Saving Alcan

[Adam Hogg]

He should just resign, another nail in the coffin of the coalition government, he is/has done nothing to try and save alcan from closer. If anyone want to try to save alcan sign this petition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sosalcan/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend

[threegee]

He should just resign, another nail in the coffin of the coalition government, he is/has done nothing to try and save alcan from closer. If anyone want to try to save alcan sign this petition:

http://www.ipetition...d%2Bto%2BFriend

And if you were PM Adam what would you do? You can't simply issue an order to a Canadian Corporation. Think it through properly and outline what needs to be done that can be done.

No political sound-bites please - just concrete proposals that the government can work on. This is a multi-party government that isn't bound by political dogma. One person coming up with an odd good idea is worth a thousand head-in-air petitions that are, quite frankly, a total waste of time!

[Adam Hogg]

If i where PM i would do what Labour did in the late 40's and nationalize it.

[threegee]

Alcan weren't there in the late 40's! In fact we've never had a nationalised aluminium industry!

What do you think that's going to say to other overseas corporations who are thinking of investing in the UK and providing jobs? And name me one nationalised industry that has ever been a commercial success and provided lasting employment?

Also please tell me why the Labour Party never nationalised anything in the last half century when they were in power? I'd suggest to you it's because they knew it would end up a total disaster, like all previous nationalisation attempts!

The fact is there are no easy answers, and the present coalition is making the best of a pretty poor hand it has been dealt by Gordon Brown. Have you noticed how silent he is these days?

[Adam Hogg]

Coal and Steel provided long lasting employment until thatcher closed it all, the NHS has provided long lasting employment since 1947 when it was created, also labour did nationalise in the last century they where in power, have you not heard of Northern Rock, RBS and lloyds TSB. Also you name to me one overseas corporation which is coming to the north east.

[threegee]

You don't know your history Adam. Long before Margaret Thatcher there was a guy called Alf Robens. He happened to be the usual bussed-in Labour MP for our area. He was appointed chairman of the NCB in 1961. And, I quote from Wikipedia:

when he took over as NCB chair there were 698 pits employing 583,000 miners, but by the time he left the post ten years later there were only 292 pits employing 283,000 miners.

That's when the major decimation of the coal industry happened. What happened in Margaret Thatcher's era was painful for our area, but it had been coming for many years. Nationalisation did what it always does do: it stifled competition and made people complacent; other countries moved on and produced coal more efficiently at lower prices, and we lost markets. There was a short "golden era" post nationalisation because during the war (WWII) much needed rationalisation didn't happen and nationalisation brought that rationalisation, but it brought with it a command economy which didn't take proper account of market forces. Those 406 mines were closed by a stroke of the command economy pen - by a system you think you now want. But Margaret Thatcher closed nothing, ordered nothing closed; long building economic pressures forced those more gradual closures!

Yes, I most certainly have heard of Northern Rock, RBS and Lloyds TSB. I was a Northern Rock shareholder for quite a while, but sold my shares when I saw how idiotically it was being run. I got out before the shares started to nosedive. These were not nationalisations they were government rescues "in order to protect the banking system". Northern Rock should have been allowed to fail. The shareholders would have lost all their money, but the depositors would have enjoyed the usual protections, and the mortgages would have continued under another banner. No public money should have been wasted as it has been. If you search this board you will see that I and others predicted the NR collapse before it happened. Unfortunately the Conservatives and LDs would have done the same silly thing as Labour did - they both said so! It was a big mistake and has cost you and me a lot of money. Not money you can easily appreciate, but future tax revenue that could have been spent on things we really need. There's another factor here called "Moral Hazard", but do your own research on that.

It's the ambition of all political parties to attract foreign investment. In the past our area has attracted lots of overseas companies - and so it should it's a great place to come! But it's tough times at the moment, so no one may be looking at setting up in the North East at all. Though, if I was thinking of setting up production or distribution in the EU I'd be attracted to an English speaking country, and an area where there was plentiful labour, and lower living costs. What would quickly send me scuttling off somewhere else would be the prospect of a "bolshie" and militant unionised labour force that was going to strike at the drop of a hat. Or, worse still, a government that seized private assets in order to buy tax payers votes with their own money.

Fact: Governments do not create jobs, and can not run enterprises. This has been proven time and time again in every part of the world - capitalist, communist, and every system in between. Governments can only create the conditions in which enterprise can thrive, or be stifled. And, creating the conditions is a s-l-o-w, and at times uncertain, process.

[Malcolm Robinson]

Fact: Governments do not create jobs, and can not run enterprises. This has been proven time and time again in every part of the world - capitalist, communist, and every system in between. Governments can only create the conditions in which enterprise can thrive, or be stifled. And, creating the conditions is a s-l-o-w, and at times uncertain, process.

True, in just the same way you cannot blame the likes of a council for not opening shops on the high street. They can however be blamed for not having a commercially friendly infrastructure in place to attract new business start ups and/or retain the businesses they have……. Also the politicos do have the power to give direction and I think that is what is lacking at present.

I would take issue with the bit… Margaret Thatcher closed nothing, ordered nothing closed; long building economic pressures forced those more gradual closures! It would seem she USED those economic pressures to justify closing great swathes of what were nationalised industries, as well as others, for principally ideological reasons. I am not claiming they were efficient or profitable as stand-alone units but she effectively decimated the manufacturing base of this country to produce one built on the service sector and one imbalance doesn't rectify another.

[Malcolm Robinson]

Coal and Steel provided long lasting employment until thatcher closed it all, the NHS has provided long lasting employment since 1947 when it was created, also labour did nationalise in the last century they where in power, have you not heard of Northern Rock, RBS and lloyds TSB. Also you name to me one overseas corporation which is coming to the north east.

Hitachi........?

[Adam Hogg]

You don't know your history Adam. Long before Margaret Thatcher there was a guy called Alf Robens. He happened to be the usual bussed-in Labour MP for our area. He was appointed chairman of the NCB in 1961. And, I quote from Wikipedia:

when he took over as NCB chair there were 698 pits employing 583,000 miners, but by the time he left the post ten years later there were only 292 pits employing 283,000 miners.

I do know my history that was modernisation of the NCB, same as British rail, which where both destroyed than sold off by Thatcher.

[Adam Hogg]

Hitachi........?

Yes Malcolm but it is only one employing at max 1000 workers what about the others that are on the dole? where are their private sector jobs, no where i can see.

[mercuryg]

It's refreshing to see different viewpoints on this subject, and Adam's notably young mind is fresh to ideals I believe. The problem with Alcan, and all businesses as such, is that it is there primarily to make money for its owners. When it gets to the point where it is no longer economically viable it will inevitably fall by the wayside. Nationalising it - and other businesses in trouble - is a lovely idea, but it isn't free. It costs a lot of money to sustain nationalised industries, and it bears thinking that we have very little going spare in this country right now. I'm with the bit about governments not being able to create jobs: it's true, they can't. I have great sympathy with Adam's question as to 'the others on the dole', but the fact remains jobs do not simply come out of nowhere.

There is a reason why we no longer build ships, mine coal and so on, beyond it being 'Thatcher's fault'. It can all be done for cheaper elsewhere. Sad, and if we had a government with oodles of cash to subsidise the industries concerned, not beyond repair, but we don't. Take note of this: Europe has had it's day where the world economy is concerned. We are mere bit-players now, with China and - more quietly - South America coming to the fore. To dwell on the past and talk of nationalised industries is simply using hindsight as a fine thing. It's not the way forward. Before I'm challenged, I'm no economist and don't know what the way forward is, in terms of businesses such as Alcan, but I'm sure someone out there has an idea.

Malcolm's comment: "True, in just the same way you cannot blame the likes of a council for not opening shops on the high street. They can however be blamed for not having a commercially friendly infrastructure in place to attract new business start ups and/or retain the businesses they have..." is a telling one. I saw a news programme recently in which a man with money to spare had bought up half a dozen, or so, closed shops in his local town, and slashed the rent. He figured, quite rightly, that this would give local people the chance to start up in the retail industry. All are now taken, and thriving. I can tell you first hand, as I was involved in a prospective venture last year, that rents on Bedlington Front Street are colossal (as I'm sure Malcolm knows); we managed to negotiate one unit - the one now selling beds by the roundabout - down from £12,000 p.a. to £10,000. Still expensive, especially given the location. The other preferred unit, the Johnson's Shoe Shop currently under renovation, was expected by those marketing it to inspire a bidding war! These people have pie in the sky ideas. Then there's the rates.......

I'm lucky, of course, as I work from home.

[threegee]

I do know my history that was modernisation of the NCB, same as British rail, which where both destroyed than sold off by Thatcher.

Ah, I see. If you do a lot by command in one fell swoop (so as you can't move to another more productive mine) it's called "modernisation". If the Industry does it itself due to long-delayed economic forces, and more slowly (so there's more chance of redeploying), you blame the PM of the day and call it butchery?

So, you are saying that Margaret Thatcher deliberately set out to butcher our Industry? But, we still have a Coal and Steel industry, so she didn't do very well did she? Granted the later is run by an Indian enterprise which seems to do it quite well, and the former has been returned to its private roots. Everyone can still buy British coal and steel, and the taxpayer doesn't have to continually give either hand-outs like it had to do under nationalisation. Is this bad or good for us and for the rest of the country?

[Adam Hogg]

So you agree with Thatchers ideas kick everyone out of their jobs in state owned industry and get them to work for themselves it does not work i have seen it first hand.

[threegee]

...if we had a government with oodles of cash to subsidise the industries concerned, not beyond repair, but we don't...

Even if we did European law would prevent it! And, even though I don't agree with being run by Brussels, they have a very good case to make. All of Europe (and 99% of the rest of the world) has discovered for itself that government subsidies and nationalisation is bad!

Only other thing I can disagree with there is about Front Street rents.

[mercuryg]

Only other thing I can disagree with there is about Front Street rents.

Care to elaborate 3G?

[Malcolm Robinson]

Adam,

You seem to be holding up nationalisation as some sort of panacea, as GGG says history has shown its not! Best people to run a business are the ones with a direct stake in it; nothing focuses the mind like having everything you have tied up in the success or failure of a business venture! It gives urgency and professionalism if nothing else. In state controlled business, and it can clearly be seen in the likes of the civil service, the staff are more concerned with their own contracts rather than providing the service their customer wants. Even just being able to pass the buck is something you cannot do as a sole trader.

We have to consider the other side of the coin of course and ask did privatisation work? I don't think it did but I do have a question. How come the same people, by and large, headed up these newly privatised companies and almost immediately started showing huge profits? Not hard when you run monopolies of course! Why couldn't they have done that when in charge of nationalised companies with these huge profits coming back into the exchequer? Maybe the answer to that needs a bit more careful examination.

I do have one point to make about Thatcher and that is she was a destructive force. Now some of that may well have been needed but if she had put half the effort into rationalisation and reorganisation of the sate controlled businesses she inherited instead of just crossing them out of the national balance sheet I might have thought differently.

Merc's point about direct overheads is really quite a complex one and the reason I doubt these Portas Pilots will ultimately work, there are just too many vested interests and loose ends to tie up. At least we have one owner willing to play the long game and take a refreshingly innovative approach to get there, pity the rest weren't as insightful.

[threegee]

So you agree with Thatchers ideas kick everyone out of their jobs in state owned industry and get them to work for themselves it does not work i have seen it first hand.

Mrs. Thatcher of course kicked no one out of a job. It would be just as silly to say that the Redcar steel works that has just re-opened was closed by Labour, and was re-opened by the Conservatives/LibDems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...d-tees-17719747

Economic forces closed it, and economic forces have re-opened it. If it had been nationalised it would have plodded on producing steel that no one wanted to buy, running up huge losses for the Country and disrupting the market of profitable plants, until being closed by the decree of some overpaid state supremo, on the advice of dozens of overpaid senior "civil servants".

A Thai company has ploughed a couple of billion into it as it has a market for the steel. Granted it now employs less people, but given the huge investment its future is now much more secure. That is real "modernisation" - not the sort of mass delusion that took place under post-war nationalisation and the Robens cull of the mining industry.

[Adam Hogg]

Mrs. Thatcher of course kicked no one out of a job. It would be just as silly to say that the Redcar steel works that has just re-opened was closed by Labour, and was re-opened by the Conservatives/LibDems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...d-tees-17719747

Economic forces closed it, and economic forces have re-opened it. If it had been nationalised it would have plodded on producing steel that no one wanted to buy, running up huge losses for the Country and disrupting the market of profitable plants, until being closed by the decree of some overpaid state supremo, on the advice of dozens of overpaid senior "civil servants".

A Thai company has ploughed a couple of billion into it as it has a market for the steel. Granted it now employs less people, but given the huge investment its future is now much more secure. That is real "modernisation" - not the sort of mass delusion that took place under post-war nationalisation and the Robens cull of the mining industry.

So lets go back to the subject at hand, Alcan was it closed due to "Economic forces"? Answer: NO.

Also who appointed Ian MacGregor as head of the NCB and who changed the name of the NCB to British Coal and announced the pit closure programme of the 1980's Answer: Thatcher

Also Later on who announced the pit closure program of the 1990's and privatised it coal industry in the 90's? I know the answer do you?

[threegee]

.. I know the answer do you?

Unfortunately you don't!

a carbon tax due in 2013 would make it lose money. Rio Tinto estimates the tax would cost tens of millions of pounds by 2016

Economic reasons, or not? So why aren't you protesting about the stupid Carbon Tax instead of playing the blame game?

And.. if you want to see what happens when a socialist regime nationalises (i.e. misappropriates other people's property for wholly political ends) then follow this one as it develops:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...europe-17739204

She seems to have given up on thieving the Falklands for now, and is now targeting Spanish assets for political glorification. Like all nationalisations, it will end in tears, and everyone will lose in the end! But, she'll buy a bit of political popularity with money Argentina can ill afford, and be long gone to her luxury villa (in our Labour MP Robens case it was a castle) by the time the chickens come home to roost.

[Adam Hogg]

Unfortunately you don't!

Economic reasons, or not? So why aren't you protesting about the stupid Carbon Tax instead of playing the blame game?

And.. if you want to see what happens when a socialist regime nationalises (i.e. misappropriates other people's property for wholly political ends) then follow this one as it develops:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...europe-17739204

She seems to have given up on thieving the Falklands for now, and is now targeting Spanish assets for political glorification. Like all nationalisations, it will end in tears, and everyone will lose in the end! But, she'll buy a bit of political popularity with money Argentina can ill afford, and be long gone to her luxury villa (in our Labour MP Robens case it was a castle) by the time the chickens come home to roost.

I DO KNOW THE ANSWER!

Mr Heseltine said the closures had been the toughest decision of his life.

and so does my dad try having this argument with him . You and Malcolm can argue with me all day and night, i still believe nationalisation is a good thing, What i will now say on Alcan is that Rio Tinto should hang their heads in shame along UK Coal who closed Ellington for No Reason.

[mercuryg]

Adam, with respect, Nationalisation is only a good thing if we can afford it. Even then it has several drawbacks. Of course economic forces have played a part in the Alcan situation; nobody closes a business down for no reason.