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A whole industrial infrastructure depends on the availability of machines like these.
It's obvious how important they are and yet there's so few.
Chocolate factory?
Liquidity and ability to move money easily and cheaply
Houmous
Freedom of movement.
It’s obvious how important they are and yet there’s so few.
Old outdated technology. The fact there are so few proves the economy is progressing.
The things we really lack are skills. In our modern world people forget that things still have to be engineered and made but yet we have so few engineers coming up through the system. Bring back apprenticeships - way too few of those around.
I’m sure there was a stat somewhere that lawnmower manufacturing contributes more to the economy than fishing.
Also, no-one (me included) seems to understand what services actually are, despite them being 80% of our economy.
Someone to repair your toilet.
Bubble wrap.
Greggs Sausage rolls
Also, that article is bollocks. For example:
The reasons for German air superiority were several, of course, but a key one was their mastery of light-metal forging. While the Allies were still bolting together their planes out of steel plate, a slow, labor-intensive process ripe for error and unsuited to design optimization, the Germans were stamping and squeezing out complex structural elements from magnesium and aluminum alloys.
1. The Germans did not have air superiority. The Allies did.
2. Allied aircraft weren't bolted together out of steel plate. They were mostly riveted out of aluminium, but there would have been plenty of cast and forged components in there too. As I understand it, the B29 was incredibly advanced for those days and pushed the boundaries of technology to the limit. Germany never succeeded in producing anything comparable and the USSR had to reverse engineer it in order to catch up on technology.
The vitally important role played by people at the low end of the pay scale - cleaners, for example.
Diesel.
The entire infrastructure of the modern world is almost entirely dependent on diesel.
Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy
More information: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408709112/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_uN3zEbW9VFPD3
Raffia, probably.
Paper & pulp; think....reading, writing, printing, packaging, labelling, hygiene.
Also, that article is bollocks
Yes, it is.
while the Allies still rely on propeller-driven aircraft, the Luftwaffe has put three jets successfully into service
Allied jets were concurrent with German development, UK Meteor first service date 27 July 1944 (says wiki) vs April for the German 262.
Also, three individual aircraft does not make an air force.
back to the op.
zero hours contracts
Nail bars
Dear lord, are we really so self obsessed and vain that the beauty industry now accounts for more activity than things what done actually further the human races understanding of the world or improve the way we treat our surroundings or such other more noteworthy pursuits?
three individual aircraft does not make an air force
Don't say that around any Lithuanians, you might hurt their feelings.
Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy
More information: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408709112/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_uN3zEbW9VFPD3 /blockquote>There's an excellent podcast series on this from BBC World Service: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b1g3c/episodes/downloads
So I'll choose from their list and go for the contraceptive pill: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04yph1b
Mesta was from (near) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesta_Machinery
Another one from Tim Harford....barbed wire.
Sanitation and toilet rolls.
Without toilets we'd really be in the shit.
Another one from Tim Harford….barbed wire.
As an aside, probably...
Barbed wire and tinned food are almost entirely responsible for the shape of the Western front in ww1.
Without one or other it never would have stagnated like it did.
The long term impacts of that are huge.
Farmers turning out no matter the weather to look after crops and animals, then transport them to the places we buy them from.
Being able to tell the time. Very, very accurately.
I think I'm right in saying that the B29 project cost more than Manhatten as it was so complex
Sanitation
I was going to say that but in addition contraception in general (rather than just the pill).
1. The Germans did not have air superiority. The Allies did.
Depends what you mean by superiority and when you measure it.
Plus the allies jet engines were at least in part thanks to german scientists.....
Bees are quite important, aren't they?
If it weren't for bees we'd all be dead
Bless their little pollen-encrusted socks, the stripy, buzzy little bastards! 😀
Dear lord, are we really so self obsessed and vain that the beauty industry now accounts for more activity than things what done actually further the human races understanding of the world or improve the way we treat our surroundings or such other more noteworthy pursuits?
says man on mtb forum
The thing we repeatedly get told is THE economy GDP.
Dear lord, are we really so self obsessed and vain that the beauty industry now accounts for more activity than things what done actually further the human races understanding of the world or improve the way we treat our surroundings or such other more noteworthy pursuits?
Depends if you are counting the economic contribution of nail bars in terms of the value of nail services sold, or the total value of money laundered through them!
In 2016 agriculture contributed 0.62% towards UK GDP. Fisheries only contribute 0.1%! Madness!
ironically, toilet rolls are really important - without them the hospitals close because anyone who works or stays in there isn't able to clean themselves so the hospital isn't hygenic. whoever started the panic buying of them needs a hoof in the slats
UK actively rebuilding its top firm, Sheffield Forgemasters, through cheap government loans.
Old outdated technology. The fact there are so few proves the economy is progressing.
The quote above yours is lifted from the article, ultimately that funding was withdrawn and Sheffield Forgemasters never got the induction furnace. Which would have been used to build forged pressure vessels for the new EPR program, building on the existing skills and proven methods of the time. Instead Le Creuset got the work and ultimately made an arse of it. Thanks to attitudes such as yours we find ourselves in this situation, the fact is the tech is not outdated and the scarcity is a testament to the skill involved in operating such plant as well as the high tech requirements of the finished products.
On the subject of massive machines:
We might not build them any more but shipping is a major part of our economy, we still make bits for them and a UK flag on the back is still worth something.
In 2016 agriculture contributed 0.62% towards UK GDP. Fisheries only contribute 0.1%! Madness!
I'll ask the same question differently... does GDP mean anything at all?
In 2016 agriculture contributed 0.62% towards UK GDP. Fisheries only contribute 0.1%!
Arts and culture contribute more than either.
Plastic unfortunately
The things we really lack are skills. In our modern world people forget that things still have to be engineered and made but yet we have so few engineers coming up through the system. Bring back apprenticeships – way too few of those around.
If only there was more of an industry for them to get started in, instead we let them all close down. There's a domino effect where you let the blast furnaces close because they make little margin, then over a few years/decades you lose the forges and the more nice products because they're not viable on their own.
Old outdated technology. The fact there are so few proves the economy is progressing.
I'd also make the argument we've diluted the title of engineer to the point where it's of no value or appeal to kids despite (generally) being a 4 year degree course followed by 4 years of work to get chartered, pretty much the same as a Doctor. But the guy in Kwickfit can be an engineer too, which is like calling your butcher a doctor because he can take a knife to a body as well.
Lots of critical infrastructure like power generation, water and telephones - the problem is we've allowed successive Governments to sell it all off for the sake of tax cuts.
I’d also make the argument we’ve diluted the title of engineer to the point where it’s of no value or appeal to kids despite (generally) being a 4 year degree course followed by 4 years of work to get chartered
'twas ever thus. As a chartered engineer it pissed me off royally that the title "architect" is protected but "engineer" is not. Shortly after I graduated I visited family in Germany and was addressed as "herr ingenieur" - in all seriousness.
There is an old joke - In Germany if you are an engineer you are invited in to meet the daughter, in England you are invited in the meet the washing machine.
cromolyolly
Member
1. The Germans did not have air superiority. The Allies did.Depends what you mean by superiority and when you measure it.
Plus the allies jet engines were at least in part thanks to german scientists.
Like sir frank whittle, that well known nazi inventor of the jet engine you mean.?