Northern investment

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Woodleyclaret
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Northern investment

Post by Woodleyclaret » Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:05 am

After a systematic failure by all governments in allowing cheap textile goods in now is the time to resurrect our manufacturing bases in textiles
The current crisis has amplified the folly of demolishing our capabilities to produce our own products
The lack of scrubs is a classic
Surely its time to manufacture here
Before people bleat about costs its bettet to have people in work than on permanent benefits
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Heathclaret
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Heathclaret » Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:18 am

I agree with you, unfortunately capitalism doesn’t, manufacture in a third world country with no H&S regulations and no worker’s rights for far less expense means more profit for the people at the top.

I was listening to the radio on the way to work yesterday, the discussion was about the lack of agricultural workers, a woman, normally in film production, and several of her friends have applied on line for vacancies as they have no income currently. Despite claims that no one is applying, there have been hundreds of applications that have gone unanswered. They said at the end of the section that there was obviously something wrong with the application system. Perhaps the problem is they would have to pay the UK based employee more than an imported temporary workforce.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by pauliopaulio » Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:26 am

It’s not a issue about pay - was listening to the Romanians being flown in on the charter flights saying they were getting £9-10 per hour.

It’s probably more a question of graft - I work with in a company that recruits locally and overseas. The Eastern Europeans are the hardest workers by far - and fruit picking is no easy job by all accounts
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Colburn_Claret » Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:47 am

Woodleyclaret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:05 am
After a systematic failure by all governments in allowing cheap textile goods in now is the time to resurrect our manufacturing bases in textiles
The current crisis has amplified the folly of demolishing our capabilities to produce our own products
The lack of scrubs is a classic
Surely its time to manufacture here
Before people bleat about costs its bettet to have people in work than on permanent benefits
First you need to convince a lot of those people on permanent benefits to get off their arses. Somewhere over the last 30-40 years we've created this society of entitlement. Working a 40 hour week to get little more than they get on benefits is just not the way they see life.
You have two choices, raise the minimum wage to a level that inflates costs beyond means, or cut benefits for those not willing to work.

I know what I'd do, and I know what the loony left would think about it. The question is what do you think we can do about it.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by Quickenthetempo » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:01 am

Colburn_Claret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:47 am
First you need to convince a lot of those people on permanent benefits to get off their arses. Somewhere over the last 30-40 years we've created this society of entitlement. Working a 40 hour week to get little more than they get on benefits is just not the way they see life.
You have two choices, raise the minimum wage to a level that inflates costs beyond means, or cut benefits for those not willing to work.

I know what I'd do, and I know what the loony left would think about it. The question is what do you think we can do about it.
As a centrist I have noticed these last few weeks.

People have claimed everyone on benefits can have a life of luxury on the starter benefit of 72 pound a week.

Then, these same people refused to stay at home from a life threatening virus because they couldn't live off SSP of 94 pound a week. To a point of making the government pay most people's wages at 80%. Including self employed.

Maybe people will realise after all this

Paul Waine
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Paul Waine » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:08 am

Woodleyclaret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:05 am
After a systematic failure by all governments in allowing cheap textile goods in now is the time to resurrect our manufacturing bases in textiles
The current crisis has amplified the folly of demolishing our capabilities to produce our own products
The lack of scrubs is a classic
Surely its time to manufacture here
Before people bleat about costs its bettet to have people in work than on permanent benefits
Do you want us to go back to the times when Lancashire cotton mills manufactured clothing from the black underclass (and former slaves) in southern states of America?

The world has moved on. Cotton is grown in other countries. The workers in those other countries also want and need their jobs.

Of course, we can always manufacture using man-made fibres....but we don't like the petchems industries that much either.

DCWat
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Re: Northern investment

Post by DCWat » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:30 am

Encouraging people to pay for the products produced, at significantly higher prices, would be some challenge, and that after the perhaps greater challenge of finding a workforce willing and able to do the work.

There are many sub-industries built on ‘fast fashion’, many of which have vested interest in keeping things as they are, so that society remains programmed to think they need All these different clothes, goods and products.

We’re a throw away society, things are no longer built to last (unless, in some cases but not all, you’re prepared to pay top dollar for something that will stand the test of time).

The vision itself is a good one, the ability to achieve it, is probably nigh on impossible, in today’s society.

Funkydrummer
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Funkydrummer » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:38 am

We could all start by knitting our own replica shirts.

Win win - save money and no horrific sponsors logo. :D

DCWat
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Re: Northern investment

Post by DCWat » Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:07 am

Funkydrummer wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:38 am
We could all start by knitting our own replica shirts.

Win win - save money and no horrific sponsors logo. :D
Scratchy!!

mdd2
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Re: Northern investment

Post by mdd2 » Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:31 am

Paul Waine wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:08 am
Do you want us to go back to the times when Lancashire cotton mills manufactured clothing from the black underclass (and former slaves) in southern states of America?

The world has moved on. Cotton is grown in other countries. The workers in those other countries also want and need their jobs.

Of course, we can always manufacture using man-made fibres....but we don't like the petchems industries that much either.
The World needs to move back a tad and we need to take a look at what we need to source here to protect us when there are problems. The idea that making some of our own health care equipment including scrubs and PPE means slave labour abroad is palpable nonsense but we do need at least a manufacturing broad base that can be cranked up quickly when needed. I know we may no longer need a forestry commission given the decline of mining and need for wooden pit props, but this crisis has brought home our vulnerability for many things as have certain earlier disasters in China and India.
Talking of underclass I think black underclass in USA has been replaced by brown underclass in Bangladesh which we seem happy to exploit in the garments we buy

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Re: Northern investment

Post by burnleymik » Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:49 am

pauliopaulio wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:26 am
It’s not a issue about pay - was listening to the Romanians being flown in on the charter flights saying they were getting £9-10 per hour.

It’s probably more a question of graft - I work with in a company that recruits locally and overseas. The Eastern Europeans are the hardest workers by far - and fruit picking is no easy job by all accounts
Not to mention that they are far more exploitable and the farmers can also charge them for accommodation costs, essentially bringing down their own costs.
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Heathclaret » Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:55 am

pauliopaulio wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:26 am
It’s not a issue about pay - was listening to the Romanians being flown in on the charter flights saying they were getting £9-10 per hour.

It’s probably more a question of graft - I work with in a company that recruits locally and overseas. The Eastern Europeans are the hardest workers by far - and fruit picking is no easy job by all accounts
I find it very difficult to believe that we don’t have people who can graft in this country. Will the cost of housing and feeding foreign workers be deducted from their pay or is that an added cost? I agree that we have lazy people in this country, but we have some good workers as well, as long as we keep using the excuse that the people are lazy therefore we need to source a foreign workforce, the longer the problem will exist.

I know in Lincolnshire we have a high level of agricultural and factory workers, for the likes of Moy Park and McCains, from Eastern Europe, and we also have a lot of people who doss and do nothing. We have to force a change of attitude on people with a poor work ethic, but not by forcing them in to poverty.

In comparison, my eighteen year old daughter is friends with polish lad who has been studying at Cambridge university since last September, he says he is not naturally academic, but he works very hard. Before university, he worked as a cleaner with his mother and then at the local fish and chip shop where my daughter works, they also went to school together.

My daughter also went to school with our next door neighbours son, he is studying Business Studies at Sheffield University. His father is high up in the armed forces, he has never had a part time job, and has been given everything he wants by his parents including a high end Skoda. This is the norm where we live and the way the middle class treat their kids. They have to work for nothing. Sixth form school children driving around in brand new Golfs and Leon’s. One of them in an A class Mercedes.

Worlds gone mad.

NewClaret
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Re: Northern investment

Post by NewClaret » Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:11 pm

Agree entirely we should be investing appropriately in industry so we have a degree of self-sufficiently. Agriculture, textiles, electronics, and particularly energy - the works. Not suggesting we fill mills full of people making clothes, but we should be investing in the machinery to do so cheaply.

It’s a disgrace we have to send planes to China to get PPE, mainly because it is clearly preventing us from properly holding the Chinese to account over what seems to be a massive cover up over what will be the most deadly public health crisis in history.

As for benefits, I’d scrap JSA and give every unemployed citizen a job in a government role on minimum wage, be that collecting litter, supporting the police investigate crimes, working as a hospital porter. Better for them and better for the country.
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No Ney Never
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Re: Northern investment

Post by No Ney Never » Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:32 pm

NewClaret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:11 pm

As for benefits, I’d scrap JSA and give every unemployed citizen a job in a government role on minimum wage, be that collecting litter, supporting the police investigate crimes, working as a hospital porter. Better for them and better for the country.
Not sure if I'd scrap JSA, but I too would require a number of hours of 'community service' as part of the conditions to receive it.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by Longsidelenny » Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:34 pm

That makes a lot sense new claret well said utc

AndrewJB
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Re: Northern investment

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:16 pm

Colburn_Claret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:47 am
First you need to convince a lot of those people on permanent benefits to get off their arses. Somewhere over the last 30-40 years we've created this society of entitlement. Working a 40 hour week to get little more than they get on benefits is just not the way they see life.
You have two choices, raise the minimum wage to a level that inflates costs beyond means, or cut benefits for those not willing to work.

I know what I'd do, and I know what the loony left would think about it. The question is what do you think we can do about it.
You’re looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. The manufacturing and industry the people were previously employed in left because the owners of the means of production found there was more profit to be made by manufacturing elsewhere. They persuaded the government to reduce trade barriers and this made those industries impossible to run profitably here, which meant the workers couldn’t even take over their previous places of employment and run them as cooperatives. Added to this, the government has never invested enough to retrain and reskill. They’ve left places like Burnley to rot.

You say minimum wage can’t be raised to be a living wage because that would be too inflationary, and I say that is the sign of an unbalanced and dysfunctional economy. As you’ll probably agree, with the exception of the thirty years following WW2, the economy has always been run for the benefit of those at the top. The solution is in rebalancing the economy so it works for everyone.
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Re: Northern investment

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:20 pm

NewClaret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:11 pm
Agree entirely we should be investing appropriately in industry so we have a degree of self-sufficiently. Agriculture, textiles, electronics, and particularly energy - the works. Not suggesting we fill mills full of people making clothes, but we should be investing in the machinery to do so cheaply.

It’s a disgrace we have to send planes to China to get PPE, mainly because it is clearly preventing us from properly holding the Chinese to account over what seems to be a massive cover up over what will be the most deadly public health crisis in history.

As for benefits, I’d scrap JSA and give every unemployed citizen a job in a government role on minimum wage, be that collecting litter, supporting the police investigate crimes, working as a hospital porter. Better for them and better for the country.
What you’re describing is the failure of the free market - without the guidance of the government. In leaving the manufacture and procurement to free market forces, we’ve been unable to foster the industry here, and found ourselves short in a crisis.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by basil6345789 » Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:55 pm

Tony Blair declaring that every kid has a right to go to Uni didn't help - it created entirely the wrong culture.
Doss degrees at **** unis and gap years galore are most inappropriate.
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NewClaret
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Re: Northern investment

Post by NewClaret » Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:07 pm

AndrewJB wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:20 pm
What you’re describing is the failure of the free market - without the guidance of the government. In leaving the manufacture and procurement to free market forces, we’ve been unable to foster the industry here, and found ourselves short in a crisis.
How strange. We agree on something Andrew :lol: :lol:

Fan of the free market. Also a fan of the Government performing its primary role - to protect its people - by investing/policy setting appropriately to ensure a balance of industry that provides a level of self-sufficiency; particularly in basic necessities like food, pharma, clothing and green energy.

NewClaret
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Re: Northern investment

Post by NewClaret » Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:11 pm

basil6345789 wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:55 pm
Tony Blair declaring that every kid has a right to go to Uni didn't help - it created entirely the wrong culture.
Doss degrees at **** unis and gap years galore are most inappropriate.
100% agree. There are some that go to Uni because they’re academically gifted and/or need the further education to get the

The rest, like me, went for a doss and to avoid work for 3/4 years. Government should invest much more in developing apprenticeships across all industries and encouraging employment from 16/18.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:26 pm

NewClaret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:07 pm
How strange. We agree on something Andrew :lol: :lol:

Fan of the free market. Also a fan of the Government performing its primary role - to protect its people - by investing/policy setting appropriately to ensure a balance of industry that provides a level of self-sufficiency; particularly in basic necessities like food, pharma, clothing and green energy.
I like the free market too, but the problem is it has been fetishised reverently as the answer to all things. I could have pointed to our rail network, broadband infrastructure, or utilities before as examples of where it has fallen short.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:32 pm

NewClaret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:11 pm
100% agree. There are some that go to Uni because they’re academically gifted and/or need the further education to get the

The rest, like me, went for a doss and to avoid work for 3/4 years. Government should invest much more in developing apprenticeships across all industries and encouraging employment from 16/18.
I think we need to look at education as a means of empowering citizens with critical thinking, rather than a pathway into work. It should be lifelong as well, so that if someone decides later in life that they’d like to do that it’s easy for them. If you have intelligent and informed citizens, you’ll get a better quality of government, and a better quality of government will set us on a more prosperous path.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by Burnley Ace » Sat Apr 18, 2020 4:13 pm

AndrewJB wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:20 pm
What you’re describing is the failure of the free market - without the guidance of the government. In leaving the manufacture and procurement to free market forces, we’ve been unable to foster the industry here, and found ourselves short in a crisis.
What we should do is put tariffs on goods coming from Asia. Make 100% more expensive and the it would be cheaper to make the goods here. Perhaps we could also pay agricultural workers £15 an hour (it’s hard graft) and then it would be an attractive job.

We could rebalance the economy by setting a maximum wage, no one needs more than £150k a year, and increasing tax.

Stayingup
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Stayingup » Sat Apr 18, 2020 4:39 pm

Woodleyclaret wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:05 am
After a systematic failure by all governments in allowing cheap textile goods in now is the time to resurrect our manufacturing bases in textiles
The current crisis has amplified the folly of demolishing our capabilities to produce our own products
The lack of scrubs is a classic
Surely its time to manufacture here
Before people bleat about costs its bettet to have people in work than on permanent benefits
Yes its been sold down the river in the ame of Free Trade.

Of course the demand for cheap almost disposable clothes has not helped. Young women particularly buy most new clothes and might wear once or twice and discard they are so cheap.

To make polyester from PTA requires big plant. All gone from UK and now dominated maiiny by China who are massive producers of commodity Polyester yarns, fabrics and garments. Hard to reinstate that. But even if the unfinished yarn was brought in their are now next to no plant to finish them. The knitting industry, mainly in East Midlands is on its last legs and receives no government support and hasn't under successive governments for years.

The textile industry was considered a poor industry to work in and struggled to attract workers. Low wages and polluted environment. Hence the immigration from Asia to keep it running. Thats more or less all gone now of course apart from specialized and techical producers. Great pity. But what about other industries like ship building?

Stayingup
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Stayingup » Sat Apr 18, 2020 4:57 pm

Paul Waine wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:08 am
Do you want us to go back to the times when Lancashire cotton mills manufactured clothing from the black underclass (and former slaves) in southern states of America?

The world has moved on. Cotton is grown in other countries. The workers in those other countries also want and need their jobs.

Of course, we can always manufacture using man-made fibres....but we don't like the petchems industries that much either.
Most garments of today are made from synthetic fibre. Mainly Polyester. You are correct of course it is a bi product of oil. Not altogether a most healthy industry to work in. But it can be if proper air conditioning and air renewal systems are in place. But that costs and young women wont be able to buy outfits for £14 on the internet made in UK if all that is in place.

Nonayforever
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Nonayforever » Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:05 pm

AndrewJB wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:20 pm
What you’re describing is the failure of the free market - without the guidance of the government. In leaving the manufacture and procurement to free market forces, we’ve been unable to foster the industry here, and found ourselves short in a crisis.
What do you want any government to do ?
Subsidise all and every industry that's ever existed just in case there is a totally unexpected disaster sometimes in the future.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by evensteadiereddie » Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:31 pm

Either way, the much hoped -for post Brexit Northern investment, levelling - up, or whatever you want to call it is not going to happen.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Apr 18, 2020 7:26 pm

Nonayforever wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:05 pm
What do you want any government to do ?
Subsidise all and every industry that's ever existed just in case there is a totally unexpected disaster sometimes in the future.
I’m not advocating that.

Over the past forty years we’ve had leaders who insist on the primacy of free markets - even when the evidence shows it doesn’t always bring the best outcomes. It was treated like a religion, and questioning it was heresy. Not happy with the free market for consumer goods, it had to be introduced into every facet of our economy. Railways, utilities, increasing parts of the public sector, our postal service - and it’s all been so rich people can milk our economy. Now we can see this “religion” as the false one it is.
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Re: Northern investment

Post by Stayingup » Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:12 pm

AndrewJB wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 7:26 pm
I’m not advocating that.

Over the past forty years we’ve had leaders who insist on the primacy of free markets - even when the evidence shows it doesn’t always bring the best outcomes. It was treated like a religion, and questioning it was heresy. Not happy with the free market for consumer goods, it had to be introduced into every facet of our economy. Railways, utilities, increasing parts of the public sector, our postal service - and it’s all been so rich people can milk our economy. Now we can see this “religion” as the false one it is.
Free Markets is Capitalism and over 40 years, you mention, it has raised standards of living. So it has worked. I can tell you this Mao's communism held China back and until Deng Xiaoping opened the economy China was a dire place to be. Right now we are in unprecedented territory for modern times and have to act in accordance.
I do agree with nationalising the railways and possibly the utilities.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by AndrewJB » Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:34 pm

Stayingup wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:12 pm
Free Markets is Capitalism and over 40 years, you mention, it has raised standards of living. So it has worked. I can tell you this Mao's communism held China back and until Deng Xiaoping opened the economy China was a dire place to be. Right now we are in unprecedented territory for modern times and have to act in accordance.
I do agree with nationalising the railways and possibly the utilities.
For me the question isn't between communism and capitalism, but having a well regulated free market alongside a strong state sector. The goal should really be an economy that works for everyone. There's no reason for it to be a rat race, or for nurses to have to use food banks, or for minimum wage not to cover the basic costs of living, or for lots of families to have to choose between food and heating their house, or for our health system to be so underfunded that front line workers don't have the right equipment. Capitalism can create wealth, but unless that wealth is distributed around, then it's meaningless to most people.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by Colburn_Claret » Sun Apr 19, 2020 9:55 am

AndrewJB wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:16 pm
You’re looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. The manufacturing and industry the people were previously employed in left because the owners of the means of production found there was more profit to be made by manufacturing elsewhere. They persuaded the government to reduce trade barriers and this made those industries impossible to run profitably here, which meant the workers couldn’t even take over their previous places of employment and run them as cooperatives. Added to this, the government has never invested enough to retrain and reskill. They’ve left places like Burnley to rot.

You say minimum wage can’t be raised to be a living wage because that would be too inflationary, and I say that is the sign of an unbalanced and dysfunctional economy. As you’ll probably agree, with the exception of the thirty years following WW2, the economy has always been run for the benefit of those at the top. The solution is in rebalancing the economy so it works for everyone.
I agree about the reasons why these industries left our shores, it shouldn't have happened but its history.
The question is how do you bring them back without causing inflation. There are things that can only be made in this country if the public are happy to pay more for the finished product. The reality is we are not.

On the question if a living wage, I've always supported it. Its a crime that anyone working full time should be reliant on benefits. The point of my statement which you've missed, is even with a living wage, we have an underbelly of society that still wouldn't be interested in work. They don't care that they could live like the majority of the country, they'd prefer to carry on getting paid for doing nothing. So how do you get these people to sign on at all these new minimum wage factories, relocating back in the UK.

There were many schemes back in the 70s for retraining, particularly in wake of the pit closures and death of the ship industry. I myself did a TOPS course on centrelathe turning.
I know many people who started new careers through such schemes. The only down side was you were then competing for jobs with people who'd completed C&G apprenticeships.

My whole point is it isn't as simple as wishful thinking, whatever you do brings hurdles that have to be overcome and unless you have the solutions to those hurdles all you are left with is wishful thinking.

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Re: Northern investment

Post by Stayingup » Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:51 pm

Funnily enough a Cotton Spinning Plant opened recently in Ashto Under Lyne.. English Fine Cotton making hight quality cotton yarns. Sadly no British machinery there. All German and thats another sad story. One I could relate very well but lets just say rank bad management in the textile machinery sector caused the collapse..

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Re: Northern investment

Post by Stayingup » Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:54 pm

AndrewJB wrote:
Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:34 pm
For me the question isn't between communism and capitalism, but having a well regulated free market alongside a strong state sector. The goal should really be an economy that works for everyone. There's no reason for it to be a rat race, or for nurses to have to use food banks, or for minimum wage not to cover the basic costs of living, or for lots of families to have to choose between food and heating their house, or for our health system to be so underfunded that front line workers don't have the right equipment. Capitalism can create wealth, but unless that wealth is distributed around, then it's meaningless to most people.
Unfortunately Andrew we dont live in a perfect world. Greed and poor management in private and public sectors has a lot to answer for as do Investment Banks et al.

AndrewJB
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Re: Northern investment

Post by AndrewJB » Sun Apr 19, 2020 6:46 pm

Stayingup wrote:
Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:54 pm
Unfortunately Andrew we dont live in a perfect world. Greed and poor management in private and public sectors has a lot to answer for as do Investment Banks et al.
Nothing is perfect, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t seek to improve things.
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