Back to the factories?

[david dissadent]

There will be no money for any foolishness like a return to manufacturing. No money for start ups, no overdraft extensions, no MONEY! The successful marketing of debt as credit in the late 70's/ early eighties and the subsequent massive expansion of personal debt is all that has kept us going since we lost all our factories in the early 80's recession. The credit limit has been reached now, business start ups of all kinds will mostly remain dreams.

The banks have no money to lend at the moment as they build up warchests to deal with future write downs. Or at least they had little till the magic faeries dropped about $3 trillion in total into them. But all that big money getting pulled out of hedge funds or being horded by the soveriegn wealth funds is going to be looking for somewhere to invest in the coming months and years.

Britain and the pound are going to be pounded very hard in the coming years.

 

[david dissadent]

The chances of this country suddenly revitalising its industry after the last couple of decades of it being systematically destroyed, both in practice and in ideology, are very small indeed.

Not suddenly but unless there is a total global melt down I think it will start with our already existing industries being very competative on price.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DwJlZrNPviY
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xT67f78uz2s&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VHMVIyOh-_I&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T9qp9XbRY

 

[Jeff Robinson]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DwJlZrNPviY
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xT67f78uz2s&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VHMVIyOh-_I&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T9qp9XbRY

Could only watch a couple of minutes of that - made me feel too sad and angry. I was born in Birkenhead around that time. We had to pack up and move fairly shortly after that. Probably why I've grown up to hate tory vermin - twas how I was raised.

When the fuck is that disgusting hag Thatcher going to snuff it? Hurry up and die you evil dirt bag bitch (sorry for the non-pc language).

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I got out just as the shipyards closed, back when you could get a full grant to uni. Most of my mates were apprentices at Cammel Lairds. Some of them ended up digging through that garbage and lots of them ended up as smackheads.

There is no forgiveness in my heart for the arseholes who brought the situation in those programmes about, just so that their posh mates in the City could make a little more money.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

 

[Bernie Gunther]

What really pisses me off is that we've had to listen to 30 years of triumphalist bullshit from these people, and their nuLabour apologists, and now they've done it again only this time it'll be worse.

There is no place in hell hot enough ...

 

[Jeff Robinson]

We might not have strong communities, decent jobs or affordable housing but at least we've got shit loads of tacky consumer crap, mountains of debt and a chance to pay out $40 billion to rich cunts so they can lend a bit of it back to us and then charge us interest on it.

 

[shagnasty]

lets look at what is happening around the world .china a rising super power now how is this country rising by financial industries no by its manufacturing base .a lot of people have been bought up to believe that manufacturing is a dirty beneath them thing to do .no shame in getting your hands dirty

 

[DownwardDog]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DwJlZrNPviY
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xT67f78uz2s&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VHMVIyOh-_I&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T9qp9XbRY

There's this bloke working on the docks in Liverpool and he's rolling around in agony clutching his stomach. Two of his mates are watching this and one says to the other,

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's desperate to go the toilet." the other replies.

"Why doesn't he go then?"

"What? On his dinner hour?"

(c) Stan Boardman

 

[ViolentPanda]

There's this bloke working on the docks in Liverpool and he's rolling around in agony clutching his stomach. Two of his mates are watching this and one says to the other,

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's desperate to go the toilet." the other replies.

"Why doesn't he go then?"

"What? On his dinner hour?"

(c) Stan Boardman

That one wasn't even funny before Stan Boardman nicked it from Manning in the 70s.

 

[ViolentPanda]

lets look at what is happening around the world .china a rising super power now how is this country rising by financial industries no by its manufacturing base .a lot of people have been bought up to believe that manufacturing is a dirty beneath them thing to do .no shame in getting your hands dirty

Mate, there's near enough a whole generation of Brits who don't know or understand what "manufacturing" is, because it hasn't been around in anything but an attenuated form for the last 20 years. They haven't been brought up to think it's beneath them, they just don't have a clue what it is. I had to explain to a nephew (an adult uni-attendee) what a "toolmaker" was, in that it wasn't a person who made spanners etc.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

There's this bloke working on the docks in Liverpool and he's rolling around in agony clutching his stomach. Two of his mates are watching this and one says to the other,

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's desperate to go the toilet." the other replies.

"Why doesn't he go then?"

"What? On his dinner hour?"

(c) Stan Boardman

Heh, you should visit Merseyside. There's a local delicacy you should try called a 'hotleg'

Ask for one in any local pub and they'll sort you out ...

 

[shagnasty]

Mate, there's near enough a whole generation of Brits who don't know or understand what "manufacturing" is, because it hasn't been around in anything but an attenuated form for the last 20 years. They haven't been brought up to think it's beneath them, they just don't have a clue what it is. I had to explain to a nephew (an adult uni-attendee) what a "toolmaker" was, in that it wasn't a person who made spanners etc.

Toolmakers were the dogs bollocks .i was a cylindrical grinder setter operator oh happy days .on my estate there must be hundreds of us getting old now but with engineering skills all wasted

 

[behemoth]

I aint going back to working in factories if I can help it.

I do 12 hour shifts in a factory. It's good money for what is sometimes unpleasant specialised work, but I suspect not many here would fancy the kind of jobs that were exported to China. Our place only employ older blokes, because the kids never last.

 

[MikeMcc]

The company I work for are actually fairly well placed at the moment. Most of our products are sold to the US and the customers we sell to are either developing new product lines or have come to the end of a lifecycle on machines that they've already bought. On top of that are a few government funded contracts in Sweden, Romania and the US that are admittedly quite far in the pipeline.

 

[homooxoniensis]

I think it depends what people want to do, there's no point if nobody wants to do it any more, we'd be better off thinking through the implications of that, sorting out how we can make that reasonably tolerable. I don't see any great enthusiasm either for the work there is or for a return to the old way of life to be honest.

 

[poster342002]

What on earth makes you think you can only be working class if you work in a factory or manual job?

It's not that somuch as the fact that it would create workpalces with large concentrations of workers all at the same grade. White collar workplaces do not do this - they create hives of individualistic corporate-ladderclimbers rather than sets of workers that stick together againstthe management.

 

[elbows]

If we stripped the economy, manufacturing & services down to the bare essentials, I wonder how many hours a day each person would need to work to sustain things.

 

[DownwardDog]

If we stripped the economy, manufacturing & services down to the bare essentials, I wonder how many hours a day each person would need to work to sustain things.

I wonder how we'd agree what the bare essentials are and how you'd stop people inventing, making and selling new things that weren't.

 

[treelover]

Labour over the last ten years bought into the neo liberal crap and welcomed out sourcing of manufacturing (millions of UK jobs lost) to cheaper abroad solutions.

Yes,and the Left and the labour movement(however reduced) remained silent on this as it came up against its ideology of the 'international worker' etc...

 

[_angel_]

It's not that somuch as the fact that it would create workpalces with large concentrations of workers all at the same grade. White collar workplaces do not do this - they create hives of individualistic corporate-ladderclimbers rather than sets of workers that stick together againstthe management.

You can only be working class if you work in a factory and not for example a call centre?? Bizarre..

 

[ViolentPanda]

Toolmakers were the dogs bollocks .i was a cylindrical grinder setter operator oh happy days .on my estate there must be hundreds of us getting old now but with engineering skills all wasted

yep.

One of my uncles left school at 15, did his toolmaking apprenticeships with a firm that made capstan lathes, got his papers and had about 10 years of reasonably-paid work before light/medium engineering went bollocks-up, and left him and most of his peers doing piecework or changing professions. He spent his last years as a jobbing handyman. This was a bloke who, if you needed a part for something, could source the material, draw up the specs and make your widget for you in his shed.
It's ridiculous, the sheer volume of skills that de-industrialisation tipped down the toilet.

 

[kyser_soze]

About the only viable manufacturing model open to the UK now is the same one Germany has existed on - lots and lots of SMEs making specialised, non-mass production but hig value products. For example, there are no manufacturers of windfarm equipment based in the UK, despite it being a huge growth area and stated govt policy to switch to wind - most of the generators and arms come from Germany and Denmark. Same goes for solar and tidal stuff - all the kit gets made by German engineering companies who employ maybe 50-200 skilled manufacturing personnel.

 

[treelover]

The only one in Scotland making windfarm parts has gone into liquidation

 

[elbows]

I wonder how we'd agree what the bare essentials are and how you'd stop people inventing, making and selling new things that weren't.

Yes, my idle musings are not very practical. I am not calling for a ban on non-essential work, I just think it would be genuinely interesting to know quite what percentage of available human labour would be needed to keep us all alive and warm.

 

[kyser_soze]

Thing is, if there were a revolution, most w/c jobs would go anyway - all that unecessary manufacturing and primatry extraction to start with...

 

[shagnasty]

One thing that used to happen but the neo libs wouldnt like was the large concentration of organised labour that manufacturing bought there used to be factories with literally thousand of workers

 

[chainsaw cat]

About the only viable manufacturing model open to the UK now is the same one Germany has existed on - lots and lots of SMEs making specialised, non-mass production but hig value products. For example, there are no manufacturers of windfarm equipment based in the UK, despite it being a huge growth area and stated govt policy to switch to wind - most of the generators and arms come from Germany and Denmark. Same goes for solar and tidal stuff - all the kit gets made by German engineering companies who employ maybe 50-200 skilled manufacturing personnel.

I can't really complain there kyzer, I start on Wednesday with a German windfarm company that pays 56% more than my previous... ...

 

[TopCat]

Thing is, if there were a revolution, most w/c jobs would go anyway - all that unecessary manufacturing and primatry extraction to start with...

We don't do any of that any more.