Made in Britain - Evan Davies
Discussion
Did you not think it was rather simplistic though? 'It's actually a good idea to let manufacturing go abroad because the prices of consumer goods go down which is er great, of course losing our industrial base is not so good but we have got great businesses like er McLaren and BAE but the trouble is we import a lot more than we export which is not so good er
tonym911 said:
Did you not think it was rather simplistic though? 'It's actually a good idea to let manufacturing go abroad because the prices of consumer goods go down which is er great, of course losing our industrial base is not so good but we have got great businesses like er McLaren and BAE but the trouble is we import a lot more than we export which is not so good er
That's what he said - I thought.Let the monkeys produce the high volume, low profit stuff so that the brainiacs can produce the low volume high profit stuff.
We actually do the latter - just not enough of it.
Eric Mc said:
I thought it was a very good programme and I will certainly watch the remainder of the series.
Agreed - I thought it was a spot on account, pretty interesting and it did a good job of dispelling some wide-spread myths, going on to explain the reality of the state of industry in the UK - both positive and negative!tonym911 said:
... of course losing our industrial base is not so good
I see Bombardier is suggesting they might as well pull out of the UK now.Really, awarding that contract abroad makes no sense for the UK, but of course we can't do anything about it. And anyway, without competition who knows what the price and quality of their offer would have been,
Edited by Deva Link on Monday 20th June 23:09
Far from convinced about his theory of selling our car industry to foreign owners was a good idea to get the investment that came with it.
Shame we couldn't have run it better ourselves to keep the ownership and the jobs in the UK.
If it did nothing else the programme showed we can run very successful, if rather small and niche, businesses so its a huge shame we couldn't do the bread and butter stuff properly.
Shame we couldn't have run it better ourselves to keep the ownership and the jobs in the UK.
If it did nothing else the programme showed we can run very successful, if rather small and niche, businesses so its a huge shame we couldn't do the bread and butter stuff properly.
So in the case of Berwin & Berwin - ok the business has survived which is obviously a good thing but, we now have a few directors and the owners making sh*tloads of money for themselves, and a few people on minimum wage in a warehouse, where as some years before there were hundreds of families making a living from the business.
Jag / Landrover - Ok still many people here making a living from it, but all the after tax profit going abroad.
Fair play to the likes of Maclaren, and Brompton bikes its good to see these businesses doing well, but its a tiny drop in a massive ocean !!
So if it's a good thing to save, and continuous borrowing and spending is what has damaged our economy, why the hell doesn't the government start encouraging people to stop getting in deeper debt, and start saving ??
The other problem we have in this country is high asset prices, for years everybody has thought continually rising house prices is such a great thing. The fact is that because of this, we've needed higher wages, which has then made everything more expensive, and us less competitive. You can't build an economy on ever rising house prices.
What do they produce, that is of any use, or can be exported ?? Bugger all !!
Jag / Landrover - Ok still many people here making a living from it, but all the after tax profit going abroad.
Fair play to the likes of Maclaren, and Brompton bikes its good to see these businesses doing well, but its a tiny drop in a massive ocean !!
So if it's a good thing to save, and continuous borrowing and spending is what has damaged our economy, why the hell doesn't the government start encouraging people to stop getting in deeper debt, and start saving ??
The other problem we have in this country is high asset prices, for years everybody has thought continually rising house prices is such a great thing. The fact is that because of this, we've needed higher wages, which has then made everything more expensive, and us less competitive. You can't build an economy on ever rising house prices.
What do they produce, that is of any use, or can be exported ?? Bugger all !!
Scooby72 said:
So in the case of Berwin & Berwin - ok the business has survived which is obviously a good thing but, we now have a few directors and the owners making sh*tloads of money for themselves, and a few people on minimum wage in a warehouse, where as some years before there were hundreds of families making a living from the business.
....
THIS! This is what worries me, where yes perhaps the money is coming in but is it being distributed and spent in our economy or just being filtered to very few people and squirelled away?....
Now admittedly I didn't sit down and concentrate on the programme, but it all seemed rather confused and confusing. Industry and manufacturing is good, except its bad because it means you must be a 3rd world economy. So you need to be a niche manufacturer, but that's not good for the economy either.
I really don't buy Brompton's reasoning either. My bet is that in a few years some senior exec/financier will come in, force them to manufacture in Brazil/Russia/India/China anyway, just as Raleigh did. Even if that doesn't happen then they will inevitably get their design ripped off, and overnight the brand will fall out of favour.
It was all rather GCSE-homework-written-on-the-bus-going-to-school.
I really don't buy Brompton's reasoning either. My bet is that in a few years some senior exec/financier will come in, force them to manufacture in Brazil/Russia/India/China anyway, just as Raleigh did. Even if that doesn't happen then they will inevitably get their design ripped off, and overnight the brand will fall out of favour.
It was all rather GCSE-homework-written-on-the-bus-going-to-school.
To be honest, economics should never get any more sophisticated than that.
The mess we are in today is partly down to economic and financial theories that, in the end, turned out to be over complicated, meaningless and self deluding.
Keep it simple is a good motto in all walks of life.
The mess we are in today is partly down to economic and financial theories that, in the end, turned out to be over complicated, meaningless and self deluding.
Keep it simple is a good motto in all walks of life.
Great film by Mr Davis. Shame so many people on this thread have missed the point completely.
There's no point looking back at a specific point in our history and saying "Everything was great then, why can't it be like that now?" Everything changes, and with the global market doing so it makes sense to adapt to it.
There's plenty of damn good engineering going on this country and we should be supporting it, not lamenting what it isn't.
ETA to add correct Davis.
There's no point looking back at a specific point in our history and saying "Everything was great then, why can't it be like that now?" Everything changes, and with the global market doing so it makes sense to adapt to it.
There's plenty of damn good engineering going on this country and we should be supporting it, not lamenting what it isn't.
ETA to add correct Davis.
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