Nice to see the government is investing £8 billion on new railway carriages, will they be made in this country so that money stays in our economy or are we buying from Germany again. Didn't Swindon make trains once?
New train carriages
- Thread starter hi1
- Start date
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George Osborne, love him or hate him, recently hit the nail on the head when he said "Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world".
There are reasons at every level as to why Britain has gone from being the country that invented the railways to a country that buys its high-speed trainsets from Japan, carriages from Germany, electricity from France to power the whole thing... etc.
We have problems at all levels from an unemployable scrounger, through those of us who just buy too much stuff we don't really need, through industry itself, up to government. We're uncompetitive as a country.
Government and Big Industry need to set the example first, then it can flowdown to the smaller suppliers and ancillary businesses.
What example? Well, be competitive. Look after the needs of the UK first. It doesn't have to be by direct "We will only buy British!" rules, all you need to do is word the requests for quote properly and all of a sudden the British product is the only one that qualifies or is the cheapest option because it doesn't need to be modified to fit.
Also, the unions (including Bob Crow... especially Bob Crow) need to do their part to ensure there will be enough workers for them to actually HAVE a union in a couple of years.
There are reasons at every level as to why Britain has gone from being the country that invented the railways to a country that buys its high-speed trainsets from Japan, carriages from Germany, electricity from France to power the whole thing... etc.
We have problems at all levels from an unemployable scrounger, through those of us who just buy too much stuff we don't really need, through industry itself, up to government. We're uncompetitive as a country.
Government and Big Industry need to set the example first, then it can flowdown to the smaller suppliers and ancillary businesses.
What example? Well, be competitive. Look after the needs of the UK first. It doesn't have to be by direct "We will only buy British!" rules, all you need to do is word the requests for quote properly and all of a sudden the British product is the only one that qualifies or is the cheapest option because it doesn't need to be modified to fit.
Also, the unions (including Bob Crow... especially Bob Crow) need to do their part to ensure there will be enough workers for them to actually HAVE a union in a couple of years.
J
joinerjohn
Hitachi, too want to build trains and carriages in this country. They want to set up a new factory on Teeside. They are desperate to get the Thameside trains contract. The government will probably offer them some vast incentive to build such a plant on Teeside (an area with high unemployment). This will end up costing far more than the £8bn investment in the long run. This country is definitely f****d
J
joinerjohn
I'd like to buy British gas and electricity only. The only problem with that is, there isn't enough to go round the rest of the country that only wants to use gas and electricity produced by the UK.
Heck,,, I don't think there's one wholly UK owned gas or electricity supplier left in the UK. So the buy British argument is flawed from the start.
M
Mickymoody
Jap company in the UK, so Uk workers, all profits back to Japan.
M
Mickymoody
I think part of the issue is that the Government give huge subsidies to companies outside the UK, to build plants in the UK, (ie Toyota), to employ UK workers, but as I say, the profits go out of the UK, whereas the banks aren't investing in UK business, ie the recession, so UK business are taking their trade abroad where production costs are cheaper. And I think that was an idea that Maggie came up with. Work for the people, but the profit not reinvested into the country, that's where we fall down. Lack of manufacturing, what Britain was built on, the only way to solve the issue is to uninvent something, like Concorde was, to make labour more intensive, so that people have jobs, not for machines to do their jobs, and not repetitive, low paid jobs, as the Poles have the bag on that. And even they are leaving as there is no work. A minimum wage in this country is highly paid in Poland, so the workers work hard, and send all their money home, thus corrupting us. Keep the money in the country. Even Asda, an American owned company, all profits there, go to their American owners.
When an immigrant works over here for say, 6 months and then goes home for so many months. They get all the income tax back they paid. So having used our public services for months they have not contributed to it.
Is this right?
Is this right?
J
joinerjohn
We should have followed the Swiss example years ago. They are allowed to invest in foreign companies, but,,,, foreign companies can't buy shares in Swiss firms. Swiss companies are totally Swiss owned, therefore all profits remain in that country.
If only we had done the same.
If only we had done the same.
We should have followed the Swiss example years ago. They are allowed to invest in foreign companies, but,,,, foreign companies can't buy shares in Swiss firms. Swiss companies are totally Swiss owned, therefore all profits remain in that country.
If only we had done the same.
Its that hindsight thing but even then who knows if that would have worked After all they became a tax haven as well and was able to provide very cheap loans to their own people to develop businesses. There is usually a jigsaw of bits to make it work and you only have to lose a few to mess it up.
Eg., Having politicians and financial institutions that are greedy and suicidally stupid is one of Britain's gold medal wining ability.
you need to be a bit carefull - 80% of UK toyota prduction is for export, they pay tax, buy a lot of parts and pay a lot of wages here.
if hitachi start building trains, it won't just be for the UK market.....
Let's just hope DeWalt don't start making trains.........
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