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I have recently been having a discussion with a few friends regarding the economy and what 'we' as Brits could possibly do to help ourselves. When I visited France a few years ago I could not help but notice how nationalistic those guys are and is this really a bad thing? For example : They mainly drive Citroen, Renault or Peugeot cars most of which I noticed had either Total or ELF lubricant stickers displayed in the rear window and Michelin tyres fitted. Also many companies we deal with on a day to day basis are not UK based and there are usually alternatives which are. One the the 'Big Four' hypermarkets is owned by an American giant and they happily advertise this fact, I wonder if they pay their corporation taxes over here or does that money go back to the US?
But these companies all employ UK staff so that must count for something right?, even if they did put smaller home grown competition out of business as they carried out their quests for ever growing market share.
Other companies such as British Telecom may give the impression from the outside that they are a British based operation, all I know is that most of the time I have had to contact them the people I have spoke to may have gone by British names but I doubt they have ever even visited the UK.
Or is this all pretty irrelevant?, after all money is hard to come by these days so if we have to buy cheap clothes that have very probably been knocked out from an Indian sweatshop or cheap broadband that came bundled with our mobile phones then so be it. After all we all have to look after number one and with less cash in our pockets these days we surely have to make it go as far as possible.
But if we do not support 'our own' then it could be one of us who is the next victim of the recession by losing our jobs or in the case of guys leaving education, maybe being unable to find one at all. Or do we basically have a global economy these days so it doesn't really matter where we choose to spend our hard earned cash?
Be really interested to know what you guys think.
But these companies all employ UK staff so that must count for something right?, even if they did put smaller home grown competition out of business as they carried out their quests for ever growing market share.
Other companies such as British Telecom may give the impression from the outside that they are a British based operation, all I know is that most of the time I have had to contact them the people I have spoke to may have gone by British names but I doubt they have ever even visited the UK.
Or is this all pretty irrelevant?, after all money is hard to come by these days so if we have to buy cheap clothes that have very probably been knocked out from an Indian sweatshop or cheap broadband that came bundled with our mobile phones then so be it. After all we all have to look after number one and with less cash in our pockets these days we surely have to make it go as far as possible.
But if we do not support 'our own' then it could be one of us who is the next victim of the recession by losing our jobs or in the case of guys leaving education, maybe being unable to find one at all. Or do we basically have a global economy these days so it doesn't really matter where we choose to spend our hard earned cash?
Be really interested to know what you guys think.
I have recently been having a discussion with a few friends regarding the economy and what 'we' as Brits could possibly do to help ourselves. When I visited France a few years ago I could not help but notice how nationalistic those guys are and is this really a bad thing? For example : They mainly drive Citroen, Renault or Peugeot cars most of which I noticed had either Total or ELF lubricant stickers displayed in the rear window and Michelin tyres fitted. Also many companies we deal with on a day to day basis are not UK based and there are usually alternatives which are. One the the 'Big Four' hypermarkets is owned by an American giant and they happily advertise this fact, I wonder if they pay their corporation taxes over here or does that money go back to the US?
But these companies all employ UK staff so that must count for something right?, even if they did put smaller home grown competition out of business as they carried out their quests for ever growing market share.
Other companies such as British Telecom may give the impression from the outside that they are a British based operation, all I know is that most of the time I have had to contact them the people I have spoke to may have gone by British names but I doubt they have ever even visited the UK.
Or is this all pretty irrelevant?, after all money is hard to come by these days so if we have to buy cheap clothes that have very probably been knocked out from an Indian sweatshop or cheap broadband that came bundled with our mobile phones then so be it. After all we all have to look after number one and with less cash in our pockets these days we surely have to make it go as far as possible.
But if we do not support 'our own' then it could be one of us who is the next victim of the recession by losing our jobs or in the case of guys leaving education, maybe being unable to find one at all. Or do we basically have a global economy these days so it doesn't really matter where we choose to spend our hard earned cash?
Be really interested to know what you guys think.
But these companies all employ UK staff so that must count for something right?, even if they did put smaller home grown competition out of business as they carried out their quests for ever growing market share.
Other companies such as British Telecom may give the impression from the outside that they are a British based operation, all I know is that most of the time I have had to contact them the people I have spoke to may have gone by British names but I doubt they have ever even visited the UK.
Or is this all pretty irrelevant?, after all money is hard to come by these days so if we have to buy cheap clothes that have very probably been knocked out from an Indian sweatshop or cheap broadband that came bundled with our mobile phones then so be it. After all we all have to look after number one and with less cash in our pockets these days we surely have to make it go as far as possible.
But if we do not support 'our own' then it could be one of us who is the next victim of the recession by losing our jobs or in the case of guys leaving education, maybe being unable to find one at all. Or do we basically have a global economy these days so it doesn't really matter where we choose to spend our hard earned cash?
Be really interested to know what you guys think.
Main difference in your comparison is the price of things. Look at the average price of those French company products in France. Then do the same for UK company products in the UK.
The 'pride' starts from the top frankly.
Very simplified and made up figures to empthasize point
UK car company (UKCC) sells 'Car UK' model in France and the UK.
UKCC charge £17000 for a new model in the UK.
UKCC charge £17000 for a new model in France.
French car company (FRCC) sells "Car France" in France and the UK.
FRCC charge £17000 for a new model in the UK.
FRCC charge £14000 for a new model in France.
Whether this is to do with importing the majority of goods, or difference in import tax etc etc who knows.
Bottom line is that other countries businesses also seem nationalistic. The UK is full of foreign investors, and most UK companies aren't UK owned/run anyway.
I am no expert but I have some grasp on this. May be wrong.
The 'pride' starts from the top frankly.
Very simplified and made up figures to empthasize point
UK car company (UKCC) sells 'Car UK' model in France and the UK.
UKCC charge £17000 for a new model in the UK.
UKCC charge £17000 for a new model in France.
French car company (FRCC) sells "Car France" in France and the UK.
FRCC charge £17000 for a new model in the UK.
FRCC charge £14000 for a new model in France.
Whether this is to do with importing the majority of goods, or difference in import tax etc etc who knows.
Bottom line is that other countries businesses also seem nationalistic. The UK is full of foreign investors, and most UK companies aren't UK owned/run anyway.
I am no expert but I have some grasp on this. May be wrong.
Yeah was about to say, we don't make anything notable that we can be proud of !
@WH I know French cars are cheaper in France than in the UK but are they cheaper in France compared to other (non French but not UK manufactured either) makes? I wouldn't have thought they were TBH.
@Chris Totally disagree mate, we make lots of quality things in the UK. I am very happy with my Bentley, it's great! :P
But seriously, you're right. We sadly don't manufacture much at all anymore, pretty much everything can be made cheaper overseas these days :(
@Chris Totally disagree mate, we make lots of quality things in the UK. I am very happy with my Bentley, it's great! :P
But seriously, you're right. We sadly don't manufacture much at all anymore, pretty much everything can be made cheaper overseas these days :(
pete_21 wrote:
But seriously, you're right. We sadly don't manufacture much at all anymore, pretty much everything can be made cheaper overseas these days :(
Recently read an article pete that stated that 60% of what we now manufacture goes overseas and that manufacturing now only represents about 15% of the GDP!
But seriously, you're right. We sadly don't manufacture much at all anymore, pretty much everything can be made cheaper overseas these days :(
Recently read an article pete that stated that 60% of what we now manufacture goes overseas and that manufacturing now only represents about 15% of the GDP!
We really need to start producing things in this country :'-(
I'd have to go along with what others have said. We don't seem to produce very much in Britain anymore, even simply things like books are printed in China.
Prices are a big factor too. I read an article recently where a shop about a mile away from a Polo mint factory would import the mints from abroad because it was cheaper than getting them from along the road.
I've got a British car and it's a pain in the backside to get parts for. That's entirely down to the company having folded rather than the car being British though.
Prices are a big factor too. I read an article recently where a shop about a mile away from a Polo mint factory would import the mints from abroad because it was cheaper than getting them from along the road.
I've got a British car and it's a pain in the backside to get parts for. That's entirely down to the company having folded rather than the car being British though.
Morning
I've been thing about this quite a bit over the past few months and wherever possible and I have been trying to give as much business as I can to UK based companies. I have started using suppliers such as ebuyer.com where I always used to use the likes of Amazon and we no longer use the US owned Asda chain for our weekly shopping. It's not really any massive surprise that the country is in such a mess when it would appear that a fair amount of the money spent by us Brits ends up overseas, doesn't seem to happen anything like as much in other countries I've visited. It's not always possible to do this and in the grand scheme of things it's probably making very little difference as few people seem to think in this way.
Right, I'm just off to work in my German car before I make a couple of calls on my Japanese mobile phone over a Spanish owned network....
I've been thing about this quite a bit over the past few months and wherever possible and I have been trying to give as much business as I can to UK based companies. I have started using suppliers such as ebuyer.com where I always used to use the likes of Amazon and we no longer use the US owned Asda chain for our weekly shopping. It's not really any massive surprise that the country is in such a mess when it would appear that a fair amount of the money spent by us Brits ends up overseas, doesn't seem to happen anything like as much in other countries I've visited. It's not always possible to do this and in the grand scheme of things it's probably making very little difference as few people seem to think in this way.
Right, I'm just off to work in my German car before I make a couple of calls on my Japanese mobile phone over a Spanish owned network....
After Amazon & Starbucks it now appears that eBay/Paypal want to trade in our country while putting as little as possible back into it. Should we be looking to use alternatives to companies who do this?