Send em all home?

[Sausage Surprise]

Just send the Bobs back

[Mich the Tester]

Anybody who has worked with Goldmann should have that mentioned on their criminal record as an unspent conviction.

Even the tape changers?

[SueEllen]

Just send the Bobs back

Racist.

Not all Bobs are useless and sexist.

Though I would happily send the useless and sexist ones back so the good ones without a problem with working with women don't have to do 3 people's work.

[BrilloPad]

Just send the Bobs back

To France?

[vetran]

If this is all true, why are there profitable companies employing thousands of people all over western Europe?

the vast majority I have seen are running their sales & service in western Europe and their production in lower cost countries with fewer regulations and costs.

e.g. Nike,Apple, IBM,HP,Dell & Dyson.

Its cheaper and easier to make stuff there.

Also many profits are made here but are off-shored to avoid tax. Salaries are paid and taxed in the low cost countries. It is great that Starbucks make billions but they need to move the money round the country for it to have an effect.

Smaller companies or ones producing higher quality goods tend to manufacture in the costlier countries, however long term India & China will get a reputation for quality like the Japanese did. then we are truly screwed. We will be in a 20 - 30 year depression while the low cost countries become expensive.

Ship building is like physics / computer / medical research there are only a few centres of excellence where big projects are currently trusted. However we can look forward to Manchester, Reading, MIT & John Hopkins/Guy's being supplanted by Indian,Chinese & Iranian universities or teaching hospitals. I'm sure the same will happen with ship building as the populations skill up.


Its currently a dive to the lowest cost, our governments need to turn it into a glide so we can adjust, but so far they have all failed to do that.

[Mich the Tester]

Ship building is like physics / computer / medical research there are only a few centres of excellence where big projects are currently trusted. However we can look forward to Manchester, Reading, MIT & John Hopkins/Guy's being supplanted by Indian,Chinese & Iranian universities or teaching hospitals. I'm sure the same will happen with ship building as the populations skill up.

This will indeed happen if western governments continue to fund people to do useless degrees like Meejah Studies instead of good stuff like the sciences and engineering. Keep developing, keep researching and you can stay a step ahead of the rest.

[Mich the Tester]

Also many profits are made here but are off-shored to avoid tax. Salaries are paid and taxed in the low cost countries. It is great that Starbucks make billions but they need to move the money round the country for it to have an effect.

Do you know what multinationals do with their profits? They re-invest a bit, and they pay out dividends. Those dividends go to shareholders, who are mostly institutional shareholders running investments for pension firms like the one that will pay out a pension when you stop working. Tax the profits, then less money gets re-invested and less money gets paid out to pension funds, so you suffer.

Really, people seem to think that taxing multinationals' profits is like cracking open the pot of gold under the rainbow. In fact it's exactly like that, because it's imaginary money; everything we do is taxed, so you take more tax from one source, you get less tax from another source. The answer to the problem of funding western European governments is not more tax; it's smaller governments.

[d000hg]

You need to get real.
Rightly or wrongly companies have no loyalty to their community (except maybe in highly "close" societies like Germany with many locally based family-owned companies - and even that is changing).

Where did I mention loyalty? Apple want to be able to claim their products are "Made in America" because it will enhance their brand and make them more money, they believe. I imagine Apple are smarter than you when it comes to this kind of thing.

I was talking about the business advantages of appearing to care about the community, not making some moral case for their "duty" to do so.

[sasguru]

the vast majority I have seen are running their sales & service in western Europe and their production in lower cost countries with fewer regulations and costs.

e.g. Nike,Apple, IBM,HP,Dell & Dyson.

Its cheaper and easier to make stuff there.

Also many profits are made here but are off-shored to avoid tax. Salaries are paid and taxed in the low cost countries. It is great that Starbucks make billions but they need to move the money round the country for it to have an effect.

Smaller companies or ones producing higher quality goods tend to manufacture in the costlier countries, however long term India & China will get a reputation for quality like the Japanese did. then we are truly screwed. We will be in a 20 - 30 year depression while the low cost countries become expensive.

Ship building is like physics / computer / medical research there are only a few centres of excellence where big projects are currently trusted. However we can look forward to Manchester, Reading, MIT & John Hopkins/Guy's being supplanted by Indian,Chinese & Iranian universities or teaching hospitals. I'm sure the same will happen with ship building as the populations skill up.


Its currently a dive to the lowest cost, our governments need to turn it into a glide so we can adjust, but so far they have all failed to do that.

I diaagree with a lot of the doom and gloom.

India and China are vastly over-rated at the moment. India has probably only 2/3 universities which are any good.
There is still a preponderance of know-how in Europe and US (in the US military the advantage is probably about 2 generations).
Its no surprise that where Britain does well is in the advanced skills: aerospace, pharma, life-sciences, and financial rocket science.
Contrary to what people say these are not skills that can be learnt easily. Manufacturing is more easily learnt, although the Germans keep ahead of the chasing pack with innovation and marketing.

[sasguru]

Where did I mention loyalty? Apple want to be able to claim their products are "Made in America" because it will enhance their brand and make them more money, they believe. I imagine Apple are smarter than you when it comes to this kind of thing.
.

Not so smart since with the recent scandals everyone knows their stuff is manufactured in Chinese sweat-shops.