A curious headline. For six years now it has been lack of supply and the prospect of diminishing supply which made it not only impossible for traders in wool to make a profit but also impossible for traders to make secure plans for future trading.

I have said it many times before and I say it again. This debacle is through no fault of wool the product. The unique physical characteristics which made wool so readily marketable 20 years ago are still the same unique physical characteristics, even more marketable today than they were then.

There was never any good reason why after a setback from 1989 till 1992 the trade in wool should not have grown with the world economy.

That would have made it today at least a $15 billion a year industry.

Wool was wiped out by management which had no comprehension of many of the most fundamental aspects of marketing.

At last but all too late we have intelligent management. But when we read this week that Queensland's biggest woolgrower is apparently switching his ewes to meat production and a director of another of Australia's biggest wool producers is selling his sheep station, we know that worse is to come.

Ted, good point on the product, I couldn't agree more but if you read my market commentary in The Land a few weeks ago, the supply question was discussed. Most pundits that week were talking up the market on lack of supply and the market took another downward swing. We have heard this supply issue for many years and it has yet to scare anybody into a buying frenzy. I guess 'they' have become used to us talking about the supply shock that is just around the corner. We are meant to be heading into a 3 week recess and the market is flat..Supply drops to zero for three weeks, shouldn't that push the market up now?

IMHO, The market is experiencing short term spikes and falls based on a series of factors, not just a simple drop in supply. One of the most recent (new) factors is the cost, or lack of funding and insurance accessable to the exporters. If you run out of coin, you stop buying. Our currency and loans are expensive right now for all businesses. This all leads to it being hard for anyone to predict the market even one week out. The crystal ball is about as blurry as it has ever been.

The supply shock that is just around the corner has been with us now for seven years and is getting worse.

When the dollar rose in 2003 and with drought bearing down, I wrote pleading with Minister Truss to make a statement that his government had an interest in ensuring that wool continued to be produced. His reply was "we mustn't do that because that might cause more wool to be produced".

I had explained to him that, with all the market signals pointing to diminishing supply, traders would have no security of supply, would therefore plan for a reduction in trading, and that this would lead, no matter what the supply, to a reduction in trading.

His refusal to comprehend this showed that the Howard government and its individual members and advisors had not the slightest comprehension of the importance of market confidence. Without security of supply traders have little or no incentive to invest in promotion.

One of the really silly aspects of this was that, with their drought relief payments, the government at the time was in fact acting to ensure that wool continued to be produced. But there seemed to be some law against anybody saying so. A silly rule.

And take note that when the trade in wool was dying for want of wool, our government believed that they should take great care to avoid causing more wool to be produced.

Ted, they have certainly taken great care to reduce wool production with conservation policies that favour wild dogs and kangaroos over sheep.

Numbers in our old board district have fallen by a third over the past decade and continue to fall, as roos and wild dogs breed to plague proportions and farmers sell up to hobby farmers and hunters who let nature take over from land management and production.

The city is now managing the land and doing a terrible job of it! No wonder we have a GFC!

How are you getting on for pigs? They are moving into our area where we didn't use to have them. And in the early days of their appearance they were not far removed from straight bred, even some barrows. Clearly either escaped or were released from blockies' pens.