Holden Owners Grant
Enough with the grants already!
Australia already has a First Home Owners Grant to “help” people get into one of the most overinflated investment bubbles in the world. Free money has been handed out to Australians as part of stimulus package, which will cost this country dearly in the future too. Now we have the Holden Owners Grant. Not actually a government grant of any kind, just clever advertising that will no doubt convince thousands of uneducated Australian’s that there’s never been a better time to buy an overpriced, poorly engineered piece of devaluing steel.
Whether it’s a car, a house, computer, clothing, or so on, if people can’t afford it it’s either one of those items that only a special few can afford to buy (which is part of it’s appeal), or quite simply the price is too high. For example, people pay big money for clothing brands like Prada. It’s high prices and label is what makes people aspire to wearing that label. Now obviously Prada are making a profit at their current prices, so their business model works. By selling only to the “elite”, they can turn a decent profit.
On the other end of the spectrum though is the brands that need economies of scale to make their products profitable. Holden is one of these brands. They need the masses to buy their cars, and in order to get the masses to purchase your product it needs to be affordable.
If these items aren’t affordable, quite simply your business is going to fail. Although housing is a tricky one to compare this all with, it’s still a similar situation. People can’t afford to buy houses at it’s current value so there needs to be a grant to get people into the market. All this does is keep the prices inflated and in the long term helps no one except for the “investors” already in the market.
A so called Holden Buyers Grant is just ridiculous. Obviously they can’t move Holdens at the moment at their recommended retail price, so they need the grant to sell their cars. Australians are more likely to buy cars from Asia and Europe as they are either cheaper, or a similar price and of a much higher standard.
For Holden it’s a simple case of provide the market with what they want, or fall down. Unfortunately they and many other Australian businesses fail to see this. In Australia I foresee this crash being harder than any other that we have had in the past, as it is going to be an enormous readjustment for our businesses, and as a result our people.