Acropolis Now

[gaelic cowboy]

there is no alternative to the rise of the megalith developing nations but to move ever higher up the value chain, for only by producing high value goods and services will we maintain a level of relative wealth that will preserve living standards as they are.

high value services means high value, not some pleb working in an O2 customer support call-centre. notably london is the place where 85% of Euros are traded, not to mention 95% of metals.

high value goods means high value, not some brummie car-plant churning out cheap and cheerful family cars by the tens of thousand. what we are talking about is high-level engineering backed up by strong R&D.

adapt or die.

My point is that O2 guy used to be high value too once and if you think that China and the rest of the new countries are incapable of developing there own high value services they you are in for a big shock one day soon.

My idea would be to try at least try to remove the wage element from the cost base through more and more automation both physical automation and process automation etc etc China has a good price but materials, excise etc are pretty much the same all over wages is the wests problem. People in the west prefer there brands western and there smart enough now to know the benefit of making it here too also if as I suspect a significant element of carbon taxing comes into play one day filling a boat from China could get dearer one day.

If all low skill manufacturing is outsourced without a squeak then there will be no high value stuff later as industry needs a foundation for basic skills etc in order to move up a chain later. The adaptation I think we should be using is in our ability to use tech to reduce our costs this will bite us in the ass eventually.

I am sure you have figured by now I do not want to build walls around industry I prefer to think of it as using the first steam engines in Britain I believe it was in the economist awhile back. In order to empty waterfilled mines in Britain which had a higher cost base then than continential Europe for mining they used automation and so did not abandon mining. I worry that we are getting far too clever for our own good with this rush to proclaim that the west is incapable of producing cheap goods healthy economies are diverse and your thesis is not.

Unfortunately I think the people with the money and the ones who take there orders have already made the decision on this long ago and no amount of reasoned argument from me will change them which is a shame.

mods sorry for wandering off topic

[Louis VI the Fat]

Unfortunately I think the people with the money and the ones who take there orders have already made the decision on this long ago and no amount of reasoned argument from me will change them which is a shame.

I would agree with you.


*insert lengthy economical and geopolitical exposé*



Thatcher closed Wales, Scotland and the North. NuLab and Furunculus agree on one thing: the rest of England doesn't matter either. Only the City and its financial services matter. Hey, the City did boom under NuLab the past fifteen years, waking from its decades long slump, eclipsing even New York in the process.

[Fragony]

http://www.southeast-europe.eu/

Que? A festival to take away doubt about further expansion?

[Furunculus]

Thatcher closed Wales, Scotland and the North.

NuLab and Furunculus agree on one thing: the rest of England doesn't matter either. Only the City and its financial services matter.

Hey, the City did boom under NuLab the past fifteen years, waking from its decades long slump, eclipsing even New York in the process.

Thatcher killed off the state subsidies that propped up moribund industries that contributed nothing towards britain's long term prosperity, and actually did a lot to retard medium term prosperity given that the scale of the subsidies retarded overall growth.

No, i don't agree with NuLab on that, as my two previous post make very clear what i want is both high-value innovation in services AND goods. less hyperbole, more fact please.

Indeed the City has contributed a great deal to the exchequer in the last 20 years, which is surely a good thing for all the moralising poseurs who like to feel good about themselves by cheering on each new gender awareness officer employed by some feckless local council. take that away and social spending will decline, does that make you happy, or is it that you just want to punish the bankers for their evil ways?

[rory_20_uk]

You see, successful businesses make money. These lost money for several decades.

Being state run they were viewed as piggy banks with endless money by certain groups who then forgot the idea was to sell things, not merely turn up and cook up new ways to get a pay rise.

Royal Mail is another case in point: "increased efficiency - but what will happen to all our members whos jobs are currently leading to year on year loesses??!?"