Wednesday, Jan 21, 2009
What every Brit has sadly known for years
FT: Jim Rogers: ‘UK has nothing to sell’
“It’s simple, the UK has nothing to sell.”
Mr Rogers says the two main pillars of support for sterling have been North Sea oil and the strength of the UK financial services sector, in particular, the City of London’s role.
Posted by lukeskywalker @ 04:26 PM (1373 views) Add Comment
17 Comments
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1. Peter Rocker said...
Jim Rogers should debate with Jim O'Neill:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7837766.stm#oneill
2. Wadisgod said...
Who is Jim Rogers? A mate of Soros. Thy "broke" the bank of England Many years ago.
His funds haves tanked recently going long in commodities.
If he had said this six months ago fine.
The pound may fall further against the Dollor, but hang on Europe is in as bad or worst state just watch.
3. paul said...
That's a bit harsh - our banks have lots going for them with the right strategic adjustments ...
4. japanese uncle said...
Strategic adjustment involves stringent diet regime first of all.
5. icarus said...
JR may be right but you could say the same about the US. What's happened in the UK has simply reflected what's happened in the US. For the last 20+ years both economies have fallen under the sway of finance - investment bank-driven mergers, acquisitions and buyouts for short-term 'shareholder value' and crazy leveraging in order to provide the funds to make big enough bets to generate price-shifts, especially bubbles, in markets in order to profit from such shifts.
Both economies have ended up with a similar industrial base - state-protected military production / aerospace, info/comms technology that has enhanced only retail and finance, pharmaceuticals and cars, The only growth generator in both economies has been consumer demand and creative accounting. In both economies real incomes have generally been stagnating and consumer demand has depended on credit (which has depended on the paper 'wealth' created by asset bubbles) and cheap Chinese goods.
6. plato said...
“The City of London is finished, the financial centre of the world is moving east. All the money is in Asia. Why would it go back to the west? You don’t need London,” says Mr Rogers.
I seem to remember the same talk of the financial centre moving to Germany some years ago.............and?
7. jackas said...
icarus
JR has been saying this about the US for years too. He hasn't just been saying it. He's moved to Singapore.
8. holding out said...
Although he is claiming not to have any interests in Britain. He has sank money into China. So if he can encourage people to switch their funds from west to east it will help his own investments. Of course he wouldn't be so underhand.
9. Lukeskywalker said...
Our nation has put all its eggs in one basket. Although I agree with plato's comments, the same was said of Tokyo, too, threatening a paradigm shift but that ended up stagnating for a decade (because the success of its own welfare state removed the individual's drive for success).
I think it's Britain being too London/SE-centric which is the fear. Although finance contributes less than manufacturing to GDP (10% vs 14%), the City supports a vast amount of other industries.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=420
10. fjcruiser said...
When the IMF calls, the interest rates will have to go up. Will the BOE still unanimously vote for a drop in interest rate then ?
11. will said...
Maybe the population wil flow out of the UK over the next few years to chase the jobs. Pheeewwww.
12. Morpheus said...
@8 the skills will leave and the immigrants will continue to flood in for our free lucrative benefits system
13. mountain goat said...
JR is a good investor who I read a lot and respect but his calls always seem to come late. I suspect he talks about things he traded months ago and has now sold already. So I wouldnt be surprised if this is the bottom for Sterling for a while. All this bank panic is just because the shorts were unleashed this week anyway.
UK has lots of gems yet. Oil and finance were big earners and are on the downward slope now, while housing is a disaster, all this is true. But for the rest of UK industry a weak GBP and probably lower wage costs in future, things are not that dire. The sooner JR and the rest of the leveraged hot money funds pull out of the UK the better we will be IMO. One minute they blow asset prices sky-high the next minute they take their money and run. Without them we can focus on constructive enterprise instead of money laundering with a bloated currency. Shame about the cheap holidays tho.
14. denzil said...
I just love the insightful reporting in the media of late. It's a shame the media could not see any further than the "house prices will rise for ever" mantra, whilst seasoned bloggers on HPC were spelling it out years ago. The media are little more than a circus of sheep.
15. techieman said...
Denzil - of course they are. If they werent dont you think they would be captains of industry or traders?
Re JR - can we get this sorted?
I posted JRs results in a previous post but here is a graph of em: .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ROGRS_1998_2007.GIF. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_International_Commodity_Index
http://www.rogersrawmaterials.com/page1.html
and the results in value form : - http://www.rogersrawmaterials.com/page2.asp
Index Monthly Quarterly Yearly Inception
January 4541.07 2.69% 2.69% 354.10%
February 5110.31 12.53% 15.57% 411.03%
March 4834.95 -5.39% 9.34% 9.34% 383.50%
April 5063.96 4.73% 14.52% 406.39%
May 5262.34 3.92% 19.00% 426.23%
June 5718.06 8.66% 18.27% 29.31% 471.80%
July 5185.09 -9.32% 17.26% 418.50%
August 4828.25 -6.88% 9.19% 382.82%
September 4177.84 -13.47% -26.94% -5.52% 317.78%
October 3138.15 -24.88% -29.03% 213.81%
November 2790.92 -11.06% -36.89% 179.09%
December 2593.66 -7.06% -37.92% -41.35% 159.36%
and day by day - http://www.rogersrawmaterials.com/dailyupdate.asp
16. alan said...
Reykjavik on Thames
17. Stuart Allen said...
i Have great respect for Jim, however, having lioved in Asia for the past 10 years, i doubt very much that china et al will be "stable" economies/ societies for very much longer. there will be blood in the streets.