Author Topic: The shrinking economy  (Read 1240 times)

eegrek

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 194
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #15 on: Oct 10, 2019, 06:51:24 PM »
I hesitate to contribute but here goes
  Back on subject – The business news today showed the stock market up a bit. The pound holding it’s own at its latest level and Nissan threatening to pull out of the UK. Don’t the BBC know that this is nothing to do with the economy, but just people making money or trying not to lose it. I am fed up with the car makers who keep saying they will close. Both Nissan and Honda have already admitted that production from these plants have never met their expectations in output and they are taking advantage for the situation to pull the plug after accepting the financial help they have had from government sources. Nissan, who were far ahead in ev design and development have gone backwards from their competitors and the new Nissan Leaf is not expected to compete both in specification and price in the fast developing market place. Honda’s offering is not much better depending on the ultimate price for a small town car with a restricted following.
I think it was Margaret Thatcher  or someone before her that suggested she was elected to help the uk shrink gracefully from the high place it held in the world economy down to an insignificant player in world economic structure. Then she de-regulated the financial market, found oil on our doorstep and severely restricted the power of the trade unions, which for a while reversed the inevitable trend until the we largely ran out of oil, had a financial crash and now have voted to come out of the EU. I listened to some of Jeremy Corben’s speech ( the bit about passing a new law restricting the ability of a government to declare war without asking for permission from Parliament). What a good idea was my immediate thought then I thought again. If such a law had been in force 80 years ago this man would be speaking German and paying for his coffee in Deutsch Marks.  No good idea is without it’s drawbacks and that is the problem. Climate change mechanisms, however well intentioned always has both a positive and negative effect. The introduction of electric vehicles is a good idea if we are quick enough, but on the other hand this in turn depletes the earth of some of it’s most precious resources and we still have to develop methods of recycling the warn out and obsolete vehicles.  
Now to the immigration topic which just shows how there are too many people on the planet using too many resources and people are travelling around just to find somewhere to meet their resource requirements, be it money or some other need(food, drink and a safe home). There is a date in the year when it is calculated that for a sustainable resource usage this is the day that the earth has used up it’s allocation for that year. This year the date was the 29 th of July. As an example, if we all tomorrow gave up the use of Fossil Fuels for our energy needs this date would only be affected by 8 days. There is a long way to go and I’m afraid we won’t make it. We’ll be ok but I think at best there are three or four generations left for human life left. No other specie has had the effect on the world as the human race. In the last 100 years we have altered the world’s temperature by about 1 degree C and the next 50 years will see the runaway temperature exceeded.  

GrannyMac

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25218
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #16 on: Oct 10, 2019, 10:35:44 PM »
There is a school of thought that suggests some of the 'white flight' is aspirational. People move on. Sell a house in London, buy a bungalow on the coast and put the rest of the proceeds in the bank!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21511904

And its not only white British people who move on when they can.  You tend to find people live where their incomes allow, and when they do have choice, to areas where they feel comfortable.

The problems mainly arise when new communities grow disproportionately. There are issues a few miles from here, the settled population, white British, Asian and black complain about the influx of Eastern Europeans, mainly Slovakian Roma.  Open borders were not a good idea.
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.

R. Gervais

mick607

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3996
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #17 on: Oct 11, 2019, 05:26:34 AM »
GM that is happening all over Britain. Not just in your area.

digitalis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4095
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #18 on: Oct 11, 2019, 08:47:01 AM »
Thanks for all comments. I respect all comments here cos I am not too sure of those written in the papers or voiced on our radio.

I just wondered how we squared the circle of having to grow the economy to produce spending and give jobs to all when with a growing population we seem to be ruining the planet thru robbing it of its resources and polluting it.

I heard t'other day that theSouth of England was under pressure cos o the number of people houses there couldn't accommodate the demand for water there. The water companies were draining the aquifers of these parts,rivers were drying up and it was urgent that more reservoirs were built. Linking my past home with that written,I know that around my former home town down SE the place is a building site for more homes wherein country villages join country village to become a Wimpy sprawl. Goodbye larks and wrens!

London seems out of control: Karachi and cement on steroids.

As I am told the brightest and the best come from our top public schools and have gone to Oxbridge,I wonder how they have come to frack-up(guess the word I want here) the country. Surely a comp retard cooda done as well! Where woz their vision? Or is the current state of affairs just as they planned: over-crowded crap towns with a doubling population.

I don't want us to build our way outta this mess(more Bovis homes!),but I can see it creates demand(makes jobs). I acknowledge there are still some very pleasant places in England,but there are still some really ugly dumps around...and growing

 

GrannyMac

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25218
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #19 on: Oct 11, 2019, 08:55:24 AM »
GM that is happening all over Britain. Not just in your area.

Its happening in some places Mick. Its in the constituency where I live, but not in my 'area' as such.  The reason lots of recent immigrants have moved there (and other similar places)  is because there are available properties for rent from private landlords who perhaps aren't too scrupulous in their lettings.

Terraced streets were once home to ordinary, local families, who started earning a bit more, then decided they wanted something different.  Ex council properties, which originally were bought cheaply by tenants, were sold for a profit and the owners moved on. Those without the ability to choose are left in areas that may have changed beyond recognition.

Its not just about immigrants though.  The 1977 Housing Act saw the end of council houses being rented to people in different types of jobs and professions. The whole idea in the early days was to have mixed communities, teachers lived next door to factory workers, bus drivers next to policemen etc. Back in the day couples had to be married, the family breadwinner (usually the male) had to have a job, but none of those rules around respectability helped the most in need.

The then Labour Government changed policy from giving council homes to local people if they waited long enough, to assessing need. Thats the first change to the pattern, then Right to Buy changed things again. The best houses in the nicest areas were being sold, meaning that the homeless, the dysfunctional families, the unemployed were becoming concentrated on the less desirable estates.  Some of the original tenants who couldn't afford to buy or move suffered from the changes, and we started hearing terms like 'sink estates'. Local shops, doctors surgeries disappeared, and schools struggled to cope with behavioural issues.

There were serious problems long before the EU opened the borders.  However, enormous numbers of unskilled immigrants moving to areas with concentrations of crime, poverty, unemployment, gangs etc has made the situation even worse.

But in some places, we are seeing the opposite.  Relatively affluent areas are in demand from people of all ethnicities, crime rates are low, educational standards high, shops and businesses flourishing.   Nothing to do with people's colour, their ethnicity, or where they came from: all to do with their standards and expectations of behaviour.  And of course, money.

I think about the people on this forum and what they've said about their earlier lives, and how they've moved on.  I can think of several examples, myself included. Although we aren't affluent, we no longer live in the run down rented house with the outside toilet that we had in the early 70s.  Mike Rolls has mentioned his widowed mother having a struggle.  With the possible exception of Brian, who inherited a house, and one or two others, I bet the majority here have moved onwards and upwards, or their children have.

Sorry for the long post.
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.

R. Gervais

Michael Rolls

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 72686
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #20 on: Oct 11, 2019, 10:14:30 AM »
Not at all Granny - well worth reading. I feel that most (not all, I grant) folk look to improve their lot as they move through life. Certainly I and my siblings and various cousins did and we mostly succeeded. I have already - as have many of us - queried just how much population growth the planet can actually accommodat before demand exceeds supply of the most basic necessity - food.
In science fiction works over the years, the authors always have the answer - some miraculous scientific breakthrough that will provide needed nutrition in the form of a pill or the like - I have an uneasy feeling that it won't be that easy.
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

GrannyMac

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25218
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #21 on: Oct 11, 2019, 10:23:28 AM »
Reducing population growth is necessary Mike, the UK government has at least tried with benefits now limited to two children.  However, as an ageing population we need young people.  And like it or not, immigrants tend to be younger than the general population.
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.

R. Gervais

Michael Rolls

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 72686
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #22 on: Oct 11, 2019, 10:25:22 AM »
Very true
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

Diasi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13480
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #23 on: Oct 11, 2019, 11:12:55 AM »

Terraced streets were once home to ordinary, local families, who started earning a bit more, then decided they wanted something different.  Ex council properties, which originally were bought cheaply by tenants, were sold for a profit and the owners moved on. Those without the ability to choose are left in areas that may have changed beyond recognition.


The terraced streets of parts of Leicester were lovely communities with third generation ethic Brits living in them.

From my personal knowledge I can safely say that the vast majority left because of the invasion by the Ugandan Asians.
Make every day count, each day is precious.
"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal".  (Cassandra)

GrannyMac

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25218
Re: The shrinking economy
« Reply #24 on: Oct 11, 2019, 11:55:41 AM »
It seems like Leicester Council got it wrong. They posted these notices in Uganda as deterrents, but it seems the had the opposite effect.

https://www.curveonline.co.uk/news/why-did-ugandan-asians-settle-in-leicester/


I knew a few Ugandan Asians from our Leicester HQ when I worked for the gas board.  They all spoke good English, and had assimilated into the work force, some with pretty decent jobs.  Its a pity they didn't integrate better, maybe the treatment they'd had from Idi Amin encouraged them to stick together.   Too many new and different people moving into one area rarely works well.
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.

R. Gervais