made in britain...

kabayiri

I think Mr Mumble is right in focusing on trend.

It's pointless being complacent about how we are high up in the manufacturing league table today if the trend is downwards.

Some people may have also noticed the Chinese efforts in buying up huge chunks of mineral rights up and down Africa. The recent program on BBC2 showed that it wasnt the locals benefitting.

All these changes will force up local production costs.

I suspect where something is made is unlikely to interest the super rich elite of this world. These people potentially have more power than governments nowadays.

michaels

But with more expensive labour will come an older population and workers who expect holidays, unemployment insurance, health care, state pensions, planning controls etc and so will end up with higher taxes and just as many regualtaions. Surely Japan,Korea and Taiwan are the correct examples to look at to see that catch up growth does slow down.

However all that said, the biggie is that China's population is so huge that the amount of natural resources (food, energy, etc) will not expand as quickly as global incomes so products that use a lot of these inputs will become relatively more expensive so unlike with other countries growth spurts (which were not large enough on a global scale to impact supply) it is not a case us standing still and them catching up - we will actually become worse off in absolute terms (less any growth) as a direct result of their growth.

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

My worry isn't that that the Chinese have a competitive advantage over Britain now (no point Rory Mcllroy doing his own gardening if the kid down the road will do it for £50 per hour) but what happens when the Chinese worker makes similar wages to those in Britain and they still have an economic advantage because of better transport infrastructure, lower taxes, less burdensome regulation, cheaper energy costs and a higher skills base.

Conrad

We lead the world in high value recording equipment for both sound and vision. For example Solid State Logic of Oxford make the worlds best mixing desks and these bad Boys dont' come cheap.

penrhyn

Wow, More Power!

Bet Binford make a bigger one!!

molerat

We do have a thriving moulded plastics sector making shelving and storage boxes.

What suprised me was that Canada produces its own cheap tourist tat whereas all ours is made in China.

Loughton_Monkey

Anything we make here cannot be knocked. Every plastic bucket made means one less we need to import.

Nothing wrong with making something in China for £4 but selling it here for £100. Until, that is, the Chinese buy the 'brand' - which is when they export the profit as well! But we must understand that even this model (while we can still get away with it) really doesn't help much. The net effect is we have imported £4 worth of goods. The other £96 was already in UK, and all you can discuss is the complex way in which the £96 has been shovelled around different pockets.

Also, there's not particular merit in manufacturing for its own sake either. Sell a three year course at Oxford for some rich son of a Russian Millionnaire and that's another £27K exported. Just as good as selling a JCB to Portugal.

If JCB want to make the machine in Indonesia, sell it to the Australians, and repatriate the profits to UK, then that's also 'good' for UK Plc.

But we have to understand the very basic, but true, principle that the balance of payments is by far the best indicator of whether we are getting richer or poorer. The sad fact is that we continue to get poorer as a nation. Cameron has simply got to provide the right climate to get this balance back into positive territory again. I don't care whether it's manufacturing, services, tourism, or sending Blair on more lecture tours....

Failing that, we can only contiue to do what we do now, and spend all our efforts shovelling the dwindling wealth around the nation.

Jennifer_Jane

I thought the programme was really interesting, with things I wouldn't have envisaged. It does seem that Britain is good at inventing things, and let's hope that can be fostered - and patented. Is it a huge shame that Berners-Lee gave the 'World Wide Web' to the world rather than having a royalty placed on it? Perhaps our next Berners-Lee could rather give his invention to the British people, rather than freely to the world?

I was delighted with the spirit of the programme and Evan Davis's enthusiasm and positivity (sorry, cannot think of a better word than 'positivity'). Rather unBritish, I thought.


PS - have just checked out Tim Berners-Lee and apparently he's rather rich:
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/tim-berners-lee-net-worth/

Radiantsoul

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

But we have to understand the very basic, but true, principle that the balance of payments is by far the best indicator of whether we are getting richer or poorer.

This is quite simply false.

Radiantsoul

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Is it a huge shame that Berners-Lee gave the 'World Wide Web' to the world rather than having a royalty placed on it? Perhaps our next Berners-Lee could rather give his invention to the British people, rather than freely to the world?

I have always found shaking hands to be a rather arbitrary way of greeting someone, but if the person had perhaps registered the activity in some way and charged everyone even a small fee they could have been enormously wealthy.

Milarky

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

The sad fact is that we continue to get poorer as a nation. Cameron has simply got to provide the right climate to get this balance back into positive territory again. I don't care whether it's manufacturing, services, tourism, or sending Blair on more lecture tours....

Failing that, we can only contiue to do what we do now, and spend all our efforts shovelling the dwindling wealth around the nation.

(My money's on 'Plan B')