Germany once admired British workmanship – but that was a long time ago: Guardian

chewmylegoff

vivatifosi wrote: »

It's also fair to say that manufacturing decline went hand-in-hand with technological advances. Why would any firm, anywhere, have long lines of people working on assembly when they can have robots do the same job with fewer people watching the robots and keeping the factory floor running at a lower cost?

I would have thought that would only explain a decline in employment in the sector, not a decline in its direct contribution towards GDP.

chewmylegoff

geneer wrote: »

How is it germany can have such a strong manufacturing base and we can't.

The whole "outsourcing" argument is red herring.

Manufacturing contributes 20% of german GDP, and seems to have been at that sort of level for about 20 years.

Where else have we seen that figure, oh yes it's the % of GDP from manufacturing in the uk economy in 1997.

CLAPTON

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Yes of course. But did GDP double when Blair was in power?

gdp (in real terms ) increased about 2-2.5% per annum during the Blair years
so the decline in manufacturing is certainly not as large as the 10% of gdp might otherwise indicate

vivatifosi

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I would have thought that would only explain a decline in employment in the sector, not a decline in its direct contribution towards GDP.

Sorry chewy. I quoted you because I was agreeing with you and I was trying to get at "and another thing"... In hindsight I should have quoted one of the posts about how Thatcher killed off manufacturing, as though it was going to stay the way it was without her.

chewmylegoff

CLAPTON wrote: »

gdp (in real terms ) increased about 2-2.5% per annum during the Blair years
so the decline in manufacturing is certainly not as large as the 10% of gdp might otherwise indicate

That argument can equally be applied to the thatcher years, infact even more so as growth was higher during that period iirc. The central point still stands, Blair and Thatcher were in power for similar periods of time and one oversaw a far greater decline in manufacturing than the other, and it wasn't Thatcher.

kabayiri

geneer wrote: »

How is it germany can have such a strong manufacturing base and we can't.

The whole "outsourcing" argument is red herring.

In my view, it's the demand for a quick return on your investment money which holds things back.

Investing in new automated plant is pretty expensive. The cost of some modern robots has come down, but it's still can run into hundreds of millions. In terms of silicon plants, Intel reckoned it was $2bn apiece for a state of the art fabrication facility, and even that figure is probably out of date.

The city people tend to look for quicker returns from their investment money. I've been involved in spec'ing for UK facilities which ended up elsewhere, and it was disappointing. However, that's the way it is now. You just get on with it.

One of the things which Britain did really well in the past was the promotion of standards which gained worldwide adoption. I think open source hardware and software could once again push r&d and manufacturing forward by commodotising common functions and lowering costs.

A._Badger

kabayiri wrote: »

In my view, it's the demand for a quick return on your investment money which holds things back.

Investing in new automated plant is pretty expensive. The cost of some modern robots has come down, but it's still can run into hundreds of millions. In terms of silicon plants, Intel reckoned it was $2bn apiece for a state of the art fabrication facility, and even that figure is probably out of date.

The city people tend to look for quicker returns from their investment money. I've been involved in spec'ing for UK facilities which ended up elsewhere, and it was disappointing. However, that's the way it is now. You just get on with it..

The desire for quick returns (and damn the consequences) is certainly one of the major problems. It's the same attitude that has led to the sell-outs that have seen the transfer of ownership of so many British companies to competitors' hands. The most recent example being Cadbury, though much the same happened in the steel industry, courtesy of Blair's dodgy dealing with his Indian pal.

It is unlikely that Cadbury would have switched production overseas as fast as Kraft has (or even at all) and that's a picture repeated time and again throughout British industry in recent decades as the banking sharks have got rich through, often ill-advised, takeovers.

CLAPTON

chewmylegoff wrote: »

That argument can equally be applied to the thatcher years, infact even more so as growth was higher during that period iirc. The central point still stands, Blair and Thatcher were in power for similar periods of time and one oversaw a far greater decline in manufacturing than the other, and it wasn't Thatcher.

I have no view on either the Blair or Thatcher years; more that in general I would expect manufacturing to decline as a percentage of GDP as we become richer.

chewmylegoff

CLAPTON wrote: »

I have no view on either the Blair or Thatcher years; more that in general I would expect manufacturing to decline as a percentage of GDP as we become richer.

Why? It has remained steady as a % of german GDP for 20 years.

C_Mababejive

Road_Hog wrote: »

That is Marxist speak. The revisionist view and that we should be embarrassed by our past achievements. Before political correctness and Marxism took a stronghold we were a proud country that achieved many things. Since the Lefties and Marxism took over, we are forever beating ourselves up for what we were.

For a long time, a small country/island called Britain ruled a large part of the world. We set up the foundations of democracy, we set up Common Law which is still used in many parts of the world today. We gave the world the international business language.

What has fwcked up this once great country? Lefties and Marxists that try to break everything that worked okay, who brainwash our kids in school and university, who have taken charge of the BBC to broadcast their propaganda.

No, Britain used to be great, things used to work, they followed a natural order that seemed right. Now we have the opposite, we have mass immigration even though we don't have enough jobs or homes for people, but we are told we are racist if we mention it. Criminals go free instead of being locked up like they used to be. Everything has been turned on its head (deliberately) and the country has been dumbed down (think X-Factor). What was right is now classed as wrong and vice versa.

There is nothing wrong with Britain, except the Marxists that are trying to destroy it, look up the Frankfurt School 11 point plan and see how much of it you disagree with.

Apart from the bit about "Marxist speak" we are in agreement.

My politics are probably somewhere right of Ghenghis Khan and i dont think the constant doting about 2 world wars can ever be linked to the building of Empire and its subsequent decline.

No..in my world we..

Would have a national integrated rail transport infrastructure which ran fast,reliably and safely the length of the country for cargo and passengers and run by one company owned by the state but run by engineers and specialists in the field.

We would severely clamp immigration and have the same kinds of controls that the USA has.

We would have a death by lethal injection policy as an option

We would have no public sale of alcohol save from state registered(not owned) and rigidly policed outlets

We would build a nation which has an interest in financial services but is not enslaved to them. It would also be an engine for innovation and development of specialised products in science,medicine and engineering.

We would build social housing and keep it discrete from private housing. They would be tightly regulated and controlled so that anti social tenants could be ejected and made homeless if necessary.

Littering would be punishable by an on the spot fine of £50 or a week in jail if no payment could be made.

multilingual translation services by public bodies would end

The education system would be overhauled and a new curriculum built on a solid bedrock of maths,English and separate sciences. Troublesome pupils would be excluded to societal sin bins for corrective treatment before they are allowed to return

Please feel free to add further so that we can again make Britain great.