EU solidarity
- 28 July 2017 12:26331846While we allow the sell off of our assets to anyone that stumps up the cash France shows us the way, not long ago they stopped the sell off of Danone to an overseas corporation.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/27/france-nationalises-strategic-shipyard-emmanuel-macron - Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,397
28 July 2017 12:55331848Nationalised shipbuilding? Brilliant idea. What could possibly go wrong. (Cue usual rubbish from lefty forumites saying this was somehow the 'wrong sort of nationalisation!')
The rôle of government in the decline of the British shipbuilding industry, 1945 - 1980
This thesis studies the interrelationship between government and the shipbuilding industry in the United Kingdom during the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of economic growth between 1945 and 1973. It argues that actions of government in the 1960s and 70s aimed at arresting the decline of shipbuilding as an industry instead acted first as a brake on the industry’s development and second as one of the principal agents of its decline. It does this by demonstrating that the constant government led introspection into the shipbuilding industry between 1960 and 1966 delayed investment decisions by companies that were uncertain about which direction the government would take or whether it would provide funding. This thesis also demonstrates that the Wilson Labour governments’ instruments of modernisation and change, the Shipbuilding Inquiry Committee and the Shipbuilding Industry Board, chose and imposed technical and organisational solutions on the industry that did not reflect the prevailing orthodoxy of shipbuilding in competitor nations such as Japan and Sweden. This fatally damaged the industry during a time of demand for newly constructed vessels; the cheap price of crude oil in the 1960s led to a very high demand for very large crude carriers, supertankers, capable of transporting between one quarter and one half a million tons of crude oil from the Middle East to the industrial nations of North American and Europe. However, as the case studies of the Harland and Wolff and Scott Lithgow companies in this thesis demonstrates, British shipyards were ill equipped and poorly prepared to take advantage of this situation and when finally the shipyards were positioned to take advantage of the situation, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and subsequent OPEC oil embargo took away the demand for supertankers. This was when the British government dealt the now nationalised shipbuilding industry a fatal blow, subsidising supertankers no longer in demand for purchase at a heavily subsidised price by shipping lines that would place the vessels into immediate and long-term storage. In short, this thesis illuminates the complex relationship between government and industry that led to the demise of the British shipbuilding industry.
Full download here:- http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1276/"The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it".
Dr. Hunter S Thompson - Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
28 July 2017 20:08331882It was deemed appropriate at the time but was probably, in hindsight, carried on as a state run industry for too long.
There is nothing inherently wrong with state ownership (i.e. a majority shareholding) there is however an awful lot wrong with the state trying to run commercial businesses (i.e. the 40's-70's model of nationalised industry)."Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi - 30 July 2017 20:31331967Captain Haddock wrote:Nationalised shipbuilding? Brilliant idea. What could possibly go wrong. (Cue usual rubbish from lefty forumites saying this was somehow the 'wrong sort of nationalisation!')
The rôle of government in the decline of the British shipbuilding industry, 1945 - 1980
This thesis studies the interrelationship between government and the shipbuilding industry in the United Kingdom during the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of economic growth between 1945 and 1973. It argues that actions of government in the 1960s and 70s aimed at arresting the decline of shipbuilding as an industry instead acted first as a brake on the industry’s development and second as one of the principal agents of its decline. It does this by demonstrating that the constant government led introspection into the shipbuilding industry between 1960 and 1966 delayed investment decisions by companies that were uncertain about which direction the government would take or whether it would provide funding. This thesis also demonstrates that the Wilson Labour governments’ instruments of modernisation and change, the Shipbuilding Inquiry Committee and the Shipbuilding Industry Board, chose and imposed technical and organisational solutions on the industry that did not reflect the prevailing orthodoxy of shipbuilding in competitor nations such as Japan and Sweden. This fatally damaged the industry during a time of demand for newly constructed vessels; the cheap price of crude oil in the 1960s led to a very high demand for very large crude carriers, supertankers, capable of transporting between one quarter and one half a million tons of crude oil from the Middle East to the industrial nations of North American and Europe. However, as the case studies of the Harland and Wolff and Scott Lithgow companies in this thesis demonstrates, British shipyards were ill equipped and poorly prepared to take advantage of this situation and when finally the shipyards were positioned to take advantage of the situation, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and subsequent OPEC oil embargo took away the demand for supertankers. This was when the British government dealt the now nationalised shipbuilding industry a fatal blow, subsidising supertankers no longer in demand for purchase at a heavily subsidised price by shipping lines that would place the vessels into immediate and long-term storage. In short, this thesis illuminates the complex relationship between government and industry that led to the demise of the British shipbuilding industry.
Full download here:- http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1276/
Where do you draw the line? Sell off crucial industries and then buy in your military equipment from overseas. Stop training medical staff and then recruit from overseas. Build on agricultural land and buy produce from overseas. What is the purpose of a government that doesn't invest in the people that have or do provide the taxes for it?Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.