[trees] ←(･_･┐) [forrest]

holden is leaving in 4 years! no more ugly, dangerous, overpowered, comically-thirsty vehicles of theirs will be made here soon.

nevertheless, in spite of whatever obvious terrible design and construction flaws holden vehicles may have (many) it is for me a genuinely sad thing that the company is leaving.  probably much more sad for the workers/variety of other businesses that indirectly rely on holden of course, who are almost certainly unsuited for and disinclined towards any other industry, but sad for me all the same.

in everything i've read about the topic holden stressed again and again that its biggest obstacle to continued operations was the high dollar, which is high primarily as a result of the mining boom, which, incidentally, the government refuses to extract any meaningful taxes from lest we discourage more mining.

in the rush to rip everything of value out of the ground as fast as possible (even in spite of minerals having a fabulous shelf life) it seems, to my warped thinking at least, that holden has been sacrificed not unlike an old-testament lamb.

i do not buy for a second the argument that the government would have been unable to provide further subsides. to begin with the costs weren't that big in the scheme of things and on top of that abbott, in alliance with milne (let's leave that one alone), has given us the option of racking up all the new debt we could ever want.

alternately, if we really were strapped for cash, why not stipulate that the mining companies must provide the subsidies needed to keep australian manufacturing viable? it is after all the mining industry that benefits the most by far from the current arrangement which has been so detrimental to holden.

"because the mining companies would pack up and leave and we'd have nothing!"

bullshit! australia is probably the most investment-friendly environment for mining in the world (stable, rule of law, good infrastructure), and certain deposits of certain things can only really be found in certain places (like uranium for instance) so there's that too.

maybe the best argument against the "if we tax we wont have business" scam is that in norway resource rent tax rates can reach 90% and yet still they manage to live. thriving, some say

so one industry, which employs a very small percentage of the total workforce, is profitable at the expense of more or less all the others. holden walking away is a nasty slap-in-the-face reminder of the fact that the national interest takes a backseat to private super-profits

so it's sad because future teenage boys wont be able to kill themselves and others in fast metal houses as much, sad because perhaps if holden had made cars that people actually wanted to buy (like toyota) they might still have a future here (like toyota) and sad because i would bet good money that the vast majority of holden owners regularly vote liberal

ah well. best not to get riled up over something you cant change right. in other news the great barrier reef is set to be home to a brand new coal port soon. in order so that even more coal can be mined and sold, you see. the public relations team representing the mining companies assures us that obviously no damage will be done to the precious, endangered reef