No existing major world economy can continue to exist without radical change. It will "bring down" all of them. The point I'm making is that it will be easier for us to move to a new model.
As for how this country earns money after the financial sector collapses, I don't know the answer to that one.
You make an excellent point UE which 100% agree.
When talking about the disadvantages of the UK - the most common argument is that we are completely reliant on the financial sector and we do not make anything anymore.
Well in that case (as you have said above) that applies to just about every developed country, and as time goes by it is becoming the case in developing economies.
When you look at the percentage of UK GDP which is manafacturing we are about average for an OECD country. Indeed we are ahead of the US, France, Italy and not far off Germany! (note to chris 25 - acknowledged depending on the measure it varies between 15% - 25%, but this applies to other OECD nations too).
Hell even the manafacturing centre of the world (China) is only 45% manafacturing and India 30%!
If you look the UK's position in manfacturing (again depending on what you include) is at the very WORST in the top 10 and at best in the top 6.
So if the service sector is no longer viable post peak you could argue the UK is no worse off than many OECD nation and is certainly better off than than all but 9 countries (+ say the big oil producers!
)
My own view is that the following will happen in the UK (please excuse the lack of detail but I dont want to type an essay
)
1) Standard of living will drop which will drop the domestic consumption of goods to create a surplus for export (trade for stuff we are not self sufficient)
2) Labour will become cheaper (hence point 1), and British goods become more competitive. This new source of labour is all those newly unemployed financial people! As for poeple in big cities like london , then maybe all those big retail parks will become factories (or more like workhouses). Maybe there will be buses to the farms, stay on site all week and then back to the city for the weekend (for shite wages - but hey this is PO we are talking about!) Others will continue to work in services (see point 4) There will also be relocation overtime of a lot of people to where the work is to a certain degree.
3) Cost of transportation will make "imports" from far away less competitive (but many goods made in the far east for example will still remain cheaper to import than make at home for the short to medium term) - Anyone remember when the term "import" meant expensive? - we will be back to that again I guess! Again , restoring the "trade balance" of the UK
4) The service sector as a % of the economy will shrink, but will still be there , as people will always need haircuts, entertainment, repairs, and all that other stuff they maybe are not skilled in to do themselves, but again it will be more expensive as a % of peoples incomes so they dont do so much of it.
Etc etc.
If not it is global anarchy and mass death!
