The pound

Kohoutek

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Was it a valuation through choice?

Well, I assume the high value of the pound was primarily through North Sea oil and the strength of our financial sector, both are unexpectedly in sharp decline.

Labour's handling of the economy of their 13 years in power so far seemed to embrace our service based economy and our dependence on financial services. I hope whichever party wins the election can emphasise manufacturing and alternative energy (the UK has a windfall in terms of great potential for tidal and wind energy), which seem like obvious choices to strength our economy.

aelitaman

Kohoutek wrote: »

Well, I assume the high value of the pound was primarily through North Sea oil and the strength of our financial sector, both are unexpectedly in sharp decline.

Labour's handling of the economy of their 13 years in power so far seemed to embrace our service based economy and our dependence on financial services. I hope whichever party wins the election can emphasise manufacturing and alternative energy (the UK has a windfall in terms of great potential for tidal and wind energy), which seem like obvious choices to strength our economy.

And Drax power today, after investing 800 million in biomass have said the Goverment are idiots and they are going to keep using coal.

The Teeside steel plant is closed because Tata will save 600million quid in Carbon Tax Credits (no Carbon tax in India)

Boy oh Boy do we need a change.

Kohoutek

aelitaman wrote: »

And Drax power today, after investing 800 million in biomass have said the Goverment are idiots and they are going to keep using coal.

I thought we had all those targets to reduce 80% of our CO2 emissions by 2050!

The government's energy policy is a mess. They phased out all those nuclear plants only eventually decide they're going to build a bunch of new ones. They should be emphasising biomass strongly - wind is useful but it can never replace all our energy needs, we'd be screwed on a still day!

It sickens me how much money has gone to the big banks. Imagine what we could have done with a £850 billion investment into alternative energy!

aelitaman

Kohoutek wrote: »

I thought we had all those targets to reduce 80% of our CO2 emissions by 2050!

The government's energy policy is a mess. They phased out all those nuclear plants only eventually decide they're going to build a bunch of new ones. They should be emphasising biomass strongly - wind is useful but it can never replace all our energy needs, we'd be screwed on a still day!

It sickens me how much money has gone to the big banks. Imagine what we could have done with a £850 billion investment into alternative energy!

Correct, without Drax using biofuels we have no chance of meeting the CO2 targets.

The issue is Biomass is made here, wind turbines are made abroad. So obviously out govt have decided to support foriegn manufactuing over UK manufacturing by paying much higher subsidies to wind turbines than biomass.

Why does this govt hate the UK population so much?

jmoid

Kohoutek wrote: »

It's not just the dollar and euro either...it's the Indian rupee, Thai Baht, Brazilian Real. They've all gained 25% on the pound.

Those developing economies that actually make stuff are quickly catching up with us.

Luckily the Chinese Yuan is still artificially undervalued...if it matched purchasing power Chinese goods would be twice as expensive.

There was a link earlier in the thread showing where the UK was in terms of manufacturing in 2008 by dollar value - we're further up the list than Thailand, Brazil and yes, India too. I have grave concerns about the UK economy myself, but this constant proclaimation that "We don't make anything" is a myth. Anway when did you last see "made in Brazil" written on anything? Apart from coffee grains that is

aelitaman

jmoid wrote: »

There was a link earlier in the thread showing where the UK was in terms of manufacturing in 2008 by dollar value - we're further up the list than Thailand, Brazil and yes, India too. I have grave concerns about the UK economy myself, but this constant proclaimation that "We don't make anything" is a myth. Anway when did you last see "made in Brazil" written on anything? Apart from coffee grains that is

Embraer. They are going to get there.

http://www.embraer.com/english/content/home/

StevieJ

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Yer, but, well. It's obvious to pretty much anyone that if that chart was over the last 3 years, instead of 12 months, the drop would be huge.

Ahhh, kahoutek already got there!

Tell you what why don't you draw it back to March 1985 when Maggie was in charge, around 1.05 USD/Sterling I think

purch

1.0508 :eek:....

Kohoutek

StevieJ wrote: »

Tell you what why don't you draw it back to March 1985 when Maggie was in charge, around 1.05 USD/Sterling I think

We recovered from parity with the dollar several years later when the Tories were still in power so it doesn't count.

If you want to take the really long view on post war governments:



1949 (Labour): 30% devaluation, never recovered.
1967 (Labour): 14% devaluation, never recovered.
2008 (Labour): 25% devaluation, ?

StevieJ

Kohoutek wrote: »

We recovered from parity with the dollar several years later when the Tories were still in power so it doesn't count.

If you want to take the really long view on post war governments:



1949 (Labour): 30% devaluation, never recovered.
1967 (Labour): 14% devaluation, never recovered.
2008 (Labour): 25% devaluation, ?

1981-1985 56% devaluation :eek: Who was in charge then
BTW when was that recovery back to 2.40?