The economic consequences of no longer being self-sufficient in porridge.
That's the title and the subject is the old Creamoata factory at Gore.
The newest blog on the block HowDaft, describes the process by which the business of making porridge was lost to Southland and how we are the losers for ... losing it. It's a pretty interesting view and one that answers questions I've had, driving into Gore and looking up at Sergeant Dan marching purposely across the wall of the old Creamota factory. I'd always wondered what happened to him and his porridge making workers, the business and the farmers who must have supplied the factory back in the days it was working.
Now I know.
9 comments:
Could you give a link for HowDaft please? I tried googling and got a USA car site or this post but nothing for the new blog.
http://www.howdaft.blogspot.com
Many of Howdafts facts are highly contestable if not straight out wrong. 200 people employed at the mill at the time of closure? Really?? Farmers are still growing oats, and there's a new business in the mill. Sure it's nothing compared to the great days when Flemings claimed Eastern Southland grew the best oats in the world, but there's more to this story, including the fact fewer NZers eat porridge. The inaccuracies undermine Howdaft's credibility. Pity.
As Pogmuncher wrote Oats are still being grown in the area.
They are processed by Harraway and Sons which is a privately owned New Zealand company. It is situated in Green Island, Dunedin on its original site where it was established in 1867.
They produce a range of oat products including Organic Whole rolled oats which I have for breakfast most mornings.
(info from harraways.co.nz
Too many folk have their heads buried in the sand. The thrust of the article is to make us all wake up to the fickleness of this National Government. They want to sell off assets returning 17% to the country just to pay down debt that is costing the country 6-7%. How daft are these people? Key & English know only too well that ownership will go overseas and dividends will be taken out of NZ as I believe is happening with Telecom’s majority owners taking more in dividends per annum than what they paid for.
This excellent article released today is a must read.
“It is all very well for Finance Minister Bill English to lecture New Zealanders on the necessity to buy the state asset shares, or foreigners will. He must know very well that already, reportedly, the big investment bankers and brokers are queueing up from overseas: Morgan Stanley, Rothschilds allegedly teaming up with Cameron Partners, Merrill Lynch with Forsyth Barr, and the locally-based players like UBS, Goldman Sachs – (now why does that name ring a bell…?)- First NZ Capital and Deutsche Bank. And yet English is reported as saying, incredibly enough, that it was “unlikely shares would go overseas in the planned sale of minority stakes in Meridian, Mighty River, Genesis, Solid Energy and in Air New Zealand because the expected strong interest from local investors”.
“What the public strongly suspects is that we are basically being presented with a flossied-up, temporary debt reduction policy, which will give the government more ability to push towards other areas of government spending. Along the way, as has been pointed out, tens of millions of dollars will be paid as usual to its advisers, i.e. to the investment bankers and to legal and accounting firms. Nothing changes.”
http://100daystodemocracy.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/roger-kerr-bill-english-soe-debate-flawed/
And there is much food for thought in this article.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/michael-hudson-the-financial-road-to-serfdom-%E2%80%93-how-bankers-are-using-the-debt-crisis-to-roll-back-the-progressive-era.html
“This new road to neoserfdom is an asset grab. But to achieve it, the financial sector needs a political grab to replace democracy with financial technocrats. Their job is to pretend that there is no revolution at all, merely an increase in “efficiency,” “creating wealth” by debt-leveraging the economy to the point where the entire surplus is paid out as interest to the financial managers who are emerging as Western civilization’s new central planners.”
I'll invite howdaft here to address your concerns.
Intyeresting challenges there though Pogmuncher and Farmer Baby Boomer!
Sally, I have no problem agreeing with you :-)
HI Robert/homepaddock/pogmuncher (a topic obviously close to you heart!)
Yes on checking back on google there were only 36 staff left on closure though I recall that this was the result of a long period of attrition. There was also a long period where the community struggled to get an alternative commercial use for the local oat crop (animal feed - not knocking it - but!!) and the whole of Gore did suffer for some considerable time after the closure.
The actual number of job losses does not detract from the facts - this sale cost New Zealand far more than it gave us. And it continues to cost. Good on you Harraways!!
The simple fact is that as a country we are broke. We are broke because of many thousands of similar small actions like this. We have a huge all consuming machine at the northern end of the country and a struggling productive sector at the central and south. We can not continue to spend more than we earn. The rules are the same for a nation a business or a household. We are borrowing about $80 dollars per day per p[erson t kee[ our life style. This doesn't work and can't work. It is an economic black hole.
and sorry if you couldn't link though - I am just learning how this stuff works - I appreciate the responses and the links - I am sure I will learn fast.
I acknowledge the staff losses number was wrong - only 36 left on closure but that was the end result of a long period of attrition.
The closure did cause Gore to struggle for a year or two and the alternative crop was stock food - hardly a high margin earner - and in reality that should have been an additional product not an alternative
and pogmuncher - good on you Harraway's - we need more of you I am chastised and will stop buying the imported competition and start eating real pog forthwith.
The simple fact is that this sale and many thousands like it are reducing us to a pauper - we borrow to eat what we once made for ourselves. We are presently borrowing $80 each - every day - to keep our lifestyle going and at a time when our terms of trade have never been better - this is a disaster in the making.
Spending more than your earn is as bad for a country as it is for a business and a household. It is the pathway to ruin. It is our ideology not our assets nor our ability that has us in this parlous state - read my other post for an illustration of that
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