Wednesday, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:17
Alloy, i take it you drive a car, use a computer, have a tv, camera, possibly a shed full of tools, I guess you could say that YOU benefit from the $$ china\Japan pay for our resources. They dont have factories making our cars, appliances etc out of THIN AIR, these raw materials do come from the ground. We have mining companies satisfying society's supply and demand. And like i said earlier, the profit needs to justify the risk.
As far as "Australians" owning the minerals in the ground, when someone (or a company in this case) buys land "they own it" and whats in it. People cant come later and say "oh hang on, this land has valuable resources in it, we want it back or give us a share of the profits".
There is plenty of available farming land not being utilised for farming, i think thats a cop out excuse to support (as Rob put it " a useless argument").
Perhaps we could be using the resources we
mine to produce our own products like cars, electronics etc but no one is developing manufacturing plants to do this, this isnt the mining company's fault. Perhaps no incentives from the government, a SPT isnt going to help!
I honestly dont think we will run out of bread anytime soon, and if we do run out of coal- perhaps there would be more incentive for people to develop alternative energy sources, more efficient solar cells, hydro systems etc, That wouldnt be a bad thing would it? For the time being lets take advantage of the turning cogs of our economy and not make it harder for these companies by increasing company tax. perhaps individuals tax brackets could go up instead, like the ceo's of the mining companies, banks, retail giants, politicians etc. no one needs to earn 6 figure sallaries.
I dont expect you to agree with me on this, but there is another side to the coin!
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