the lucky country

Goodman Fielder is quite bizarre in that it has been through this whole process two times now. When it got swallowed years ago and refloated (minus Uncle Toby's and some other bits and pieces) investors bought in, yet it has been very much below par for most of its listed life.
I think the greater worry is the fact that we are letting most of our iconic brands be bought and controlled by overseas investors. I appreciate the point that most large companies have foreign ownership, yet it doesn’t sit well with me that all our beer companies (of any decent size) are now in foreign hands.

How does it serve the common good? BHP Billiton were told to go away by Canada when trying to buy Potash, yet we are happy for Canadians to own Graincorp and whatever else.

We then have the media who present stories about how companies have gone into foreign hands and how it is worrying, although always after it are too late. I wonder when we will wake up as a country and realise that it is one thing to export jobs overseas to countries like China, but another to have a large part of our assets owned by overseas countries. Imagine what it would be like if we had a lower currency?

My point is we have a weak government who do whatever the bigger stronger powers of the world want and too often we let overseas companies take control of local assets. If the world economic system was fair and honest then it would make sense; however, it is driven by greed and even Australia (the lucky country suffers).