The duty of the common man

[Talksteer]

XJ40 said:

I think that in the long term globalisation will balance things out, once wage inflation in the likes of Chindia reach a certain level. It'll become cheaper and more efficient to make things locally again, transportation costs will surely rise when issues like peak oil kick in...

There are people who just don't seem to be naturally for white collar type work, the former labours, miners, etc. of this world. I think that as humans it's a natural condition to be practical in a physical sence, we've evolved that way for survival, for a "real life" situation. Many of the benefits class are would be working class, if we had the manual jobs that suited them.

Not everybody in the UK is necessarily suited to working in a field which the UK is globally competitive (high-tech manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, finance, IT) however provided the UK is successful in the high margin, high barrier to entry, low labour industries there should still be plenty of employment in direct service industries which cannot be outsourced to other countries (effectively working for the people who bring in the foreign money).

I think there is two issues with the labour force of the UK for our globalised future:

1. The inflexible nature of some of our older workers, the ex-miner stereotype. Sitting on the dole complaining about how there are no jobs rather than re-training and moving to where there are jobs.

2. The low qualifications and poor attitude of some of our younger workers who are not likely to be competitive in the high value industries. Particularly with reference to the above the idea that providing a service to somebody is demeaning.

Interesting article on the BBC about customer service in the UK:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12123463

[stitched]

The problem with this country is not that we're being left behind, rather that we're living in the past.
I went into manufacturing in about 2001, around 2007 the company I worked for moved the plant to Poland.
This left me jobless, notwithstanding the fact I still get phone calls now from the plant in Poland I looked around and realised there was no future in this country for manufacturing.
OK Fairy nuff, I got a job in a supermarket and put myself through two years in college to be a spark.
Now the work is rolling in.
Point is many of the lads who used to work for me are sitting on the dole moaning that there are no jobs to be had.

[Prof Prolapse]

crankedup said:

Prof Prolapse - great name! God awful factories and mineshafts? have you seen drilling tech' and modern factories lately.

... Big place though brother.

I'd wager by any sensible measure the "common man" is better off in the UK.

[heebeegeetee]

munroman said:

The biggest problem with British Coal was the miners,

What, in that they weren't prepared to be what we'd call in all but name slaves? And that the bds just wouldn't send their children down the pits anymore? (Or was that the fault of the nanny state?)

Prof Prolapse said:

In terms of a specialised industry and pharmaceuticals we're amongst the best performers in the world. Not bad for a little island with hardly any natural resources, a crap education system that is allegedly inhabited by "vegatables".

I thought for a small country we did alright for coal, gas, oil and minerals. It won't last forever of course, but then neither will anyone else's.

Totally agree with you about education though. Decades after our big factories closed, the education system is still churning out factory fodder by the thousands.

Talksteer said:

Interesting article on the BBC about customer service in the UK:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12123463

I would ask why have you posted about service in a thread about the common man? The common man isn't responsible for levels of service, it all comes form the top. There are leaders and followers in every society of course, and the common man providing st service throughout our land is *only* doing what he's been taught or shown to do.

Having said that though, I do think that the root-cause of our problems with service is our (as a nation or society) utterly ridiculous attitude to class and ranking, (in that we judge people by the most ridiculous of things, resulting in stuff like Porsches and SUVs being common as muck in a land racked by debt) so that 'service' is seen to be demeaning. And thus, we receive *exactly* what we deserve, no more and no less.

My favourite little theme on this subject at the moment though, is the Subway chain of food outlets. As a late-comer to this chain, for my sins I have come to quite like what they do, and make use of them when I can, and in fact a new one conveniently opened up next door to where I used to work.

So, having experienced fast-food outlets around Europe, and having seen what well-organised people can do when it comes to shifting food and/or the company product, I find the performance of Subway staff to be absolutely hysterical. Some years ago my wife and I found ourselves in a baguette bar at lunch time in the shopping mall in Fontvielle in Monte Carlo, and experienced with amazement how they could get what seemed like a hundred or two office and shop workers through their doors and served in 20 mins or so.

And then I can stand in a Subway and watch one worker prepare one baguette so *incredibly* slowly, that I could literally burst out laughing. It is genuinely funny, and I always struggle to keep a straight face.

But it ain't the worker's fault. She's just doing what she's been trained to do. She represents her company and how her company operates, and she represents the management. It is amazing.

In my opinion, this country doesn't lack workers, it lacks leaders. If our leaders put half the effort into their jobs as they do into securing their rewards and remuneration, this country could be something really special, imo.

Edited by heebeegeetee on Thursday 13th January 20:38

[johnxjsc1985]

[


[/quote]

)

In my opinion, this country doesn't lack workers, it lacks leaders. If our leaders put half the effort they put into their jobs as they do into securing their rewards and remuneration, this country could be something really special, imo.
[/quote]
There you have it in a nutshell. Does anyone really think our MP's are inspirational or trustworthy.Are Local Gov leader worth more than the PM.We are screwed up and its hard to see anyone who can lead us out of the mess.

[heebeegeetee]

johnxjsc1985 said:

[

)

In my opinion, this country doesn't lack workers, it lacks leaders. If our leaders put half the effort they put into their jobs as they do into securing their rewards and remuneration, this country could be something really special, imo.

There you have it in a nutshell. Does anyone really think our MP's are inspirational or trustworthy.Are Local Gov leader worth more than the PM.We are screwed up and its hard to see anyone who can lead us out of the mess.

I've just had to edit that . Wot I meant to say was, "In my opinion, this country doesn't lack workers, it lacks leaders. If our leaders put half the effort into their jobs as they do into securing their rewards and remuneration, this country could be something really special, imo."

[XJ40]

Talksteer said:

XJ40 said:

I think that in the long term globalisation will balance things out, once wage inflation in the likes of Chindia reach a certain level. It'll become cheaper and more efficient to make things locally again, transportation costs will surely rise when issues like peak oil kick in...

There are people who just don't seem to be naturally for white collar type work, the former labours, miners, etc. of this world. I think that as humans it's a natural condition to be practical in a physical sence, we've evolved that way for survival, for a "real life" situation. Many of the benefits class are would be working class, if we had the manual jobs that suited them.

Not everybody in the UK is necessarily suited to working in a field which the UK is globally competitive (high-tech manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, finance, IT) however provided the UK is successful in the high margin, high barrier to entry, low labour industries there should still be plenty of employment in direct service industries which cannot be outsourced to other countries (effectively working for the people who bring in the foreign money).

I think there is two issues with the labour force of the UK for our globalised future:

1. The inflexible nature of some of our older workers, the ex-miner stereotype. Sitting on the dole complaining about how there are no jobs rather than re-training and moving to where there are jobs.

2. The low qualifications and poor attitude of some of our younger workers who are not likely to be competitive in the high value industries. Particularly with reference to the above the idea that providing a service to somebody is demeaning.

Interesting article on the BBC about customer service in the UK:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12123463

The short term looks okay but I don't see us maintaining a global competitive edge in the long run, it's only a matter of time before the China's can do high tech manufacturing, intellectual property and all the rest of it, they'll turn out there own graduates capable of this sort of work.

I work in an engineering sector, we design and manufacture a specialised niche product here in the UK that is mainly exported. There's a reasonable high barrier to entry given the low volumes involved so we've survived thus far, but all it takes is for one Chinese company to aquire some experise and essentially copy what we do to blow us out of the water with a significantly cheaper product...

Youth unemployment and falling education standards here won't do us any favours going forward, I think our standards of living in the old world will stagnate, probably diminish as they rise in the developing world, unfortunately.

Against this back drop we'll have to become more self sufficient (again). We use such large amounts of energy to move food and manufactured items here from around the globe, if/when we have a peak oil crisis/transition, I'm sure they'll be more manufacturing and agriculture work for the common working man in this country once again.

Edited by XJ40 on Friday 14th January 13:59

[Digga]

Fittster said:

ringram said:

Prof Prolapse said:

If you don't like it feel free to ps off to China. See how good the quality of life is.

Yeah it looks bad to me in comparison.

http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&pwst=1&am...

From Fittser's link: Hello Dave!

We are perhaps not so daft to allow trade imablances when the imported goods mean an exported pollution problem...

[crankedup]

Digga said:

Fittster said:

ringram said:

Prof Prolapse said:

If you don't like it feel free to ps off to China. See how good the quality of life is.

Yeah it looks bad to me in comparison.

http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&pwst=1&am...

From Fittser's link: Hello Dave!

We are perhaps not so daft to allow trade imablances when the imported goods mean an exported pollution problem...

I love this image, working man smiles following hard days graft, most likely paid two bowls of rice a day. Give this guy another five years though and he will be the new Arthur Scargill. Maybe we should be ready to capitalise when that political upheaval begins. Good photoshop.

Edited by crankedup on Friday 14th January 14:41

[Ozzie Osmond]

XJ40 said:

Youth unemployment and falling education standards here won't do us any favours going forward, I think our standards of living in the old world will stagnate, probably diminish as they rise in the developing world, unfortunately.

Valid points IMO

XJ40 said:

Against this back drop we'll have to become more self sufficient (again).

I think that's right.

XJ40 said:

We use such large amounts of energy to move food and manufactured items here from around the globe, if/when we have a peak oil crisis/transition, I'm sure they'll be more manufacturing and agriculture work for the common working man in this country once again.

Our population is now so big and the climate so dreary that we would probably struggle with to replicate current imports within the domestic economy. One useful feature is the colossal efficiency of big container ships in term of £ per kg per km. (Although the same doesn't apply to airfreighted soft fruit from the middle east!)

[Frankeh]

We speak English really really well.

That's about all we've got going for us at the moment.

[Talksteer]

Frankeh said:

We speak English really really well.

That's about all we've got going for us at the moment.

We're all a bunch of defeatist loosers, who have talked themselves out of the game before it begins..

That's about all that's wrong with the country.....

[johnxjsc1985]

The Duty of the common man is not to live in fear!!!. We are afraid to Eat, drink and smoke.We dont go out at night and dont get involved.Everyone is hibernating in their homes and being brainwashed by Murdoch and co. into thinking the world is a terrible place.
We may be the most educated generation but our ancestors understood what it means to enjoy life far more than we do.

[RYH64E]

Talksteer said:

Frankeh said:

We speak English really really well.

That's about all we've got going for us at the moment.

We're all a bunch of defeatist loosers, who have talked themselves out of the game before it begins..

That's about all that's wrong with the country.....

We speak English really well, unfortunately our spelling is not so good.

[Ozzie Osmond]

johnxjsc1985 said:

Everyone is hibernating in their homes and being brainwashed by Murdoch and co. into thinking the world is a terrible place.
We may be the most educated generation but our ancestors understood what it means to enjoy life far more than we do.

Interesting points.

Q: "Who are you afraid of?"

A: "Other people."

Q: "Why?"

A: "Because of all the fictional stuff I watch on TV...."

Get out and live!! OzOs

[Talksteer]

XJ40 said:

The short term looks okay but I don't see us maintaining a global competitive edge in the long run, it's only a matter of time before the China's can do high tech manufacturing, intellectual property and all the rest of it, they'll turn out there own graduates capable of this sort of work.

I work in an engineering sector, we design and manufacture a specialised niche product here in the UK that is mainly exported. There's a reasonable high barrier to entry given the low volumes involved so we've survived thus far, but all it takes is for one Chinese company to aquire some experise and essentially copy what we do to blow us out of the water with a significantly cheaper product...

To paraphrase the CEO of Sony "our job is to make our own products obsolete before our competitors do".

Things that we are currently competitive in need investment to keep those barriers to entry and we need to find new things in which to develop one.

Sure we cannot maintain the same level of relative wealth compared to developing countries, but the fact that we can't isn't because we're rubbish but because they have so much further to go. Also just because the Chinese are rapidly catching up doesn't mean they are going to pass us.

The world economy isn't a zero sum game, the expansion of the middle classes and technological industries in the BRIC and other developing nations doesn't make use poorer. As these nation's middle classes expand they will stimulate more demand some of which should be taken up by British products.

Some of the things we currently do will get out competed but most of the UK's export industries are already competing against strong international competitors in industries where wage cost is less of a factor. Pharmaceuticals, chemicals, aerospace. Also if places like China and India are kicking out good quality graduates to a degree we can import them into our high wage economy.

The thing that we're not good at is letting our big companies get sold off to foreign investors and not developing new big companies to take their place. We're good at making lots of small companies in emerging markets but these don't seem to translate into massive organisations. Take the Cambridge cluster for example ARM and Autonomy are decent sized companies but they hardly compare to the massive IT conglomerates the US has produced over the last 30 years. Personally I think this is something that should be looked at politically.

Interesting enough HSBC predicts the UK will still be the 6th biggest economy in the world by 2050.

http://www.research.hsbc.com/midas/Res/RDV?ao=20&a...

[NorthernBoy]

Ozzie Osmond said:

For most of the 20th century the duty of the common man was to labour down the pit, at the steelworks or at the shipyard producing as much goods as possible.

From 1980 his duty changed. No longer was he to work as a producer but instead his duty was to borrow and spend as much as possible to drive the consumer boom.

What's next? Return to production? Return to spending? Or something else?

As opinion on here shows, doing well at school, attending a top university to study science, putting in a couple of years of public service, getting a good doctorate, entering a profession, and spending fifteen years working your way up will get you vilified by all and sundry, with calls for your execution being roundly applauded, as choosing the respectable route now becomes scrounging off the masses.

So, if it's fine by you, I'll ignore duty, doing the right thing, and acting with integrity from now on, and will jet act in my self interest.

It can hardly draw more ire than banking does...

[petemurphy]

our duty is to have no duty - question everything, get freedoms back and be free thinkers. that way we will continue to innovate which is one of the last few things this country does well and the robotic chinese still cannot do.

[heebeegeetee]

Ozzie Osmond said:

For most of the 20th century the duty of the common man was to labour down the pit, at the steelworks or at the shipyard producing as much goods as possible.

From 1980 his duty changed. No longer was he to work as a producer but instead his duty was to borrow and spend as much as possible to drive the consumer boom.

What's next? Return to production? Return to spending? Or something else?

I think that's very good post indeed.

I have no idea what's next. Decades of the same while our decline continues?