OT - Governments war on the NHS - Tory's first casualty

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  • bails87
    bails87 Posts: 12,998
    snailracer wrote:
    hmbadger wrote:
    ...
    snailracer wrote:
    ...
    To an outsider, our economy is mostly based on lending investment money to foreigners and living off the interest they pay us. We stopped making things foreigners would buy long ago. The silly house prices are a silly game we play amongst ourselves. As I work in manufacturing, I wish it was otherwise.

    But we manufacture plenty do we not? We're still about the 6th largest manufacturing country in the world.
    I thought we had the 6th largest economy in the world.

    I'm not an economist, but, if I am reading it right, only rank 10th for exports:

    https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/uk.html

    But we don't export everything we manufacture. Are any other countries stupid enough to buy Jade Goody memorial plates? :wink:

    Edit: And there are 21 more populated nations than us, yet all but 5 (or 9) manufacture less than us, despite the fact that less than a quarter of our GDP comes from manufacturing.
    MTB/CX

    "As I said last time, it won't happen again."
  • snailracer
    snailracer Posts: 968
    bails87 wrote:
    snailracer wrote:
    hmbadger wrote:
    ...
    snailracer wrote:
    ...
    To an outsider, our economy is mostly based on lending investment money to foreigners and living off the interest they pay us. We stopped making things foreigners would buy long ago. The silly house prices are a silly game we play amongst ourselves. As I work in manufacturing, I wish it was otherwise.

    But we manufacture plenty do we not? We're still about the 6th largest manufacturing country in the world.
    I thought we had the 6th largest economy in the world.

    I'm not an economist, but, if I am reading it right, only rank 10th for exports:

    https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/uk.html

    But we don't export everything we manufacture. Are any other countries stupid enough to buy Jade Goody memorial plates? :wink:

    Edit: And there are 21 more populated nations than us, yet all but 5 (or 9) manufacture less than us, despite the fact that less than a quarter of our GDP comes from manufacturing.
    The post was originally in response to someone's post about international trade, which is not the same as internal trade as far as economic impact and the strength of the pound goes, even though it involves the same material goods. Selling a British-made car to someone who lives in the UK does not really make the UK richer. Selling it to a foreigner, does.

    As for our export performance ranked by population, I don't really consider populous but undeveloped countries (eg The Philippines) a reasonable basis for comparison.
  • davmaggs
    davmaggs Posts: 1,008
    actually that's not correct.

    If you spend money that improves productivity or frees up resources to go elsewhere then the UK does become richer.

    For example a decent road between London and say the ports in Suffolk enables an increase in economic activity to happen whereas spending the same money on council inspectors to check school catchments areas doesn't.

    That's why people object to the many non-jobs in the public sector. If you put that money into infrastructure or skills then you get a multiplier effect. Spending money on council leaflets doesn't.
  • Porgy
    Porgy Posts: 4,525
    symo wrote:
    Errrrr Gordon Brown was a full on left wing socialist before the New Labour get into power at any cost remit.
    Full on left wing socialist eh? The worst kind :lol:

    Never presume anything as I am a lifelong Tory, my personal politics are of a paternal state a la Whitelaw if you must know.
    That's a shame - it's usually not possible to have a reasoned debate with people who are so tied to a political party - those people are blind to the fact that party politics is pretty much irrelevent these days.
    As for the global crash, proven to have started in the UK at a US investment bank. But then again I am just spouting information on the internet for the sake of it.
    proven eh? I'd like to see the proof for myself. Not that it would change anything. GB may have been a "full on left wing socialist" but his policies certainly weren't those of a socialist and nor do I remember any effective opposition from the Tories or the right wing press or the whole financial establishment at the time. Nor do I believe that after decades of deregualtion in the financial markets that it really makes much difference where the intial spark that casued the whole sorry edifice to come tumbling down occured. What matters more is the why we were relying on such a ricketty crumbling edifice in the first place.

    So I have to assume that what GB did, the Tories would have done if they had been in power. Personally I was opposed to pretty much every act of the Blair/GB government throughout their whole sorry period in power.
    Read "Fantasy Island" and then come on and have a reasoned and well argued debate.
    I may well but afraid that reasoned debate on the internet is not possible. So I won;t be attempting it....but I am interested in trying to understand where you're coming from in your views. After all even Tories are right sometimes.
  • snailracer
    snailracer Posts: 968
    davmaggs wrote:
    actually that's not correct.

    If you spend money that improves productivity or frees up resources to go elsewhere then the UK does become richer.
    ...

    What you are describing is how best to use the resources that are already in the country. International trade is about the movement of resources (currency, gold, etc.) from one country to another, for which it is possible to say one country is getting richer while another is getting poorer on an absolute basis. You are talking efficiency whereas I am talking quantity, and of course in reality there is some degree of linkage between those two concepts.
  • snailracer
    snailracer Posts: 968
    Porgy wrote:
    As for the global crash, proven to have started in the UK at a US investment bank. But then again I am just spouting information on the internet for the sake of it.
    proven eh? I'd like to see the proof for myself. Not that it would change anything. GB may have been a "full on left wing socialist" but his policies certainly weren't those of a socialist and nor do I remember any effective opposition from the Tories or the right wing press or the whole financial establishment at the time. Nor do I believe that after decades of deregualtion in the financial markets that it really makes much difference where the intial spark that casued the whole sorry edifice to come tumbling down occured. What matters more is the why we were relying on such a ricketty crumbling edifice in the first place.

    So I have to assume that what GB did, the Tories would have done if they had been in power. Personally I was opposed to pretty much every act of the Blair/GB government throughout their whole sorry period in power.
    It is a universal rule of nature that lending/borrowing involves risk.
    You can ban lending but that would end capitalism as we know it. We tried some other "-ism"s but they didn't work out too well, either.

    Disasters are inevitable no matter how we do things. Life is pain.

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