Uk Rate Rise Is Common Sense - Telegraph

[MarkG]

I go along with every thing you say until your conclusion. It's the monthly cost of housing that needs to be low. Low interest rates cuts the monthly cost.

Low interest rates ensure that you're paying more for longer. You're far better off paying 10% interest rates on a 40,000 house than paying 400,000 for the same house with a 1% interest-only mortgage.

[Guest sillybear2]

an example of how we can lead in the world simply through innovation is a company called ARM holdings.

ARM was founded in 1990 in cambridge and creates the architecture and design of phone chips which they licence to everybody else, nokia, samsung, motorola, apple, everyone.

98% of all phones in the entire world is built using an ARM processor to power it.

ARM dont manufacture anything, they dont produce anything, they simply license out the design of their processors, everything from your nokia phone, iphone to your ipad uses an ARM processor chip.

It's good that we have ARM but sadly that's the problem, mass employment comes from making and deploying those ideas, as this Intel chap has realised :-

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b4186048358596.htm

"How could the U.S. have forgotten? I believe the answer has to do with a general undervaluing of manufacturing—the idea that as long as "knowledge work" stays in the U.S., it doesn't matter what happens to factory jobs. It's not just newspaper commentators who spread this idea. Consider this passage by Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder: "The TV manufacturing industry really started here, and at one point employed many workers. But as TV sets became 'just a commodity,' their production moved offshore to locations with much lower wages. And nowadays the number of television sets manufactured in the U.S. is zero. A failure? No, a success."

I disagree. Not only did we lose an untold number of jobs, we broke the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries, abandoning today's "commodity" manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow's emerging industry.

[...]

I fled Hungary as a young man in 1956 to come to the U.S. Growing up in the Soviet bloc, I witnessed first-hand the perils of both government overreach and a stratified population. Most Americans probably aren't aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed. It was 1932; thousands of jobless veterans were demonstrating outside the White House. Soldiers with fixed bayonets and live ammunition moved in on them, and herded them away from the White House. In America! Unemployment is corrosive. If what I'm suggesting sounds protectionist, so be it. "

Edited February 14, 2011 by sillybear2

[mfp123]

It's good that we have ARM but sadly that's the problem, mass employment comes from making and deploying those ideas, as this Intel chap has realised :-

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b4186048358596.htm

"How could the U.S. have forgotten? I believe the answer has to do with a general undervaluing of manufacturing—the idea that as long as "knowledge work" stays in the U.S., it doesn't matter what happens to factory jobs. It's not just newspaper commentators who spread this idea. Consider this passage by Princeton University economist Alan S. Blinder: "The TV manufacturing industry really started here, and at one point employed many workers. But as TV sets became 'just a commodity,' their production moved offshore to locations with much lower wages. And nowadays the number of television sets manufactured in the U.S. is zero. A failure? No, a success."

I disagree. Not only did we lose an untold number of jobs, we broke the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries, abandoning today's "commodity" manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow's emerging industry.

[...]

I fled Hungary as a young man in 1956 to come to the U.S. Growing up in the Soviet bloc, I witnessed first-hand the perils of both government overreach and a stratified population. Most Americans probably aren't aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed. It was 1932; thousands of jobless veterans were demonstrating outside the White House. Soldiers with fixed bayonets and live ammunition moved in on them, and herded them away from the White House. In America! Unemployment is corrosive. If what I'm suggesting sounds protectionist, so be it. "

76% of jobs in the UK are in the tertiary sector so mass employment comes mainly from this area, not manufacturing.

the fact is, we have to move with the times, in the same way computers and machinery have made jobs redundant.

theres no point harping back to old times and how people use to be employed. theres no point re-opening butchers, and fishmongers on every corner to turn things back to the way thigns were before the major supermarkets took over.

the fact is that the supermarkets are here, just as globalisation and 4 billion people in the developing world are here. trying to turn back the clock doesnt do anyone any good, because society has moved on.

[Guest sillybear2]

76% of jobs in the UK are in the tertiary sector so mass employment comes mainly from this area, not manufacturing.

the fact is, we have to move with the times, in the same way computers and machinery have made jobs redundant.

theres no point harping back to old times and how people use to be employed. theres no point re-opening butchers, and fishmongers on every corner to turn things back to the way thigns were before the major supermarkets took over.

the fact is that the supermarkets are here, just as globalisation and 4 billion people in the developing world are here. trying to turn back the clock doesnt do anyone any good, because society has moved on.

The point is these jobs haven't been destroyed by progress or automation, high-tech manufacturing jobs still exist, just not in this country. The problem for companies like ARM will come when emerging economies deploy their tens of thousands of graduates on solving problems or developing technologies of their own. Those in the west who still have the superior attitude that we have to design everything and the 'stupid' east simply bolts things together will have a very rude awakening.

There's a symbiosis between design & manufacture, that's why Germany is keen to keep on to its motor industry, even if that means gaining productivity by freezing wages. In this country we seem to believe destroying the value of sterling will suddenly make factories spring out of the ground, in reality it just means more UK companies are sold off to settle our unending trade deficit (negative for 30 years and counting).

Edited February 14, 2011 by sillybear2

[onesmallstep]

interesting, in my view it's all about what you can provide or what you can do that other people cannot do.

the UK has been far too liberal with intellectual property and far too conservative in investing in i.p.

other nations will not be so generous.

The other aspect to this is unskilled workers, like it or not, most people in this country fall into this category.

A good example of this is the estate agent or the admin office worker. Let alone all these council workers, where will they fit into the private sector?

We have a very hard couple of lessons to learn, firstly, don't give away a hard won advantage and secondly don't expect to be paid much.

This is going to take a long time to play out.