The first article from Allister Heath [City AM] talks of the "massive, unstoppable shift of power based on the emerging economies adopting more and more capitalist institutions and practices",
The second, from Burning Our Money, ("The Chinese can now do pretty well everything we can, except 100 times bigger, 100 times better, and 100 times cheaper.") which amongst other things highlights both Governor of the Bank of England comments and Jeff Randall's interview of HSBC CEO, Michael Geoghegan:"[The UK's] reduced financial and monetary freedom and higher corruption and government spending. They suggest we stand no chance of truly benefiting from the rise of the emerging nations, a development which could go down as one of the UK economy’s greatest missed opportunities of all times"
"...People save first, they educate their children and then they spend. If you want to go and see where consumer goods are least used and bought, it’s in Asia...
...If we could be as efficient here in the UK as other manufacturers are around the world and cut away a lot of the government bureaucracy that makes it very expensive to do manufacturing in the UK..."
5 comments:
Not living in a city or using public transport I miss out on the free papers and the last time I looked up City AM it was not publishing on the net excpect the front page but now because of you I can read it. Thanks...
I see a major shareholder in Kraft is unhappy with the takeover of Cadbury's if the report in City AM is correct.
In time a Chinese company may aquire Kraft ;-)
hehehe...probably!
The guy who is not too happy is Warren Buffet (the Oracle of Omaha: all those O's... yes, I did a post on him when he donated billions to the Gates Foundation). He's probably the most succussful investor ever; thing is re Cadbury's he was unhappy they may have overpaid!
The problem with China is that it is producing inferior goods in higher numbers and saturating the market with them. British businesses are actually stopping trading with China because of the poor quality of electrical components for example. China is consuming the world's resources on a vast scale, of course Australia will benefit from China's growth, it has the iron ore, we don't.
China has benefitted hugely from British knowledge and investment, the same way that Mexico has benefitted from U.S intervention.
What's the answer? I don't know, except to say that clients who previously traded with China are now trading with Italy, Sweden and Finland, they may be minnows but they are making a living which is all most people really hope for.
But those poor quality prodcuts improve very quickly. Take the feed ingredient market (same as many others in this respect) The Chinese copy what you've got, quality is poor and everyone knows it...bit by bit quality improves so after a few years they have indeed better products for a fraction of the cost (with problems, gaol, executions etc along the way)
I know for a fact that many European companies who claim to manufacture themselves get at least some made in China...there are factories with various competing brands lined up together for shipping all made in the same place. They won't admit it but it's hard to hide.
I agree with the last paragraph, the irony of course is for years we've been putting together American components and sending them out with 'Made in Britain' on them. My Uncle works for a company that 'manufactures' air con units - except they don't, they import from the Statees, screw them together and send them off with the old kite logo on them (or whatever it is now).
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