[LINK] This makes me angry.

Frank O'Connor francisoconnor3 at bigpond.com
Mon Apr 2 16:04:36 AEST 2012


On 02/04/2012, at 2:07 PM, TKoltai wrote:

> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
>> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Michael 
>> Skeggs mike at bystander.net
>> Sent: Monday, 2 April 2012 9:34 AM
>> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> Subject: Re: [LINK] This makes me angry.
>> 
>> 
>> Wikipedia allows that mining employs 129,000 Australians.
>> That $3b subsidy equates to $23k per job.
>> Could that $23k be better spent alternatives such as training 
>> or other means to enhance our international competitiveness, 
>> or is the smart thing to do subsidising diesel? I would 
>> suggest that a "paltry" $3b makes no difference to whether 
>> the mines are built, but could make a significant long term 
>> difference by, for example, sponsoring 20,000 engineering 
>> degrees each year. Regards, Michael Skeggs
> 
> Interesting option, sounds like an excellent outcome.
> But before you vote for sponsoring engineering degrees as the solution
> for building our economy, a few details might be worthy of
> consideration;
> 
> The value of various engineering qualifications can actually be
> calculated by analysing the Industry value added (IVA) per person
> employed.
> 
> For the mining industry this is substantially higher ($608,200 p.p.)
> than in the next highest industry Electricity, gas, water and waste
> services (at $300,200 p.p.). (Source: ABS)
> 
> Therefore, I would suggest that your engineers should probably be mining
> engineers to give Australia the most bang for it's training buck.
> (Exceptions would be structural, electrical, mechanical employed in the
> mining sphere.) 
> 
> There are approximately 280,000 persons employed on minesites in
> Australia.
> The average salary is 107,000 per person.
> 
> Each of those persons is likely to have or belong to a family unit.
> If each person is a parent or future parent, that represents (@2.3
> children per family unit) a total of 924,000 persons that are directly
> benefiting from the salaries.

Inaccurate ... more than 50% of miners are single with no dependents, and 2.3 children for family is way above the national average. (We are actually in negative growth territory with the children thingie, and have been for years ... thank God for those migrants and foreigners you so seem to dislike.) Lets call it 450-500,000.

> 
> This number doesn't include the mining support industries:
> 
> Rail, Road, sea, mining Process machinery, or the employees and families
> of corporations that were built on the back of mining like:
> 
> Leightons, Bechtel Pacific, Foreward Downs, Transfield, James Watt,
> SHRAM, ATCO, Henry and Walker, the Australian Stock Exchange.

And a number of other speciality mining interests  I can think of. Lets add 150,000 for that.

> 
> It doesn't include the thousands of persons employed across the country
> in non-infrastructure support organisations like Australia Post, Qantas,
> Coates Hire, (etc) that now derive much of their revenue as a direct
> result of mining.
> 
Reaching for straws now, Thomas Peter ... those persons would be employed even if there was no mining in Australia. Hey, the rest of us use the mail, fly, build our houses and the like as well ... so even if miners do support these industries it's probably only in line with their per capita participation in the economy ... in other words vanishingly moderate ... less than 3-4% of the warm working bodies in Australia.
 
> It fails to calculate the benefits of thousands of persons that obtained
> jobs through money raised by emerging industries across a wide range of
> disciplines on the Stock Exchange.
> 

See the comment above. EVERY economic endeavour has some run on effect ... not just mining.

> Most of all, it doesn't even hint at the retirees that are holding BHP
> RIO and other stocks of similar ilk, hoping to eke out a living above
> the poverty line from the dividends paid there-on.
> 

I do have shares in miners ... I also have investments in a wide range of other areas of the economy.

> So how many people in Australia do depend on mining ? The number is much
> much larger than any person giving the subject a cursory shallow once
> over could ever hope to understand.
> 

Rather than a person giving a shallow once over cheering on the mining industry you mean?

>> From almost the beginning of colonisation, Australia was built on mining
> as being beneficial to the Empire, an empire that had just lost its
> "Jewel" to the American Revolution.
> 
> Before we kick mining in the guts, too hard, these are all
> considerations well worth pondering.  

Indeed they are, Thomas Peter. Mining isn't all evil (though the existence of places like Rum Jungle, Robe River, and the various environmental disasters in PNG, Indonesia and the like may cause some to disagree) but it's also not the fount of all prosperity, the source of infinite wealth and an unalloyed benefit to all. In all economic and accounting propositions there are two sides to the equation ... that's why we have double entry book-keeping, assets and liabilities, debits and credits ... seeing only the positive of ANYTHING is as bad, if not worse, than seeing only the negative.

Your propensity to take all-or-nothing positions on everything leads you into blind alleys and monumental errors of judgement that result in these interminable kerfuffles.

> 
> Letter to Joseph Banks: "A person who intends to examine the mineral
> Substances of any Country ought to have...', ca 1772 (Series 06.101)"
> http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/images/banks/digitised/30278.jpg

More quotes ... not even gonna bother with what Joseph Banks (a botanist) may have had said to him in an almost illegible scanned copy of a document you gleaned from the archives. Hey, it was 240 years ago.



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