North Sea Oil - Are We A 3Rd World Country Without It?

[erranta]

A fair proportion of UK is already 3rd world ! For decades since Thatcher we have had something like 1 in 5 households with no-one in work and mass unemployment masked by finding any excuse to fiddle the figures. When public sector and benefits get cut after the next election, you could see shanty-towns coming into existence.

This development is made more likely because we have fair proportion of immigrants who are from just such a background. Once they are stared by the immigrants the Brits will also move in.

If shanty towns come into being it will completely fook the BTL+Renting market causing a massive BTL housing crash plus zillions of mortgaged bankrupts!

[wren]

Like, for instance, tourism and property development?

We only make things that aren't high profile.

...

Pharmaceuticals are an important area of the UK economy.

Of course, these are just pills that the doctor prescribes and who cares where they come from?

[Cogs]

Alstom - French.

Airbus/Eurofighter - BAE still there, most of the British instrumentation/components companies now directly foreign owned.

RR - Best engnes in the world.

Westland - Finmeccanica.

Of course many people will say it doesn't matter who owns these, that is until it does.

It doesn't matter to the point being made earlier, no. I'd much rather have a foreign owned company putting things on ships and selling them than 100% British owned tertiary sector "can't really explain what my job is about in less than five minutes" service nonsense.

Edited November 5, 2009 by Cogs

[Kurt Barlow]

Have you heard of the term 'The Dutch disease'? This was a term describing how the vast revenues Holland made from north sea gas ended up crowding out their manufacturing industries as the exchange rate surged in the 60s and 70s no the back of the commodity exports. There's no doubt that the UK has suffered from this to some extent, as the pound was supported by oil revenues at a level that was not conducive to manufacturing given our productivity levels and so on. It's no coincidence that the UK was blessed with large oil wealth and that it has also seen manufacturing shrink as a share of GDP faster than any other Western European nation. There is no doubt in my mind that in the next couple of decades our standard of living will again fall well behind France, Germany & Italy as it will take time for us to get used to not being able to pump money out of the ground.

However the sensible dutch capped their production in the early 80's which helped revive their manufacturing industry.

As a result

Holland has a significant balance of trade surplus

Decent gas reserves - and will be a major producer long after we are gassed out

reasonable sized manufacturing sector

In contrast we pissed ours up the wall at $20 a barrel equivalent.

[Kurt Barlow]

In the University city I live in, and living in studentland, I've seen in the last 5 years a veritable production line of Chinese students coming and going. Our thriving higher-education sector is training the people who will design and build the products of the future, exporting the technical knowledge and innovation that we're rightly famous for. How long before the next iPod is invented, made, marketed and exported solely in the Far East?

Are you telling us all these foreign students are not taking up Sociology, diversity and community cohesion studies?

[OnlyMe]

Wrong.

BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defense contractor, said its decision last week to sell its 20% share in commercial aircraft producer Airbus was based on the company’s expectation that the commercial aerospace cycle would peak in 2008.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/11/airbus-boeing-0411markets03.html From 2006.

Agree with the rest though.

Oh dear, I'm slipping.

Cogs,

It doesn't matter to the point being made earlier, no. I'd much rather have a foreign owned company putting things on ships and selling them than 100% British owned tertiary sector "can't really explain what my job is about in less than five minutes" service nonsense.

True, but it doesn't take long to shift the production to the home market when things get tight. Puts the country in an incredibly vulnerable position when you look at longer timeframes. UK stops buyiing trains for 5 years, train manufacturing shuttered and gone and any useful bits shipped to France, that sort of thing.

Edited November 5, 2009 by OnlyMe

[Si1]

Oh dear, I'm slipping.

Cogs,

It doesn't matter to the point being made earlier, no. I'd much rather have a foreign owned company putting things on ships and selling them than 100% British owned tertiary sector "can't really explain what my job is about in less than five minutes" service nonsense.

True, but it doesn't take long to shift the production to the home market when things get tight. Puts the country in an incredibly vulnerable position when you look at longer timeframes. UK stops buyiing trains for 5 years, train manufacturing shuttered and gone and any useful bits shipped to France, that sort of thing.

train manufacturing is a hugely international job these days - certain types of trains are manufactured exclusively in one works and variants are exported everywhere - so we only dometically produce trains that we specialise in, and import ones that aren't made here, even all from the same company.