With Friends Like These...

The business lobby's tone deaf response to Mark Kenny's entirely story about the groups' offices being shut on a Sunday demonstrates why they're going to lose — if they haven’t already lost — the battle over penalty rates.

The lobby groups and their acolytes got their knickers in a knot over the story, saying that as a professional group and not a service provider, there was no demand for them on a weekend and were thus shut. This is true, but it completely misses the point of the story.

Their response misses the optics — as PR flacks are fond of saying — of the situation, which is that those who are so very eager to cut weekend penalty rates value their own Saturday–Sunday weekends. This was the point that Kenny admitted he was trying to make. He succeeded, even if his targets didn't get the hint.  Some labelled Kenny's story a "stunt", while others continued the habit of scoring own goals,  criticising the story by saying "it's called a normal working week, duh“, to which Kenny replied "exactly".

The blindness to these optics means business groups have lost this battle before it has begun, even if they had "masses" of evidence to support their dubious claims (they don’t). They try to blame the SDA — whose agreements have often reduced penalty rates in exchange for higher base rates of pay — not realising the old adage that two wrongs don’t make a right. Some have tried to insult workers by saying they’re “lucky” to have a job and should go without penalties entirely. Basically every negative sentiment workers feels about employers is being confirmed.

It’s very difficult for captains of industry large and small to claim victimhood at any time, let alone when profits in some sectors are at record highs, trust in business is low and they’re campaigning for even more funds from the public purse by way of company tax cuts. Trying victimhood on for size while advocating slashing the take home pay of their lowest remunerated workers is not a good look. Combine this with an almost sociopathic disregard for the effect of pay cuts on workers, and you've got a battle that's already lost for employers.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Mid-Year Stock[exchange]take

Shanghai Stock Exchange

The news that China's stock markets are tanking brought to mind German photographer Andreas Gursky. Huh? Let me explain. Usually these news stories are accompanied by the most awful stock footage known to humankind. I believe every news network in the world has the same 45 sec loop of concerned people standing before the electronic ticker boards. I gather they have two versions: one for a good day of trading (a whole lot of green and happy people) and one for terrible days of trading (a sea of red; balding middle-aged men who by the end of the package have no hair). 

The very existence of such stock footage begs the question: who the hell visits a stock market foyer for updates these days anyway!?? You know your iPhone? That stocks app you never use? Well, that can do the same thing.

But I digress.

This particular story about the Chinese market debacle on ABC News 24 utilised actual footage from the actual floor of the actual Shanghai Stock Exchange...and what a revelation! Used to seeing the (probably anachronistic) chaos of Wall Street, the Shanghai exchange looks like a never-used sporting arena for sharebrokers. Its size and order fits the image China constantly projects to the world, at once recalling the precision of military parades and the immensity of Communist Party proceedings.

As someone with keen interest in photography (and owner of a couple of cameras myself), I couldn't help but make comparisons to Andreas Gursky's megaphotographs™ of various Bureax d'Change le Stocks around the world.

Gursky, famous for his use of digital manipulation to create his vision, produces photographs possessing hyperrealistic qualities. Such methods are particularly suited to the largely computerised and data-driven world of share trading. Trillions of dollars changed hands daily, with neither physical money or hands involved. His images of global stock exchanges are striking, not only for their detail and physical presence, but as a marker of changing technology and cultural values around the world. But of course such differences are superficial. Regardless of the religio-cultural differences between the states these images were captured, stock exchanges are modern temples built to honour the modern god of capitalism.

Andreas Gursky, Singapore Stock Exchange, 1997, Chromogenic print, face-mounted to acrylic, 1321 x 2356 mm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Andreas Gursky, Tokyo Stock Exchange, 1990, Photograph, colour, Chromogenic colour print, 1880 x 2300 mm

Andreas Gursky, Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Diptychon (Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Diptych), 1994; chromogenic prints, 73 in. x 176 in. (185.42 cm x 447.04 cm); Collection SFMOMA

Andreas Gursky, Hong Kong Börse II (Hong Kong Stock Exchange II), 1994, chromogenic colour-print face-mounted to Plexiglas in artist's frame, 2064 x 3195 mm

Andreas Gursky, Kuwait Stock Exchange II, 2008, C-Print mounted on Plexiglas in artist's frame, 2315 x 3070 mm

Andreas Gursky, Chicago, Board of Trade, 1997, colour coupler print face-mounted on Plexiglas, 1854 x 2416 mm

Insert pun about Greek tragedy here

Hergestellt in Deutschland, this kit is selling like global stock traders. It's both exciting and terrifying to see the original democracy practicing it better than most.

Into the "Perfect Storm"

Up. And down. – Creative Commons: Rednuht, Flickr

According to NAB chairman, Michael Chaney, Australia is heading into a "perfect storm" of negative sentiment and economic instability. One contributor to this economic environment is the long federal election campaign, he claims.