City bankers doomed

[sasguru]

Like bail you out when you screw up? That did not happen to Rover.

No government has ever bailed ME out.

[AtW]

No government has ever bailed ME out.

I am not talking about you, but the City.

[Moscow Mule]

TVR has gone bust.

Morgan and Caterham make the kind of kit cars that are more appropriate for 1907 than 2007. Some crazy people do buy them, but this market is very small.

Lotus - ok, some cars are nice. I think they don't make their own engines, that's big part of a car.

You forgot Noble - good cars, engines are not theirs though, but fine.

Now compare these companies with Porsche: a lot more cars they make, and expensive too, but people buy them.

Ok, let's have your one-sentence judgements on these fine companies

Aston Martin

Jaguar

Land Rover

There are also several foreign companies manufacturing cars in the UK to UK & European specifications. Most of this lot are here because of the tax incentives the government gave them to locate here.

[rootsnall]

Cars analogy is valid in my view, considering how successful Japanese, German, French, Italian, American cars are.

From what I've read the big US car makers are losing a fortune and there is a decent chance they'll go bust at some stage.

[sasguru]

I am not talking about you, but the City.

The City is never bailed out. Northern Rock is the exception that proves the rule. Now stick to feeding squirrels, before you make an arse of yourself.

[AtW]

Aston Martin

Acceptable - but sales are very low in terms of numbers, this can't feed many people as it is exclusive brand, fundamentally the market is very limited.

Jaguar

Candidate for disapperance I say, already shares too many parts with Mondeo.

Land Rover

Good cars, but heavily dependant on Ford.

It's not just cars - look at train network and compare it with that in Germany and France: standard ticket to London in the morning costs ridiculous amounts of money, recent trains (not being replaced) required you to open window, bend over to open it from the outside, I mean ffs, when I first tried that it was really crazy. New trains are nice though, but network speed is nowhere as developed as in Germany, capacity is lacking.

[shaunbhoy]

Now stick to feeding squirrels, before you make an arse of yourself.

BEFORE????

[AtW]

Northern Rock is the exception that proves the rule.

The main issue here is not the bailout, but the fact that the City does not make anything - it is all financial speculation that might generate profits in short term, but fundamentally it is insane to depend on it - the City should be icing on a cake of very good industry, even if it is something like Silicon Valley, but not the main focus of pride.

[AtW]

From what I've read the big US car makers are losing a fortune and there is a decent chance they'll go bust at some stage.

Yes they lose money and they will have to cut jobs and probably sell less, but more expensive cars. You won't see however disappearance of car industry in the USA.

[rootsnall]

Yes they lose money and they will have to cut jobs and probably sell less, but more expensive cars. You won't see however disappearance of car industry in the USA.

The reason for attempting to preserve the car industry in the UK was to provide jobs in failing industrial regions when we had mass unemployment. We are now importing people to fill jobs. Is there any point propping up a loss making car industry, I doubt it.