| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:No longer Great Britain manufacturing wise | |
| Posted by: | Guy Lambert | |
| Date/Time: | 27/03/12 23:09:00 |
| I was always taught a country should pay its way in the world: indeed in the 60s/70s the balance of payments figures were picked over every month and it was considered crucial. In the 60s our balance of payments was positive $77M. In the 70s negative $11973M 80s negative $77143M 90s negative $175045M 00s negative wait for it... $448895M 2010's didn't start too encouragingly either with a negative in 2010 of $75009M despite a recession, and $48283M in the first 3/4 of 2011. By comparison, Germany has progressed from a surplus of $23B in the 60s to a surplus of $882B in the noughties with a blip into deficit in the 90s. The UK position of course has been balanced (or arguably caused) by massive flows of capital into the country, whether it's oligarchs buying Knightsbridge, state-owned utilities buying our water and power companies, or Kraft buying Cadbury's. And of course the Germans have a lot of personal savings whilst we have a lot of personal debt. All this seems to me to be pretty disastrous, resulting from us essentially giving up on trying to pay our way by productive work and selling the family silver instead. There's a serious danger that General Motors will take the hint from Sam and close its last UK plant - Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port - because we don't care about manufacturing and we have emasculated the trade unions, whilst keeping open many plants in Germany which are less efficient but better defended by both government and unions (and, I suspect, by a general public which values spanners and screwdrivers and the jobs they generate for designers and marketers as well as technicians) |