Originally posted by xoggoth
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I think you make some fair points and I've seen those types of argument before. As per my earlier post, I was focusing more on the large number of SME companies who tend to be the most inefficient. The UK has a small number of world leading companies like GSK in sectors such as pharmaceutical and aerospace. But many of our biggest companies have wasted billions in one way or another:
£40 billion - BP, total costs of Deepwater Horizon oil spill
£28 billion - Vodafone, write down of Mannesman acquisition leading to a then largest ever annual loss by a European company
£24 billion - RBS during the banking crisis
Historically we have been a low education, low skill, low productivity, low wage economy compared to our peers and I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future.
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