My blog: “Time Off” - Sunday, July 03, 2011 introduced 3 cheese makers (totally unrelated in any way to the present state of Disability Employment Services and in no way reflecting adversely upon any person or organisation with whom a coincidental link might be formed by the misinformed) – there’s a 4th cheese maker!
The fourth cheese maker
Johanne (you’ll notice the name suggests this cheese maker might have come from another country – again a coincidence). made cheese. Actually, that’s not quite true, since Johanne’s ‘cheese’ was entirely artificial – a construct that he was able to achieve through loop holes in the regulations surrounding the production of cheese.
In fact, the ‘cheese’ in question was not cheese in any sense you or I would understand it. It looked like cheese, it smelt, and it was labelled as cheese but Johanne’s cheese did the eater no good at all – Johanne’s cheese have no dietary value and had been put together on the following basis:
In marketing his cheese, Johanne used a government subsidy to totally offset the purchase price (to all intents and purposes it was free).
It worked like this: The government of this country paid cheese makers to develop and produce cheese. The idea was that cheese makers would create big full bodied work, but the money was the same even for a little bit – say a 5th. – that meant that Johanne could market a 5th of the whole and still be entitled to the full subsidy. It was then a simple matter to offer to offset the cost of the cheese, effectively offering ‘free cheese’ and then pocket the difference between subsidy and sale price.
Johanne did his best to make purchasers feel good about their purchase, praising them for their effort and lauding them for their sense of civic duty.
“Purchasers” felt good about what they’d done, they didn’t really understand cheese, they had no idea that the insertion of a foreign owned, morally bankrupt, opportunistic players into the Australian cheese marketplace would distort business operations and drive local producers to a race to the bottom.
In ignorance they accepted free cheese.
The problem was that Johannes actions devalued the product in the eyes of buyers and made it so much harder for other cheese makers to get by.
The other 3 cheese makers all complained (in writing) repeatedly over several years, arguing for the merit of their ingredients, their finished product, the good of the people that paid taxes and most of all for the good of their product.
Every letter, phone call and complaint was brushed aside.
The recipients just didn’t understand cheese.
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