They have no measure and their
benchmark is based on a hierarchy that is parochial.
Performance is not measured by external high quality benchmarks.
The Chairmen, and the CEO's, of these companis persist in their roles
regardless of talent and ability,
lateral thinking and innovative capacity. When they fail, such as in the case of Coles, they
move on in the circuit of the closed clubs. They will continue to
replicate the low quality ideas and policies they had in their previous positions. They are appointed by other
Board directors, and by Ministers of Australian governments, who themselves are
replicants of the system of low expectation. The shareholders,
unaware of what is possible look to the competitor and if they are leader in the small Australian
pond, they accept the
performance.
One can walk into a number of cutting edge retailers in the United Kingdom,
in Europe and in
the United States and see the very point of this criticism.
Not all overseas retailers are leaders, most are mediocre, as in
Australia, but some are at the forefront. There are a minor number in Australia
that are the hallmark of excllence and quality. They are small private retailers
and shop keepers, few and far between. There are no large retail chains that are anywhere near them.
The Australian consumer would not, overall, have a clue as to how they are being treated.
Most are happy to wander in the bland, and lifeless aisles of Aldi,
Woolworths and Coles, Myer and
David Jones, where quantity and price are the benchmarks of the retailers' ignorance.
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"Indeed, 79% of consumers say that ordinary people
can make a difference to the way big business behaves by
refusing to buy products – and work in companies – that do the wrong thing.
Almost half said that they make active decisions to find out who the ethical
companies are and buy their products (48%)."
Source: Cavill and Co Eye On Australia - Trust of Companies
PEOPLE DIE TO BRING YOU DIAMONDS AND THE CARTEL GOES UNCHALLENGED BY REGULATORS
You were
ripped off
when you bought your diamond.
The price is controlled and the regulators around the world seem to turn a blind eye.
But do you also have
blood on your hands,
in your ears or elsewhere on your body?
|
You were ripped off when you bought a "real" diamond.
The diamond merchant, the store and the owner know how the system works. They are complicit.
You should have bought a man made diamond known as a zirconiam. It is the only "real" priced diamond.
The Australian parliament, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission, the parliaments of Europe and the equivalent regulatory
agencies and the USA Congress and their agencies know this.
They do not act. Why? Becase the cartel is too powerful. It is worldwide and it is in every nation.
The cartel is like a cancer and it owns governments and the elected repreentatives in those governmets.
One probably would not expect the USA, to act because it is probably the most corrupt country
in the world in terms of exploitation in commercial enterprise and now, in government. Australia's government, under Howard and Costello, apes the
American government of George Bush. Howard and Costello have not demonstrated the capacity to pick good role models that are worth admiring.
Beyond the price manipulation is the disgrace of allowing people to die. The cartel built its profits, and governments who tax the cartel members,
have done so too, on
"Conflict"
or
"Blood"
diamonds. Dead, maimed and displaced people are the true measure of the greed, and cowardice, of the western world.
Instead of the hypocritical free world governments and the sleazy politicians who infest them actually doing something immediately, which they have to drug cartels andother cartels,
they have come up with
a plan.
Why such derogatory language? Because there are laws which are not enforced,
because many politicians in governments today express "faith" politics. Because there are 200,000 child soldies kidnapped, brainwashed and
taught to kill their own families by people who are allowed to live. Because the USA jails people in Guantanamo Bay who have committed no crime against huanity
whilst letting the true killers go free. There are a thousand resaons why they are sleazy and not to be respected.
But let us not just pick on the politicians. What of the businessman, the pious Jew who sells you the diamond?
They pray in the synagogue and hold the book, and their religion, in public display. They profit from the diamond cartel's actions. They may, like every other
national business man or woman,
_
profit from
the blood.
Then we have the arms dealers, the US, Britian, France, Italy, every western nation and others like Russia and China, who all are in the murder spree,
supplying weapons to assist the scum of a country, the slave traders and the
mad war lords to kill their country men. Diamonds are the mark of sleaze, despair, brutality, inhumanity and murder.
Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
Thus the war mongers and the killers must be their best friends too.
Diamonds sparkle but they are cold. They are the most prominent symbol of
greed and corruption
on earth for they have no utility.
They just feed the vanity of the shallow uncaring.
|
Telstra and Optus Web Services in Australia Are Poor Value for Money in 2006
I first built this Mosaic Portal on
Telstra's BigPond,
as a personal web site. BigPond included a 10Mb personal space allocation as a part of their web access plan.
I pay about $A28.00 per month for web acces and the 10Mb space and 24 hour support. BigPond limit the number of users and also the download and if
it exceeds their limits then they want me to transfer to a "business hosting plan". They no longer allow this type of user hosting.
I am told they maintain it as a courtesy. They have a family web site plan that allows 20Mb but is pricey by comparison to international
providers. BigPond want a set up fee for a business web site, of several hundred dollars, and
have expensive charges, and limits, on speed and downloads. The products from
Optus
for web hosting are similar in price and scope,
showing little imagination and enticement. They have the majority of the market.
They are constantly under the eye of the
regulator.
Both telecommunication companies are behind the times, compared to international providers in Asia, Europe and the USA, in service offerings and marketing.
In the USA I have a
forum
and a 5Mb space allocation with
24 hour support and I pay
$A16.00 a quarter. There was no set up fee and there are
no download limits and the speed is much faster than Telstra's BigPond dial up and broadband.
I also have a hosting agreement with
Bravehost.
There was no set up fee, they provided me with ten times the space of BigPond, faster speeds and massive broadband and size downloads with 24 hour service for free.
I recently upgraded to 60Gb of space and a bandwidth of 1.5Gb for an annual charge of $A120.00. Why woudl anyone in business buy a web site hosting package from
Telstra BigPond and Optus in Australia? One would not want to compare their land line and mobile charges because again they are to my mind excessive.
scope.
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Read the packaging on a Hewlett Packard Product
I would particularly recommend this (above) in a Harvey Norman store in Australia.
I bought a HP photosmart printer at Harvey Norman, Highpoint, in Victoria. When I got it home it had no USB cable and thus could not be connected.
This made the product unusable and under Fair Trading and Australian consumer laws not fit for the purpose. When I rang the store I was advised that
the USB cable was an extra cost. The instruction booklet stated a cable was included but to check the product packaging. I wnet to the store. They had carefully whited out the USB cable in the contents box.
No sign indicated, on the stack of products, that this product
would need a cable to be purchased. The cost should have triggered and enquiry on my part. Half price against the competition at Dick Smith and JB Hi Fi?
The sales assistant conformed to the modern Australian trend, I perceive that permeates Australian retail,
in high volume discount stores (Dick Smith (Woolworths), JB Hi Fi, K Mart, Harvey Norman et al) - a lack of awareness caused by a failure to
educate oneself as to legislation and codes which impact the selling of goods and services in Australia, namely the Trade Practices Act and
state, and territory, fair trading legislation.
There is a decline in ethical behaviour in retail driven by a cost cutting - discount margin mentality and practice.
The performance of sales staff is directly relative to the quality of induction
training (if there is any of substance given at all) and maturity. No doubt the sheer expansew of product adds to the complexity of the education and training.
One wonders how the move to casualisation adds to the dillemma? The sales person who sold me the item (less the bit neede to make it functional)
probably had little idea what the
consequences were when I proposed to inform Fair Trading. Harvey Norman sales staff and management, similar to my purchase experiences at Dick Smith, outlined below,
may need some customer service training in legal niceties and compliance, but more so a lesson in
ethics may be warranted.
They join the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) and Coles supermarkets senior managers in the continual expose of the
decline in
thical behviour in Australia. One may wonder whether Hewlett Packard, and the
brand name companies,
actually care, as long as these companies keep up the sales?
In Australia the
New South Wales Food Authority
tested a range of food products
for accuracy of
labelling referring to the contents. They found a third were incorrect, with
error margins extremely large. Particularly on
fat
and fibre percentages.
The food companies immediately began to spin that they were confident about the
accuracy. There is a danger when the internal communications specialists frame, and run,
the debate rather than the CEO and the Board. This demonstrates company senior
managers may be prone to risking misrepresentation. Australia has extensive
federal legislation
on food labelling.
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Extract: Australian advertisers accused of “corporate paedophilia’
(AFP), 10 October 2006, SYDNEY
"Advertising that exploits children’s sexuality for commercial gain is on the rise in
Australia as big retailers lend an air of respectability to “corporate paedophiles,” researchers said on Tuesday.
An increasing number of businesses found it acceptable to eroticise young models for profit,
increasing children’s risk from sexual predators and robbing them of their childhood,
the
Australia Institute
think tank said.
Institute director Clive Hamilton said it was
particularly worrying that the phenomenon had entered the mainstream and
condemned major retail chains for jumping on the bandwagon.
“When family department stores show no conscience on these issues, or are
inured to the effects of their behaviour, the situation is very unhealthy,” he said.
In a report the independent public policy research centre said children as young as
three were being made to pose in sexually suggestive positions."
An extract from one of thew orld's media organisation reporting on a publication by the Australia Institute titled
: Corporate Paedophilia, Sexualisation of children in Australia, Emma Rush Andrea La Nauze, Discussion Paper Number 90
October 2006, ISSN 1322-5421.
Advertising to children: Is it ethical?
Some psychologists cry foul as peers help advertisers target young consumers.
BY REBECCA A. CLAY
Ever since he first started practicing, Berkeley, Calif.,
psychologist Allen D. Kanner, PhD, has been asking his younger clients what they wanted to do
when they grew up. The answer used to be "nurse," "astronaut" or some other occupation with intrinsic appeal.
Today the answer is more likely to be "make money." For Kanner, one explanation for that shift can be found in advertising.
"Advertising is a massive, multi-million dollar project that's having an enormous impact on child
development," says Kanner, who is also an associate faculty member at a clinical psychology
training program called the Wright Institute. "
Are corporations
consuming our kids?
In Australia, federal, state and territory governments have refused to legislate minimum standards
and curb advertising to children. The
reason is that the grocery industry, manufacturers and the media (who reeive the money from advertising)
are rich and politically powerful. The federal Minister for Health, Tony Abott, and others in parliaments argue that
parents should educate their children and be responsible in allowing in what they buy, what they eat, what they see and what they hear.
Rather than be cynical about the
conflict of interest relationships from a political persoective
I might contend that Australia's political leaders have not studied the
psychology of advertising and the art of manipulation in detail. (Kevin R Beck)
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Accessing Australian government services through Smart Cards
The Australian government has enacted quite strong food labelling laws in Australia.
Yet the companies that sell products to consumers
misrepresent using extravagant, and too often misleading and false claims
on the front of the packaging. They are laying on the "low fat" attractions but do not highlight the impact of sugars and
factory processed foods.
Whilst the ingredients labelling laws are in consumer interests the Australian
content laws require only a very minimal constitutent component for the company to be able to use
a specific description. For example a drink may be labelled on the front as "raspberry" when in fact it only has 1% of raspberry in it.
Tins of vegetables are between 45% and 60% filled with the actual vegetable and the balance with liquid.
Most companies engage in blatant misrepresentation in one form or another. They also alter packet sizes whilst claiming no increase in price.
Some claim enhanced health and well being benefits for their high protien and bio - products when there are none.
There are many
manufacturers who claim health benefits for their "good bacteria" when there are none.
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission takes little notice of these activities preferring to pursue a policy of high
profile prosecutions. Meanwhile the consumer will be ripped by every company
if they are not vigilant. The Australian Food and Grocery Council employs sophisticated resources to keep a tight control on the
legislators. Similarly the large supermarkets in Australia are continually engaged in
reducing competition and unethical practices with suppliers often requiring onerous conditions of production
as a condition of supply into their stores. This thuggery goes unnoticed and undetected by the public at large.
The politicians are persuaded by economics, employment in their electorates,
cajoling, subtle bribery and veiled threats, to turn a blind eye. This is a practice adopted world wide.
The Kevin R Beck Mosaic Portal web sites aim to inform and provide resources to consumers by bringing
you the latest news, opinions and exposes for the country in which you live.
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BLINKERED TARGETING
The leveraged private buyout has hit Australia. Qantas the icon of the aviation industry is under targeted takeover by a private equity consortium. There are a number of issues we could pursue in discussion but let us propose that the
Qantas exercise (December 2006) exposes the under belly of some Australian business people and the
ethical standards of some executives.
I probably do not need to clarify, or decipher, what I mean to thinkers.
However to the less imbued with nationalism, how do you feel about the public expose of "putting money" before the
national interest? Is that what they are doing? Might we ponder that those who plan these
manoeuvres have no ethical standards of the level that we might consider to be
at the cutting edge? They have joined with a group to turn Qantas from a leveraged companay at $A5 billion debt to
a corporation saddled with debt. Why? To enhance the performance for shareholders? To add to the national interest? To add a contribution to the nation? I think not.
They have done this to make money. Are they greedy and reprehensible?
I think that the Board of Qantas, and the consortia, have actually misjudged the shareholders, the government, the regulator and the nation.
Perhaps the Board of Qantas are secretly hoping that the shareholders will reject the
sale of Qantas to private interests? It does not matter to Mr. Dixon because he gave his windfall of tens of millions to a charitable trus.
That will mattre if the deal does not go through to the charities. I actually do not think the Qabtas deal will go through. I
predict
the Qantas buyout and privatisation (December 2006) will not go through.
I do not have shares. I have a Qantas Frequent Flyer membership. I have flown the kangaroo all my life.
That is some thirty five years since I first flew. I love my Qantas and it is an Australian icon. I question the ethical integrity of the
executives involved and their commitment to the welfare of the nation. Self interest and individulaism is the modern credo.
Surely everythig worthwhile as a pursuit, in Australian society,
is not all about money.
Australian companies, and their advertising agencies, take a very long time
to grasp reality and opportunity. They are not all that innovative, and creative,
in their thinking when it comes to determining where the greatest level of discretionary expendirure lies in Australia.
Their research seems poorly framed and carried out and their advertising advisers appear to focus on a young demographic when in actual fact the greater market lies in a much older clientelle.
The bulk concentrate their marketing efforts in a relatively narrow domain, the teenager to early forties. In fashion they concentrate on
a demographic including female disregarding the older male. There is a black spot in their thinking, and approach, the
fifty year old and beyond male, with high consumable income and very distinct tastes and habits, is rarely wooed except by a few discerning providers.
Astute retailers such as Lionel Meerkin, Boss Menswear store in Glenhuntley Road, Elsternwick Victoria, American Tailors in Bourke Street Melbourne, and
Henry Bucks (national retail outlets) and the
older and experienced (male) craftsmen of clothes, and tailoring, get it. They are the smaller retail shops.
David Jones, Myer and Country Road, and the majority of department stores and chain stores do not seem to be able to arrange their stores to create the delineated shopping experience.
The Australian retailer
Myer
seems to have suffered a degradation in service under its expert imported (USA)management.
When it merged with Coles the rot set in. Coles is a nation wide supermarket chain.
One may well wonder what the advantage of shopping at Myer Bourke Street store might be against going elsewhere?
The difference is the opportunity to be rudely serviced, to experience arrogance and disdain, to be viewed suspiciously if one is returning presents for exchange?
There are far superior retailers, in Melbourne, than this American owned entity.
The equity raiders are said to be interested only in profits.
It is a funny methodology in achieving the objective to insult the customer.
One can add Myer Chadstone in Melbourne to the list of poor experiences. My partner took a dress I bought for a Christmas back to get an alternative.
For decades Myer has had a policy of returns with receipt and no argument.
Those days are gone. The shop assistant said that they did not sell a dress
of that size on that day. She had a hand written record. My partner had the cash register receipt and the dress in hand. The receipt was deemed to be no proof of purchase against the hand written record. What is Coles myer's new motto - argue until the customer surrenders?
My partner rang me and I spoke to the
shop assistant. I pondered whether the decline in service, and the argumentative nature of the staff, forget the adage that the customer is right,
might well be argued to be
directly attributable to the Chief Executive's poor leadership or could it be that
the Board's sets no standards? Communication, poor human resources and low grade staff training?
The shop assistant gave a refund. The cost a future customer. Does anyone at Coles Myer care? Who knows.
There is no reason, given the public record of performance of the Board, the Chief Executive and the
management, to continue to shop at Coles Myer stores, and supermarkts, in Australia. That would also include liquour stores and petrol stations. My Vintage Cellars membership, a Coles Myer entity,
is to me not worthwhile. Independent Grocers of Australia (IGA) offer far superior service and firendliness. Ther is no arrogance, and belittling of the customer, there. Could it be that
the man who runs the store owns the store? If Coles Myer sold out to equity raiders it would be no great loss to Australia. It may well improve the management and quality of the enterprise.
In the big retail outlets they lump the trendy, the quality, the boring and the cheap all together, in row after row of shamble presentation.
We like to walk in see what we want clearly in a dedicated space,
get everything we want in fashion across. We do not want bulk and nor do we necessarily
bargain hunt. We do not want to
try and relive our teens as the fools of retail and advertising apparently believe we do and some obvioulsy challenged types with younger girl friends might.
Porsche and BMW get it. Qantas gets it. The majority of Australian retailers,
and service providers, do not. There is another thing. Quite a number in this older demographic
do not want to buy
brand
names that are "Made in China". Hugo Boss has their clothes manufactured in Romania and places other than China.
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Anti Made in China
Brand name marketers invariably choose to have their products made in China due to cost.
There are lonbg term hiddemn implications for these decisions. I, and a growing number of discerning shoppers, may not want to buy goods made in China.
It is difficult on electrical goods.
China is demanding equal, and unfettered, access to the world trade organisation and markets. Yet it engages in protection through tariffs,
articificially inflating the exchange rate of its currency effectively manipulating import and export pricing through low wages and conditions and controlled currency as well as piracy.
China's underpricing over time destroys competitive markets. China treats their people as
labour commodities and has a long record of breaches of human rights. Some people, and businesses, in China steal intellectual property through piracy and
a host of other tactics. International patent agreements appear to be unenforceable in China.
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Brands - big bucks, political and market power
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MASS COMMUNICATION UTILITIES TO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE
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The biggest political, corporate, social and economic challenge is
here.
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