howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
By their measures there have certainly been some improvements in the UK economy in the last couple of years and the reason we are doing so well, by comparison, is we still have a more flexible labour market. Germany has done very well though because of their labour market reforms and in some ways overtaking us in that respect. Another factor is innovation.
We must not be complacent. Things are tough and life needs to be made a lot easier for small businesses when it comes to employing people if we want growth. The main source of potential growth is small businesses and these are the ones finding life a lot harder when it comes to taking people on and complying with the still excessive red tape and costs.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i beg to differ with your last sentence barry, the federation of small businesses and the british chambers of commerce have recently declared that unrealistic rents and sky high business rates were the main obstacles for small businesses, red tape came along well after those two.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
Expensive utilities
Over taxation on diesel & petrol
Mad HSE
All the time people have no money in there pockets the economy will keep on shrinking.
Inflated house prices and rents, striping out the spending money that is needs to circulate around the economy
Businesses can only sell if customers have money.
The pubs are empty the shops are empty, most of the jobs on offer pay peanuts
No money for pensions.
The Chinese and Indians, have a flexible labour market, they work for f...all
And we will one day.
This is globalisation
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Howard - these things you mention are indeed problems for many businesses, these just some of the challenges they face, but that does not impact on the truth of what I say about how difficult it is dealing with red tape and employment issues, these things are not mutually exclusive.
Face the facts - we need growth and it is small and 'nimble' businesses that have the greatest capacity to expand. We need to make it easier for them to do so and take some of the associated risks away associated with employment law and other matters.
Much of what you say is correct Keith but remember, the things you say about the Chinese and Indians were also said about the Japanese 20 odd years ago - market and economies do change the point is we need to keep competitive businesses that must be free to adapt and change. The Chinese economy is changing now from gaining growth at a fantastic rate from investment to one driven by consumer demand with a more modest growth rate. This is all healthy. What is not healthy is to stifle trade or become protectionist. These kind of responses were a disaster in the past and would be again. Flexible labour markets are an essential element to keeping competitive and adaptable businesses. It is the smaller businesses that need most help in this, not cash, not protection but the ability to control and manage their enterprises with fewer govoernment imposed extra risks and disincentives to expand and grow. Some over the top H&S and other matters you mention are indeed part of these self-imposed barriers.
Utilities, incidentally, are subject to market forces in pricing and worldwide demand is such that utilities, electricity and gas, will rise in price - this is inevitable and is one reason for moving to renewables (though there is a lot of daft stuff being done in respect of wind etc...)
I welcome the OFT investigation into petrol prices incidentally. This is the job they should do as there is an apparent contradiction here that should be looked at.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
Imbalances in currency exchange with china Barry
Not a level playing field, America and the west will have to end this or default
The moneys going one way.
Asia, is nationalist, in thinking and culture; the west will never have a 2 way free trade deal ,that works
Example Thailand supposedly a west friendly country, you cannot even own a business in this country with out a Thai owning 51% of the business with you.
And all property must be leas to the western only,
Protectionism is the only way to open up these markets to genuine free trade.
The Utilities keeping out other companies, by under cutting new players in the energy market, the big 6 running a cartel.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Keith Bibby,
Fully agree with your analysis in posts 4 & 6.
Sums up everything.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Keith - tit for tat does not work, there is experience of this. Protectionism would be an economic disaster for a trading nation like the UK. This is not just theory, these are lessons of history. 'Imbalances in exchange rates' should be turned around to 'imbalances in economies' because this is what they reflect and when you try to artificially smother those imbalances, well look at the Euroland, Greece, Spain etc to see what happens.
You seem to be defeatist on this but there is no need to be. We are authors of our own problems because we have gone over the top in piling on restrictions and red tape that add to cost and taxes that are also a cost and disincentive to business and individuals. Many of our Far East competitors have not made those mistakes.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
New Labour's young Ed has a word for their aims at helping you with those concerns KeithB, "Predistribution"...
"... Miliband argued that the "model of the economy we have and the distribution of income it creates" should be the focus of Labour's attentions in the future.
He declared: "We need to care about predistribution as well as redistribution."
This new concept seeks to funnel government money into measures like the living wage and tackle the unfairness inherent in high train ticket and energy prices, in order to give people a foundation on which they can improve their lives..."
From...
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2012/09/06/miliband-s-new-big-idea-predistributionIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Clearly Labour are already plotting how they can drive the UK into another financial crisis should they get back to power. Same old, same old.....
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
You richly deserve one another. What will the voters do?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
You try Barry and export your goods to these country's your containers will sit on the dock until you have greased the hands.
Your own pm has warned business men about the pit falls of setting up factories in china, they will nick it from you.
Tom labourer have shat all over the British working man, and eddy was part of it
Labour represents the working class unforchantly it's the eastern European working class.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
I can only agree with KeithB here.
Barry, Keith is right!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Alex: Only on another planet, maybe!!!! In respect of the first two lines of #12 anyway. History is on my side.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
yeah whos.
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
Computer manufacturing being switched from China to UK, got to be good news -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19510040Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Yes it is good news, Ray, only: the British inventors of the technology have given away the secrets to China from the very start, and China will no doubt be making their own imitated version and selling it world wide.
So all the way round we only lose out all the time, because whatever is invented in Britain, it is immediately fanned out to China for production!!!
And the world market will import it from China even if a few exemplars are produced in the UK for local consumption..
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
And the same for the uk and Europe
The shirt on your back. The flat-screen television in your family room. The bag of shrimp in your freezer.
Economist Peter Navarro says you don't have to look too far to see why the United States is struggling with persistently high unemployment.
Clothing, appliances and even food at U.S. stores are increasingly imported from China.
In his book, "Death by China, opening today at the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights, Navarro said the trade deficit with China has shuttered more than 50,000 U.S. factories.
He said Ohio was vulnerable because its historically diverse manufacturing base not only included major manufacturers, but small and mid-size companies that make up their supply chain.
"Ohio is Ground Zero in the undeclared trade war we've had with China since 2001," said Navarro, a business professor at the University of California, Irvine, who will be in Cleveland this weekend.
"Ohio has been the biggest victim because it has been our strongest manufacturing state in many ways, and has not been able to withstand the onslaught," he said.
In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization, whose mission includes fostering formal trade agreements between countries.
"The movie is about how a Democratic president (Bill Clinton) and a Republican Congress allowed China to enter into the WTO, which was synonymous with giving China's unlimited access to American markets," he said. "Rather than play by the WTO rules, China began to cheat using what I refer to as Weapons of Job Destruction.
"
These "weapons" include what Navarro deems are illegal subsidies from the Chinese government, including free land, subsidized energy and routine low and no-interest loans. Manufacturers also get subsidies for many exported items. Currency manipulation that allows China to undervalue the yuan is another weapon because it makes the country's exports cheaper. He groups rampant counterfeiting, piracy and "theft" of American intellectual property as a weapon.
China's lax enforcement of environmental and worker safety regulations give the country an unfair advantage. Lack of regulation not only harms the planet and people, but make Chinese goods cheaper because manufactures don't have regulation compliance costs,
[URL]http://www.deathbychina.com[URL]
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
http://www.deathbychina.com/
It strikes me that Industry management and shareholders were only too happy for jobs to be exported out of the US. It never seemed to matter where the increase in profits came from.
Claims that we (the UK) should look to across-the-board deregulation, tax cuts and the starving of our work force into jobs-for-peanuts have always had a hollow ring to them, and a continued drive to compete with emerging economies on their own terms can only make 'coolies' of us all.
We can hardly blame China.
This casts a whole new light upon those reports and pictures of our Christmas chugging through the seas from China on one huge container ship just a few years ago.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.