jojojojojo

The irony??? I actually wrote most of the posts on here while I was in the UK. I came back to Spain this morning. However, I'm British, I have a property there, my family are there, my OH has a business there and I dont like how things are there! Spain is a much harsher country, from which I take nothing! I think the UK would re-gain some international respect if it toughened up a bit and I dont mean with its immigration rules, I mean with a bit of "tough love" for those who think they're owed a living and continually bit the hand that feeds them! I'm all for the rich paying taxes to help the poor, but not the lazy and that seems to be whats happening there!

Jo xxx

bobd22

Jo I think you are right there but who will change this situation? trouble now is you are getting people being made unemployed and unable to get work that because of the total abuse made of the system over last 20 yrs can get very little help although they often are the ones that have worked and kept the system going.
Heres a link also to an interesting article fro Dail Mail today re green taxes and the affects on Europe and China and India
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...uel-bills.html

Leither

This was actually on a programme last week called "Made in Britain". The presenter was illustrating that countries no longer actually have to "make" things to gain money from exports.

It was pointed out that Britain had went from a rural economy to an industrial one where everyone worked in dark satanic mills. We (and the rest of the developed western countries) are now moving to a knowledge - based economy.

In the manufacture of goods, the money is not made from the manufacturing process but the the design and marketing of the goods. Two examples he gave were a British company called Arm who design extremely clever little chips which are in virtually every mobile phone in the world. Other companies make them under licence and Arm get a "few pence" for each one. Last year 6 billion of them were made.

In the case of Apple, the iPads are made in China for $5 US but Apple get $80 US. The rest is marketing, transport, retailers profit etc. In a way it makes sense because there is no way that they could be built for $5 in the US or Europe.

China is where we were 200 hundred years ago in that they are manufacturing rather than inventing and letting other people do the dirty work. However, I don't think it will take them 200 years to catch up because they will be able to draw on (or steal) the knowledge already built up in the West.

agoreira

Saw an episode a few weeks ago and it featured a UK company, Europe's biggest suit retailer. All made in China, but what the Chinese got was 20% of the actual selling price, British designers, UK transport, mark ups etc accounted for the other 80%. So whilst they weren't actually making the suits, they were doing well out of it.

Saxy

Back in the fifties, I saw some Teddyboys, who were outright thugs, go into National Service, see action overseas and come back completely changed. They were changed so much that I was pleased to call them friends

John.

Leither

Yes, I think what it illustrayed was that you no longer need to make things to make money from exports.

The problem is that there are large groups of people who don't have the aptitude to either design things or work in service industries and who would be suited to manufacturing (that's no slight on manufacturing). However, they wouldn't be prepared to work for the sort of money the Chinese earn and the rest of us wouldn't be prepared to pay the prices that would be involved if evrrything was made here rather than overseas.