Almost daily we now see billions of pounds/Euros/dollars pumped into what are private businesses in an effort to stabilise them. I can’t help but wonder if we had done the same for our manufacturing companies we might still have a manufacturing base left in this country and be in a much better place, economically, for it! Course that would only have benefited the Midlands and the North of the country and done little to protect the insidious bonuses paid to workers in London’s square mile!

Almost daily we now see billions of pounds/Euros/dollars pumped into what are private businesses in an effort to stabilise them. I can’t help but wonder if we had done the same for our manufacturing companies we might still have a manufacturing base left in this country and be in a much better place, economically, for it! Course that would only have benefited the Midlands and the North of the country and done little to protect the insidious bonuses paid to workers in London’s square mile!

No point doing that when manufacturing is cheaper in the Far East. We'd never compete.

Yes they said there was no market for coal and it was tuppence a ton from abroad, turns out we cannot import enough and they are opening not closing mines. We paid fortunes to make miners redundant, then kept them on the dole, now we dont have enough coal. If the railways had remained state run alot of people may still be alive today.

The far east produces cheap low quality goods its true, but we can compete by providing quality.

As wages and aspirations of the workers in these countries increase we will find a more level playing field.

Course we can compete, but we have to use investment, innovation and R&D. Any successful economy is based on a good spread of sectors with depth to each. With a manufacturing sector now around 10-13% of the economy we have really taken our eyes off the ball! I know wages are a problem but transport costs are rising fast and one will compensate for the other. The problem is that we do not have the where-with-all to make the goods which people want to buy in the shops now, through years if not decades of allowing our jobs to be exported and no investment into that sector! Having most of our expertise in the financial sector now has produced the problems the country has at the moment and considering most of the country’s wealth is in house prices…………..

How come parts of the public sector can be privatised and immediately start to earn mega bucks while when they were state run they were lame ducks? And with by and large the same people! I can use the same analogy with regard to Wansbeck Homes on the other thread.

Course we can compete, but we have to use investment, innovation and R&D. Any successful economy is based on a good spread of sectors with depth to each. With a manufacturing sector now around 10-13% of the economy we have really taken our eyes off the ball! I know wages are a problem but transport costs are rising fast and one will compensate for the other. The problem is that we do not have the where-with-all to make the goods which people want to buy in the shops now, through years if not decades of allowing our jobs to be exported and no investment into that sector! Having most of our expertise in the financial sector now has produced the problems the country has at the moment and considering most of the country’s wealth is in house prices…………..

How come parts of the public sector can be privatised and immediately start to earn mega bucks while when they were state run they were lame ducks? And with by and large the same people! I can use the same analogy with regard to Wansbeck Homes on the other thread.

A typical example is a steam train (A1) being built at Darlington, this train is being built from scratch. There is no one who can build the boiler in this country so they have had to go to Germany to get it built.

Course we can compete, but we have to use investment, innovation and R&D. Any successful economy is based on a good spread of sectors with depth to each. With a manufacturing sector now around 10-13% of the economy we have really taken our eyes off the ball! I know wages are a problem but transport costs are rising fast and one will compensate for the other. The problem is that we do not have the where-with-all to make the goods which people want to buy in the shops now, through years if not decades of allowing our jobs to be exported and no investment into that sector! Having most of our expertise in the financial sector now has produced the problems the country has at the moment and considering most of the country’s wealth is in house prices…………..

How come parts of the public sector can be privatised and immediately start to earn mega bucks while when they were state run they were lame ducks? And with by and large the same people! I can use the same analogy with regard to Wansbeck Homes on the other thread.

If you say so Malcolm.

If you say so Malcolm.

I do but you don't sound swayed by my argument somehow Denzil!