free-for-all enterprise....
They are planning to build a major shopping centre some kilometres outside a major rural town. Several other towns around Australia have already experienced this new trend.
The critics argue that this results in the gutting of the town's traditional shopping centre hence destroying the towns's character, eventually leaving the town centre with the heart ripped out of it, replaced by a graveyard of closed shops .
But what struck me was the brilliant rhetoric used by this particular town's Chamber of Commerce president in his defence of this latest example fo "free enterprise" in action:
"Some must fail for others to succeed."
"You have to have losers to have winners."
"If you stop people from failing, you stop people from succeeding."
Who wins? The multi-national retail giants and the orbiting franchise chains.
Who loses? The town's locally owned small businesses.
Why? Well, soon under the FTA (Free Trade Agreement), a local council can be sued for millions of dollars of "lost profit potential" by the multi-nationals if it refuses to grant development approvals of this kind.
Are we getting this yet, boys and girls? Under the FTA, the local citizens of towns can be made to pay (via council rates) millions of dollars to the investors of multi-nationals (mostly very rich foreign investors) if these multi-nationals are thwarted in their plans. So, they rip us off for millions if they come in, and now thanks to the FTA, they rip us for millions if they are prevented from coming in. That's what I call a win-win deal. That's the new face of free trade for ya.
And remember, neither of our major parties had the guts to stand up to Bush's team of "negotiators" when we "agreed" to the FTA with the U.S. In the recent elections in this country, only the Greens and the Democrats were prepered to oppose the FTA outright. And in a deal of spectacular rat-cunning, the Labor party arranged its preferences in such a way as to ensure that these minor parties would not have the balance of power in the Senate. And you still think that Labor is not a sub-branch of the Liberal Party?
Wake up, Australia, you're standing in it... And the brown tide is rising...
The critics argue that this results in the gutting of the town's traditional shopping centre hence destroying the towns's character, eventually leaving the town centre with the heart ripped out of it, replaced by a graveyard of closed shops .
But what struck me was the brilliant rhetoric used by this particular town's Chamber of Commerce president in his defence of this latest example fo "free enterprise" in action:
"Some must fail for others to succeed."
"You have to have losers to have winners."
"If you stop people from failing, you stop people from succeeding."
Who wins? The multi-national retail giants and the orbiting franchise chains.
Who loses? The town's locally owned small businesses.
Why? Well, soon under the FTA (Free Trade Agreement), a local council can be sued for millions of dollars of "lost profit potential" by the multi-nationals if it refuses to grant development approvals of this kind.
Are we getting this yet, boys and girls? Under the FTA, the local citizens of towns can be made to pay (via council rates) millions of dollars to the investors of multi-nationals (mostly very rich foreign investors) if these multi-nationals are thwarted in their plans. So, they rip us off for millions if they come in, and now thanks to the FTA, they rip us for millions if they are prevented from coming in. That's what I call a win-win deal. That's the new face of free trade for ya.
And remember, neither of our major parties had the guts to stand up to Bush's team of "negotiators" when we "agreed" to the FTA with the U.S. In the recent elections in this country, only the Greens and the Democrats were prepered to oppose the FTA outright. And in a deal of spectacular rat-cunning, the Labor party arranged its preferences in such a way as to ensure that these minor parties would not have the balance of power in the Senate. And you still think that Labor is not a sub-branch of the Liberal Party?
Wake up, Australia, you're standing in it... And the brown tide is rising...
posted by The Editor at
9:38 AM
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