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?
"The conservative cause has been polluted by the ideology of big business, by the global ambitions of the multinational companies, and by the ascendancy of economics in the thinking of modern politicians."
He's often defined as this conservative intellectual philosopher, but there is no difference between the ideology of big business and small business. Anyone who works in business will quickly find that the romantic ideas about nice small business is absolute tosh. People in business have motivations around doing things and making money. Big and small.
I believe that most conservatism comes down to is nostalgia for an imagined better past. Mostly when they were children, protected by their parents. Perhaps the shopkeeper gave them a free sweet. Wasn't that nice? Of course, what they don't see is that their mother had a huge bill to pay compared to Tesco. The quality and range was also rubbish by comparison. I lived just near the end of the small shops and the rise of supermarkets and most of them were crap.
Railways are mostly being supported because of small boys that had Hornby trainsets. It's all being wrapped up in the environment and helping Mrs Miggins get to Melksham but that's just armour. We'll probably get the Serpell plan cuts once the train set kids retire and the kids who played with Transformers take over.
Big business is generally a good thing. Because some things scale well. Toyota make the best cars you can buy. Often with better build quality than much more expensive cars. Because the expertise of making cars in one plant get replicated. You get more use of technology and robots because it's worth the investment. Aldi have specialists optimising their supply chains, buying in bulk. They will approach a winemaker and buy everything for years if they like a wine. Less lines lowers the cost. Buying everything from a winemaker makes his life easier, and in return, he gives Aldi a discount that they pass on. They destroyed a lot of small businesses, which sucks for those businesses, but the consumers got a better deal. Does anyone care about how Dupont destroyed the silkworm farming business? No, it meant all women got stockings.
"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...
"The conservative cause has been polluted by the ideology of big business, by the global ambitions of the multinational companies, and by the ascendancy of economics in the thinking of modern politicians."
He's often defined as this conservative intellectual philosopher, but there is no difference between the ideology of big business and small business. Anyone who works in business will quickly find that the romantic ideas about nice small business is absolute tosh. People in business have motivations around doing things and making money. Big and small.
I believe that most conservatism comes down to is nostalgia for an imagined better past. Mostly when they were children, protected by their parents. Perhaps the shopkeeper gave them a free sweet. Wasn't that nice? Of course, what they don't see is that their mother had a huge bill to pay compared to Tesco. The quality and range was also rubbish by comparison. I lived just near the end of the small shops and the rise of supermarkets and most of them were crap.
Railways are mostly being supported because of small boys that had Hornby trainsets. It's all being wrapped up in the environment and helping Mrs Miggins get to Melksham but that's just armour. We'll probably get the Serpell plan cuts once the train set kids retire and the kids who played with Transformers take over.
Big business is generally a good thing. Because some things scale well. Toyota make the best cars you can buy. Often with better build quality than much more expensive cars. Because the expertise of making cars in one plant get replicated. You get more use of technology and robots because it's worth the investment. Aldi have specialists optimising their supply chains, buying in bulk. They will approach a winemaker and buy everything for years if they like a wine. Less lines lowers the cost. Buying everything from a winemaker makes his life easier, and in return, he gives Aldi a discount that they pass on. They destroyed a lot of small businesses, which sucks for those businesses, but the consumers got a better deal. Does anyone care about how Dupont destroyed the silkworm farming business? No, it meant all women got stockings.
"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.