What stops us from becoming a net exporter?

[mac1]

The shop floor is grubby and unorganised. This attitude rubs off on design staff>supervisors>shop floor staff, and puts unrealistic demands on design and production.
I'd say the above is true of about 50+ percent of the mfg. companies I've worked with or visited in the UK

Now go to Germany,and a few Eastern European companies.
The difference smacks you in the face.
First of all, everything is clean and organised - well, clean for a shop floor. In meetings, even executive managers have an impressive level of technical expertise. Best of all is the 'can-do' attitude, which seems to have vanished in the UK.

Hmmmmnnn...anybody see the BBC4(?) programme featuring that bloke travelling round the world building his dream bike? See the Brooks factory...?

 

[mac1]

Last yearthe UK was ranked third in the world for the amount of foreign direct investment received, after the USA and France, so plenty of countries see the UK as a good bet for investment.

thought we were second, but still, just goes to show

 

[mac1]

The economic powerhouse of London is only interested in

1) short term profit over long term growth/stability
2) financing people with the ideas, not providing the ideas, let along bringing them to fruition.

which might be down to their clients on whose behalf they invest the money wanting the same thing, the city being an agent for the principal and all that?

 

[mac1]

Because other countries undercut us on price and matched quality.

I think there are other factors such as design, aesthetics, innovation, service to name but 4 that add value for which customers are prepared to pay, diffrentiating the product from the competition.

 

[ASC1951]

I think there are other factors such as design, aesthetics, innovation, service to name but 4 that add value for which customers are prepared to pay, differentiating the product from the competition.

Yes, there certainly are. But Johnny Foreigner is just as clever as us, and as their domestic economies move slowly up the skill chain, our ability to add value will diminish. For instance, China now turns out about as many graduates and patents as the US.

The European and American middle classes won't like the economic consequences, although the D and E end of our workforce has already felt them: if you are uneducated and unskilled, most of the jobs you used to do have vanished and they are never coming back.

 

[Red Light]

Yeah, I did say UK investors were unwilling as opposed to unable to invest in manufacturing. As a result, manufacturing cannot raise the funding which would enable them to be competitive, and with large scale manufacturing, capital investment is king - you can have fantastic workers working 24/7 for free, but if management are telling them to make dull, unimaginative, underdeveloped, threshold products on 50 year old scrap value machinery, the company won't last long.

Bromptons are still made in Kew to bring it onto cycling but even there they've had to go to China for stuff. When I went round the factory a few years back they told me that British manufacturers wanted something like £1k each for the titanium forks. So they are made in China instead and cost a tenth of that.

 

[Red Light]

which might be down to their clients on whose behalf they invest the money wanting the same thing, the city being an agent for the principal and all that?

Their clients being our pension fund managers and insurance companies all trying to make good returns for us on our investments. So we are not innocent bystanders in all this. We want to minimise our outlay for a good pension when we retire so try to choose the ones that make the best returns.

 

[Red Light]

Yes, there certainly are. But Johnny Foreigner is just as clever as us, and as their domestic economies move slowly up the skill chain, our ability to add value will diminish. For instance, China now turns out about as many graduates and patents as the US.

Yes but the Chinese system really struggles with innovation because of their culture. They can turn out iPads in their billions for Apple but designing the iPad successor is beyond them.

The European and American middle classes won't like the economic consequences, although the D and E end of our workforce has already felt them: if you are uneducated and unskilled, most of the jobs you used to do have vanished and they are never coming back.

The jobs are there, its just we've always had to import people who are prepared to do them because our homegrowns weren't prepared to.

 

[mac1]

Bromptons are still made in Kew to bring it onto cycling but even there they've had to go to China for stuff. When I went round the factory a few years back they told me that British manufacturers wanted something like £1k each for the titanium forks. So they are made in China instead and cost a tenth of that.

Well, yeah sure; but not being able to make everything in-house is not unique to the UK and in fairness, it's not just the frks made elsewhere, more than a few other bits too.The cost of the forks could also be down to the size of the firms making a low, volume ergo high cost item as in SME so they would have to charge a lot I would have thought.

 

[mac1]

Their clients being our pension fund managers and insurance companies all trying to make good returns for us on our investments. So we are not innocent bystanders in all this. We want to minimise our outlay for a good pension when we retire so try to choose the ones that make the best returns.

Well, there you go then

 

[asterix]

Last yearthe UK was ranked third in the world for the amount of foreign direct investment received, after the USA and France, so plenty of countries see the UK as a good bet for investment.

Yes but what does the investment go into? What does it achieve in terms of job opportunities in the UK?

Money is, after all, very peculiar stuff. Banks can conjure it from thin air one moment then effortlessly make it disappear again we know not where!