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Current Business News - Morgan Bell discusses trends in business

 
Find out which products are getting recognition in Australia and across the globe, how the Government impacts on business, and which trends are leading to financial success - this is an open discussion about money making ventures in the news, all comments and opinions are welcome!

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The Great Bee Crisis (LINK)

May 11th 2008 16:06
Bees give us so much more than honey. They are critical to our very survival - providing a $100 billion/year service to world agriculture by fertilizing our crops as they go about their business, collecting pollen. Without bees crop yields would drop away and there could be a danger of mass starvation.

There is a tiny parasite is threatening to wipe out our bees. The nasty tick-like parasite is called 'Varroa Destructor' and it can be a catastrophic threat to bees. It's already destroyed bee populations around the world. It has now reached New Zealand and it is feared it will enter Australia soon.


Varroa Destructor sucks the blood of the bees and as it is doing so it transmits viruses. Varroa has spread insidiously into every major country except Australia. Now it is on our doorstep in New Zealand and the great fear is it is only a matter of time before we are invaded.

Like Australia, New Zealand was proudly free of Varroa but then eight years ago the mite somehow breached strict quarantine to invade almost every hive in the North Island. It has very nearly destroyed the beekeeping industry. In Australia we have a lot to lose if Varroa strikes. At risk is our healthy bee population, our agricultural industry, and our treasured chemical-free honey.

Varroa has wiped out up to 80% of the New Zealand's hives. The very existence of many of the nuts, vegetables and fruits we take for granted is now under threat as there are no longer the local bees to pollinate them. New Zealand is now relying on imported Australian bees.

Because Australian bees are still Varroa-free they are in hot demand overseas where bee populations have been decimated. Millions of bees fly long distance to the United States in several shipments a week to help boost the dwindling numbers there.


Bees have been vanishing across America. More than one quarter of the 2.4 million colonies (tens of billions of bees) have been lost with some beekeepers reporting 26% colony losses between September, 2006 and March, 2007.

The almond orchards of California are the biggest bee pollination operation in the world with hundreds of thousands of flowering almond trees and more than 50 billion bees busy at work pollinating the flowers while they are in bloom. The imported Australian bees bounce from blossom to blossom rubbing pollen off on female stems - an integral part of the natural pollination process which we refer to as "the birds and the bees"

The state's $1.189 billion almond crop is entirely dependent on honeybee pollination and growers are responsible for more than half the world's almond production. Some other crops dependent on honeybee pollination include apples, avocados, cherries, cucumbers, melons and sunflowers.

It is a year-round, 24-hour-a-day operation. Bees are trucked across the States from orchard to orchard, crop to crop to pollinate. But it is an expensive exercise. Varroa mites have seen the cost of pollination skyrocket - a cost Americans pay at the supermarket.

In North Carolina there has been a trend in recent year for farmers to leave tobacco and move into new crops like cucumbers, melons, and berries. However the state is confronting a crisis: it simply doesn't have enough honeybees to pollinate all those flowering plants.

photo


based on summarised excerpts from the television transcript of "Bee Afraid" airing Sunday, May 11, 2008 on Sixty Minutes, Australia - Reporter: Tara Brown - Producer: Stephen Taylor and Julia Timms

other references:
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
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Time Magazine has published the Top 100 most influential people list.

Included in the list were the following:

Oprah Winfrey
media talk-show host, political networker, and charitable role model

Oprah Winfrey


Rupert Murdoch
the worlds most influential newspaper publisher and media mogul, NewsCorp has a $29 billion revenue, he recently purchased the Wall Street Journal

Ben Bernanke
the new chairman of the US Federal Reserve, replacing Alan Greenspan

Bob & Suzanne Wright
Bob was formerly the CEO of NBC and currently raises money and awareness with his wife for a charity called Autism Speaks

Jeff Han
the 32 year old computer science researcher who introduced the concept of multi-touch sensing screens

Mary Lou Jepsen
the 43 year old lead innovator and architect of the One Laptop Per Child initiative aiming to provide solar powered $100 computers to children across the globe

Mary Lou Jepsen


Paul Allen
co-founder of Microsoft who is the head of the Allen Institute for Brain Science which is mapping the brain according to cells and genes

Mark Zuckerberg
the 23 year old college kid who created the internet networking site Facebook, now hosting 70 million active users

Isaac Berzin
the 40 year old chemical engineer from Israel farming $92 million worth of algae to produce fuel and reduce carbon dioxide

Alex Rigopulos & Eran Egozy
the creators of Harmonix classic rock video games Guitar Hero and Rock Band

Indra Nooyi chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, increasing international business by 22% last year, moving towards healthier products, and entering into a partnership with Starbucks

Indra Nooyi - CEO PepsiCo


Steve Jobs
co-founder, CEO and chairman of Apple Inc, $24 billion in annual sales, 22,000 employees

Ratan Tata
developer of the $2,500 car in India

The CEOs of Amazon, Digg, Cisco, and GE were also profiled, as were many prominent scientists, entertainers and politicians

Australian edition published May 12, 2008
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Free Trade - its a matter of trust

April 28th 2008 17:59
The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) entered into force on 1 January 2005. These were my thoughts just prior to the agreement being finalised:

Economically Australia needs to increase exports – but can we rely on the US to play fair in the Free Trade Agreement?

As Australia delves into its most crucial capitalist venture in recent times, this student examines some of the consequences and motivations which have pushed the issue of The Free Trade Agreement with the US to the forefront, and discovers the potential benefits are only as certain as the integrity of our trading partner.

Australia's current trading pattern has resulted from its origins of being a British white settler colony in the nineteenth century where we export raw materials and import finished, high value added goods. It has had a dependent development where imperial integration with domestic development are joined and Australia is reliant on the export of primary commodities.

As a primary commodity exporter we tend to be overly reliant on a few export items, while the manufacturing nation (the US) has a multiplicity of sources of raw material, as technology has allowed raw material production to be increasingly efficient and available, and lowered supply costs. Being a primary sector exporter and secondary sector importer, our terms of trade will decline in the long run, because of the falling component of raw materials over time, as a proportion of the value added of elaborately transformed manufactures. There are issues of environmental sustainability as natural resources are depleted.

Australia's manufacturing sector is currently unable to competitively supply the elaborately transformed manufacture that we are importing. It is important for Australia's economy that we make moves to increase our exports. Our current account deficit comes about from an imbalance between imports and exports, as we are buying too many goods from overseas while not selling enough exports to break even or be in surplus.

The question is will The Free Trade Agreement that is proposed actually increase exports out of Australia more than imports into Australia?

The Agreement isn't 100% free trade on either side; it is more like "The Mostly Free Trade Agreement". The key is striking a balance where the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Our Government's stance is that a large proportion of US agricultural exports to Australia already enter our market duty free, while our product is subjected to significant restrictions in tariffs and quotas. The Agreement will see 66% of tariffs applied by the US to Australian agriculture eliminated once the agreement commences, and a further 9% in four years. There are disputes over the current agreement as some products such as beef are having tariffs lifted gradually, and others like sugar are excluded from the deal currently.

Australia exports 3.5 times more agricultural products to the US than we import and Australia is ranked 5th as an agricultural exporter to the US. Because our terms of trade are bound up with the exchange rate of the Australian dollar, imports are relatively dear to us and our exports are relatively cheap to our overseas customers. It seems that Australia has made a huge win with regards to agriculture, but perhaps at the expense of manufacturing and our own sustainability.

Australia’s top 10 agriculture export destinations 05-06
http://www.daff.gov.au/market-access-trade


Complaints about The Agreement are about specific terms such as media regulations and local content, the right to sue for breaches in the agreement, quarantine laws, copyrights and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Also, the free trade agreement is not delivering very many new export markets to farmers just expanding opportunities for existing markets. And there is the x-factor of US farmers being backed by the US government subsidies when Australian farmers are not.

Our market is one of the worlds freest but the US is protected by rising government subsidies. There are doubts that even with lower tariffs and higher quotas that Australia's agriculture will flourish while US subsidies remain as they destroy the concept of a level playing field. Many US agricultural imports are subsidised by the US government. Their recent Farm Bill will increase agricultural subsidies in the next 10 years. Subsidies are a form of trade distortion. Export subsidies in rich countries are seen as crippling the ability of developing nations to compete on world markets. It is not just the US that provides subsidies to farmers, the European Union believes maintaining subsidies preserves European rural culture and reluctant to remove these subsidies regardless of the US.

The Australian Government sees the advantage of The Free Trade Agreement being in having an economically powerful trading partner to be linked to. The US is the world's largest importer, investor and purchaser of goods and services. This does come paired with the risk of the US not honouring the agreements of free trade as they are a greater economic power and have the potential to bully smaller nations.

There are concerns and insecurities from the general public that the US dwarfs Australia economically. The US economy is around 22 times as large as Australia's economy. Competition between equal competitors doing business under equal conditions, such as wage and tax conditions is good, and essential to keep prices down. Australia may be at a disadvantage as it lacks capital (at competitive rates), competitive advertising, huge turnover markets, and cheap raw materials and labour.

Free trade is an advantage to US manufacturing. Access to a greater supply of raw materials at lower prices enables US manufacturers to reduce costs and become more competitive in markets around the world. The presence of foreign produced finished manufactures in the US compels domestic industries to be innovative and efficient, both of which are keys to profitability and longevity. Only 4% of Australian companies currently export. We lack export culture and may not reap the benefits of increased market opportunities.

There is concern from the general public that eliminating tariffs on US manufactured exports to Australia may result in huge job losses as local production is displaced by imports from technologically superior US manufacturers. The Australian Government considers that Australia has an open, efficient and competitive economy in which most US products have enjoyed easy access to for years, and the US has pockets of high protection which are currently limiting the entry of competitive Australian products. Government financial modelling has predicted the Free Trade Agreement will increase Australia's annual GDP by $6 billion in a decade, and deliver 30 000 Australian jobs by 2012.

The Free Trade Agreement has the potential to impact more on investment than trade. Currently the US supplies nearly 30% of Australia's foreign investment, more than any other economy. It is hoped that the agreement will further enhance Australia's attractiveness as a destination for US investment. Countries in our region will then have increased incentive to invest in, and trade with, Australia because of our stronger linkages with the world's most powerful economy. The advantages to Australia and the US may simply cancel each other out and provide a level playing ground, where neither country has a trading advantage over the other. The advantage to both countries would then be in trading with the rest of the world.

Also, until now, Australia has been locked out of the worlds largest government procurement market. Australia will gain immediate access to the $200 billion market of federal government purchases of goods and services. An aim of The Free Trade Agreement is to restore Australia's competitiveness in the US market against other suppliers from Canada, Mexico and other countries which currently enjoy preferential access to the US market.

It is very important for Australia to avoid maintaining a deficit on the current account. It puts downward pressure on the international exchange value of the dollar scaring away further investment and making payments on existing loans more expensive. The Free Trade Agreement with the US may help Australia to reduce the deficit on the current account by increasing our exports either in our strong agricultural sector or, more hopefully, in manufacturing. Remaining a primary commodity trader challenges our capacity to embrace a policy of sustainable development. Moving away from trading in raw materials can be done if we improve the export culture, innovation and efficiency of our market to be truly competitive with the US and the rest of the world.

The US Free Trade Agreement could be a productive push for us to delve into the world of manufacturing, but requires Australia to have:

- a level of trust in the US not to economically manipulate us and to enter into the bargain with a sense of fairness, and

- a confidence in the quality and dedication of our industries to flourish, not fold, under pressure.

The benefit of The Free Trade Agreement is simply that it provides Australia with an opportunity to change its ways, and hopefully become more export and manufacturing savvy. We will have access to markets we did not before, but we are also opening our doors to an economic super power, and only time will tell if we work together or against each other.

References & further reading

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade fact sheets
www.dfat.gov.au

GATS Australia
http://gats.com.au/

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Starbucks is struggling to maintain customer traffic due to the economic squeeze and competition undercutting. US customer visits to Starbucks's cafes have declined for two straight quarters.

Competitors have been nibbling away at different segments of the $US25 billion-plus US specialty coffee market that Starbucks carved out. McDonald's Corp has aggressively entered the drip coffee market and plans to roll out more expensive espresso drinks. In addition to McDonald's, Dunkin' Brands is undercutting Starbucks


[ Click here to read more ]
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say cheese Australia!

April 24th 2008 16:51
The Australian cheese making industry has once again been recognised in internationally as being the cream of the crop. The 2008 World Championship Cheese prize recently awarded two Australian cheese producers as the best in their class.

Best Parmesan went to the Simpson Grana Team from Australian Co-Operative Foods for their Mil Lel Superior Parmesan


[ Click here to read more ]
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new writer for Current Business News

April 23rd 2008 13:48
Hi and welcome to the NEW Current Business News!

I will be your NEW host Morgan and we will be looking at stories about


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MIG Buys Toll Road in Texas

January 30th 2007 04:01
Macquarie Infrastructure Group is a hugely profitable business and its expansion in the US is continuing. Stay with me for a closer look at this trust.

The news today, 30 January 2007, is that “Macquarie Infrastructure Group has resumed its onslaught on the US toll road market by teaming up with sister US wholesale fund Macquarie Infrastructure Partners to make a binding offer to develop and operate the SH121 toll road in northern Texas


[ Click here to read more ]
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Will our mining boom last forever? When will it stop? If you have a guess, read along.

The news today, 29 January 2007, is that “research house IBISWorld says the mining sector will account for eight of this year's top-10 fastest growing industries because of global demand for Australian commodities


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Online Advertising Set to Grow

January 25th 2007 09:20
Now that some doomed the Australian online advertising market there comes in Aegis to invest in its future. Find out more about the online market in Australia.

The news today, 25 January 2007, is that “one of the world's biggest buyers of online advertising is predicting a continued boom in Australia's online sector this year, in defiance of local pundits who tip the sector's growth to slow


[ Click here to read more ]
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Macau Casinos: Good News for PBL

January 24th 2007 11:47
Publishing and Broadcasting, James Packer’s company, is building three casinos in booming Macau and the prospects for gaming there are great. Stay with me for more.

The news today, 24 January 2007, is that “gaming revenue in Macau surged 23 per cent last year to almost $US7 billion ($A8.87 billion), beating analysts' expectations and boosting the outlook for Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, which is building three casinos there


[ Click here to read more ]
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