I'm concerned about the economy

[johnelliott]

700 redundancies were announced by Mars Uk this week. No cuts in production, as I understand it, just moving the production abroad.
This is another example of what is happening in this and most other developed countries around the world. If it can be made or done somewhere else in the world a fraction, be it large or small, cheaper then it will be.
BBC TV news this morning had a piece on people who have been made rendundant starting their own businesses. I though it was quite a good piece, and the chap (ex banker) they interviewed seemed happy with what he was doing (garden design)
As a person who has also started his own business I find this stuff interesting, but what really concerns me is this question---
When everybody has been made redundant, and all the manufacturing and most of the service jobs have been moved abroad, and when many of the pension funds have collapsed under the weight of too many pensioners and not enough people paying in, who is going to have the money to be my customer?

Worried of West Berks (AKA John)

 

[Gill]

My other half works for MG Rover and he's concerned about the forthcoming deal with China to take over the company. There'll be about 2,000 redundancies at Rover alone, but that'll have a knock-on effect throughout the rest of the West Midlands. He reckons the potential harm to components suppliers has been exaggerated, though, because most of MG Rovers' components are imported anyway. Nevertheless, times look difficult for many of his colleagues.

Since the company operates a 'last in, first out' policy, he believes that his seniority will protect his position. Fingers crossed.

Incidentally, the only difference in the long run between the Phoenix consortium taking over Rover from BMW a few years ago compared to the Alchemy proposal that was defeated, is that John Towers and his co-directors have made themselves millionaires through restructuring the company. Plus ca change.

Gill

 

[Chris Knight]

Gill,

Indeed, Jon Moulton is rich but he ain't a crook! I shall keep my fingers crossed for your hubby.

 

[johnelliott]

I'm more than mildly surprised that so many people (53 so far) have so little to say about this subject.
Is there anyone out there who feels economically safe? I certainly don't, and I think very few other people are entitled to.
How about some suggestions as to what we, or companies who are doing the job exporting, or the government should do about the situation.
I think it's getting worse, and that it may not be long before something financially bad happens

Worried of West Berks

 

[Noel]

Call it apathy or indifference. People just get on with their own lives, ensure that they can protect and look after their nearest and dearest, have a beer on a Saturday night and not worry about the bigger picture.

Noel

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi John
Well if you really DO want a response...

Your analysis is spot on. The end is nigh, repent and be saved, or not as your beliefs dictate. I have spent the last 15 years in enconomic limbo. I'be been self-employed and had very good years and very bad years. I've invested in my career (it's expensive to get an MBA out your own tax-paid income) and as a result I am highly educated, highly qualified, highly skint and highly unemployed. Indeed my friend Akram only got a job by forgetting to mention he had an MBA, and my Indian friend Khemraj was keeping body and soul toghether in this country by sqirting the jelly into pork pies. He is Oracle Certificated and also has an MBA. He couldn't even find a job in India, and is now working for some pittance in United Arab Emirates. If you or I did the job we would be well-paid, but he, as an Indian, is the lowest of the low.

One of the problems is that we in the West, have got used to living a nice comfortable middle-class life-style for several generations, based on an aconomy which itself is based on buying raw materials very cheaply from the third world, and then paying ourselves more than we are worth for processing them. Yes I know that's over-simplistic, but it's basically true. It is the same inequality which fuels social uprising in our own history and terrorism in the modern world. One group of people sees another group as having an unfair advantage and is unwilling to acept it. At the same time the Haves are unwilling to give up their way of living and convert to living in a mud hut.

I don't have a solution, if I had I have no doubt I could get rich on the knowledge, but this is just classical economics working on a global scale. My foreign friends see the same situation as an opportunity to have a better life, a better standard of living.

I'm not sure if I will ever have a "proper" job again. Maybe my whole lifestyle will be dependent on my wife's continued employment as a GP. If her MS takes hold, maybe even that will go and I'll be selling the Big Issue. Who knows? But I stopped being optimistic about my personal economy a long time ago.

Sorry to sound so miserable but it's how I feel.

On the positive side, I'm not disappointed with the Festool saw.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Midnight]

I'm more than mildly surprised that so many people (53 so far) have so little to say about this subject.

What exactly do you feel we should be saying John?? Personally I'm enough of a realist to have figured that anything I said to whoever will have little or no impact on the trend...

Is there anyone out there who feels economically safe? I certainly don't, and I think very few other people are entitled to.

Job security in my business is directly proportional to the trends in the price of oil; I figured that out pretty quickly... I'm a hands on tech... I build the impossible with the improbable for the ungratefull... I've felt secure in that position for about 10 mins in the last 14 years... is there anything to gain by worrying about it.????

How about some suggestions as to what we, or companies who are doing the job exporting, or the government should do about the situation.

OK... how's this for a suggestion... we (the electorate) ban the profession of Professional Politician (is that a contradiction in terms??) all the way down to local council level... sack the lot of em. Ohh.. and the same goes for the House of Lords... Remedy the herreditory peers via the French solution i.e. guilotine...In their place, hire a bunch of Post Grad students from India / Bangladesh / Pakistan to do the job via tele-working... We'd save a fortune in taxes (as the post grads work for tiny sums compared to the mob of louts we have today), they'd probably be infinately higher qualified to do the job, and in spite of any language difficulties, there's a fighting chance that they just might answer the same question that they're asked rather than waffle for hours on something totally unrelated... I figure there's a chance they'd do a much better job than any government we've seen in the last 100 years....

When everybody has been made redundant, and all the manufacturing and most of the service jobs have been moved abroad, and when many of the pension funds have collapsed under the weight of too many pensioners and not enough people paying in, who is going to have the money to be my customer?

I figure that if that situation were to arrise, the last thing I'll be worrying about is your customer base; I'll have slightly more pressing concerns...

 

[ike]

John Elliot wrote

I'm more than mildly surprised that so many people (53 so far) have so little to say about this subject.

Some possible reasons:-

Some don't like threads with a political slant.

Some always see the glass half full.

Some think it a boring subject.

Some think a load of hot air isn't going to change anything so why bother.

Some think it's only about woodwork isn't it?

Me?.... I couldn't possibly comment!

Ike

 

[johnelliott]

When everybody has been made redundant, and all the manufacturing and most of the service jobs have been moved abroad, and when many of the pension funds have collapsed under the weight of too many pensioners and not enough people paying in, who is going to have the money to be my customer?

I figure that if that situation were to arrise, the last thing I'll be worrying about is your customer base; I'll have slightly more pressing concerns...

Sorry, didn't mean that I wanted any of you to be concerned about my potential problems. I was using me as an example.
So often the answer offered when people lose jobs is to start their own business. The problem with that solution is that if everybody else has lost their job too, then no one will have any money to buy anything.

Should we be concerned about it? Is there anything that we can do about it? No, I don't think so either. No reason not to talk about it though. There's plenty of other stuff people discuss here that they can't change

John

 

[Neil]

On the positive side, I'm not disappointed with the Festool saw.

You kept that one quiet, Steve! :wink:

Neil

 

[Anonymous]

New saw then Steve? Nice one!

 

[Anonymous]

I'm more than mildly surprised that so many people (53 so far) have so little to say about this subject.

John, speaking for myself, I come here to (mainly) discuss woodwork, not politics.

 

[Aragorn]

I'm more than mildly surprised that so many people (53 so far) have so little to say about this subject.

I've noticed that Off-topic posts seem to get a post rate of about 1:15 views. On-topics seems to be more like 1:10 views: this whilst the topic is "fresh".
This thread seems to fit the average about right, although now of course it's not about the main topic any more :wink:

 

[johnelliott]

I'm more than mildly surprised that so many people (53 so far) have so little to say about this subject.

John, speaking for myself, I come here to (mainly) discuss woodwork, not politics.

Me too, in fact I don't even look at threads that don't interest me

BTW there is absolutely nothing political about what I have said in this thread

John

 

[Adam]

I left a large electronics company after several years where cutbacks were made. This wasn't just a case of moving "production" work - they were taking Research and Development too. The chinese government is playing their cards very well in only really opening their technological markets to companies that show they have brought skilled jobs, not just production jobs. I have left and joined a small startup company where it is the knowledge in our heads which is our value.

I hear in southern China there is now a shortage of labour, which means salaries have started climbing, and workers have been refusing to work in companies who have poor health and safety. The upshot of this is that its not quite so cheap as (say) a few years ago.

Isn't it inevitable that over time, people become more accustomed to the nicer things in life, salaries rise, people become more educated, demand better working conditions and safety, drives up cost and a new "low cost" country suddenly becomes the buzz?

Japan? Taiwan? China? Phillipines?

Adam

 

[ProShop]

Sorry to sound so miserable but it's how I feel.

On the positive side, I'm not disappointed with the Festool saw.

Cheers
Steve

 

[ProShop]

This is a double edged sword thread, we have spent hundreds years ripping off other countries raw materials and resources and made a fat profit. employed thousands of people and build an empire with huge industries. And now the tide is turning, the third world is starting to wake up.....fast. It's the start of their turn.

 

[UKTony]

700 redundancies were announced by Mars Uk this week.)

John if 700 people pouring chocolate in moulds want 30K per year when someone in the Far East will do it for 1 -6K why are you so suprised. In answer to your question though the outcome is War :arrow:

 

[Midnight]

I'd love to figure out how guys in the stock exchange earn what they do for shouting at each other... :? :shock: :?

 

[trevtheturner]

I read nothing political in John's original post, and there are some interesting points made subsequently. I think Steve and Felderman have summed up the situation about right. For decades the Western world has been materialistic and greedy and we, unfortunately or fortunately, have all happened to have grown up in (and benefited from?) this culture

The world-wide picture? I believe, as has already been alluded to, that the Western 'civilised' world has had it good for a long while but that prevailing and developing market forces are likely to leave us a bit on the receiving end in future.

Cheers,

Trev.