OT: Kellingley pit shuts and causes leftist dilemma

[Julian Barnes]

How true! "Your future dream is a shopping scheme" - Sex Pistols, 1977. Sadly they were right.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Half of it now runs on expensive imported wood.

Seems

[The Natural Philosopher]

Southern USA IIRC. Not Canada

[The Natural Philosopher]

yebbut you need a degree in social snobbery to be a shelf stacker.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Building jet engines.

Offshore oil technology.

Computer chip design.

As the first that come to mind..

[Andrew Gabriel]

Thinking of sectors I've been involved with over the last 10 years... Software (and hardware) development Film industry VFX (computer generated scenes) UK Startups and SMEs (although sadly, mostly funded from the US) Product research and development (usually not bulk manufacture, but notable exceptions such as Raspberry Pi) Aerospace and defence industries Financial services

All these sectors are held back by lack of skills. This is not an exclusive list - just those I've been involved with.

We're also quite big in advanced/bespoke machine tools, designing and manufacturing the tools used by manufacturers all over the world.

[News]

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

So, what *should* we be teaching our children?

[Andy Burns]

compensation != remuneration, HTH.

[tim.....]

Well as someone who works in the Software industry

No it isn't

It is held back by a management unwillingness to retrain (relevant graduate qualified) professionals with experience in Whatnot 3.0 into Whatnot 4.0, expecting instead to find someone already skilled in whatnot 4.0 who has been trained by someone else.

And then when they can't find that, shout "SKILL SHORTAGE!"

tim

[michael adams]

Both of which are easily exported to places like India. Which also saves Indian programmers having to move to Seattle as well.

Niche

As compared with before Big Bang financial services have only expanded to the extent that they have as a result of UK financial institutions being absorbed/merged/taken over with/by foreign firms, many of whom import their own staff.

At a guess, how many jobs in total do you think would be provided by the above, even assuming restrictions were put in place to ban offshore software and hardware developement and non UK staff in financial institutions ?

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Unfortunately there's no genetic reason why UK manufacturers using UK workers should be any better at any of this stuff than anybody else. The only reason these niches exist at all is the result of historical accidents - tradition, education, apprentiship schemes combined in many instances with geography and geology.

None of which can be trumped unfortunately by firms employing competent workers elsewhere in the world who are willing to work for lower wages.

I blame containisation myself. Had they kept the docks, then not only would thousands of dockers have been kept in work but half the stuff would have gone missing before it ever reached the high street. So there'd have been no such things as pound shops. and people would have had to go on buying British made rubbish instead. So more jobs for everyone.

michael adams

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michael adams

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[Indy Jess John]

The migration to 2 has started: Cadburys chocolate Ford Transit vans Dyson vacuum cleaners

There are probably many more, but those are the ones which came immediately to mind.

Jim

[Martin]

He's confusing British miners salaries with Columbian minor miners salaries.

[Andy Burns]

UK Coal were asking for £338m subsidy to keep the last two pits open for a further 3 years, which equates to £225k per miner, opinions will vary on how much it's worth paying, but that's plenty past mine ...

[Martin]

Ship building ferries used by P&O on the North Sea Hill Rotterdam route are built in Venice Italy.

Aircraft built in France and Germany. Airbus wings factory in UK is owned by a Franco German company

Satellites are built by an Franco German company in UK.

Trains are built in Germany and France

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[michael adams]

But there's nothing to say that UK Coal ever had any intention of keeping the mine open. The figure they quoted might have been pitched deliberately high so as to deter any possibility of the mine being kept open. Thus frustrating any plans they may have for an alternative use for the site or for any working capital tied up in the operation which might be more profitably used elsewhere.

That's also assuming that any of the subsidy would go in wages rather than towards operating profit and dividends to shareholders.

In rather different circumstances it might even have been suggested that UK Coal were trying to "hold the country to ransom" over this. "Demanding" that the government pay them ?338m to keep the mine open.

Instead it seems it all revolves around the "greedy miners", all over again.Each of whom would need to be subsidised to the tune of ?225k.

Pass the sickbag, somebody.

michael adams

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[Martin]

or £75k/annum a good part of which will be paid in tax etc.

Ignoring the fact that the miners produce coal, which has a value and that the money the miners are paid stays in the country.

Don't be surprised when your job goes abroad. Almost certainly there is somebody in a third world country who can and will do it for far less.

[Tim Streater]

I seem to recall that my salary when I worked in the US of A was referred to as "compensation". And if it isn't in this case, what are they being "compensated" for? They already got paid.

[Tim Streater]

That's because of the childish attitude people here have towards venture capitalism. Oooh, it says capitalism, must be bad.

Chap I knew in the 80s, a socialist, had a decent idea or two for doing something. So he went to the bank for a loan, and it being then rather than 2005, was turned down. He moaned about that and how the banks ought to be investing in speculative ventures. So he went to a British VC company, and yes they'd be happy to invest, but wanted 40% of the profits. He moaned about that, too.

[Tim Streater]

Well, what do you expect. You can add:

Clarke's shoes Camera lenses

assembled in Vietnam these days.

[michael adams]

Baloney

Capitalism dictates that investment goes where the best returns are to be found.

19 Jan 2015

Foreign direct investment from the UK to China totalled nearly ?6.7bn in asset stocks last year, the study by King & Wood Mallesons calculated. But the global law firm expects this to rise to ?26bn by 2020 as the Chinese economy opens up to foreign capital

Which ATM is building factories knocking out stuff for sale in Poundshops.

Ah right ! You actually knew a socialist. He didn't have a beard did he like Jeremy Corbyn ? Or maybe a moustache like Red Ken

And this is relevant how exactly ?

Shame they didn't have "Dragons Den" at the time.

Or maybe he could have gone on the "Apprentice"

michael adams

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