A Mystery

[Tubthumper]

I notice that the FTSE has regained a lot of the ground it lost over the last couple of years. That's good, isn't it?
I can't figure out how the world of the financial markets operates, but it seems to me that although we've had the financial meltdown, toxic debt and the dreadful toll it's taken on the world economy, we're now almost right back where we started.
Lots of well-off people are getting even more well-off, while others are still losing their jobs. We have even less manufacturing capacity than we had (if that's possible). How can British people be making lots of money if we as a country don't actually do anything any more?
Can anyone try to explain how it all works for me?

[scotsboy]

http://www.littlerbritain.com/images/gallery/kenny_craig_02.jpg
Look into my eyes Look into my eyes!

[Kevin Milkins]

I think it's called "lets pretend".:confused

It's a pitty our old friend ,Percy, has left us. Apart from being a lorry driver, he was also a financial expert that could have no doubt shed some light on the subject.

[Sara Jevo]

But have we learned any lessons?

I fear we haven't.

As a society, we still seem to be obsessed by the pursuit and accumulation of personal wealth and materials.

The financial crash was an opportunity to redesign global trade and systems on a sustainable basis. No-one seems interested. We are back on a course of self-destruction again.

Apparently, April 4 is the point of the year when Britain has consumed its sustainable share of the world. For the rest of the year we are eating into the planet's capital. That isn't sustainable. For the whole world, the moment occurs in October. Eventually, we will reach a point where there are too many people and not enough resources left to maintain lifestyles, resulting in fights over natural resources. It's all so predictable, sadly.

[secrets in symmetry]

Sara, if the solution is so obvious why don't you stand for parliament and fix it? Everyone will vote for you because they too know the solution is obvious.

[John Little]

She's got a point though.

"The financial crash was an opportunity to redesign global trade and systems on a sustainable basis"

How does british manufacturing compete with people 12,000 miles away who work for a bowl of rice?

I hear Mr Dyson's vacuum's are good - but will not buy one since 600 british workers lost their jobs when he moved the operation to China.

[secrets in symmetry]

The UK economy hasn't been dominated by manufacturing industry for a long time, and certainly not since the Conservative governments of the early 1980s decided we didn't need it. The Major, Blair and Brown governments changed little in that respect.

Contrast this position with Europe's biggest national economy. Will it lose in the long run because it can't compete with well educated cheap labour in developing countries, or will its guile and technology keep it ahead ad infinitum? It has a different attitude towards globalisation and foreign ownership and it protects its indigenous industry in a way we haven't seen here for a long time.

I'd like to think it's the latter and that's the way I'd like to see this country going but I'm not holding my breath.

[John Little]

"its guile and technology keep it ahead ad infinitum?"

God question - wish I had an answer.

But what worries me about your scenario is that if the mass of our working population are not engaged in manufacturing, then what will they do?

Is the future an educated elite and a mass of people on the dole?

[secrets in symmetry]

"its guile and technology keep it ahead ad infinitum?"

God question - wish I had an answer.

But what worries me about your scenario is that if the mass of our working population are not engaged in manufacturing, then what will they do?

Is the future an educated elite and a mass of people on the dole?
Of course not, it's not an either or or situation.

[Tubthumper]

Is the future an educated elite and a mass of people on the dole?
I'd say its more likely to be a moneyed or well- connected elite and a mass of people on the dole.

[Alan16]

As a society, we still seem to be obsessed by the pursuit and accumulation of personal wealth and materials.

I would say that is, sadly or not, simply the way human beings are. Everybody wants the good things, the things which make their lives seem better, but not everybody can have them. This leads to competition and in competition somebody has to lose. Sadly the majority of the British public, and many other people around the world, have been the losers this time around.


The financial crash was an opportunity to redesign global trade and systems on a sustainable basis. No-one seems interested. We are back on a course of self-destruction again.

I would say it's too early to tell what course we are on. For me, I'll assume that the people who were at the epicentre of the global recession have learned from what has happened. It's better to assume the best in people and just be continuously disappointed, if you ask me.


Eventually, we will reach a point where there are too many people and not enough resources left to maintain lifestyles, resulting in fights over natural resources. It's all so predictable, sadly.

We were always going to reach that point. Too many people are now living too long - we've got to the point where we're defying natural selection or whatever, so we're now simply pulling the system out of equilibrium. I remember reading that half the people being born now in western countries will live past 100 years old. The world simply cannot handle that, but really there is nothing we can do.


How does british manufacturing compete with people 12,000 miles away who work for a bowl of rice?

It can't and doesn't. So what's your point?


I hear Mr Dyson's vacuum's are good - but will not buy one since 600 british workers lost their jobs when he moved the operation to China.

So you'd rather he'd stayed here where costs just get higher and higher, eventually completely eroding his profits and meaning that he eventually has to close down his whole business? Would that be better for everybody? Business, like everything else, is a competitive world, and he had to do what was best for his company not just now, but in the long run.

[John Little]

"So what's your point?"

I was not making one. I was asking a question.

As to Mr Dyson, I assume he was making a profit in Britain which was surely why he was employing 600 workers. I would rather he employed British ones than Chinese ones.

[Alan16]

"So what's your point?"

I was not making one. I was asking a question.

You asked a question for which the answer, as seems to be common on this thread, was obvious, therefore I assumed you were trying to say somethign.


As to Mr Dyson, I assume he was making a profit in Britain which was surely why he was employing 600 workers. I would rather he employed British ones than Chinese ones.

I assume the profit wasn't enough in the long run hence he moved.

[Sara Jevo]

Sara, if the solution is so obvious why don't you stand for parliament and fix it? Everyone will vote for you because they too know the solution is obvious.

Lol it'd take a better brain than mine to work out how to do it. I think there's a lot of people feel the same as me, but it just seems we're all heading back onto the same carousel as if this was some sort of blip that got in the way.

[secrets in symmetry]

Well, well, well. A little investigation suggests that the British and German economies aren't as far apart as I thought regarding the percentages of GDP produced by industry and services.

I've learned something today.

[Tubthumper]

What the Brits are still good at is hosting a large part of the world’s financial infrastructure and being a hub for international trade. That is what we need to focus on.
That's where I start to lose it. What is 'financial infrastucture'? The place where more people take more risks with 'money' that doesn't actually exist? A home for whatever they're going to call 'toxic' loans now?
And what is a 'hub' anyway?
It all sounds like buzzwords and hype to me, which I wouldn't mind were it not for the suspicion that most of the people who 'work' in these 'industries' manage to avoid paying tax.

[John Little]

What I said was;

"How does british manufacturing compete with people 12,000 miles away who work for a bowl of rice?"

Where I come frae that's called a question.

If you have an answer i'd be interested. Apart from 'It can't and doesn't'

I don't, which is why I asked.

If our working people are not to be engaged in manufacture, then what do we do with them?

Mr Dyson, I assume was making money.
But he wanted to make a lot more.
So he moved his business; so 600 british workers were suddenly making none.

I reiterate; I wish he had not done that because I would rather our guys had the jobs.

And Ducati is absolutely right;

"What you have to get your head round these days is that the point of business is to make money. If you can do this without the tedium of having to employ people to make anything and build factories and have to transport stuff,so much the better".

Objectively that is quite right; Good for business but it does not seem to make for a healthy society.

I'll go further- if you want to know what I think.

A couple of generations ago there was a type of business person who believed in giving back and who was responsible in their capitalism. I mean responsible in that they did not stuff the money they made into tax havens and live in Belize or somewhere congenial to their health.

They improved Britain and cared deeply about the society in this country, seeing that civilisation for one was best achieved through civilisation for all. I do not have to go back as far as Robert Owen or even Titus Salt. The likes of the Rowntrees in York, Cadbury's in Bournville and Bristol, the Chamberlains in Birmingham and Lord Leverhulme in Port Sunlight- all gave back in social engineering, improvements in what was round them and provisions for education.
At the end of WW1 an iron master from the West Midlands suggested that every large business owner donate £200,000 to the treasury to put the country back on track, and he set the example by doing so - his name was Stanley Baldwin.

Yes - from a purely money point of view, globalism makes sense.

But I'd like to see some more altruism in business people - and hence some more investment in british manufacture. The profits may be less, but it pays off in employed people, less crime, more incentive to work and less paid out in dole. What ted Heath called the acceptable face of capitalism.

Course we are all European now - but I thought the whole point was to find markets for our goods and to be able to compete with the global giants?

[John Little]

LOL - I didn't say it would happen... I'm far too cynical for that.

It's what I'd like....

I take it that Davie Cameron's little notion of social responsibility has no attractions for you either, cos what I said is only a logical entension of it.

Actually maybe my little rosy view ain't so far from Tory aspirations; Boris Johnson in today's Telegraph-

'You can't have wealth creation without a social mission, and you can't have a social mission without the wealth creation.'

I think he's right. My thoughts crystallise; I don't like wealth creation without a social mission; it's just selfish.

[ducati]

LOL - I didn't say it would happen... I'm far too cynical for that.

It's what I'd like....

I take it that Davie Cameron's little notion of social responsibility has no attractions for you either, cos what I said is only a logical entension of it.

Actually maybe my little rosy view ain't so far from Tory aspirations; Boris Johnson in today's Telegraph-

'You can't have wealth creation without a social mission, and you can't have a social mission without the wealth creation.'

I think he's right. My thoughts crystallise; I don't like wealth creation without a social mission; it's just selfish.

I agree, with the principle. The trouble is your example of victorian industrialists just doesn't fit with the modern world. These people were being anthapological with their own money. Money made from the Raj and the the other pockets of virtual slavery we sponsored around the world.

Modern business that is big enough to pay for social responsibility is owned by public corporations, investment funds and a multitude of shareholders. Organisations that invest to grow capital.

You might argue that the Gov. has taken over this role. Should invest in social projects using the tax revenue they rake in from these business's.

Oh they do? Job done!

[John Little]

Oh I know the Victorian thing don't chime right with the modern world.

Trouble is that what we've got is not serving is too well and if the problem of jobs leaching from this country continues then it don't serve our social order either.

What we need is someone to come up with a better model; it is all about the distribution of wealth- and if the Tories start talking about social responsibility in that sort of way then I might just start listening to them.

But I ain't got any answers! Just questions.

[Tubthumper]

Perhaps the parties need to start developing radical new proposals rather than just trying to reheat the same old garbage?
Take our current situation here: 2000+ well-paid jobs at the D place will vanish over the next 10-15 years. To be replaced (unless something pretty remarkable happens) by jobs in renewable energy (approx. 3 jobs per 20 massive wind turbines).
Someone needs to switch onto the fact that 'if you use no human labour because you can produce things cheaper by machine, it won't be long before there is no-one able to buy what you produce, as no-one has a means of earning.'
Unless, of course, we subscribe to the idea that one must strive to gather sufficient loot (or FU money) to be able to live off the interest as generated by the investment bodies. Except if no-one's buying anything, and no-one's producing anything, what is there to invest in except more rotation of the same conceptual (or virtual) money through more and more outrageous risk-taking. And if we can't grab a wodge of cash, or if the financial markets 'crash' and leave everyone bereft (except the financial dealers, managers, politicians and so on) we're looking at reposession and poverty.
Communism wasn't great was it? But at least (in concept anyway) it had 'serving the people' at the top of its agenda. God knows what the agenda is these days.

[Sara Jevo]

Perhaps the parties need to start developing radical new proposals rather than just trying to reheat the same old garbage?
Take our current situation here: 2000+ well-paid jobs at the D place will vanish over the next 10-15 years. To be replaced (unless something pretty remarkable happens) by jobs in renewable energy (approx. 3 jobs per 20 massive wind turbines).
Someone needs to switch onto the fact that 'if you use no human labour because you can produce things cheaper by machine, it won't be long before there is no-one able to buy what you produce, as no-one has a means of earning.'
Unless, of course, we subscribe to the idea that one must strive to gather sufficient loot (or FU money) to be able to live off the interest as generated by the investment bodies. Except if no-one's buying anything, and no-one's producing anything, what is there to invest in except more rotation of the same conceptual (or virtual) money through more and more outrageous risk-taking. And if we can't grab a wodge of cash, or if the financial markets 'crash' and leave everyone bereft (except the financial dealers, managers, politicians and so on) we're looking at reposession and poverty.
Communism wasn't great was it? But at least (in concept anyway) it had 'serving the people' at the top of its agenda. God knows what the agenda is these days.

The renewables thing is huge potential investment. But the idea that Caithness will see much of the investment is misplaced. Market forces will have no sympathy for the economy of the area. The economy of the area is too small and too skewered to take advantage of it.

[Tubthumper]

'A huge retirement village...'

[fred]

Something will need to happen if Caithness is not to turn into one huge retirement village.


Old people need somewhere to spend their life savings when they retire and they don't want to be doing it anywhere with a load of industry.

[ducati]

Old people need somewhere to spend their life savings when they retire and they don't want to be doing it anywhere with a load of industry.

True True. Maybe that is the future then :eek:

So what do we need infrastructure wise? I'll think of one then you can all post your ideas.

Absolutely number one would be a driving hat shop

[Cattach]

She's got a point though.

"The financial crash was an opportunity to redesign global trade and systems on a sustainable basis"

How does british manufacturing compete with people 12,000 miles away who work for a bowl of rice?

I hear Mr Dyson's vacuum's are good - but will not buy one since 600 british workers lost their jobs when he moved the operation to China.

While I pretty well appreciate and tend to agree with your sentiments the major problem is that if we take this to nowhere even like extreme we will not be buying very much. We will be going around virtually naked as clothing is hardly made in this country now, food would be very limited in summer only and well no cars to drive. Steel has gone to India, insurance and call centres there too and my tipple of whisky is owned by a multinational. My TV is from Japan, my computer and all my media toys are from China or Korea or somewhere. Its back to a cave and a bear skin, if I can find a British bear, if I do not purchase good once made in this country and now made abroad. Do not worry I recently bought a vacuum cleaner but it was not a Dyson. Dyson copy from Germany!

[Tubthumper]

Old people need somewhere to spend their life savings when they retire and they don't want to be doing it anywhere with a load of industry.
If that's A future, we should be thinking about what would be attractive right now, and building the infrastructure required.
I don't reckon we're talking zimmer frames and high-backed chairs here - how about a garage specialising in repairing classic motors??

[ducati]

If that's A future, we should be thinking about what would be attractive right now, and building the infrastructure required.
I don't reckon we're talking zimmer frames and high-backed chairs here - how about a garage specialising in repairing classic motors??

And an OAP's underwater hang gliding club :cool: