Pound to become worthless like the dollar?

[Moadib]

yep our manafacturing base is so small its only the fifth largest in the world by value!

According to 2008 data we're sixth, behind China, US, Japan, Germany and Italy (and have been behind Italy since 2000.

Actually even sixth surprises me, looking at the huge US move into Mexico, and large investment in S. Korea and Taiwan.

Edit
A different study has us currently sixth, but behind France rather than Italy. The same report shows us 8th in a few years, behind also India (naturally) and South Korea.

[Totally_Baffled]

yep our manafacturing base is so small its only the fifth largest in the world by value!

According to 2008 data we're sixth, behind China, US, Japan, Germany and Italy (and have been behind Italy since 2000.

Actually even sixth surprises me, looking at the huge US move into Mexico, and large investment in S. Korea and Taiwan.

Edit
A different study has us currently sixth, but behind France rather than Italy. The same report shows us 8th in a few years, behind also India (naturally) and South Korea.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_g ... my-gdp-ppp

Lets agree on the top 10 to allow for the error margins in the figures! - still pretty good for a nation that "doesn't produce anything anymore!"

Maybe this figure will get it into context, we produce $508 billion dollars of goods.

That is worth more the entire GDP of every country in the world outside the top 20.

If manufacturing is going to be important in the future - the UK is better placed than most. That is my only point!

As for the foreign owned point - does it really matter?

If a factory is based in the UK:

a) The skills are maintained in the UK, as does the a proportion of the money generated by those goods and the wages paid (and money spent with UK suppliers and logistics firms)

b) UK companies own/part own companies all over the globe too. This is something unique to the Chinese, Japanese and Indians! It would be interesting to see a figure of UK owned asset worldwide versus foreign owned assets based in the UK.

c) I know we are discounting oil , but the UK is in a great position to export skills to less mature oil regions of the globe. Isnt Aberdeen a world leader in offshore skills and technology?

[snow hope]

Hehehe - did you take the blue pill by mistake this morning TB?

Only joking, you make some good counterpoints.

[Totally_Baffled]

Hehehe - did you take the blue pill by mistake this morning TB?

LOL

The thing is I dont know who I am trying to convince, Chris25 or myself!?

[snow hope]

Chris, there are a number of wind turbine manufacturers in both England and Scotland I can assure you - Samrey, Renewable Devices (Swift), Windsave to name a few. I have just found out that the Westwind Segen are now manufactured in N Ireland.

[RenewableCandy]

Not to mention the solar panel makers in Wales!

[chris25]

Chris, there are a number of wind turbine manufacturers in both England and Scotland I can assure you - Samrey, Renewable Devices (Swift), Windsave to name a few. I have just found out that the Westwind Segen are now manufactured in N Ireland.

Thanks for the name of those companies. Just done a bit of research, and thats at least given me a bit of hope!

Sorry for all the posts about me blabbing on about UK manufacturing, but I actually get an immense pride when I see things being made, weird, but can't really explain it

I find it a shame how today's society is a million miles from knowing (or caring) how their products were made, where they were made, what raw materials they require and their environmental damage caused by such products.

The prolific decline in UK manufacturing is evident just from looking around the house and seeing what is actually made in this country. And while statistically output has risen, why is it barely any products are made locally anymore? My answer is that output has increased due to the quite strong chemical and food industries in this nation. If anyone could shed statistics on this would be great, cos I aint too much of an economist.

[Susukino]

yep our manafacturing base is so small its only the fifth largest in the world by value! :wink:

Like most British people who believe what they read in the newspapers that continually bash the UK, I thought I lived in a country with a tiny economy that was by all measures pathetic. Then I did a degree in economics and international finance and found that the UK was the 5th or 6th largest economy in the world (this is a few years back).

I think it's vital that we constructively criticise our own society and culture. Where I think the UK media go too far is that they criticise without being constructive and without trying to quantify that which they discuss. The usual technique is to be damning but vague ("but that's typical for the massively indebted public finances of this country"). Without quantifying the level of debt, how can you say if the UK is better or worse then other countries? But sadly most journalists seem to be either lazy or data-phobic. The result is that most people seem to have a far gloomier view of the UK's economic performance than the figures warrant.

Having lived abroad for more than a decade I can see Britain's faults more clearly than most, but this is offset by an appreciation of its virtues. The UK is not an economic pygmy. Nor is its manufacturing in a parlous state compared to other OECD countries - in percentage terms it is similar, though the figures I have seen show manufacturing to be lower than Germany and Japan and maybe the US (forget). Moreover, those countries like Japan and Germany that do have stronger manufacturing tend to have their own concerns. Would you like Japan's public debt problem, for example? Or Germany's unemployment problem?

As for debt... pah! I hate that UK consumers put themselves into debt to the extent they do, but on a national level expressed as a percentage of GDP the UK is in good shape relative to peers like Italy, France and Germany.

Suss

[revdode]

The prolific decline in UK manufacturing is evident just from looking around the house and seeing what is actually made in this country. And while statistically output has risen, why is it barely any products are made locally anymore? My answer is that output has increased due to the quite strong chemical and food industries in this nation. If anyone could shed statistics on this would be great, cos I aint too much of an economist.

More evident to me, ten years ago I worked in a light engineering business on the east coast of Scotland. These days I think one of the engineers I used to work with is still working in the UK. The rest are spread over middle and eastern Europe as are most of our key customers. Last I heard one of my ex-colleagues was still in China. I resisted longer than most and worked in a few businesses targeting niche markets, even in these areas manufacturing is a nightmare now because customers world view has been distorted by ever falling prices for consumer products.

I'm now in Hungary, I could have probably picked a better time to try and sell a house in Scotland. Even out here there is pressure to move products to China, we are moving into a factory currently being vacated by a manufacturer of volume consumer products. In the last site I worked in Scotland we were basically a screwdriver shop putting together products from components made in China. At least one of the wind turbines mentioned above is similarly put together from Chinese components.