Uses for the Submarines

[winsor68]

Be sure to write a thankyou note to our wonderful unions.

Bloody sellout.

 

 

[Geoff13]

how many times have they saved you from the sack and you not known it?

Never

 

 

[fly_tornado]

you don't know that Geoff, the hardest part about being above average is the other 80% of the population who feel the same

 

 

[Marty_d]

You did catch up that Bill Shortens union has been negotiating deals to lower worker wages whilst the union gets a fanancial kickback? Oh well the whole union premise is to boost the wages of a small number at the expense of the most, so I guess that is what they were doing. Not sure if the dole is regarded as technically above the poverty line?

Believing that all unions are corrupt is like believing that all corporations are in it for the betterment of society. Yes there are corrupt union officials, just like there are morally bankrupt business leaders. If you believe unions are totally bad, have a look at worker's conditions before they existed.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

union leaders are angels compared to the religious folk. If you will excuse the analogy

 

 

[dazza 38]

how many times have they saved you from the sack and you not known it?

Never, I was in the RAAF, then a sub contractor and now I am in an industry that doesn't have unions.

 

 

[Geoff13]

you don't know that Geoff, the hardest part about being above average is the other 80% of the population who feel the same

The point is FT I do know that with certainty.

 

 

[Methusala]

War has always been a rip-off. A way for the 1% to enslave and indebt workers both at the time and after it is over. The most prosperous times in history, for the working and middle class was when MAD (mutually assured destruction) prevented large scale, industrial war between developed nations.

 

 

[Kiwi303]

Didn't stop sky high taxes in the US to pay for all the star wars and other war related research, which pumped money straight back into the economy again.

 

It just meant there were more workers home to enjoy the employment rather than out dying in the trenches.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

The ADF is the biggest collective bargainer in Australia, when you served did you not feel like you where being paid to look busy, overlook incompetence and embrace nepotism?

 

 

[Bruce]

Dazza, the government obviously agree with you but you didn't answer the question. I would like an example, eg " the Indonesians declare war and decide to bring us to surrender by sinking the ships bringing us trade from asia and our airforce does not have the range on account of having converted to Jabirus , so we reckon submarines might be just the thing to sink the Indonesian ships.

 

Well not that exact argument, but that sort of detail please.

 

AND I thought that signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty meant that we were protected from attack . If this is not a reliable protection, why do we not get some nukes ourselves? Cheaper than these submarines I bet.

 

 

[Happyflyer]

Apart from the jobs generated, can anybody tell me what possible use the submarines can be?What scenario are they thinking of? Attack by the Indonesians? The Chinese?

 

I know that the best weapons of ww2 were submarines and I have read that the military are always a war behind in their armament ideas. But surely these days submarines are easy targets for computer-guided torpedoes.

 

Imagine a torpedo that just sat awash for hours or days listening until the right acoustic signature arrived and then it homes in on that target. You could drop these torpedoes off from ships or planes and have hundreds in wait for any submarines. The computers in the torpedoes would be less than the wife's Ipad.

 

If this is right, then the submarines are only good against third-world countries which can't afford decent torpedoes . But are these countries really a threat?

 

So if the military use is not there, the jobs are the reason for wanting them.

 

But the jobs are real expensive.. more than a million dollars per job per year.

 

I've not seen any discussion in the media. Maybe I'm missing something obvious. Maybe people feel better if they spend 50 billion on submarines the military say they want, and maybe its unpatriotic to wonder what they might be good for.

I agree that the money for the subs could probably be better spent. However, they are definitely there to sink ships from an invading country to the north. If the automatic torpedoes you suggest exist, I do not know of them. We have 20 P3 Orions that are submarine hunters.

 

If your weapons existed why wouldn't we have them to replace the Orions. If they do exist how many would be need to surround Australia? Could they be trusted to sink only enemy subs?

 

One British submarine sure did put the wind up the Argies in the Falklands war.

 

 

[dazza 38]

We would be better off with nuclear submarines but the greenies don't like that. Indonesia have submarines so we are better with having submariners than not having them. IMO the best way to kill a submarine is with another submarine.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Australia holds 2 weeks of oil, how long can we hold out from a sea blockade?

 

The Americans won't let us have nukes, if we get over run by Indonesians, they will have nukes.

 

 

[jetjr]

Yes just a few weeks of fuel reserves and little process capacity, it has been reveiwed nd not considered worth doing anything about...........

 

When things are good, populations and govt ignore some obvious things

 

 

[M61A1]

The basic test for a valid EBA is that you can be no worse off than under the award. those awards come from unions.

Did some checking....as I thought, one of the hurdles we had when bargaining was that there was no award or union that covered what we do. Our Test is that no- one can be worse off than previously.

 

 

[M61A1]

Bloody sellout.

I hope you're referring to the unions, they've sold out most of the industry we used to have, and are destroying what's left.

 

 

[M61A1]

I agree that the money for the subs could probably be better spent. However, they are definitely there to sink ships from an invading country to the north. If the automatic torpedoes you suggest exist, I do not know of them. We have 20 P3 Orions that are submarine hunters.

If your weapons existed why wouldn't we have them to replace the Orions. If they do exist how many would be need to surround Australia? Could they be trusted to sink only enemy subs?

 

One British submarine sure did put the wind up the Argies in the Falklands war.

Try googling "Mk 60 Captor".

 

 

[fly_tornado]

I hope you're referring to the unions, they've sold out most of the industry we used to have, and are destroying what's left.

how are the unions doing that mick?

 

back to the subs: any country can declare war on Australia and announce a naval blockade with the intention to sink any ship that breaches it. No insurance company will cover the sinking of ship in a warzone, so without firing a single shot Australia is effectively held economic captive. The old WW2 style of mass global warfare just won't happen again.

 

 

[facthunter]

And we carry 3 weeks stock of motor vehicle fuel. The clever country? Nev

 

 

[M61A1]

how are the unions doing that mick?

back to the subs: any country can declare war on Australia and announce a naval blockade with the intention to sink any ship that breaches it. No insurance company will cover the sinking of ship in a warzone, so without firing a single shot Australia is effectively held economic captive. The old WW2 style of mass global warfare just won't happen again.

Well, they've managed to shut Holden, Toyota and the construction industry can only hang in there because it's hard to import whole buildings. I'm sure that you'd rather blame the govt for not protecting them.

 

what do insurance companies have to do with war? If you need to worry about what an insurance company will or won't do in war you've lost before you've started.

 

 

[Happyflyer]

The old WW2 style of mass global warfare just won't happen again.

Maybe, but that's exactly what they said after WW1, the war to end all wars.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Mick, can I explain to you how economics work. Hyundai and Kia produce millions of cars in Korea, their cost of production is very very low and pay their workers better than holden. Holden produces cars in batches of 10,000s, their unit cost is high because they cannot spread their fixed costs over millions of units like everyone else.

 

GM chose to shut down Holden because the Commodore is a dead end product and the global market cars are much cheaper to produce. The Ford Focus is now built in Thailand and the change from the EU sourced ones to the Thai ones saved ford about $2500 per unit which ford passed on $2000 price drop.

 

Your kids could build Focus's in Austalia but Ford would have to pay them about US$1200 a month to be competitive with Thailand. Could your kids live on that wage?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Maybe, but that's exactly what they said after WW1, the war to end all wars.

Its like you old guys are incapable of accepting change some times.

 

 

[SDQDI]

So what you are saying FT is that basically we (us Aussies) are total hypocrites because we refuse to let anyone here work for too low of a wage because it is morally wrong but we are all happy to buy cars and wear clothes that were built in sweatshops by people who basically don't get paid at all and that's ok because they aren't in Australia?

 

This was for the post before your last, and yes I buy things built in sweatshops because they are cheap so I am just as bad as everyone else.

 

We are our own worst enemy, if we aren't willing to buy Aussie stuff and pay a bit more for it then obviously we won't make anything here. But at the end of the day it's a dollar from our pockets and that seems to mean the most to most of us.