Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Dig for victory
Buying British: how to spend our way out of recession
Might we, as consumers, be able to bring the country out of recession? Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, says: "It's a fact that if we bought more British goods, we'd limit the imports and that would help the economy. However, it would have to happen on a significant scale for it to make a difference, and only the people who can still afford to spend, without getting into further debt, should be spending."
Posted by sibley's b'stard child @ 01:41 PM (1568 views)
11 thoughts on “Dig for victory”
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Thecountofnowhere says:
British Jobs for British workers…….
montesquieu says:
National products movements have been a feature throughout modern history across many geographies, but usually needed backing by protectionist measures from Government to get properly going – which of course immediately raises risks of retaliations and trade wars.
It’s probably illegal anyway under EU law and other nanny state provisions (free speech has already gone).
And it’s also nearly impossible to carry out as manufacture is so distributed these days, what’s British anyway, something made of all-foreign bits with the final bit of low-cost assembly done here, or something assembled abroad from a mix of global bits with a decent UK content? In supermarkets very little is identifiably British anyway and most of the famous ‘British’ brands were sold to asset strippers years ago, divested of anything that could be sold and their brands sold to global conglomerates.
Any ‘Buy British’ campaign these days would be a complicated business.
Chilli says:
What we need is innovation rather than protectionism.
general congreve says:
I’m all in, anyone know where they sell Austin Metros these days?
stillthinking says:
We could buy affordable housing even.
khards says:
In Ireland there is a very strong by Irish and local Irish produce signals everywhere where food and drink are concerned. They even have there own national burger chain Super Macs.
French prefer French Cars, French cheese, French bread.
Germans prefer German Cars, German sausages.
English like anything that is cheap.
I think it comes down to sense of belonging and community spirit or therefore lack of.
jack c says:
khards said…”English like anything that is cheap” (Wednesday, May 2, 2012 02:38PM) – except houses of courses where the higher the price the better and everyone is super wealthy.
richy richless says:
Nothing wrong with trying food locally, as a society we’ve abandoned our butchers and green-grocers for cheap, intensively farmed rubbish from the supermarkets. I try to champion my local butcher whenever possible..every little helps.
richy richless says:
trying = buying
Adam Smith Fan says:
The problem isn’t actually persuading people to “Buy British”, it’s persuading people to “Manufacture British”. The tax system currently favours BTL and financial jiggery-pokery so strongly over manufacturing that you’d have to be mug to want to produce and sell things in the UK. Far more profitable to subcontract the manufacturing to China and import the products to sell here.
If Howard Archer was really interested in limiting imports he should be advocating the replacement of Corporation Tax, Income Tax and VAT with Land Value Tax and a Bank Asset Tax, so as to make it attractive to manufacture goods in the UK.
mr g says:
2 problems with Mr Archer’s dream:
1. There aren’t enough goods of any description produced in this country to make a significant difference.
2. “only the people who can still afford to spend, without getting into further debt, should be spending.” That rules out a considerable amount of the population then.