Apparently we do a fine line in scrap metal. The Chinese sell us the washing machine,we use it and then scrap it, sell them the scrap which they turn into another washing machine to sell back to us. The profit is all theirs of course, not only in the added value to the scrap but in the creation of jobs to make the washing machine.
Now we all know what the underdeveloped nations felt, as the West stripped them of their raw material to produce finished products to sell back to them with that phrase "added value" ringing in their ears !
This monumental turnover has happened in only the last decade but had its seed sown in the complacency British Business has shown since the war.
The reluctance to keep on investing, using the profits that were there in those days, trading on our unique position, having had an Empire and having been the bed rock of so much of the worlds trade structure, thrown away.
The Germans of course didn't squander their money on dividends and immediate self-gratification they kept reinvesting, re-modernising, re-training their staff and in effect, staying ahead of the game !!!
It has been this "Nations" mantra that the "work force" and the "unions" were mainly to blame for our failures.
I put it to you, most of the blame lies with the Owners and the Management of business. Not only in their inability to re-invest but in their unwillingness to understand the importance of their workforce in maintaining the business.
Treat your workforce as equal collaborators, keep giving them new skills and new equipment and you will have a German outcome. You will then sell the Rolls and the Bentley to the Chinese, (as the Germans do) and re-use the profit to keep innovating to stay ahead.
We are in such a mess and will have to rely on the Chinese to buy up what is left of us, and bring the "techniques" that are clearly not learnt at Eton.
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