New Year New Massive Job Cuts

stueyhants

Conrad wrote: »

Many made claims in the 70's and 80's that Japan, HK, Taiwan, Korea et al would be runious for UK plc, yet we got a lot richer despite heamoraging masses of business to these upstarts.

How much of that increase in standard of living has been down to accumulation of debt rather than real wealth?
Where do you see the growth coming from in the next 18 months ?

chucky

stueyhants wrote: »

If there was less BTL there would be less demand/competition for buying the housing in the first place, houses would be cheaper thus enabling more individuals to buy their own house.

i don't think that is the case. Private rented accommodation. which includes BTL is less than 10% of property. 10% isn't a huge amount of completion.

of course it has some effect but not the competitive nature that you mentioned.
however, in 2006 i think was the biggest year for BTL where it reached 20% of loans for that year but i think it was more specifically one certain type of property (flats).
a one year spike isn't going to make that much difference in the overall scheme of things...

stueyhants

chucky wrote: »

i don't that is the case. Private rented accommodation. which includes BTL is less than 10% of property. 10% isn't a huge amount of completion.

of course it has some effect but not the competitive nature that you mentioned.
however, in 2006 i think was the biggest year for BTL where it reached 20% of loans for that year but i think it was more specifically one certain type of property (flats).
a one year spike isn't going to make that much difference in the overall scheme of things...

I think for the typical house your right. However if you look at flats, prices rose and fell faster in comparision to other types of houses. Flats were the ideal properties for BTL so I think the demand and then lack of demand did play quite a large role in setting prices.

chucky

stueyhants wrote: »

I think for the typical house your right. However if you look at flats, prices rose and fell faster in comparision to other types of houses. Flats were the ideal properties for BTL so I think the demand and then lack of demand did play quite a large role in setting prices.

that what i was indicating at.

it's far too easy say it's BTL that has cause HPI - it's caused flats to rise in value to a degree but has had not as much effect as people would think on house prices in general.

Thrugelmir

Article today which is interesting.

No cheer for manufacturers

The manufacturing sector is still struggling to compete in the global market place. And a thin week for economic news provided few reasons for cheer.
Despite an unprecedented level of political support for the manufacturing sector the numbers showed this hasn’t yet been translated into growth for UK goods.
All indicators suggest the signs of recovery in the first half of last year have run out of steam – despite hopes that a weak currency would support overseas demand.
Wednesday’s industrial production data showed a larger than expected jump in output but that was driven by a sharp rise in oil and gas production.
Manufacturing output was flat for a second consecutive month, leaving output malingering 14% below 2008 highs.
Trade data provided more gloom, showing there had been no rise in goods exports.
The surveys have been painting a more mixed picture but the cold hard data shows the manufacturing sector is still struggling to compete in the global market place.
With news of yet more robust growth coming out of China it seems Britain’s manufacturers are paying the price for focussing on our European trading partners.
With the German economic recovery already faltering and lacklustre growth across the continent, UK businesses need to find new markets for their goods.
But a roundtable meeting at the Bank of England suggested still tight credit conditions are limiting the ability of businesses to invest in the staff and machinery needed to shift the focus of their businesses.
The quarterly British Chambers of Commerce survey backed that up showing investment in plant and machinery is still in negative territory. Business leaders also said there were few home orders and employment expectations were still in negative territory too.
The banks have been reporting they will meet government targets on lending to business because companies are paying back debt rather than looking to expand or refocus.
Some areas of the economy are faring a little better.
Thursday’s data showed construction orders rose 2.2% between October and November and were higher in the three months to November than in the previous three months
Rising house prices and increased public spending helped to boost the numbers.
And the latest data from the British Retail Consortium showed sales climbed 4.2% in December. Another glut of trading updates from the retailers failed to lift the mood though as market watchers already fear consumers will tighten their belts after the Christmas splurge.
The big freeze was also making itself felt as bellwether John Lewis reported sales actually fell this week – for the first time in many, many months.
All in all the numbers showed any hopes we could easily rebalance the economy away from the services sector is going to take a concerted effort.

http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/other/content.aspx?ID=377031&re=8121&ea=237867&ViewFull=True

Thrugelmir

ceridwen wrote: »

Does that mean you are lining up yourself to take a new job at a "world market" rate of pay - rather than a British rate of pay?

If so - I would love to have your budget tips on just how one manages to live in Britain on Chinese wages....:rolleyes:

Could you survive on benefits alone?

I doubt it.

Most people's instinct is to survive. Whilst luxuries, bigger houses, bigger cars are great to have. There're not necessary to live.

With high unemployment there are plenty of people who are content to earn more than nothing.

Batchy

julieq wrote: »

None of the big manufacturing industries you appear to think we need would exist without banks and credit. Most business to business transactions are on 90 day terms, but employees aren't. That doesn't make businesses "debt junkies", they generate net cash or go out of business. But they need lending to help with cashflow.

A full scale banking crash would have taken out a lot more industry than has been lost so far, which is why action was taken. It's not something to get abusive about.

As for the question of the part of manufacturing in the economy, the idea that it's the only activity that generates wealth is a complete fallacy.

If you trace the value chain from raw material to finished product in the marketplace, a great deal of it is added late on. I gave an example of a car a few days ago. The lowest value is in the transformation of (say) steel to components. There is very little value that can be added. On the other hand electronics design, marketing, sales, and service are very valuable lifetime activities. The money paid to the people adding value to components then comes back into the general economy; some will buy manufactured goods, a great deal will buy services of one sort or another.

The fashion has been to outsource lower value components into the supply chain. In my experience there is a degree of disillusionment with that idea now.

One of the most surprising parts of this recession is the relatively low impact on employment. That's because (I suspect) most organisations have very little slack, and because we have a well diversified economy.

I believe you have some good points... I think due to the quality of UK staff and the skills they acquire and the cost of recruiting, some companies have deep pockets after all the years of prosperity we have had... they think this recession is a blip and after things will be back to normal... i hope they are right... i hope things do go back to normal... but I believe we are only just round the corner from ROUND 2, when i mean round the corner... I MEAN TIPPING POINT right now.

GingerSte

stueyhants wrote: »

Keeping one step ahead of China and India is going to get harder and harder. They are sending record levels of people to Uni to get good quality Engineering and Science degrees. Eventually the investment in education will pay off and the value added stuff we used to do will be done cheaper in house.

We do have a significant lead in certain areas but I don't see the investment in maintaining that edge. Investment in the UK has been misdirected in to asset bubbles rather than competitive advantage. I hope this changes going forward.

Hope you don't mind me sticking my oar in, but I just wanted to answer these points.

I agree that India and China (and other countries) are sending record numbers of graduates over here to do engineering degrees. I recently did a one-year MSc in Structural Engineering and there was a lot of them doing it. I can't speak for science degrees as I have no experience there.

However, on graduation, a lot of these graduates are staying in Britain. At least half of the foreign students I took my course with are working for consultancies in the UK. A lot of them even got their jobs AFTER the economic slide had started.

The reasons? The university fees were so large (£12-13K for my particular course for foreign students in 2007) and the pay differential between UK wages and Indian/Chinese/other wages meant that it was an easy question for them.

Also, I have to agree with the point regarding high-end manufacturing and engineering. There is a culture at the moment in the UK that manufacturing and engineering aren't "sexy" enough for UK investors. We don't invest in our infrastructure (whether it be transport, power or water) until it's creaking at the seams and has to be replaced at great cost. It's just too long term for us. We want to make our quick buck and move on to the next one. So our power companies end up in french hands, our railways end up in German hands (Chiltern Railways is owned by DB Regio, a subsiduary of Deitche Bahn), and our Airports end up in Spanish hands (Ferrovial owns BAA). Until we fix this short-termist thinking, and look at our investments as more than just numbers on a screen to be held for as short a time as possible to make a load of money, then nothing will change in this country.