Brown says we're doing great

[DimPrawn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4337230.stm

Gordon Brown says the European Union must make fundamental economic changes to face up to the era of globalisation.
He pointed to the rise of China and India and says Europe is falling behind in skills, growth and enterprise.

The EU's initial goal of securing peace had been achieved and it should now focus on creating prosperity, he said.

The chancellor dismissed fears over the UK economy's prospects, saying it would continue to grow and that his spending plans were "affordable".

During an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme he declined to explicitly rule out possible tax rises.

That came despite the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warning on Wednesday that Mr Brown would have to raise taxes, cut public spending or borrow more as economic growth slows.

The OECD downgraded its forecast for UK growth in 2005 from 2.5% to 1.7%, below the Budget prediction of 3%-3.5%.


So India and China are booming and Europe is in decline. What a surprise. Could it be due to our governments eagerness to ship as much work abroad as possible, to tax every business and individual to the point of bankruptcy, to waste trillions on inefficient public services, to start a few wars, to create 10,000 pieces of pointless legislation and red tape.

If Brown wants to compete with India he needs to have radical rethink. Tw@t.

[The Late, Great JC]

Our lot have just closed a department in India... They don't have the skills required so the work will be done in the UK... Go Figure!

Spod - In "Well, that was an expensive exercise in futility" mode!

[DimPrawn]

So you are Spod then? I didn't know that.

[BlasterBates]

no I'm Spod.

Spod in Spod mode

[threaded]

No, you're one of my characters that always claims to be spod when they're not. I'm spod really.

[Joe Black]

"So India and China are booming and Europe is in decline. What a surprise. Could it be due to our governments eagerness to ship as much work abroad as possible, to tax every business and individual to the point of bankruptcy, to waste trillions on inefficient public services, to start a few wars, to create 10,000 pieces of pointless legislation and red tape.

If Brown wants to compete with India he needs to have radical rethink. Tw@t."

Get out of bed on the wrong side this morning DP?, surely with Gordon in charge you should feel at peace with the world, relaxed and at one with yourself.

Be Well DimPrawn.

[voron]

I'm no one else

[threaded]

I thought you were zeitghost

[OwlHoot]

I thought you were zeitghost

I thought the Late, Great JC was Fiddleabout.

It's not only EU countries who are uncompetitive relative to China:

According to http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/13/sc...3research.html

¶ Last year, more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of
higher education in China, compared to 350,000 in India and 70,000 in
the United States.

¶ Recently, American 12th graders performed below the international
average for 21 countries on general knowledge in math and science.

¶ The cost of employing one chemist or engineer in the United States is
equal to about five chemists in China and 11 engineers in India.

¶ Chemical companies last year shut 70 facilities in the United States
and marked 40 for closure. Of 120 large chemical plants under
construction globally, one is in the United States and 50 are in China.

<trivia>Oh and BTW, that paragraph marker "¶" is called a "pilcrow"</trivia>

[BobTheCrate]

Your point is a fundamental one DP.

Reconciling the economics
Gordon Brown has to reconcile the fact that businesses and individuals within India and China do not have hugely expensive public services that take up some 40-50% of their GDP.

How does Gordon Brown suggest UK business competes against such enormous tax and regulation advantage that India and China both enjoy over the UK.

It may or may not be a good thing that we pay for such public services. It may or may not be a good thing that we have much of our business regulated. Their are advantages & disadvantages for both.

But given we do have both, and in great abundance - Gordon Brown needs to explain exactly how we can even hope to compete.

Money growing on trees
I don't see how Gordon Brown can explain. He's never worked in business - he's only ever lived off the Public purse and obviously believes that in order to get money all we have to do is go into our back gardens and pick what we need from tree branches.

The public service bill
Eventually the massively increased size of the UK's public sector has to be paid for. It is increasingly evident as tax receipts continue falling that the private sector cannot sustain the current size of the public sector. When the reality dawns, despite Brown will have probably handed over the Treasury reigns to another Labour boffin, he won't escape the blame nor the legacy of his arrogant and cocooned bungling.

Services moving to where the money is
Manufacturing started disappearing from the UK 20 years ago plus. The doom mongers of the time were ridiculed for predicting economic calamity, which of course didn't happen instantaneously. What is happening now though, is the supposed sanctity of the service industry is now doing what comes naturally - it is following the source of wealth generation - manufacturing and relocating to where that manufacturing is now based

Filling the void
I fail to see what can replace our diminishing service sector. The public sector, plumbers, electricians and chippies aint going to fill the void.