is our national deficit coming down?

This is not just Britain Dai, this is the Western World.

Of all those you mention India is the only one that stands out.

They pay the workers minimal sums of money for 15hours a day.

The West cant compete with that.We have standards, laws even, to protect workers, although I'm sure our government would prefer they didn't exist.

 

In all fairness though, British companies own property abroad too, and take profits from other countries back here. Probably not anywhere near enough to match the amount of money we're leaking out though, but I think that will change in the next few years.

There is an organisation called UKTI, which I think is linked to the government but, if I understand correctly, part private owned. It does all sorts for UK businesses that have a plan for getting money back into the country. I've had some dealings with them myself, and so I know they do real tangible things that promote UK business abroad.

Also, to pick up on the India point, India is now becoming too expensive. A few years ago, India started to outsource to China, because even with India's cheap rates, they could still send the work to China and make a profit. Many UK businesses are starting to pull some of their business back from India. Some of it is actually coming back to the UK, but much of it is going direct to China. The logic being there's no point having India in the middle if they're outsourcing to China anyway.

Currently, although many businesses still see commercial value in 'offshoring' to India or China, and indeed some are still doing it with new business, the flow is slowing down, and will eventually reverse.

Britain is going through a painful change. We're shifting from predominantly manufacturing, to predominantly service sector. It has been a difficult transition, but we're starting to get the hang of it. At my current company, and the last one, almost all of their revenue comes from foreign shores. It will take time before that becomes the norm, but I know that in my industry, in the 15 years I've been in it I've witness massive growth.

Combine the steady growth of Britain's service sector, taking money from abroad, with the fact that traditionally cheap outsourcing options are getting steadily more greedy (and expensive), and I personally predict that in 10 years, Britain has a good chance (as long as we don't balls it up) of doing very well.

 

Hope you're right on that one because if not, then It's not good.

 

You probably know more about this than me Clueless.

But I'm not sure you can run a country on service indusries, the likes of Germany appear to do well because they manufacture things which other countries want to buy.
Quality items, not cheap, but well made.

We on the other hand appear to be without the "Made in the Britain" stamp any more.

Banking appears to be one of our claims to fame, and I'm not sure that has a good image right now.

I'm guessing when China becomes too expensive they will be undercut by African countries.
So I'm not looking for things to get much better here for quite some time.
The wealth of the world is levelling out, and its happening at the expense of us, the west.

 

I agree we should return to manufacturing, as long as the unions don`t take control again. The question is though, are the skills still available

 

Knowing how we do things these days Dai.

We could always just import the skilled labour.:D

 

From India, China and the Eastern Bloc?

 

Skills are easy enough to get hold of. The problem we have on our shores now is not a skills shortage exactly, it is an attitude problem.

When I was a kid, I remember all the dad's in our street held the attitude that a job is a job. It pays the mortgage and puts food on the table.

Sadly, nowadays the attitude seems to be more along the lines of, a job is work, for someone else. Sometimes hard work at that, and certainly harder than signing on. But then there's the other school of thought. The one that says, the job is below me, I don't want to do that, I want to do this instead, and I expect someone to pay me a fortune to do it because I've earned a piece of paper and even though I have no experience.

Meanwhile, foreign workers are coming in and saying to company bosses, you know that job that you can't get a young Brit to do? I'll do it for next to nowt.

What this country needs, and I hope it might be the one good thing to come out of the recession, is a change in attitude back to some sort of work ethic, where people value their jobs, and teach their kids to value their jobs. Then the country might stand a chance.

 

I agree clueless but have a problem with the first line.
"Skills are easy enough to get hold of".

Agreed they are if you import them.

But we need home grown ones.

 

I agree. When I left school in the mid sixtiea everybody had a chance at an apprenticeship. Nowadays they are hard to find. I was lucky, my headteacher had contacts and I trained as a clerk/salesman.

 

No point returning to a manufacturing based economy until the education system stops churning out morons! Sorry, but this is the crux of our problems. It's been going on for years - they can recite formulas back to you, but are incapable of transposing them (ie; they're not taught to think). This is why my business partner and I no longer take apprentices.

 

That's really interesting, John, as many people seem convinced that everything was better in the Good Ol' Days!

Actually, a group of us were saying the other day that when we started out, older people were generally quite patient with us and put up with a lot of our idiocies on the basis that we had to learn. I'm not sure younger workers are cut that much slack these days.

 

Sadly, my experience is very negative.

In our local, we have a Physics Professor who has given up over here and has now taken a post in Helsinki.

Ask anyone that I know in the motor trade and they will tell you the same thing. I feel sorry for the kids, but the harsh reality is that they can read a fault code but not diagnose a fault. Over the last two and a half years we have invested just under £26000 on diagnostic equipment and laptops to run it and operate Picoscopes and hold vehicle data sources. This doesn't include £10000 a year for the licences for the diagnostic systems. We had to do this as it was no longer possible to get faults accurately diagnosed at the main dealers.