| Topic: | Re:Re:No longer Great Britain manufacturing wise | |
| Posted by: | Guy Lambert | |
| Date/Time: | 26/03/12 20:36:00 |
| "I remember reading that true nature of capitalism has been eroded by fudging social elements in it. These (fudged capitalism) have never worked, at least in USA and this country." Works pretty well in Germany, where capitalism is a lot more 'fudged' than the UK or the US. I don't know what exactly has caused our manufacturing decline but features that contribute are: - Our unique obsession with home ownership which squeezes any available capital into the house price spiral - Our overblown financial services industry which fritters too many of our best brains creating complex investment products with 'no social value' which end up causing tears for everybody except the people who created and sold them. And doesn't give a hoot about investing in smelly manufacturing when fat fees can be earned by flogging off our manufacturers to predators, often foreign. I get the impression that the reason Bombardier lost the Thameslink train order was mainly because they were unable to borrow at the favourable rates Siemens could. - Our habit of slagging ourselves off and slagging off our own products (the Italians made sure they continued buying cruddy Fiat rustbuckets in the 70s and insisting they were the best in the world whilst our consumers insisted BL cars were the worst in the world and went and bought Datsuns and cruddy Renaults - I speak with authority as I worked for Renault at the time!) After all that, we are still a major manufacturing nation, about the 6th biggest in the world, so despite much needing to be done we shouldn't be so damn negative. |