I'm curious - can anyone name a high quality industry product made by brits ?

[notyoueither]

That's all very nice, but what concrete benefits are there for the nations behaving as you propose? And what costs?

nm. x-posted.

[Dinner]

The million dollar question. I don't have hard figures if that's what you mean but countries like France, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, and even Finland all seem to think it is worth more then it's cost. China is certainly also firmly in the national champions state of mind. English speaking countries seem to be the only ones who think it doesn't matter.

[notyoueither]

1) It insures that the country retains vital skills and industries needed for war fighting as well as weathering trade shocks. As long as you have large domestic producers you are 1st world economic and industrial power.

What war fighting industries does the UK lack?

2) Part of it is the prestige of having major companies easily identified as being from your country so you're not dependent upon others. It's validation that you're a major economic power.

So, to feel good. How much does this feeling good cost?

3) Foreign owned operations in the country are all well and good (and they should be promoted) but domestically owned ones are more likely to continue to invest in the country rather then just move on to the next cheaper alternative so there is more employment stability. Also the profits stay in the country instead of being repatriated abroad to the corporate parent company.

Why should labour be allocated to inefficient industries through some form of protectionist measures that would be put to better use by more efficient industries?

Putting aside China, what prevents the British from owning the companies that make the goods that they purchase?

4) It promotes local economic interests.

By propping up industries that can't compete without protection?

What would world trade look like if the US and everyone else adopted your point of view?

Edit: 5) It preserves and promotes domestic employment.

That it would. At what cost? Under Labour, the UK did as you wish. All of their citizens paid the price through a lowered standard of living.

[Dinner]

That's the typical academic debate but I'd say the French aren't living much worse then the British though they actually do have a much more stable (less boom and bust) economy. In short academic arguments don't always translate into the real world. A prime example was the sell off of Britain's electrical utility industry. The idea was this would foster increased competition and modernization while France went with a national champions policy of creating a large dominant domestic utility; they even got into trouble with the EU for favoring domestic mergers over cross boarder mergers/take overs. 25 years on the UK's electricity rates have skyrocketed and other then Scottish Power or Scottish Hydro there is hardly an integrated domesticly owned electrical utility in country and now German and French companies dominate the industry. The industry in both France and Germany is as modern as it is in England (we're talking about England because that's the part of the UK which the foreigners now control the utility market of) yet paradoxically the English pay more for electricity and have seen large rate increases while the French pay less and get just as modern a service. Plus the French, since the corporate HQ is based in France get more jobs especially the high paying executive jobs.

Where is the supposed benefit of competition here? We see fewer jobs, higher rates, and no national champion in England now so there really isn't much of a benefit of this devil may care policy nor any noticible increase in efficiency or money being spent "more wisely" in other areas. Sure, part of this is that France is heavily invested in nuclear power while the UK is more dependent upon natural gas but once again that was a national policy decision which turned out to be smart over the long run and not some free market based decision so it seems planning ahead with smart policy and promoting national business interests actually did better in this case. It's real world vs theory and the real world normally wins.

[Lonestar]

What war fighting industries does the UK lack?

PGMs, anything larger than a American-style destroyer in terms of shipbuilding capacity(the plan for the new CVFs is to built them in pieces, float them to the assembly point, and snap the hull pieces togather). The Aerospace industry in the UK is all shot to hell, and is completely reliant on international efforts to maintain a facade of existence. Canada has a bigger civil aerospace sector.

Mind you, industrial scale is a big deal as well. There is a story behind the USMC's LAV-25 that the Marines initially expressed interest in a French wheeled APC, but GIAT was unable to produce more than 20 vehicles a year. The Marines ended up going with a vehicle assembled in Canada.

If you talk about how awesome the defense industry of country is and they can't actually make the weapons systems in numbers that are meaningful, then, well, whoop-de-****ing do?

[notyoueither]

PGM?

[notyoueither]

That's the typical academic debate but I'd say the French aren't living much worse then the British though they actually do have a much more stable (less boom and bust) economy. In short academic arguments don't always translate into the real world. A prime example was the sell off of Britain's electrical utility industry. The idea was this would foster increased competition and modernization while France went with a national champions policy of creating a large dominant domestic utility; they even got into trouble with the EU for favoring domestic mergers over cross boarder mergers/take overs. 25 years on the UK's electricity rates have skyrocketed and other then Scottish Power or Scottish Hydro there is hardly an integrated domesticly owned electrical utility in country and now German and French companies dominate the industry. The industry in both France and Germany is as modern as it is in England (we're talking about England because that's the part of the UK which the foreigners now control the utility market of) yet paradoxically the English pay more for electricity and have seen large rate increases while the French pay less and get just as modern a service. Plus the French, since the corporate HQ is based in France get more jobs especially the high paying executive jobs.

Where is the supposed benefit of competition here? We see fewer jobs, higher rates, and no national champion in England now so there really isn't much of a benefit of this devil may care policy nor any noticible increase in efficiency or money being spent "more wisely" in other areas. Sure, part of this is that France is heavily invested in nuclear power while the UK is more dependent upon natural gas but once again that was a national policy decision which turned out to be smart over the long run and not some free market based decision so it seems planning ahead with smart policy and promoting national business interests actually did better in this case. It's real world vs theory and the real world normally wins.

Utilities might make a good case for your ideas. It's not as if the English consumer can choose to buy alternatives over the local supplier, whoever may own the plants.

Most consumer and industrial goods are not like utilities.

One question though, who paid for the reactors that got the French industry going?

[Lonestar]

PGM?

Precision guided munitions. Most of what they do have in terms of those comes out of bull**** political collaborative efforts with other European nations, with all the political restrictions and bottlenecks that comes with it. And they end up being inferior or at best comparable to the North American or Russian equilivant(which at least will generally be much cheaper).

[notyoueither]

Precision guided munitions. Most of what they do have in terms of those comes out of bull**** political collaborative efforts with other European nations, with all the political restrictions and bottlenecks that comes with it. And they end up being inferior or at best comparable to the North American or Russian equilivant(which at least will generally be much cheaper).

The British are incapable of building missiles? I find that hard to accept given what BAE does.

[Lonestar]

The British are incapable of building missiles? I find that hard to accept given what BAE does.

Didn't say that. I said they are incapable of build good(or as good as American ones for a cheaper price) missiles, or large numbers of them. For that matter most of their PGMs(which are NOT limited to missiles) come out MDBA, which means that you have to fart around with "which country builds what percentage of which missile/PGM and everyone has a say on who it gets to be sold to."

This does not lead to a healthy(or rather, high quality) defense Industry. When people say "oh, but the UK is the 5th largest defense exporter!" they neglect to mention that a lot of those sales are support contracts for legacy(cold war) systems, upgrades there of, bread and butter stuff like small arms/ammo/field artillery etc. The very high end stuff isn't there, frankly.

Another part of the problem is that Defense consolidation in the UK has led to the point that BAE is the only game in town(the problem is not quite as bad in the US, but getting there).

[Dinner]

Utilities might make a good case for your ideas. It's not as if the English consumer can choose to buy alternatives over the local supplier, whoever may own the plants.

Most consumer and industrial goods are not like utilities.

One question though, who paid for the reactors that got the French industry going?

Mostly private industry those I'm sure the French government subsidized them. French consumers no doubt also paid due to less competition as the French government made a decision consolidate smaller utilities all into national giants (thus making a national champion in that industry) and so there was less competition. That said utilities are highly regulated so the abusive power of not having competition is greatly lessened. At the end of the day though the French government made the strategic choice to switch from fossil fuels to nuclear power and it turned out to be a very good one especially since France has to import nearly all fossil fuels.

[notyoueither]

Didn't say that. I said they are incapable of build good(or as good as American ones for a cheaper price) missiles, or large numbers of them. For that matter most of their PGMs(which are NOT limited to missiles) come out MDBA, which means that you have to fart around with "which country builds what percentage of which missile/PGM and everyone has a say on who it gets to be sold to."

This does not lead to a healthy(or rather, high quality) defense Industry. When people say "oh, but the UK is the 5th largest defense exporter!" they neglect to mention that a lot of those sales are support contracts for legacy(cold war) systems, upgrades there of, bread and butter stuff like small arms/ammo/field artillery etc. The very high end stuff isn't there, frankly.

Another part of the problem is that Defense consolidation in the UK has led to the point that BAE is the only game in town(the problem is not quite as bad in the US, but getting there).

I'm thinking BAE has the know-how to produce guided weapons in the UK if push came to shove and they ever needed to.

It's kind of like Canada is not a nuclear power... until about 14 days after the Canadian government wants to change that.

[Lonestar]

I'm thinking BAE has the know-how to produce guided weapons in the UK if push came to shove and they ever needed to.

It's kind of like Canada is not a nuclear power... until about 14 days after the Canadian government wants to change that.

BAE's PGMs are run through MDBA(BAE owns about a third of it). Know-how isn't a problem, it's the political shackles that come with it. Which will remain there as the EU trends towards MORE integraion, not less.

Also, Canada has breeder reactors, nuclear wepaons fabrication plants, and weapons delivery vehicles, all of which that they can get up and running with a finished weapons system in 2 weeks?


AMAZING.

[Dinner]

This does not lead to a healthy(or rather, high quality) defense Industry. When people say "oh, but the UK is the 5th largest defense exporter!" they neglect to mention that a lot of those sales are support contracts for legacy(cold war) systems, upgrades there of, bread and butter stuff like small arms/ammo/field artillery etc. The very high end stuff isn't there, frankly.

Not to mention the EU over states it's exports. They build one part of the Missile in the UK, which is exported to France who adds another part, which is then exported to Germany who adds a part, who then moves it to Italy, who then moves it Spain, who might then move it back to Britain. There is a **** load of worthless duplication and extra steps which could be eliminated and as you say each step is a potential bottleneck which makes mass production difficult if a real war should happen to break out.

[Dinner]

I'm thinking BAE has the know-how to produce guided weapons in the UK if push came to shove and they ever needed to.

It's kind of like Canada is not a nuclear power... until about 14 days after the Canadian government wants to change that.

Being able to eventually build factories is very different from actually having factories on hand to increase output should you so need it. Once again it comes back to needing on hand domestic manufacturing capacity made possible by having a national industrial policy. Heck, even BAE is an example of a government merged (or at least allowed if not directed because it swallowed most of the British defense industry left over from WW2) national champion. If we followed Thatcher's policy ideas used in the break up, privitization, and sale of the utility industry (or you could use the car industry or the coal industry or the steel industry or just about any heavy industry since she ****ed them all up) the companies would have broken up and sold to the highest bidder to "help create competition". Thankfully, there were enough old guard folks still around who knew a nation needs to keep that kind of defense manufacturing know how so instead of selling defense contractors to foreigners they kept merging them into BAE. Thus now Britain retains that specialized capacity and no how even if it was half assed done.

They should be following a similar policy for all heavy industry. You'd still get foreign investment but instead you'd have large domestic automakers, steel makers, aircraft makers, etc... Just like the French due so that way those skills are kept in the nation instead of letting them die and becoming dependent upon other nations. Sure, it's partially economic nationalism but it is smart policy and you can still have plenty of competition even though you've hedged your bets and kept a few irons in the fire. Sadly, this requires long term planning and English speaking countries are terrible with that normally caring more about next quarter then about the results 10 years from now. It's the same reason the Asians keep killing us economically even though they use the national champions strategy.