Zen10

An inevitable consequence of the economic theory we live with, I'm afraid. Small business put out to grass and horse meat served up in beefburgers. Every corner cut to increase profits.

ozzieeagle

Rumbelows and WH Smith predicted to go this year as well.

Internet killed the Video Store....

Zen10

And think of the jobs - not just al the employees of Rumbelows, HMV, WH Smith, etc, but the ripple effect - those who make money from these people, the cafes next to the stores that serve the workers at lunch, etc.

I hate to be Mr Party Pooper but I don't see this trend is sustainable at all. I see it leading to depression and ultimately to conflict. People cannot eat credit default swaps, and there are 62 million people in Britain who need to eat.

rasen78

sign o' the times

Thought they went YEARS ago

slapphead_otool

Go back to how this really started. A bunch of left leaning economists who proposed free trade barriers. They assured the West we would be ok because of "soft" economies like retail and finance. The developing world could have the manufacturing...

Finance went belly up in 2008 and retail is on its way.

The Uk just shut all three of of its aluminium smelters. The new higher electricity prices due to carbon emissions regulations and tax killed them off. the UK is still using just as much aluminium, but now its coming from China.

You couldn't write a book about it.

ozzieeagle

Blimey looks like they did..... Whos left ?

Edit.... BHS...Argos....Millets....Waterstones....Blacks.

Zen10

I don't blame the left for out-sourcing. This was done with a view to making greater profits for private companies and was driven entirely by the right. This is why the Tories pushed on EU membership so hard and why Labour initially opposed it - traditional socialist protectionism.

The disgrace is that Labour did nothing about this during 13 years, and just let it get worse. They had to, of course, because the damage is done to the economies now (look at house prices, for example, up because imported goods allow more money to go into housing). Anyone attempting to put this mess back in the box is a one-term government. Remember, the wage suppression and out-sourcing started in the 1980s.

GarryP

Really, they were 'left leaning' were they?

Funny, I've always considered a highly capitalist concept of allowing manufacturing to chase its way to the bottom, and in the process put western workers out of work to be a very right wing policy.

Is this like the fox 'news' habit of putting (Democrat) against the name of any accused politician, independent of the truth?

I think the mistake you are making is the 'Adam Smiths' and 'Keynes' type economists favoured free trade as a way to raise all boats to the higher standard of living of the developed economies - but their policies required other constraints and laws to ensure that this was the case. We lack those controls in the modern world, such that free trade is anything but and we have a race to the bottom as a result.

slapphead_otool

Agreed. The far left were happy about free trade because it spread wealth around the world. The right were happy because it provided greater profits through cheaper manufacturing.

The unions did nothing, perhaps they were out of favour, and the far right were seen as neo-Nazi nationalists.

Either way its been a massive error of judgment. I sat in economics classes predicting exactly what has come to pass and was labeled a neo Nazi for supporting protectionism. I should have pulled out a gun and shot the lecturer to get my point across.

We are now reaching, or have reached “Peak Welfare”. Remember the term.

You will hear it a lot over the next 10 years.

Again left leaning economists refuse to listen, but we can no longer afford to support the levels of welfare that we have come to associate with the first world. The austerity measures in the Eurozone are just the beginning of a massive readjustment of lifestyles.

We will go down to meet the third world as it comes up. Economic equilibrium is inevitable in open trade.

That means an end to the welfare state.

GarryP

Or we kill the 'free' trade meme by putting tariffs on imports/exports/etc.

Which I personally see as more likely and sustainable.

slapphead_otool

Agreed. Already there are hints and moves towards protectionism, often using unofficial means such as bailouts, trade finance, and investment incentives.

Amazulu

We can but hope. If it means my tax goes down then it can't come fast enough.

slapphead_otool

Seriously, remember the term peak welfare.

No one is admitting it yet, but we have reached it. We have so many people in the first world who are getting handouts from the government that the ones who are still working can't afford to pay for it.

Zen10

I agree the welfare state is over. Remember during the 40s - 80s the rich paid much higher levels of tax in the UK, and this funded the welfare. Then a few things happened - the tax the rich paid was cut due to trickle-down theory, but welfare... increased!

It doesn't take a genius to work out you can have one or the other. Britain has been moving more money towards the top earners for 30 years now, but also increasing the amount of social security and funding it all with debt.

Madness.

Amazulu

Certainly the case in the UK - and we are heading the same way