| An outsiders view. on 08:24 - Oct 26 with 1445 views | DJR |
I wouldn't disagree with much of that, and I realise that much of the world now mock us, but articles such as that rarely, if ever, appear in this country. We still live in a dream world where we think we are the greatest country in the world. |  | |  |
| An outsiders view. on 09:07 - Oct 26 with 1337 views | Guthrum |
I would question their implication that the UK had much choice about offshoring industry. Given the cheapness of labour* in some other parts of the world and of transporting goods from thence, along with the demand for low-price consumer goods, we simply weren't competitive.
That's part of the reason why, as they mention, a lot of British manufacturing is less mechanised - the only way to remain profitable is by trading off that bespoke, "hand-made" cachet.
* Also lack of regulation and controls. |  |
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| An outsiders view. on 09:14 - Oct 26 with 1298 views | Swansea_Blue |
The right I can understand, as we're not hitting the heights of what's possible there.
Humphreys Man of the Match for me (n/t) by Swansea_Blue 26 Oct 2022 9:07Yes, Janoi is also becoming very lax on the ball as well. They're not working very well together atm imo. But I agree to an extent that I'm probably being critical because we know they can do better. I'm certainly not suggesting we should drop either, just a bit frustrated that they're not tearing teams up like they did last year.
But Davis is a great find on the left, and was working well with those in the centre last night like Humphreys. So I'd argue we need to focus more on the left as it offers more promise.
There may be a metaphor or two in this post  |  |
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| An outsiders view. on 09:14 - Oct 26 with 1295 views | XYZ |
Difficult to argue with that.
- British (English, really) exceptionalism leading to failure to learn from other countries' modernisations (in many areas the UK follows Austalia 30 years after (tax, pensions).
- 2010 austerity instead of investment
- Brexit
- Long-term reliance and promotion of finance & services sector in London at expense of others.
- Con of trickle-down economics. |  | | |
| An outsiders view. on 09:15 - Oct 26 with 1291 views | bluelagos |
| An outsiders view. on 09:07 - Oct 26 by Guthrum |
I would question their implication that the UK had much choice about offshoring industry. Given the cheapness of labour* in some other parts of the world and of transporting goods from thence, along with the demand for low-price consumer goods, we simply weren't competitive.
That's part of the reason why, as they mention, a lot of British manufacturing is less mechanised - the only way to remain profitable is by trading off that bespoke, "hand-made" cachet.
* Also lack of regulation and controls. |
The obvious question is why have we seen a far greater decline in our manufacturing base than say Germany or France?
Their industry faces the exact same issues of lower labour/regulations from the far east as we do. |  |
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| An outsiders view. on 09:26 - Oct 26 with 1244 views | JohnTy |
| An outsiders view. on 09:07 - Oct 26 by Guthrum |
I would question their implication that the UK had much choice about offshoring industry. Given the cheapness of labour* in some other parts of the world and of transporting goods from thence, along with the demand for low-price consumer goods, we simply weren't competitive.
That's part of the reason why, as they mention, a lot of British manufacturing is less mechanised - the only way to remain profitable is by trading off that bespoke, "hand-made" cachet.
* Also lack of regulation and controls. |
I seem to remember A.J. P. Taylor's comment about the 1979 election - continued slow decline under Callaghan or fast decline under Thatcher. With Thatcher and the Falklands of course came the illusion of a revival of British power, which Blair continued with his war in Iraq, and Johnson' with his absurd "Global Britain" and the posturing against Russia and China. Meanwhile the new Prime Minister has so far not surprisingly proved unwilling to commit himself to the increased defence expenditure that such a world role requires. |  | | |
| An outsiders view. on 09:29 - Oct 26 with 1223 views | Darth_Koont |
He’s bang on about the underlying shonky, unbalanced and London/finance-skewed nature of our economy. And how that results in a lack of productivity and competitiveness that makes us weak and vulnerable.
And yes, by ignoring those underlying conditions, the causes of our current social, economic and political crises have been decades in the making. I also make him right about the populism, xenophobia and scapegoating that seem inevitably to emerge to fill the void.
Where I disagree (or at least where I think he over-eggs it to make the link to the US) is by talking about some serious movement of “degrowtherism” on the left. Maybe in the US but that’s not evident in the UK political left to any great degree and certainly has no bearing on the current Labour Party which is also trapped in the game of ignoring how the market approach has hollowed out the economy and weakened society.
But an important read nevertheless. As others have said, it shows the type of coverage, criticism and real-life awareness that is sadly lacking from our own media. Which is another key explanation of why the UK has ended up here. |  |
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| An outsiders view. on 09:46 - Oct 26 with 1174 views | Darth_Koont |
| An outsiders view. on 09:15 - Oct 26 by bluelagos |
The obvious question is why have we seen a far greater decline in our manufacturing base than say Germany or France?
Their industry faces the exact same issues of lower labour/regulations from the far east as we do. |
Indeed.
It’s because we actively chose to make less and less stuff of value (innovative, advanced and highly technical). We’ve even fallen behind the curve with IT/digital production. And our government support for/investment in non-financial industries has been laughable compared to our neighbours.
Putting almost all our eggs in the one basket (and frequent basket case) of global financial services was a get rich quick scheme the country as a whole gets slowly poorer from.
On a related note, and it shows how badly we’ve looked at manufacturing and industry as a whole, within that nodding acceptance that our socio-economic fate should be directly linked to the market, we’ve also allowed “financialisation” to take hold. That’s the view that, for example, having a highly skilled and experienced workforce isn’t an asset as much as an expensive, riskier cost – and companies can generate greater profit by outsourcing those responsibilities. So do the markets penalize them for that thinking or reward them and say the value of the company has actually increased? We know the answer to that. [Post edited 26 Oct 2022 9:48]
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| An outsiders view. on 10:09 - Oct 26 with 1121 views | Churchman |
It’s an interesting read. Some of it I agree with, some not. It is a bit of a cartoon of this country.
Specifically, Britain did not choose finance over industry. It could have easily done both. However it did choose austerity over investment and for me, the latter has been a critical failure of the last 12 years, actually since WW2. Investment is the key to everything. Investment in people (education), ideas, processes, infrastructure, technologies. Not flogging everything off and hoping for the best.
It’s been the case since the late Victorian period since the industrial rise of the US and Germany in particular. Most recently, the choices of austerity over investment was stupid at the time just as it is now. A combination of the two was proposed by Alastair Darling in the 2010 Election campaign, was to me the obvious way to go.
No economist then or now will agree with Osborne’s ideological war. It was as unimaginative and destructive as it was nasty. You can see the relish of Hunt and co offering another dose of it, despite the certainty that it’ll make things worse. Still, it won’t affect them.
Then we had Brexit. Economically the daftest thing ever. It made no sense then any more than it does now. All it needed was a unicorn or two to complete the fantasy. Yet it’s now a taboo subject. Not to be mentioned in any corner, yet this elephant in the room is still there. It needs to be spoken of and addressed, but fear will stop anyone including Starmer doing so.
Turning this rant round, this country has some of the most talented, innovative people on the planet. It’s people can be flexible and tolerant (not all, not always). When people set their mind to it amazing things can be achieved whether creating vaccines, building Nightingale hospitals or conducting an unfeasible campaign in the Falklands 40 years ago.
If workers are as lazy and unproductive as the tories claim, why is Nissan in Sunderland one of their most productive plants? It’s because of investment in them, plant and product. As for blaming the Unions as they did in the 60s, 70s 80s, that is a stereotypical lie too. If any tory can tell me how British Leyland were ever going to compete producing a car as bad as the Austin Allegro over five sites where it took longer to correct the defects than it did to make a VW Golf, I’m all ears. Or how building ships with 19c rivets was going to compete with welded ships come to that.
So where does failure lie? It starts with the politicians. Their muddled, frankly wrong approach over so many decades (Labour has got plenty wrong too) has left the people rudderless and leaderless. Until they understand the concept of investment in people and stuff, nothing will change. That starts with education, both academic and vocational. There are loads of examples of how to do it better.
Rant over [Post edited 26 Oct 2022 10:16]
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| An outsiders view. on 10:41 - Oct 26 with 1074 views | WeWereZombies |
First we have Liz Truss going on about her made up 'anti-growth coalition' and now we have this journalist in a not so well read online United States periodical asserting that something called 'degrowtherism' is happening, it is all very backward looking. I am afraid I find this an unambitious and incomplete analysis of where we are - and where we are heading. What is needed is a vision that is balanced and a plan full of benchmarks and decision points that provide plan Bs and Plan Cs as we negotiate emerging power variations, new technologies and alternative production methods and, above all, the response to global warming. |  |
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| An outsiders view. on 10:57 - Oct 26 with 1012 views | XYZ |
| An outsiders view. on 10:41 - Oct 26 by WeWereZombies |
First we have Liz Truss going on about her made up 'anti-growth coalition' and now we have this journalist in a not so well read online United States periodical asserting that something called 'degrowtherism' is happening, it is all very backward looking. I am afraid I find this an unambitious and incomplete analysis of where we are - and where we are heading. What is needed is a vision that is balanced and a plan full of benchmarks and decision points that provide plan Bs and Plan Cs as we negotiate emerging power variations, new technologies and alternative production methods and, above all, the response to global warming. |
To be fair, the 'degrowtherism' is a minor element of the thrust of the analysis. Agreed it's a distraction and out of context from the main points.
It also misses that green tech is a big opportunity for the UK, although there's a danger that will be missed too. | | | |
| An outsiders view. on 11:02 - Oct 26 with 992 views | giant_stow |
A good read, ta.
The critique of the left is unfair - wondering about the aim of growth is a relatively recent thing and still not mainstream, I would say. The current Labour Party want to have a big investment in green tech (I think) which would boost growth, I would guess.
Also a bit harsh on the critique on the UKs finance industry - it's one of the areas where we're still at the top of the tree. It's just a shame we couldn't do that and more manufacturing too. Also I believe any remaining manufacturing we have is usually high-end so again a bit unfair to gloss over that?
Personally I think we're in trouble, along with others, but not super-screwed compared to our peers. |  |
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| An outsiders view. on 11:09 - Oct 26 with 967 views | WeWereZombies |
| An outsiders view. on 10:57 - Oct 26 by XYZ |
To be fair, the 'degrowtherism' is a minor element of the thrust of the analysis. Agreed it's a distraction and out of context from the main points.
It also misses that green tech is a big opportunity for the UK, although there's a danger that will be missed too. |
'there's a danger that will be missed too.'
I think in a lot of instances it has already been missed, e.g. Denmark's lead in building wind turbines, China's in solar panels. We need a champion and doer for projects like the tidal turbines and new hydro innovations but I cannot see a twenty first century Tom Johnston (who was also a supporter of home rule and devolving power away from Westminster as well as a proponent of using the 'Hollow Mountain' to store power for the entire grid) anywhere in the four nations at the moment.
Another structural improvement would be a move away from big, slow to turn around, technology (like those Danish monster wind turbines) to small scale but more numerous power generation sources but, like the diffidence about home insulation, I do not see who seriously leads on this in current or future administrations. | |
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| An outsiders view. on 11:21 - Oct 26 with 929 views | XYZ |
| An outsiders view. on 11:09 - Oct 26 by WeWereZombies |
'there's a danger that will be missed too.'
I think in a lot of instances it has already been missed, e.g. Denmark's lead in building wind turbines, China's in solar panels. We need a champion and doer for projects like the tidal turbines and new hydro innovations but I cannot see a twenty first century Tom Johnston (who was also a supporter of home rule and devolving power away from Westminster as well as a proponent of using the 'Hollow Mountain' to store power for the entire grid) anywhere in the four nations at the moment.
Another structural improvement would be a move away from big, slow to turn around, technology (like those Danish monster wind turbines) to small scale but more numerous power generation sources but, like the diffidence about home insulation, I do not see who seriously leads on this in current or future administrations. |
Agreed. Your knowledge of the detail is way beyond mine it would appear; I was trying to retain a degree of optimism.
George Monbiot and Richard Murphy as a (green) business/ finance double act would be good for the country. | | | |
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