This should send the right-wingers into full xenophobia mode

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This should send the right-wingers into full xenophobia mode

114 posts & 28 voices | Started 3 months ago by ditch_jockey | Latest reply from teamhurtmore

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El-bent - Member

You guys arguing for state intervention to control supermarkets would have been the same people opposing selling off BT. Can you imagine if BT still had a monopoly on your cell phone? You think you would be getting an iPhone package for £30 a month? The answer is no.

Interesting, BT is something I wouldn't re-nationalise, but they still hold a monopoly over the infrastructure.

But what about the water companies? I can't phone up offwat and ask them whether I can change water suppliers as mine is a little expensive. A privatised monopoly.

Posted 3 months ago #
mcboo - Member

Interesting, BT is something I wouldn't re-nationalise, but they still hold a monopoly over the infrastructure.

Really? Who knew.

Posted 3 months ago #
derekrides - Member

Hasn't this thread missed the essential thrust about what the dude was saying which was we have to focus less on money creating more paper money, grind coffee beans and stop **** with peoples currency?

Which I tend to agree with.

As to the high street having recently had the rent increased mid recession from 10 k to 15k per annum on our store which had to close down and relocate back to a little industrial unit we started out on 3 three years ago by some rich bitch landlady who doesn't quite understand why we can't earn an extra five grand a year selling the stuff we sell, with tumbleweed blowing down the high street most days and early closing on Wednesday. The Vat having increased to 20% which effectively switched business off last year (always rely on the Tories to really grind a recession home) so in one year we were almost wiped out at that store.
Now we're back in our little industrial unit, folk can drive here in their vans and park, buy their snowboards and chew the cud without worrying about parking ~~nazis~~attendants stickering up their cars, and so far this year our business is recovering, so we're all for out of town shop units, just wish there were more of them available to the type of small shop we are.

High streets are now the province of charity stores, coffee shops, banks & building societies, big issue selling romanies, with the odd busker and chugger here and there, best avoided.

Posted 3 months ago #
geetee1972 - Member

ford
Morris
Gm motors
Rover
Landrover
Triumph
I assume you get the picture

With a list like that I assume you don't get the picture.

Our car manufacturing is not 'mass' is specialist, but we're very good at it. Luxury brands like Rolls Royce, Bentley, Jaguar and Range Rover are niche players and seeing strong demand from China right now.

Most of the value in these brands is in just that, the brand. They don't represent absolute quality on any higher level than say BMW, VAG or Honda.

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

High streets are now the province of charity stores, coffee shops, banks & building societies, big issue selling romanies, with the odd busker and chugger here and there, best avoided

In sh*t towns, maybe. Not in nice ones

Hasn't this thread missed the essential thrust about what the dude was saying which was we have to focus less on money creating more paper money, grind coffee beans and stop **** with peoples currency?

Ok - why?

We used to make things, then we stopped doing it so much. Why was that?

Posted 3 months ago #
derekrides - Member

molgrips - Member

Ok - why?

We used to make things, then we stopped doing it so much. Why was that?

Same reason we no longer attempt to pay local single speed riding proles to dig stuff out of the ground, we buy it from places where trade unions haven't given them an over inflated sense of their worth.

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

trade unions haven't given them an over inflated sense of their worth

You think trade unionism is the only reason China and India make stuff so cheaply? Hehe

All these worthless financiers moving money around are a big part of the reason that people have enough money to buy snowboards from you and jet around Europe using them.

Posted 3 months ago #
derekrides - Member

molgrips - Member

You think trade unionism is the only reason China and India make stuff so cheaply? Hehe

You know some other reason?

In as much as the trade union movement back the labour party, the labour party gave us the welfare state, the welfare state keeps wages high comparatively speaking, if you're looking for the reason wages in India & China have lower wages.
The material cost in a Snowboard is the same wether it's built in China or Europe, but in China they leave the factory for as little as $50. whereas in the European facilities they'll be minimum 90 € with the benefit of a mechanised production line.

Wouldn't it be nice to manufacture snowboards in England, someone tried it once, didn't last long.

In the States it was sad when K2 closed Vazon island in the late nineties, early noughties but....

As the man said we're paying ourselves too much to do too little.

Posted 3 months ago #
Northwind - Member

molgrips - Member

We used to make things, then we stopped doing it so much. Why was that?

Actually we didn't. UK manufacturing value has grown most years in the last 50, and was at an all time high in 2008. In 2010 we were the 7th biggest industrial producer in the world.

Posted 3 months ago #
El-bent - Member

In as much as the trade union movement back the labour party, the labour party gave us the welfare state, the welfare state keeps wages high comparatively speaking, if you're looking for the reason wages in India & China have lower wages.

I think the welfare state is only a small part in this. Living on an island and having to import so much does add to the cost of materials and subsequently the cost of living.

I find this whole business of sacrificing the welfare state and our living standards to compete with two nations that both have 1bn+ populations and far lower living standards a bit bizarre. We can't compete with them at what is now their own game, so we should play something else.

But using this to justify the scrapping of the welfare state, and the social protections that unions in past have thought for is entirely predictable...from right wingers.

Posted 3 months ago #
mcboo - Member

I find this whole business of sacrificing the welfare state and our living standards to compete with two nations that both have 1bn+ populations and far lower living standards a bit bizarre. We can't compete with them at what is now their own game, so we should play something else.

But using this to justify the scrapping of the welfare state, and the social protections that unions in past have thought for is entirely predictable...from right wingers.

I want some magic beans

Posted 3 months ago #
CaptainFlashheart - Member

Isn't it a fairly affluent place?

Not really. Bar the military (who are obviously massively rich. NOT!) and the support services, there's not a lot around there.

Perhaps the key is, the people around Salisbury don't whine or complain or demand that someone wipes their arse, they just get on with it.

Posted 3 months ago #
Mikeypies - Member

El-bent - Member

Salisbury?

But doesn't the wealth of the local population come into it? There are plenty of these types of shops where I live due to the wealth of the local population who can financially support it and "prefer" to shop this way.

I wonder if this model would be successful it it were transplanted to Consett.

Would any model be sucessfull in Consett
the last time I visited it was infested by tanning shops I do remember going to the co op with my uncle and dad to get some melba toast no chance mine you it was the 70s, pease pudding no problem

It is sad that most high streets are the same and there isnt the regional variation that should exist

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

You know some other reason?

Yes! The cost of living is far lower, and the standard of living is also far lower. So you can get away with paying the workers peanuts. Not just the snowboard workers but the people who make the plastic, the people who drive it to the factory, the people who pack them up and drive them to port etc etc etc.

there isnt the regional variation that should exist

What - flat cap shops up north, pearly king costumes in London, that kind of thing?

Posted 3 months ago #
Mikeypies - Member

What - flat cap shops up north, pearly king costumes in London, that kind of thing?

sort of but no, you know what I mean, 20 years ago you could go from up north to the south and there were different supermarkets and department shops now most towns sell the same stuff. Its similar in Hong Kong as 7-11 shops are almost everywhere squeezing out the independents.

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

The shops were different but how meaningful was that? Was a Northern furniture store really any different to a Southern one?

Posted 3 months ago #
Mikeypies - Member

Maybe there were more suppliers offering products targeted at local markets or maybe not I was too young to know and I hated shopping and still do

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

Right so it's rose tinted glasses then? Are they available on the High St?

Posted 3 months ago #
Mikeypies - Member

Well maybe there were more suppliers but one thing is for sure it is boring to go from one town to another to see the same shops selling the same stuff. Variety is good.

The consumer (thats you and me) are to blame for the decline of the independent shops by shoping in the chains otherwise the high street would be full of independent shops and not chains. I am as guilty as the next man.

Posted 3 months ago #
Mikeypies - Member

oh rose tinted glasses are available everywhere even online

Posted 3 months ago #
derekrides - Member

molgrips - Member
You know some other reason?
Yes! The cost of living is far lower, and the standard of living is also far lower.

Er it's the same thing, the standard of living is defined basically by the cost of an hour of mans labour, wether that be gathering the crops to feed him, or to do battle in defence of the state, whatever.

We've simply inflated our costs in relation to theirs.

Ultimately, rice, bread, water, meat, brick, stone, have no value other than what we place upon them and market economics take over, what one man will pay over another.

Reduce it to barter economics if you want to catch my drift here.

The exception that rules the West and is now increasingly influencing the East, is the oil economy, which screws all of us, without it, the differentials would not be as extreme.

Posted 3 months ago #
CHB - Member

I am really going to have to ration this to maybe 3 or 4 times per year, but not for the first time in recent weeks...I agree with TJ.

I am reading an interesting book at the moment called cradle to cradle and in there (almost as a throw away section) it talks about the role of state and the role of the market.
Basically it says when the state tries to be involved in the market, it fecks up. But when the market tries to regulate itself (see media, ratailers, banks etc etc) then they **** up.

So the solution is a free market with a suitable (heavy or light as applicable) regulation from a state with no vested interests.

This model fits with me for one that works.

The supermarkets are predators and need regulating.
BT is crap and needs to be left to market forces.
Medical care is crucial and needs to be done right...erm not sure what to do here...but as it is it tests the above model, but at the same time allowing doctors to control it clearly is against the separation of market and control.

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

We've simply inflated our costs in relation to theirs.

Caused by improvements in the standard of living.

Posted 3 months ago #
Zulu-Eleven - Member

High street retailers I've spoken to have two main complaints

i) Sky high business rates (ie. Tax)

ii) Traffic restrictions, reduction in on street parking and expensive (council) car parks, with the associated fear of (council) parking fines

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

Interesting. I wonder if there's a correlation between how good parking is and how popular a high st is.

Posted 3 months ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

High street retailers I've spoken to have two main complaints

High street retailers never complain to me.

You should avoid high street retailers who moan and complain Z-11 ........ very poor PR in my opinion.

Posted 3 months ago #
derekrides - Member

molgrips - Member
We've simply inflated our costs in relation to theirs.
Caused by improvements in the standard of living.

No, caused by the equalisation of that standard, by the welfare system and socialism. I can assure you that many Chinese & Indians have a far greater standard of living than us. There is however a bigger differential between their have nots and ours.

We like to molly coddle ours, with free cash and a health service, for which large proportions of them contribute nothing, we also like to offer these favours to anyone who turns up on these shores, from anywhere in the world, thereby depriving our earners of the sort of standard of living their labour could achieve through excessive taxation, we have also taken of late to borrowing huge sums of money to fund our generosity.

Posted 3 months ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

No, caused by the equalisation of that standard, by the welfare system and socialism. I can assure you that many Chinese & Indians have a far greater standard of living than us. There is however a bigger differential between their have nots and ours.

We like to molly coddle ours, with free cash and a health service, for which large proportions of them contribute nothing, we also like to offer these favours to anyone who turns up on these shores, from anywhere in the world, thereby depriving our earners of the sort of standard of living their labour could achieve.

Thanks, that put a smile on my face ........ normally I have to trawl through the comments to a Daily Mail article to find amusement comments like that.

Posted 3 months ago #
molgrips - Member

No, caused by the equalisation of that standard, by the welfare system and socialism

That's the same as what I said.

But that's quality right-wing poison there, I don't think there's much point in me debating this because it doesn't look like you have the sensitivity to understand what I'd say.

Posted 3 months ago #
El-bent - Member

I want some magic beans

To be taken individually of course.

Posted 3 months ago #
slimjim78 - Member

Im sick of reading 'right' or 'left' on practically every thread. So tedious.
Don't put me in a box man.

I prefer 'right' or 'wrong'

Tata.

Posted 3 months ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

That probably means you.

Posted 3 months ago #
mcboo - Member

And we finish off with a bit of Daily Mail sneering from Ernie.

I could set my watch by this.

Posted 3 months ago #
derekrides - Member

molgrips - Member
No, caused by the equalisation of that standard, by the welfare system and socialism
That's the same as what I said.

But that's quality right-wing common sense there, I don't think there's much point in me debating this because it looks like you have the sensitivity to agree what I'd say.

FTFY

Posted 3 months ago #
randomjeremy - Member

BT is crap and needs to be left to market forces.

I've never understood this stance - if BT weren't so heavily bound by the regulator they would wipe out every other telco and revert to being a monopoly. All the privatisation of BT did was to screw with a natural monopoly - every other telco only exists in the UK because of the restrictions put on BT - they have been forced to open up their network to other providers.

Telecoms infrastructure is a natural monopoly - personally I would renationalise the infrastructure and allow private telcos to sell bandwidth and services on it at a guaranteed minimum price, with a guaranteed cut being paid back in to a fund that maintains and upgrades the infrastructure.

The current situation means that nobody can afford to invest in widescale fibre rollouts apart from BT (Virgin don't count, they haven't laid fibre for at least a decade and won't do now). Even given this, BT are forced by the regulator to offer their fibre services to other ISPs in order that they can resell them. This removes a lot of the incentive to perform expensive fibre rollouts.

TL;DR? - Don't blame BT for the crap state of broadband in the UK , blame a fake market created by regulation of a natural monopoly.

Posted 3 months ago #

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