Larry Garfield was right. If you leave money trapped in dying companies, over-valued property and diminishing cash accounts then tomorrow’s great businesses are starved of the investment they need
Agree enthusiastically. "It is also true that one day this industry will turn"? How do we know? Where is that written? What makes it inevitable? I would have thought economic history suggests it is far more likely to be false. Industries thrive, boom and wane. That is the way of innovation and progress. One of the stupidest things a current cabinet minister has said (and the competition is fierce) was Jonathan Reynolds's assertion last September that "Port Talbot has always been and will always be a steelmaking town". Says who? What guarantees that, unless public subsidy and a nostalgia-based industrial strategy? Just read it twice and it's nonsensical. "Belfast has always been and will always be a linen-making town." "Norwich has always been and will always be a wool-trading town." "Bristol has always been and will always be a slaving port." It's almost offensively stupid.
I tried to make the point in my City A.M. column last October:
As someone who has actually worked at Port Talbot Steelworks can I just advise you not to talk about things you know absolutely nothing about? Which includes steel manufacture and economics.
So you think Elliott is wrong? Perhaps explain why from your experience and expertise. It would be great if you could detail how all that subsidy works, what's wrong with Elliot's economics and about steel manufacture. We are here to learn and open to doing so.
It won’t “allow the owners to buy” the new furnaces, it uses taxpayers’ money to buy them for Tata. If it’s an exercise in sustaining employment, it’s an expensive one: half a billion pounds for how many jobs?
"Larry Garfield was right. If you leave money trapped in dying companies, over-valued property and diminishing cash accounts then tomorrow’s great businesses are starved of the investment they need"
This is bollockios. There's been many economists who've analysed what starves investment and those attributes are not included. Even leftists like Sissons and Brown almost 15 years ago concluded that it was the liberalisation of planning that set investment free.
Agree enthusiastically. "It is also true that one day this industry will turn"? How do we know? Where is that written? What makes it inevitable? I would have thought economic history suggests it is far more likely to be false. Industries thrive, boom and wane. That is the way of innovation and progress. One of the stupidest things a current cabinet minister has said (and the competition is fierce) was Jonathan Reynolds's assertion last September that "Port Talbot has always been and will always be a steelmaking town". Says who? What guarantees that, unless public subsidy and a nostalgia-based industrial strategy? Just read it twice and it's nonsensical. "Belfast has always been and will always be a linen-making town." "Norwich has always been and will always be a wool-trading town." "Bristol has always been and will always be a slaving port." It's almost offensively stupid.
I tried to make the point in my City A.M. column last October:
https://www.cityam.com/britains-economy-cant-run-on-industrial-nostalgia/
“What has half a billion pounds bought in https://www.cityam.com/port-talbot-shows-what-tough-decisions-really-look-like/? It will allow the owners to replace the old-fashioned blast furnaces with a more efficient, flexible and greener electric arc furnace, avoiding the outright closure of the steelworks”
As someone who has actually worked at Port Talbot Steelworks can I just advise you not to talk about things you know absolutely nothing about? Which includes steel manufacture and economics.
So you think Elliott is wrong? Perhaps explain why from your experience and expertise. It would be great if you could detail how all that subsidy works, what's wrong with Elliot's economics and about steel manufacture. We are here to learn and open to doing so.
No, I know he is wrong.
It won’t “allow the owners to buy” the new furnaces, it uses taxpayers’ money to buy them for Tata. If it’s an exercise in sustaining employment, it’s an expensive one: half a billion pounds for how many jobs?
You didn't see the quotes that show I was commenting on that sentence? Oh dear...
"Larry Garfield was right. If you leave money trapped in dying companies, over-valued property and diminishing cash accounts then tomorrow’s great businesses are starved of the investment they need"
This is bollockios. There's been many economists who've analysed what starves investment and those attributes are not included. Even leftists like Sissons and Brown almost 15 years ago concluded that it was the liberalisation of planning that set investment free.