A new capitalism will emerge from the current crisis...

BlondeHeadOn

... according to Robert Peston - good article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/
(this has a link to the one below)

Or go direct to it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/newcapitalism.pdf

Long, but worth reading - well, I thought so anyway.

Lotus-eater

I've read most of it and I have finally realised. !!!!!! is Robert Peston.
I claim my prize!

I feel sorry for those like me, that sat back with open mouths and watched it happening,

BlondeHeadOn

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I've read most of it and I have finally realised. !!!!!! is Robert Preston.
I claim my prize!
quote]

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I wondered why the article sounded so familiar!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Generali

He's spot on in his description on how we got here. His idea of the way ahead is plain wrong IMO. It costs companies more money to be nicer to their employees. If it means they produce more then it might be worth their while. However, the studies I've seen show that while it works in a few isolated cases (eg John Lewis) by and large, gains to productivity from being nice to people are fleeting lasting maybe a few hours or a day.

If UK PLC is going to get going again it's going to have to produce stuff that people want in future rather than what they wanted in the past. At present the UK produces too much financial services and too much Government. Both need to be replaced by goods and services that can be sold to foreigners and locals for a profit. To do that will mean strong, efficient companies. Unfortunately that means that sometimes they won't be able to afford to give their employees <<hugs>>.

It won't be much fun but it's going to be the only way out of this mess.

The UK Government is trying an alternative approach whereby they subsidise the financial services industry to keep output at previous levels. At the same time they will try to increase the size and scope of Government to try to provide jobs for all the people that are losing private sector jobs. It can't work because they are making things worse not better each time they add to the already bloated payroll. In the end they will simply run out of money.

How do I know that will be the outcome? It's because we did exactly the same thing in the 1970s with heavy industry - prop it up and employ more people in state jobs, borrowing to pay the bill. The result was the IMF were called in and monetarism was introduced by a Labour Government (not by the Tories in 1979 as is popularly believed) leading to what amounted to a General Strike in the Winter of Discontent.

Conrad

Generali wrote: »

It costs companies more money to be nicer to their employees. If it means they produce more then it might be worth their while. However, the studies I've seen show that while it works in a few isolated cases (eg John Lewis) by and large, gains to productivity from being nice to people are fleeting lasting maybe a few hours or a day.

Agreed, however, we simply wont unshackle ourselves because lawyers will sue at every turn, so companies are forced to play along with lavish employee well being systems.
Furthermore, countless ministers have spoken over the years of a comming war on red tape, yet nothing is ever done, nor will it.

Our only hope then is to add value to the food chain, which, to be fair we are well placed to do as we are naturally inquisative and imaginative in way most nations are not. As an example, no matter where I go in the world, British music dominates (apart from in the US) - for example in Sardinia where all the bars played UK music (espcially 80s classics like Japanese Boy:eek: ).

Chinese culture appears to value subservience and robotic parrot style education, which has the effect of dampening down the flames of imagination and inquisativness. sorry for the sp's

Generali

Conrad wrote: »

Agreed, however, we simply wont unshackle ourselves because lawyers will sue at every turn, so companies are forced to play along with lavish employee well being systems.
Furthermore, countless ministers have spoken over the years of a comming war on red tape, yet nothing is ever done, nor will it.

Our only hope then is to add value to the food chain, which, to be fair we are well placed to do as we are naturally inquisative and imaginative in way most nations are not. As an example, no matter where I go in the world, British music dominates (apart from in the US) - for example in Sardinia where all the bars played UK music (espcially 80s classics like Japanese Boy:eek: ).

Chinese culture appears to value subservience and robotic parrot style education, which has the effect of dampening down the flames of imagination and inquisativness. sorry for the sp's

Well the big problem facing the Chinese is the one child policy chickens coming home to roost. If you think we have pension problems, they pale into insignificance compared to those guys!

That we need to sell things others want to buy doesn't mean making ships or lumps of iron necessarily. It can be pop music like you say, or films or adverts or just about anything really.

WTF?_2

BlondeHeadOn wrote: »

... according to Robert Peston - good article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/
(this has a link to the one below)

Or go direct to it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/newcapitalism.pdf

Long, but worth reading - well, I thought so anyway.

Brilliant article by Peston. Pretty comprehensively covers what went wrong and where we are going. Should be required reading for some of those complaining about overly doom-laden outlooks.

Generali

!!!!!!? wrote: »

Brilliant article by Peston. Pretty comprehensively covers what went wrong and where we are going. Should be required reading for some of those complaining about overly doom-laden outlooks.

Do you think 'cuddly capitalism' (not being sarcastic) is the way out of this mess? It seems a bit unlikely to me. I don't see the link between being nicer to your employees and creating a strong economy on the back of permanently lower levels of borrowing.

WTF?_2

Generali wrote: »

Do you think 'cuddly capitalism' (not being sarcastic) is the way out of this mess? It seems a bit unlikely to me. I don't see the link between being nicer to your employees and creating a strong economy on the back of permanently lower levels of borrowing.

Nope, the way out will be becoming more productive, cutting out spurious expenditure, paying down debt, living without our means (personal and national) and letting the markets balance themselves in a controlled manner so that the overshoot effect doesn't capsize the boat.

However, it's pretty clear that the authorities see more government control of everything as being the way ahead and I'd guess that's the way many voters will choose too ... so I'm planning ahead on that basis.

Generali

!!!!!!? wrote: »

However, it's pretty clear that the authorities see more government control of everything as being the way ahead and I'd guess that's the way many voters will choose too ... so I'm planning ahead on that basis.

I definitely agree here. I'm glad to be out of the country.

GingerSte

Generali wrote: »

That we need to sell things others want to buy doesn't mean making ships or lumps of iron necessarily. It can be pop music like you say, or films or adverts or just about anything really.

I agree with what you're saying. We can export our services (as an example, I'm a civil engineer working on a job in Ireland at the moment), and hopefully the weak pound will make exporting these services easier.

However, not everybody in the UK is suited to making music, films, adverts (or even engineering). In my opinion we do need to start making products in this country in the "conventional" or "old-fashioned" sense.

It does seem to me at the moment the only things that have made money for the UK recently (apart from the house of cards that was the banking system), have been things that could only have been done in the UK: the housing bubble, construction work (you can't build British houses in Eastern Europe), transport. Everything that can be outsourced has been. Once (if) we address this imbalance, I think our situation might improve.