Yes dear. That's right.



Building a sewerage system and then simply leaving it for 100 years was a good shift of resources, for instance.

If you care to look it up, you'll find that the major coal mining countries are also the major coal-consuming countries, these countries have a better security of supply than we do.
They include such "developing" nations as the USA, Australia and Germany.
Coal mining was virtually wiped-out in the UK, not for economic reasons but rather to fit Thatcher's idealogy.

Even in the reduced area of textiles, the best in the world are quality English, Italian and Swiss fabrics.

I guess you'll be telling us next that we don't make decent cars any more because the British workforce is crap?

Going back to the textile industry, it's decline really set in the 1930s when the USA's rextile industry out-competed it. It was in terminal decline thereafter.

Precisely, we earn more from higher value, niche products. We would be poor if all we did was concentrate on old, labour intensive, low value added productivity.

Same with the railways, funnily enough there was enough private capital around when they were built to fund them, now when we need a railway built to help the economy it has to be built using taxpayers money.

Same old capitalism, privatise the profits and nationalise the debts.

... and your statement that if we still mined coal and made textiles we would be little better than a "developing economy" is therefore absolute bloody tripe.

I am afraid not. If we had mass employment in cheap textiles, coal mining and other such industries, we'd be alot poorer.

Why?

(Genuine question, not stirring)

Because if, say, we competed with the Far East, Africa, South America in producing cheap textiles we could only stay in business by matching their wage structure, working harder, or by having more modern machinery. Assumimg new entrants use state of the art machinery (not always the casew I know, but rapidly becomes so - think how Japan developed very quickly) that means we'd have to compete on unit labour cost. As they tend to work all the hours God's sends in emerging economies we couldn't really work longer for the same pay, we'd need to work for the same or less per hour.

Unless, of course, you took your view that we just mark up high production costs ......and go bust instead!

Fair enough, except my view is not and never has been that we mark up high production costs.

Read what I've posted in the other thread and try to understand it. I'll buy the Janet and John business studies guide for you if it helps.

We could just make a better product and let the quality sell itself, we used to do that, rather than having some naff 5 minute lifespan product we create real quality and hover around the middle to rich income markets.

Agree with that. Unfortunately previous generations, specifically the Conservative Party, don't appear to have been able to identify that skilled manufacturing has a future. All they could see was the impact rising wage costs was having on their dividends and shares. The trade union movement has to shoulder some of the responsibility also as neither sides of the employment relationship was as progressive as it is now (and even then it's only in some circles).

Awesome post. No really, your intellect has really added value to the thread....