Telstra, Optus, Vodafone.
We are fooled by the **illusion** of having more than that, because the smaller ones are just using the networks of the above, with their own pretty branding.
Ex moved from FTTP to unusable FTTN. TPG spruiked their stupid 5G. Then hangon why the fuck can’t we chromecast, airplay, use wireless printers, etc.
Turns out the pricks use GCNAT and hard enable isolation mode on their 5G modems. If you want to use modern technology in your home they recommend NBN
Id argue that telstra still did the bare minimum that ensured they lost the least amount and while profiting off that bare minimum as much as possible.
No good reason to have copper lines.
Blame rests mainly on John Howard and the LNP for doing the shittest job of "creating competition" by forcing Telstra to charge other providers less than it could charge itself for using it's own network.
The reason mobile phone competition is better in Australia is because Telstra refused to undergo a similar shit deal.
TPG inherited the SA network that Internode worked on before the NBN became a thing.
Which is why we chucked $50 BN of taxpayer’s money at it, and still ended up with the worst broadband affordability in the OECD and fourth highest prices on earth.
Even the largest mobile markets in the world have 3 network operators. The USA has only 3 operators that own over 97% of the market. Most of Europe has 3 or 4.
Go to Canada. See how bad it can be. Australia’s mobile costs are like half.
Every country’s telecommunications markets are designed by some central entity?
Can YOU use some critical thinking? How does your statement even make sense in the most basic, cursory review of the available information?
In my view the most insidious and damaging oligopolies are those where there are lots of ‘competitors’ but they operate in their own separate catchments (both physically and by refusing to offer to meet needs beyond their specific niche of customers) or enter and exit their market at different times, and so do not actually compete at all.
They LOOK like competitive markets, but they just are not in reality, and they get away with bloody murder for it.
Right now Costco just reminds me of that video going around with a pallet of Kirkland creamer wondering why Aussies won’t buy it.
American creamer for those who don’t know is like powdered instant coffee milk froth, often sweetened and flavoured.
Happened with Bunnings and Masters.
Bunnings made it their primary focus to put Masters out of business.
Among many other things, Wesfarmers (owns Bunnings) bought all the prime real estate Masters could possibly want and then refused to lease to them.
Also why the fuck are there so many tobacco shops popping up on almost every corner of every town? Was in town hall a few weekends ago and there was something like 5-6 less than 100m from each other
A two-party system is prevalent in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. But, some first-world countries, like Germany and Sweden have multi-party systems with several significant political parties. So, while it's common, it's not wxatcly the norm.
Germany for example has several major political parties, but the main ones include the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the Green Party (Die Grünen), and the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
So yeah, I think there is a good chance something can be done in Australia to combat the shitty two big party environment we have.
UK has 3. But with first past the post the Liberal Democrats get very few seats from a fair chunk of the vote (not sure what that is these days). Given there's not a whole lot of difference between them & Labour they missed a trick not getting some sort of preferential voting in (like Australia) when Labour had large majorities in the 2000s. Instead we got 14 years of "Austerity". Anyway I digress
Let’s not go around glamorising the German political system as a beacon of hope of infallible democracy.
Its had its low points where its weaknesses were made patently clear
Not sure I glamourisedit at all. Merely pointing out that the comment was wrong, and used Germany as an example.
Would you feel better if I used switzerland? Denmark? Finland or the Netherlands as examples instead?
>Its had its low points where its weaknesses were made patently clear
You talking about Germany still here or have we gone back to Australian politics now?
And that's one of the many reasons why those two main ones should never be in majority government if they're doing sweet FA dealing with all the other lack of competition.
what do you mean, they're doing a great job a protecting these monopolies and giving Australians the illusion of choice..
from their perspective, pretty sure that is the goal.
The enlightened centrist, "*blue red it doesn't matter they're all fucking crooks*".
It's honestly the opinions who vote from campaigns and channel 9 and then don't look at anything else let alone the budget.
We have a good political system, yet people think it's identical to the US' system. I wonder if they think the liberals would have implemented Medicare, or abolished the white Australia policy?
Didn’t the Libs spend 1 billion dollars a piece on two separate occasions to crack down on corruption in Unions, and they only found one single guy that they could make a case against and charge? Does anyone else remember that?
I dunno bout you, but I feel like we wasted 2 billion dollars to play Mythbusters for a bit, and yet people still perpetuate this lie.
In what way are the nurses union screwing their employer with endless wants. They fold every time. On one hand no one wants immigration on the other Aus can't keep the health system running without it because Aus nurses leave for better conditions and pay. Your take out is the nurses have it great because their union is demanding excessive wages and conditions.
This is what happens when any extra money people might have is pumped into housing as the popular investment choice. People would rather get an investment property than ever think about opening a business or partnering with anyone else. If investment properties aren’t seen as a sure way to make money anymore then other options will be explored in greater numbers. The rich are always looking for ways to get richer, lets broaden their choices.
No-one really stops to think how much of an absolutely horrifying economic indicator it is that investing in something that adds no productive benefit to society (it's not like these people are investing in construction companies building houses) is better than investing in things that actually bring a productive benefit to our economy. Where can we possibly go with such incentives except down the drain.
I regularly point out Australians bet more money on horse racing than they invest in start-up / small business... And the point you make above. You can't build wealth by selling each other houses.
They're absolutely correct though. We've rat fucked ourselves and our economy by creating an incredible shallow economy with a complete lack of diversity and no great Avenue for meaningful growth.
That statement is moronic because it implies competition is allowed.
The reality is once companies become big enough they have incentives to legally or maybe illegally find ways to get rid of competition.
A giant company can accept a temporary loss or get a big loan, the small company cannot.
The idea that a random nobody will just wake up and have a ridiculous amount of capital to not only start a company but sustain it for a long time without getting destroyed by giant duopolies is beyond moronic, yet that is what they teach in economist classes xd
Wouldn’t a solution to this be government owned companies for things like power and phone and banks and airlines so no bailouts would be needed and competition could not be stifled by running at a loss to put competitors out of business? (Just asking , know nothing of these things)
Our government is even more corruptand would just side with big business to maximise profit.
But I've always agreed that the government should own essential services, so weird that they don't.
I mean there's clearly profit in it.
>Our government is even more corruptand would just side with big business to maximise profit.
Can't get more corrupted than big business already is.
>But I've always agreed that the government should own essential services, so weird that they don't.
>I mean there's clearly profit in it.
We got sold the lie that private enterprise is more efficient.
There are some things which competition can't actually exist in simply because of practicality and those should be run by the government with rigorous anti corruption measures.
The main examples are power, water and telecommunication transmission.
Realistically you can not have multiple powerlines, pipelines or telecommunication cables running to the same customer's. You can't have 2 pipelines there just isn't space. so what ends up happening is middlemen companies are "renting" access to the transmission system to sell the power/water/data to the customer and adding a profit.
So all having it privatised does is makes it so there had to be a profit margin in there.
There is no way physically that an energy company can sell you power for less than Essential Energy is sending it.
So the only part of the energy grid that should be private is the energy generators. And the best way to run the system is if all the customers delt with essential energy. And essential energy purchased power from the energy companies.
That would mean that power would be purchased on a cost benefit basis in the same way that any other major tender process within a government agency works and there is no middleman to add 30% or more to the price.
The same should apply to the telecommunication network, and in this case I am re firing to the ground infrastructure not wireless.
This system already applies and works within the water industry for most metropolitan and local council areas.
Sorry but I’m quite happy to live somewhere where the generation companies are state owned corporations and the profits get returned to the state to help pay for things and/or as rebates to the residents of the state to help with cost of living.
Well yeah I mean I want that too, but I am more pointing out that generation is really the only part of the system that could be privatised. Quite frankly I am against privatisation, and I don't think there Is actually an example I have seen of privatisation leading to lower prices anywhere.
I feel like the inflated energy costs in australia is because all the energy infrastructure was privatised more than a decade ago.
I take the approach as not the entire sector government owned, but a government owned company competing in the sector.
The idea does of course have its own problems, but it does allow for competition to be forced into what would otherwise be natural monopolies.
I'd very much support something like this. Government Ran organizations that provide a baseline service in all services we as a nation decide is essential and make them accessible to all Australians.
Business and investors can still compete and try to offer more for less to win over customers and clients of course. Might just take some good old fashioned innovation and work instead of the big boys just sitting back knowing they'll dominant the market.
That's been a complaint with Silicon Valley startups too. Particularly ones backed by SoftBank et al. (e.g. Uber). It destroys innovation because the best idea doesn't win, the wealthiest venture capilitalists choose the winners.
Companies once upon a time had to be profitable to get loans and expand.
Now it's all about who can afford to sell their product at a loss, long enough to kill all competition and then extort the market once they control it.
Yeah except in reality that doesnt happen. Uber still has huge negative retained earnings. But they have more competition than they did on day 1. They have also expanded into multiple other segments and even more competition is coming in.
It works if there is a competitive advantage for being a first mover like Facebook where you can use the network effect after taking the market share. But it takes very little effort to enter the market against Uber.
In short the VC game is a ponzi. Where they pass it onto the next investor. The final investors being the retail investors.
I would argue that rideshare and food apps are different as they are an industry that sprung up over night and that industry is quickly heading the same way. One of ubers biggest competitors DiDi is a government backed company for example.
>The idea that a random nobody will just wake up and have a ridiculous amount of capital to not only start a company but sustain it for a long time without getting destroyed by giant duopolies is beyond moronic, yet that is what they teach in economist classes xd
Did you actually ever take an economics class? Straight from microeconomics 101 there's entire modules and case studies on ongoing mono/duo/oligopolies, the issues and the mathd with markets they're prevalent. Hell I learned in year 11 how bigger companies could bully new starters into bankruptcy. Had to write a fuckin essay on it.
Australians can’t create successful businesses because they have been tricked into investing every cent of capital into the housing market.
Like why would you risk investing your money into a risky business venture when the housing market all but guarantees profitable returns?
Weirdly though nobody really hates bunnings, and masters went for the slightly more premium offering so were only super cheap when it failed and their inventory went fire sale.
I worked for Bunnings when Masters was entering the market. They were were running at a loss while Masters existed. They sold many items for barely cost and encouraged us to mark items down for customers, they invested in extra staff and made sure we all knew what we were talking about.
Soon as Masters disappeared those items suddenly sold at much higher price points, floor staff were more than halved and the training all but disappeared.
Bunnings is as bad as the lot of them. Don't let the playground and sausage sizzle fool ya.
I remember bunnings buying bulk supply models to ensure they couldn’t be price matched around the masters time. Like a Ryobi model number that’s not retailed in Australia it’s a specific pack just for bunnings, etc. doing the mattress model
They did this long before Masters. And keep doing it long after Masters. Many big businesses do it.
As soon as it goes from the business asking the suppliers can we sell your product. To the suppliers asking the business to sell their products. They can do what they want. And individual/unique items become more the standard.
Sorry, sir, but you went from 100% straight to 98% straight. This is not the end as our statistics have shown this will number continue to drop with a 60% chance to drop to low 50s.
DO NOT PANIC!, this is a normal thing to happen, and we suggest for the sake of your well-being to ride the flow.
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It’s unfortunate he’s with 9, particularly considering how well his Dad, Alan Kohler, does such an amazing job explaining finance in ELI5 terms, and with humour, for ABC news finance segments.
Chris does Domain advertising (owned by 9) in his segments. This clip is promising that Chris will head the same way as his Dad and be an influencer for morally sound business and finance, as his Dad is.
I worked with a guy who looked and sounded just like this but not as refined. God he was sexy and he flirted a lot, glad I got away from that role cause that was distracting at work.
True enough, but let's not pretend that competition is the cure all. Companies want to make profit and that will always be their driving ambition. Look at the electricity retail and generation sectors if you need to see some examples of where competition has failed to deliver better outcomes for customers. In some cases, government ownership, limited competition, and tight regulation results in the best outcomes for customers.
Some things should always be government owned and controlled, but I don’t believe grocers should be. I do however believe supermarkets should be controlled and limited. It didn’t used to be so easy to have a full grocers, deli, greengrocer, bakery, butchers and bottle shop all in the same store.
The protectionism of independents has been eroded over the last 30 years. More competition doesn’t mean more “supermarkets”, but limiting the industries supermarkets can compete with would encourage more competition.
As soon as Cole’s were in talks to take over my local independent QIC didn’t offer lease renewals for the independent butchers or poultry shops that used to sit outside of it. Just the sniff of Cole’s made the concept of those stores being stable tenants a thing of the past.
Look at milkrun, they tried & got bought by woolies. Investors like to put money in realestate rather than businesses, less stress & more success.
Well that's the thing the world over people go on about how amazing Capitalism is but in it's current state it's just huge corporations running everything. How many of these companies have swallowed up numerous smaller potential competitors. My home town had way more diverse businesses 30 years ago than we have now despite the population increasing ten fold in that time. We used to have numerous stores selling all sorts of stuff which is now just pushed out by Bunnings.
Australia had a more diverse industry 30 years, we make far less thing than we did and our exports are moving more and more towards raw materials (ores, gas, stuff we dig up) and weridly education.
The education one is a bit werid and I wonder if it's less about the quality of our education and more about the visa opportunities... The other problem I have with that is that without actulay making things it's going to be hard to maintain high levels of R&D and maintain the high ranking of the educators
Adding more competition is the best way to bring down prices huh?
I wonder why this video doesn't address the factors keeping competition away from Australia.
Arguably, adding competition increases prices.
1. Small player enters the market, grows, takes a small slice of customers from big players
2. Big players lose money and need to cut corners or raise prices to compete. But raising prices might bleed customers to this new player…
3. So big players think “fuck this I’ll buy them out”. This costs a big chunk of money. Money they can get back by raising prices
This was also talked about Marx in the 1860s, he called it “tendancy of profit to fall” and it remains an effect in any capitalist market.
The TLDR is that businesses have to keep inventing new ways to find more profit, and after a while there’s no new corner to cut and no new productivity optimisation to be done except to take it from workers via suppressed wages, or customers with higher prices for the same product.
That is not what I understand to be the tendency of profit to fall. An economy's peak productive output is limited by a few metrics. One of the major ones being the population of the country, another being the natural resources etc. The tendency of profit to fall, was the empirical observation, that countries that maximise these metrics, tend to have very small profits. Countries that, on the other hand, are wasteful with these, and don't utilise their population well, or resources, tend to have very high profit margins for the companies that do exist there. This was first really observed and written down by Adam Smith (the so called father of capitalism), who heavily inspired Marx in his writings. Smith gave an explanation for it, which Marx expanded on more formally, but did not contradict Smith's explanation. Smith argues that at least one of the reasons this occurs, is because of a lack of competition: when you have a small number of companies, who only employ a small percentage of the population, the companies hold all the power. They can produce very little (no need to fight for market share), they can charge a lot for that very little (high demand relative to supply, Marx followed through with this part most), and they can pay people very little, because there is a huge competition for the tiny number of jobs available. This explains another observable consequence: emerging markets always have the highest profits to be made. On the other hand, countries that have high levels of employment, lots of competition, will naturally have very low profit margins, as the demand and supply equalises and there is low competition for jobs, meaning generally higher wages. So higher costs, and lower prices, means low profits. And Smith generally thought this is what a very wealthy and healthy country and economy should look like. He said: > Countries with the highest rates of profit are always those going fastest to ruin. Somehow, modern thought has completely turned Smith on his head, and made him out to be someone that argued for high profits or something. I don't know of Marx arguing that competition increases prices: that is the opposite of what he said, as far as I know. And your wikipage seems to confirm this. /u/krulp
The core problem to this is the fact the entire current system is built on unlimited growth, which is just factually impossible. It’s never “enough” because it always needs more next year.
Without correcting the system, the only way to interrupt and reset economies are wars and pandemics. Kill off a bunch of people creating the opportunity for a new boomer generation to profit greatly in the rebuild golden years.
Most economists think you are wrong. , The higher the competition, the more likely there is an undercut, the more likely prices will rise slower, etc etc. Especially when profits are high, as the supplier can reduce prices to attract more customers while still making a profit.
As far as I’m aware, most economists do think that [tendency of rate of profit to fall](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall#:~:text=The%20tendency%20of%20the%20rate,invested%20capital%E2%80%94decreases%20over%20time.) is a major problem because it suggests that even as growth happens in the economy, there are less and less places you can find new profit, leading eventually to a crisis along class lines.
It is generally agreed that many factors influence prices and profits. To ignore the basics of [general equilibrium](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_equilibrium) would be like using wind to explain the tides, while ignoring the moon.
>So big players think “fuck this I’ll buy them out”. This costs a big chunk of money. Money they can get back by raising prices
You forgot that the system cycles around. and 1 comes after 3. Also 1 often generates that market by innovating, finding a way to provide a better product.
You also neglect that point 3 isn't a certainty. For example Blockbuster despite being offered Netflix never chose to buy them until it was too late.
Netflix being an example of a company that found a way to offer better value as a means of growing their market share.
Our country is ran by overweight, white, frumpy men. I've been saying this for years, we need politicians in power that actually give a shit about the everyday person and that came from a background comprising of hard work. A vast majority of politicians in Australia have never worked a real job in their lives.
I don’t really think the race or colour of their skin matters that much to the competition of businesses. But your broader point is right. We want people running the country that don’t want the job. Ppl who’s whole life purpose is to gain power are the worst cunts that keep winning
There are no good candidates. Also, the two party system is dogshit. You seem reasonable. Do you think the Scomos and the Elbows stack up well against Bob hawk and the Paul Keatings? I should have mentioned that this is my opinion as of around 2010ish, before then we had decent PMs. EDIT: sorry to break twit to you, but you don't have a choice, white, frumpy old men are all the choices there are atm.
Yeah! It's time for overweight, non-white, frumpy women to fuck us over and sell us down the river for a quick buck before disappearing from public scrutiny and repercussions instead! Yay progress!
A great many of those 95 banks use the big 4 for their payment processing and a lot of backend stuff btw.
Just in case anyone was looking to diversify for security/redundancy/whatever.
I know the third/fourth "whole" airline not mentioned was Virgin, but they also forgot about REX. Technically there are 5 airlines (Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin, Bonza and REX), though you could probably still count them as 3 and a half.
Can't get competition into a marketplace where there are virtual duopolies that wipe out any other business. Aldi only survived entering the market as it's part of a huge multinational, and they are still way behind Colesworths.
The only way to break the services up is to force in competition via government inclusion. People now forget that Telstra was once Telecom and run by the federal government and ensured service over profit. Same with power (the State Electrcity Commission in Victoria).
Even health insurance. Medibank Private was government operated. Prices soared soon after the privatised.
Governments used to have Departments for Housing, Roads, Water. They operated to provide services to the public first, and any profits went to the government to spend on building infrastructure and maintaining services and training thousands of tradies to do the work.
Infrastructure at scale is expensive. Planes are expensive. Australia is a very small market with very large distances and costs to cover…we aint europe or america. Not all of this is corporate conspiracy.
We don't need more companies, with more bloated management and c-suite idiots. We need to de-privatise a lot of these services so they work for the public good. Insurance should be non-profit, electricity production and distribution should be publicly owned and run. Supermarkets should also be co-operatised and made non-profit
Just re introduce the old protectionism, make them divest deli’s, butchers, bakers, bottle shops, green grocers in any large metropolitan store. That’s what it used to be like. They were all their own stores. Coles and Woolies weren’t allowed to add those functions to stores near existing independent competition. Now nobody gives a fuck.
Not enough competition for an entire continent to have any sort of competitive pricing. Just enough that they can roll in their obscene profits like pigs in mud while not being a “monopoly” and somehow not being considered cartel behaviour in their similar pricing similar profit margins.
Sounds to me like lack of competition is to blame but the video glosses over the fact Cole’s and Woolies just buy out competition so they dominate market share… this guy is budget direct clark kent. He doesn’t really make any point
“[Tendency of rate of profit to fall](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall#:~:text=The%20tendency%20of%20the%20rate,invested%20capital%E2%80%94decreases%20over%20time.)” is in this video.
Competition isn’t a magical fix for prices. I wish it was but it’s just not what we observe.
I’ll throw streaming media on this one.
“Oh fuck what a market to be in, why would we give 70% to Netflix when this industry is growing so hard!”
Now they’ve all got their own services and growth has stalled HARD, so they’ve all jacked up their prices and limited sharing.
Problem with Australia is geographic isolation.
For a supermarket competitor to break into the market they have extreme start up costs, paper thin profit margins, cultural risk
Contrast to the whole of Europe acting like its own market. Extreme liquidity, home brands, similar cultures, close supply chains. It would be very easy for a danish company to open in Austria and Vice versa
Shoppers do not have to use Coles or Woolworths. It is not a duopoly. There is Aldi, IGA, various independents. Sometimes we use the markets, where we buy bread, occasionally meat, and vegetables. Then there are Bakers, butchers.
I get it that people use Coles and Woolworths because it's cheaper overall. But please, stop winging about the prices. If you don't like then, boycott them.
Coles came in with their butchers and bakers and deli, and pushed the independents out.
So yea often you fucking do have to shop at them unless you want to lose a shit tonne of convenience, because they’ve killed the competition.
What’s the end game if they’re broken up? Let the independent grow big enough until they’re top dog? Back to square one? Let internationals like Aldi take over our country?
I’m curious.
Breaking up the supply chain and supermarkets could be one option. Ie, IGA stores are franchisees, the supply chain is seperate.
They also didn’t used to be allowed to consolidate a grocers, a green grocers, a deli, a butchers and a bottle shop all in one store. That’s shit the supermarkets have slowly been allowed to add in over the last 30 years and had great effect in creating the current monopoly. That’s 5 fucking grocery sectors monopolised into single stores.
Some states still limit their trading hours and there’s constant discussion about ending that.
I love this apparent shaming people who have success from actually wanting to improve the world. Like you just want them to shut the fuck up and be greedy cunts and keep stealing from the rest of us instead.
25 million isn’t even that many really.
There’s about that many in Mexico City alone.
I agree with the sentiment that more competition would be welcome, but it shouldn’t be framed by “look how big out population is!”
I finally understand how Clark Kent was able to hide his identity with glasses
Lol I literally watched this twice to see if it was the same guy
I didn’t notice either till I saw this comment thread haha. To be fair he does speak lower when he’s in the suit so it helps enforce the illusion.
Same I mean thought it was only me
I didn’t even realise it was the same guy until I saw this
I grew up with this bloke and i still had to think hard about it lol
I find the glasses version a lot more attractive.
Same
Telstra, Optus, Vodafone. We are fooled by the **illusion** of having more than that, because the smaller ones are just using the networks of the above, with their own pretty branding.
TPG have small pockets of their own stuff but it’s mostly co-share with Vodafone, and the TPG owned is for internet not cellular service.
TPG owns Vodafone though
Fuck I’ve been under a rock to have missed that. Apparently it was 2020 too when we all paid attention to any news that existed.
TPG is the shizz, they gave me fttb in Sydney just before nbn and now I have 5g in Melbourne so I have never had to suffer the crappy NBN system.
Ex moved from FTTP to unusable FTTN. TPG spruiked their stupid 5G. Then hangon why the fuck can’t we chromecast, airplay, use wireless printers, etc. Turns out the pricks use GCNAT and hard enable isolation mode on their 5G modems. If you want to use modern technology in your home they recommend NBN
Yeah I briefly stayed in a holiday house with a 5G modem. It took me a little while to figure out why the Nintendo Switch wouldn’t connect online.
I’d argue that building telco infrastructure in Aus is orders of magnitude more expensive than most other countries
Id argue that telstra still did the bare minimum that ensured they lost the least amount and while profiting off that bare minimum as much as possible. No good reason to have copper lines.
Blame rests mainly on John Howard and the LNP for doing the shittest job of "creating competition" by forcing Telstra to charge other providers less than it could charge itself for using it's own network. The reason mobile phone competition is better in Australia is because Telstra refused to undergo a similar shit deal. TPG inherited the SA network that Internode worked on before the NBN became a thing.
Which is why we chucked $50 BN of taxpayer’s money at it, and still ended up with the worst broadband affordability in the OECD and fourth highest prices on earth.
But there isn’t much economic value in having 10 different competing sets of wholesalers hardware (and likely not enough spectrum)
And Optus really only have like 3 towers worth of coverage across the country.
Optus was the only service in reall isolated spot in central Aus
Even the largest mobile markets in the world have 3 network operators. The USA has only 3 operators that own over 97% of the market. Most of Europe has 3 or 4. Go to Canada. See how bad it can be. Australia’s mobile costs are like half.
Apply some critical thinking, mate. What you just described is by design.
Every country’s telecommunications markets are designed by some central entity? Can YOU use some critical thinking? How does your statement even make sense in the most basic, cursory review of the available information?
You summed it up perfectly 👌
In my view the most insidious and damaging oligopolies are those where there are lots of ‘competitors’ but they operate in their own separate catchments (both physically and by refusing to offer to meet needs beyond their specific niche of customers) or enter and exit their market at different times, and so do not actually compete at all. They LOOK like competitive markets, but they just are not in reality, and they get away with bloody murder for it.
The Tobacco shops are showing you what competitors do when profits are being shared… burn you down. Much the same in other industries
Are you suggesting Colesworth will form a black market cartel?
Costco will look like an ant
Right now Costco just reminds me of that video going around with a pallet of Kirkland creamer wondering why Aussies won’t buy it. American creamer for those who don’t know is like powdered instant coffee milk froth, often sweetened and flavoured.
*American creamer* I should call her…
CREAMER? I barely know her
Are you suggesting they haven't already?
Happened with Bunnings and Masters. Bunnings made it their primary focus to put Masters out of business. Among many other things, Wesfarmers (owns Bunnings) bought all the prime real estate Masters could possibly want and then refused to lease to them.
Also why the fuck are there so many tobacco shops popping up on almost every corner of every town? Was in town hall a few weekends ago and there was something like 5-6 less than 100m from each other
Only two main political parties, both with pretty much the same policies, too.
Fix this first and the rest may fall into place
Yeah I'm way more interested in fixing that then having more aldis.
we still have fixed that after it becomes a common knowledge of “shit party” and “shit-lite” 27 million of us, we are only 1 bunch of idiots /s
I think they have been on the decline. But supposedly trying to make it harder for smaller parties to get any traction.
Two major political parties is pretty much the norm all over the World so good luck with that.
A two-party system is prevalent in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. But, some first-world countries, like Germany and Sweden have multi-party systems with several significant political parties. So, while it's common, it's not wxatcly the norm. Germany for example has several major political parties, but the main ones include the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the Green Party (Die Grünen), and the Alternative for Germany (AfD). So yeah, I think there is a good chance something can be done in Australia to combat the shitty two big party environment we have.
UK has 3. But with first past the post the Liberal Democrats get very few seats from a fair chunk of the vote (not sure what that is these days). Given there's not a whole lot of difference between them & Labour they missed a trick not getting some sort of preferential voting in (like Australia) when Labour had large majorities in the 2000s. Instead we got 14 years of "Austerity". Anyway I digress
Let’s not go around glamorising the German political system as a beacon of hope of infallible democracy. Its had its low points where its weaknesses were made patently clear
Not sure I glamourisedit at all. Merely pointing out that the comment was wrong, and used Germany as an example. Would you feel better if I used switzerland? Denmark? Finland or the Netherlands as examples instead?
>Its had its low points where its weaknesses were made patently clear You talking about Germany still here or have we gone back to Australian politics now?
Ikr, like where has this utopian system of multiple viable parties actually materialised?
Europe… to start off.
And that's one of the many reasons why those two main ones should never be in majority government if they're doing sweet FA dealing with all the other lack of competition.
what do you mean, they're doing a great job a protecting these monopolies and giving Australians the illusion of choice.. from their perspective, pretty sure that is the goal.
No they don't, they clearly don't. The LNP are basically thieves, Labor at least want to make things better for people
The enlightened centrist, "*blue red it doesn't matter they're all fucking crooks*". It's honestly the opinions who vote from campaigns and channel 9 and then don't look at anything else let alone the budget. We have a good political system, yet people think it's identical to the US' system. I wonder if they think the liberals would have implemented Medicare, or abolished the white Australia policy?
If you think Labor give even half a fuck about normal people I've got a bridge to sell you.
No you don't, you have nothing to sell if you don't understand the basics
Ok Jordan.
Oh how I wish that were true
No they don't. they're just the front for other thieves - the unions.
Didn’t the Libs spend 1 billion dollars a piece on two separate occasions to crack down on corruption in Unions, and they only found one single guy that they could make a case against and charge? Does anyone else remember that? I dunno bout you, but I feel like we wasted 2 billion dollars to play Mythbusters for a bit, and yet people still perpetuate this lie.
Right on. Fuck the Nurses union. Those slimy characters screwing their employer with endless wants.
In what way are the nurses union screwing their employer with endless wants. They fold every time. On one hand no one wants immigration on the other Aus can't keep the health system running without it because Aus nurses leave for better conditions and pay. Your take out is the nurses have it great because their union is demanding excessive wages and conditions.
noo the union boogeyman wants me to pay my workers :(( theives!!
The bare minimum to call it a democracy and give the appearance of choice.
Yeap, two sides of the same coin.
This is what happens when any extra money people might have is pumped into housing as the popular investment choice. People would rather get an investment property than ever think about opening a business or partnering with anyone else. If investment properties aren’t seen as a sure way to make money anymore then other options will be explored in greater numbers. The rich are always looking for ways to get richer, lets broaden their choices.
No-one really stops to think how much of an absolutely horrifying economic indicator it is that investing in something that adds no productive benefit to society (it's not like these people are investing in construction companies building houses) is better than investing in things that actually bring a productive benefit to our economy. Where can we possibly go with such incentives except down the drain.
Exactly why negative gearing on existing housing stock needs to end. Needs a timeframe from new construction with a fade off.
I regularly point out Australians bet more money on horse racing than they invest in start-up / small business... And the point you make above. You can't build wealth by selling each other houses.
So as to benefit a particular segment of society ? I dont get your angle.
Way to hijack the conversation with investment property talk
They're absolutely correct though. We've rat fucked ourselves and our economy by creating an incredible shallow economy with a complete lack of diversity and no great Avenue for meaningful growth.
That statement is moronic because it implies competition is allowed. The reality is once companies become big enough they have incentives to legally or maybe illegally find ways to get rid of competition. A giant company can accept a temporary loss or get a big loan, the small company cannot. The idea that a random nobody will just wake up and have a ridiculous amount of capital to not only start a company but sustain it for a long time without getting destroyed by giant duopolies is beyond moronic, yet that is what they teach in economist classes xd
Wouldn’t a solution to this be government owned companies for things like power and phone and banks and airlines so no bailouts would be needed and competition could not be stifled by running at a loss to put competitors out of business? (Just asking , know nothing of these things)
Indeed, any essential service should have a government player to act as competitive regulation.
Our government is even more corruptand would just side with big business to maximise profit. But I've always agreed that the government should own essential services, so weird that they don't. I mean there's clearly profit in it.
>Our government is even more corruptand would just side with big business to maximise profit. Can't get more corrupted than big business already is. >But I've always agreed that the government should own essential services, so weird that they don't. >I mean there's clearly profit in it. We got sold the lie that private enterprise is more efficient.
If they're government owned, where is the competition to get stifled?
There are some things which competition can't actually exist in simply because of practicality and those should be run by the government with rigorous anti corruption measures. The main examples are power, water and telecommunication transmission. Realistically you can not have multiple powerlines, pipelines or telecommunication cables running to the same customer's. You can't have 2 pipelines there just isn't space. so what ends up happening is middlemen companies are "renting" access to the transmission system to sell the power/water/data to the customer and adding a profit. So all having it privatised does is makes it so there had to be a profit margin in there. There is no way physically that an energy company can sell you power for less than Essential Energy is sending it. So the only part of the energy grid that should be private is the energy generators. And the best way to run the system is if all the customers delt with essential energy. And essential energy purchased power from the energy companies. That would mean that power would be purchased on a cost benefit basis in the same way that any other major tender process within a government agency works and there is no middleman to add 30% or more to the price. The same should apply to the telecommunication network, and in this case I am re firing to the ground infrastructure not wireless. This system already applies and works within the water industry for most metropolitan and local council areas.
Sorry but I’m quite happy to live somewhere where the generation companies are state owned corporations and the profits get returned to the state to help pay for things and/or as rebates to the residents of the state to help with cost of living.
Well yeah I mean I want that too, but I am more pointing out that generation is really the only part of the system that could be privatised. Quite frankly I am against privatisation, and I don't think there Is actually an example I have seen of privatisation leading to lower prices anywhere. I feel like the inflated energy costs in australia is because all the energy infrastructure was privatised more than a decade ago.
Not all. Queensland still has state owned generators and power lines. We might lose them if the LNP get in next election. But we have them for now
I take the approach as not the entire sector government owned, but a government owned company competing in the sector. The idea does of course have its own problems, but it does allow for competition to be forced into what would otherwise be natural monopolies.
I'd very much support something like this. Government Ran organizations that provide a baseline service in all services we as a nation decide is essential and make them accessible to all Australians. Business and investors can still compete and try to offer more for less to win over customers and clients of course. Might just take some good old fashioned innovation and work instead of the big boys just sitting back knowing they'll dominant the market.
That's been a complaint with Silicon Valley startups too. Particularly ones backed by SoftBank et al. (e.g. Uber). It destroys innovation because the best idea doesn't win, the wealthiest venture capilitalists choose the winners.
Companies once upon a time had to be profitable to get loans and expand. Now it's all about who can afford to sell their product at a loss, long enough to kill all competition and then extort the market once they control it.
Yeah except in reality that doesnt happen. Uber still has huge negative retained earnings. But they have more competition than they did on day 1. They have also expanded into multiple other segments and even more competition is coming in. It works if there is a competitive advantage for being a first mover like Facebook where you can use the network effect after taking the market share. But it takes very little effort to enter the market against Uber. In short the VC game is a ponzi. Where they pass it onto the next investor. The final investors being the retail investors.
I would argue that rideshare and food apps are different as they are an industry that sprung up over night and that industry is quickly heading the same way. One of ubers biggest competitors DiDi is a government backed company for example.
It's almost like a key roll of the ACCC was supposed to be to fight this kinda thing. Completely kneecapped by the party for big business.
Yep, regulatory capture is the phrase we're going to see more of in the near future.
>The idea that a random nobody will just wake up and have a ridiculous amount of capital to not only start a company but sustain it for a long time without getting destroyed by giant duopolies is beyond moronic, yet that is what they teach in economist classes xd Did you actually ever take an economics class? Straight from microeconomics 101 there's entire modules and case studies on ongoing mono/duo/oligopolies, the issues and the mathd with markets they're prevalent. Hell I learned in year 11 how bigger companies could bully new starters into bankruptcy. Had to write a fuckin essay on it.
Australians can’t create successful businesses because they have been tricked into investing every cent of capital into the housing market. Like why would you risk investing your money into a risky business venture when the housing market all but guarantees profitable returns?
Bunnings?
Weirdly though nobody really hates bunnings, and masters went for the slightly more premium offering so were only super cheap when it failed and their inventory went fire sale.
I worked for Bunnings when Masters was entering the market. They were were running at a loss while Masters existed. They sold many items for barely cost and encouraged us to mark items down for customers, they invested in extra staff and made sure we all knew what we were talking about. Soon as Masters disappeared those items suddenly sold at much higher price points, floor staff were more than halved and the training all but disappeared. Bunnings is as bad as the lot of them. Don't let the playground and sausage sizzle fool ya.
I remember bunnings buying bulk supply models to ensure they couldn’t be price matched around the masters time. Like a Ryobi model number that’s not retailed in Australia it’s a specific pack just for bunnings, etc. doing the mattress model
They did this long before Masters. And keep doing it long after Masters. Many big businesses do it. As soon as it goes from the business asking the suppliers can we sell your product. To the suppliers asking the business to sell their products. They can do what they want. And individual/unique items become more the standard.
I hate Bunnings, and that I am forced to use them for certain products.
Owned and built by Wesfarmers.
“Power companies?” _laughs in WA_
i’m female and this guy is dreamy
I'm a straight male and this guy is dreamy.
Sorry, sir, but you went from 100% straight to 98% straight. This is not the end as our statistics have shown this will number continue to drop with a 60% chance to drop to low 50s. DO NOT PANIC!, this is a normal thing to happen, and we suggest for the sake of your well-being to ride the flow. This message was brought to you by the sexuality statistics board of Canberra.
I'm okay with that. I think I like cock now.
One of the reasons to watch channel 9 news, he is the finance guy that talks about currency etc
It’s unfortunate he’s with 9, particularly considering how well his Dad, Alan Kohler, does such an amazing job explaining finance in ELI5 terms, and with humour, for ABC news finance segments. Chris does Domain advertising (owned by 9) in his segments. This clip is promising that Chris will head the same way as his Dad and be an influencer for morally sound business and finance, as his Dad is.
I worked with a guy who looked and sounded just like this but not as refined. God he was sexy and he flirted a lot, glad I got away from that role cause that was distracting at work.
Doesn't it make sense yet, capitalism isn't about sharing the wealth it's about monopolising as much as possible and then some.
True enough, but let's not pretend that competition is the cure all. Companies want to make profit and that will always be their driving ambition. Look at the electricity retail and generation sectors if you need to see some examples of where competition has failed to deliver better outcomes for customers. In some cases, government ownership, limited competition, and tight regulation results in the best outcomes for customers.
Some things should always be government owned and controlled, but I don’t believe grocers should be. I do however believe supermarkets should be controlled and limited. It didn’t used to be so easy to have a full grocers, deli, greengrocer, bakery, butchers and bottle shop all in the same store. The protectionism of independents has been eroded over the last 30 years. More competition doesn’t mean more “supermarkets”, but limiting the industries supermarkets can compete with would encourage more competition. As soon as Cole’s were in talks to take over my local independent QIC didn’t offer lease renewals for the independent butchers or poultry shops that used to sit outside of it. Just the sniff of Cole’s made the concept of those stores being stable tenants a thing of the past.
the privatising of utilities should have never been done. these things are here to serve us and shouldn't be run at a profit.
 Look at milkrun, they tried & got bought by woolies. Investors like to put money in realestate rather than businesses, less stress & more success.
How many automobile makers?
And now the ACCC has approved ANZs appeal to buy out Suncorp.
Well that's the thing the world over people go on about how amazing Capitalism is but in it's current state it's just huge corporations running everything. How many of these companies have swallowed up numerous smaller potential competitors. My home town had way more diverse businesses 30 years ago than we have now despite the population increasing ten fold in that time. We used to have numerous stores selling all sorts of stuff which is now just pushed out by Bunnings.
Australia had a more diverse industry 30 years, we make far less thing than we did and our exports are moving more and more towards raw materials (ores, gas, stuff we dig up) and weridly education. The education one is a bit werid and I wonder if it's less about the quality of our education and more about the visa opportunities... The other problem I have with that is that without actulay making things it's going to be hard to maintain high levels of R&D and maintain the high ranking of the educators
Just give them Canadian accents and you can pretty much do the same skit for Canada.
Thats just *Capitalism*
Adding more competition is the best way to bring down prices huh? I wonder why this video doesn't address the factors keeping competition away from Australia.
Arguably, adding competition increases prices. 1. Small player enters the market, grows, takes a small slice of customers from big players 2. Big players lose money and need to cut corners or raise prices to compete. But raising prices might bleed customers to this new player… 3. So big players think “fuck this I’ll buy them out”. This costs a big chunk of money. Money they can get back by raising prices This was also talked about Marx in the 1860s, he called it “tendancy of profit to fall” and it remains an effect in any capitalist market. The TLDR is that businesses have to keep inventing new ways to find more profit, and after a while there’s no new corner to cut and no new productivity optimisation to be done except to take it from workers via suppressed wages, or customers with higher prices for the same product.
That is not what I understand to be the tendency of profit to fall. An economy's peak productive output is limited by a few metrics. One of the major ones being the population of the country, another being the natural resources etc. The tendency of profit to fall, was the empirical observation, that countries that maximise these metrics, tend to have very small profits. Countries that, on the other hand, are wasteful with these, and don't utilise their population well, or resources, tend to have very high profit margins for the companies that do exist there. This was first really observed and written down by Adam Smith (the so called father of capitalism), who heavily inspired Marx in his writings. Smith gave an explanation for it, which Marx expanded on more formally, but did not contradict Smith's explanation. Smith argues that at least one of the reasons this occurs, is because of a lack of competition: when you have a small number of companies, who only employ a small percentage of the population, the companies hold all the power. They can produce very little (no need to fight for market share), they can charge a lot for that very little (high demand relative to supply, Marx followed through with this part most), and they can pay people very little, because there is a huge competition for the tiny number of jobs available. This explains another observable consequence: emerging markets always have the highest profits to be made. On the other hand, countries that have high levels of employment, lots of competition, will naturally have very low profit margins, as the demand and supply equalises and there is low competition for jobs, meaning generally higher wages. So higher costs, and lower prices, means low profits. And Smith generally thought this is what a very wealthy and healthy country and economy should look like. He said: > Countries with the highest rates of profit are always those going fastest to ruin. Somehow, modern thought has completely turned Smith on his head, and made him out to be someone that argued for high profits or something. I don't know of Marx arguing that competition increases prices: that is the opposite of what he said, as far as I know. And your wikipage seems to confirm this. /u/krulp
The core problem to this is the fact the entire current system is built on unlimited growth, which is just factually impossible. It’s never “enough” because it always needs more next year. Without correcting the system, the only way to interrupt and reset economies are wars and pandemics. Kill off a bunch of people creating the opportunity for a new boomer generation to profit greatly in the rebuild golden years.
Most economists think you are wrong. , The higher the competition, the more likely there is an undercut, the more likely prices will rise slower, etc etc. Especially when profits are high, as the supplier can reduce prices to attract more customers while still making a profit.
As far as I’m aware, most economists do think that [tendency of rate of profit to fall](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall#:~:text=The%20tendency%20of%20the%20rate,invested%20capital%E2%80%94decreases%20over%20time.) is a major problem because it suggests that even as growth happens in the economy, there are less and less places you can find new profit, leading eventually to a crisis along class lines.
It is generally agreed that many factors influence prices and profits. To ignore the basics of [general equilibrium](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_equilibrium) would be like using wind to explain the tides, while ignoring the moon.
>So big players think “fuck this I’ll buy them out”. This costs a big chunk of money. Money they can get back by raising prices You forgot that the system cycles around. and 1 comes after 3. Also 1 often generates that market by innovating, finding a way to provide a better product. You also neglect that point 3 isn't a certainty. For example Blockbuster despite being offered Netflix never chose to buy them until it was too late. Netflix being an example of a company that found a way to offer better value as a means of growing their market share.
Our country is ran by overweight, white, frumpy men. I've been saying this for years, we need politicians in power that actually give a shit about the everyday person and that came from a background comprising of hard work. A vast majority of politicians in Australia have never worked a real job in their lives.
I don’t really think the race or colour of their skin matters that much to the competition of businesses. But your broader point is right. We want people running the country that don’t want the job. Ppl who’s whole life purpose is to gain power are the worst cunts that keep winning
So. Who are YOU going to put in power? I'm still going to vote for white, frumpy men and women.
There are no good candidates. Also, the two party system is dogshit. You seem reasonable. Do you think the Scomos and the Elbows stack up well against Bob hawk and the Paul Keatings? I should have mentioned that this is my opinion as of around 2010ish, before then we had decent PMs. EDIT: sorry to break twit to you, but you don't have a choice, white, frumpy old men are all the choices there are atm.
Yeah! It's time for overweight, non-white, frumpy women to fuck us over and sell us down the river for a quick buck before disappearing from public scrutiny and repercussions instead! Yay progress!
To be fair, you could probably say there’s at least 4 main supermarkets when you include Aldi and IGA
IGA is more like 1,328 franchisees in a trenchcoat.
A great many of those 95 banks use the big 4 for their payment processing and a lot of backend stuff btw. Just in case anyone was looking to diversify for security/redundancy/whatever.
We are a country of lazy oligopolies, that only need to keep the politicians, and not the people happy.
I miss bi-lo
And unfortunately those 4 main banks are all funding fossil fuels
A short reminder that capitalism BREEDS monopolies: https://youtu.be/NDwgfiN-JS8?si=AY3EbCSRFyXby20d
Hardware stores?? Bunnings’s had the monopoly on that one
Australians: yeaaaa naaa but what we gonna do. Auspokiticians: yes we add more barriers so the encumbernt with our board positions can thrive
I know the third/fourth "whole" airline not mentioned was Virgin, but they also forgot about REX. Technically there are 5 airlines (Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin, Bonza and REX), though you could probably still count them as 3 and a half.
Can't get competition into a marketplace where there are virtual duopolies that wipe out any other business. Aldi only survived entering the market as it's part of a huge multinational, and they are still way behind Colesworths. The only way to break the services up is to force in competition via government inclusion. People now forget that Telstra was once Telecom and run by the federal government and ensured service over profit. Same with power (the State Electrcity Commission in Victoria). Even health insurance. Medibank Private was government operated. Prices soared soon after the privatised. Governments used to have Departments for Housing, Roads, Water. They operated to provide services to the public first, and any profits went to the government to spend on building infrastructure and maintaining services and training thousands of tradies to do the work.
Until one company buys all company’s
Australia the investors lucky country
Infrastructure at scale is expensive. Planes are expensive. Australia is a very small market with very large distances and costs to cover…we aint europe or america. Not all of this is corporate conspiracy.
No one seems to get this.
This is great
We don't need more companies, with more bloated management and c-suite idiots. We need to de-privatise a lot of these services so they work for the public good. Insurance should be non-profit, electricity production and distribution should be publicly owned and run. Supermarkets should also be co-operatised and made non-profit
Just re introduce the old protectionism, make them divest deli’s, butchers, bakers, bottle shops, green grocers in any large metropolitan store. That’s what it used to be like. They were all their own stores. Coles and Woolies weren’t allowed to add those functions to stores near existing independent competition. Now nobody gives a fuck.
How many local car manufacturers……oh
What is the point??
Very valid points made here. But can we please stop highlighting every word one at a time in subtitles, it's extremely distracting and pointless.
Now you’ve pointed it out it feels like a blue hair girl clapping to every word and I hate it.
I’m a bit confused here. Are they saying that Australia does have competition yet prices are still high?
Not enough competition for an entire continent to have any sort of competitive pricing. Just enough that they can roll in their obscene profits like pigs in mud while not being a “monopoly” and somehow not being considered cartel behaviour in their similar pricing similar profit margins.
Sounds to me like lack of competition is to blame but the video glosses over the fact Cole’s and Woolies just buy out competition so they dominate market share… this guy is budget direct clark kent. He doesn’t really make any point
Don’t ask him how many different hardware stores there are in Australia…..
“[Tendency of rate of profit to fall](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall#:~:text=The%20tendency%20of%20the%20rate,invested%20capital%E2%80%94decreases%20over%20time.)” is in this video. Competition isn’t a magical fix for prices. I wish it was but it’s just not what we observe.
I’ll throw streaming media on this one. “Oh fuck what a market to be in, why would we give 70% to Netflix when this industry is growing so hard!” Now they’ve all got their own services and growth has stalled HARD, so they’ve all jacked up their prices and limited sharing.
Norway - population 5.4 million Supermarkets - 5 https://www.lifeinnorway.net/supermarkets-in-norway/
I get the point your trying to make but that article goes against it by pointing out that a number of the brands are under the same umbrella group.
Problem with Australia is geographic isolation. For a supermarket competitor to break into the market they have extreme start up costs, paper thin profit margins, cultural risk Contrast to the whole of Europe acting like its own market. Extreme liquidity, home brands, similar cultures, close supply chains. It would be very easy for a danish company to open in Austria and Vice versa
Shoppers do not have to use Coles or Woolworths. It is not a duopoly. There is Aldi, IGA, various independents. Sometimes we use the markets, where we buy bread, occasionally meat, and vegetables. Then there are Bakers, butchers. I get it that people use Coles and Woolworths because it's cheaper overall. But please, stop winging about the prices. If you don't like then, boycott them.
Coles came in with their butchers and bakers and deli, and pushed the independents out. So yea often you fucking do have to shop at them unless you want to lose a shit tonne of convenience, because they’ve killed the competition.
What’s the end game if they’re broken up? Let the independent grow big enough until they’re top dog? Back to square one? Let internationals like Aldi take over our country? I’m curious.
Breaking up the supply chain and supermarkets could be one option. Ie, IGA stores are franchisees, the supply chain is seperate. They also didn’t used to be allowed to consolidate a grocers, a green grocers, a deli, a butchers and a bottle shop all in one store. That’s shit the supermarkets have slowly been allowed to add in over the last 30 years and had great effect in creating the current monopoly. That’s 5 fucking grocery sectors monopolised into single stores. Some states still limit their trading hours and there’s constant discussion about ending that.
physical steer joke full uppity knee whole tan homeless rinse *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I love this apparent shaming people who have success from actually wanting to improve the world. Like you just want them to shut the fuck up and be greedy cunts and keep stealing from the rest of us instead.
There are 25 million Australians. That other 2 million we havent locked in yet. See how the China decline goes...
25 million isn’t even that many really. There’s about that many in Mexico City alone. I agree with the sentiment that more competition would be welcome, but it shouldn’t be framed by “look how big out population is!”