Rupert #1. Maggie did it!

[AWOL 10]

Thatcher didn't close the mines - nor did she shut down the steel industry (though even today in Sheffield you may hear otherwise.)

 

Unfortunately British Coal and British Steel (ignore the strikes) were forced out of production by hugely cheaper production prices elsewhere.

 

Had there been no unions (and no union problems) then the British Industries cold not have continued to compete against the significantly lower prices.

 

You can't blame people for being pi88ed off when - although they are working their hearts out - they are losing their jobs to foreign companies which can undercut them.

 

There were many examples of unions taking ridiculous stances - but if your membership is going to be out of work tomorrow, it's easy to see why.

 

The failures in the coal and steel industries had nothing to do with Thatcher, however.

 

Unfortunately Sheffield is one of the few enclaves in the UK which appears to be unwilling to face that fact.

 

If I was a major company thinking of investing in the UK, then - I'm sad to say - I would be deterred from investing in Sheffield because it appears that the work force are living in the late 1970s.

 

- I could gather that much from 5 minutes reading of the threads on this forum.

 

There is no shortage of 'champagne socialists' on this forum, but nor isthere a shortage of Luddites and Strawbs (if it works for you.)

 

 

 

I couldn't understand that either. If you had 5 adult males (each earning $35,000 a year) living in a house, why shouldn't they get away with paying far less per head than a little old lady living on a (small) pension in a house she used to share with her (now deceased) husband?

 

The little old Lady had one vote. The 5 people living in one house each had a vote.

 

Poll tax - a tax where everybody pays a fair share - was a loser from the start.

 

Who gives a toss about little old ladies anyway?

 

 

 

Really?

 

In Winter 1978, my wife and I debated whether we would heat the house adequately or eat (and go out occasionally.) I had what was widely recognised as being a 'good job' but I still had to decide.

 

A year or two earlier, when one mob [can't remember which) were striking for

£35 a week, my wife said to me: "You make £30. You work all the hours god gives. You're never home. Why don't you quit and go and work down a pit or whatever? - We would go to fewer funerals. (That was shortly after I'd buried 5 of my friends - mist of whom didn't earn the £35 a week that the tossers strikers were after.

 

 

 

Divisive? Arrogant? Too right.

 

Not like Wilson or Callaghan - or their mythical friend Mr Solomon Binding.

 

Wilson and Callaghan (like subsequent Labour Prime Ministers) were in it for what they could get.

 

Thatcher was in it for what she could make it do.

 

I suspect Cameron's in it for what he can get ... as a 'leader'he's a disaster! - I can't see too many people following him [ even out of curiosity]

 

 

 

 

Purely political (as usual) a lot of fuss about nothing. 'Free milk'was a bit of a joke (especially as many of the kids who got it tipped it away.)

 

 

 

Dunno. Soft drink machines are (ordinarily) very unpopular with school governors, but if it brings money in, the temptation is there.

 

 

 

Go find yourself something to do!

[Harleyman 12]

Thatcher didn't close the mines - nor did she shut down the steel industry (though even today in Sheffield you may hear otherwise.)

 

Unfortunately British Coal and British Steel (ignore the strikes) were forced out of production by hugely cheaper production prices elsewhere.

 

Had there been no unions (and no union problems) then the British Industries cold not have continued to compete against the significantly lower prices.

 

You can't blame people for being pi88ed off when - although they are working their hearts out - they are losing their jobs to foreign companies which can undercut them.

 

There were many examples of unions taking ridiculous stances - but if your membership is going to be out of work tomorrow, it's easy to see why.

 

The failures in the coal and steel industries had nothing to do with Thatcher, however.

 

Unfortunately Sheffield is one of the few enclaves in the UK which appears to be unwilling to face that fact.

 

If I was a major company thinking of investing in the UK, then - I'm sad to say - I would be deterred from investing in Sheffield because it appears that the work force are living in the late 1970s.

 

- I could gather that much from 5 minutes reading of the threads on this forum.

 

There is no shortage of 'champagne socialists' on this forum, but nor isthere a shortage of Luddites and Strawbs (if it works for you.)

 

 

 

I couldn't understand that either. If you had 5 adult males (each earning $35,000 a year) living in a house, why shouldn't they get away with paying far less per head than a little old lady living on a (small) pension in a house she used to share with her (now deceased) husband?

 

The little old Lady had one vote. The 5 people living in one house each had a vote.

 

Poll tax - a tax where everybody pays a fair share - was a loser from the start.

 

Who gives a toss about little old ladies anyway?

 

 

 

Really?

 

In Winter 1978, my wife and I debated whether we would heat the house adequately or eat (and go out occasionally.) I had what was widely recognised as being a 'good job' but I still had to decide.

 

A year or two earlier, when one mob [can't remember which) were striking for

£35 a week, my wife said to me: "You make £30. You work all the hours god gives. You're never home. Why don't you quit and go and work down a pit or whatever? - We would go to fewer funerals. (That was shortly after I'd buried 5 of my friends - mist of whom didn't earn the £35 a week that the tossers strikers were after.

 

 

 

Divisive? Arrogant? Too right.

 

Not like Wilson or Callaghan - or their mythical friend Mr Solomon Binding.

 

Wilson and Callaghan (like subsequent Labour Prime Ministers) were in it for what they could get.

 

Thatcher was in it for what she could make it do.

 

I suspect Cameron's in it for what he can get ... as a 'leader'he's a disaster! - I can't see too many people following him [ even out of curiosity]

 

 

 

 

Purely political (as usual) a lot of fuss about nothing. 'Free milk'was a bit of a joke (especially as many of the kids who got it tipped it away.)

 

 

 

Dunno. Soft drink machines are (ordinarily) very unpopular with school governors, but if it brings money in, the temptation is there.

 

You'll never convince me that Thatcher had nothing to do with closing the mines or the demise of British steel. She was great pal of Ronald Reagan and a great believer in his economic policies.

Strange that during his administration and Maggie'ss that all of a sudden the jobs started to melt away like snow in July.

 

 

 

 

Free milk. "Many of the kids got it tipped away"?

 

Divisive. You agree it appears. I would have thought that one of the sterling qualities of an elected leader would be NOT to be divisive

 

Arrogant. That's what did her in A wiser politician would not have gone around shouting that anyone who disagreed with her was "Wet"

 

Poll Tax. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. From what I understand the Poll tax was based on the size of a family and that each person in that family was subect to a tax of a few quid each per head.

So, a very wealthy couple with no others in the household was taxed at two per head whereas a much less afluent household with four heads in the family would have paid twice that?

 

I remember seeing the protests on the nrews after that tax was imposed. The protestors looked very much like the poorer members of society to me.

Edited August 18, 2012 by Harleyman

[fake 10]

Thatcher cancelled free Milk for Schoolchildren (long before she became PM) - A matter of historical (though largely unimportant) fact.

 

I disagree, its is important as it was something she did for several reasons that some are unaware of.

 

Children's health had improved and they no longer benefited from the supplement. Pasteurisation was not always carried out in rural communities and there had subsequently been TB outbreaks due to infected unpasteurised milk. Removing it from schools helped stop the children from being infected with TB.

 

Although in 1971 she was called the "milk snatcher" free milk was already being stopped by Labour under Harold Wilson's Govt. in 1968 so it was initially a Labour Govt. decision that started it.

[alchresearch 215]

Although in 1971 she was called the "milk snatcher" free milk was already being stopped by Labour under Harold Wilson's Govt. in 1968 so it was initially a Labour Govt. decision that started it.

 

You're wasting your time with this fact. The left on here only acknowledge acts of "evil" that the Tories did first (school playing fields for example)

[Light sonic 10]

You'll never convince me that Thatcher had nothing to do with closing the mines or the demise of British steel. She was great pal of Ronald Reagan and a great believer in his economic policies.

Strange that during his administration and Maggie'ss that all of a sudden the jobs started to melt away like snow in July.

 

 

 

 

 

Tell us why you think that Thatcher would want to willingly do away with the steel and coal industries if they were profitable?

 

Of course the Tories hated the unions for bringing down the Heath government but you're not seriously suggesting that Thatcher shut the steel and coal industries in revenge are you? are you??

 

Globalisation cought up with Britain and in a global market place much of Britains industries were, unfortunately, being undercut by cheeper labour elsewhere. Thats the reality.

Edited August 18, 2012 by Light sonic

[Harleyman 12]

Tell us why you think that Thatcher would want to willingly do away with the steel and coal industries if they were profitable?

 

Of course the Tories hated the unions for bringing down the Heath government but you're not seriously suggesting that Thatcher shut the steel and coal industries in revenge are you? are you??

 

Globalisation cought up with Britain and in a global market place much of Britains industries were, unfortunately, being undercut by cheeper labour elsewhere. Thats the reality.

 

What a break that was for big business. Export the job to China where there was a large labour force of people who were only too willing to work hard for a fraction of what the labour cost was in the home country.

Export the finished product back to the home country for the same price that the product would have been sold for had it been produced in the home country and what do you have? An obscenely large profit margin whose profits are not taxed as they should be.

Well, why should they be? The bigger the profit, the more money the big corps have to invest and dont worry all you job seekers out there because you're all going to have jobs again when the "trickle down" starts

 

Bravo Mitt ! You and yours have the solution but uh oh wait a mo ! Your predeccesors were talking the same talk back in the 1980s so what went wrong bro?

Edited August 18, 2012 by Harleyman

[rossyrooney 12]

You're wasting your time with this fact. The left on here only acknowledge acts of "evil" that the Tories did first (school playing fields for example)

 

Change the record kid.

 

I would really love to know what the people of Sheffield did to you to make you regard them so lowly.

 

You're in like a rat up a drainpipe when it comes to the chance of knocking Sheffield or it's inhabitants.

 

.

[Obelix 11]

No, he's only pointing out the truth. He's not knocking the people of Sheffield, just the ones that continually trot out codswallop.

[Obelix 11]

Perhaps if he had seen communities devastated while she gloated he may have devoloped a more flexible attitude to the whole sad situation.

Proud men who had never known anything but grafting and breadwinning having to be instructed how to sign on the dole.

 

 

The story according to winners.

 

Back in the early 1900's we had farriers. They used to make horseshoes and fit them on horses.

 

We also had horsebreeders. They provided horses to pull drays, hansoms, be ridden on, etc.

 

Then someone invented the internal combustion engine and everyone get very excited. Well they were especially if they were a farrier or horsebreeder.

 

You see they could do the same job as before. They could also start to learn how to do the new jobs that emerged such as chauffers, mechanics, tyre fitters. It wasn't too different really was it from servicing horses, and as they lost horse work they picked up other work, converting their premises to looking after motor cars. Some made a fair bit of money, some didn't, some got out of nailing metal onto horses feet but most seized the opportunity and made the best of it.

 

The story according to miners.

 

Back in the early 1900's we had farriers. They used to make horseshoes and fit them on horses.

 

The trouble was some capitalist ******* invented infernal combustion engines and these reactionary things driven by fat plutocrats took away demand for the horses. Only rich tossers could afford them but it was enough for wages to drop and men to be laid off. So we struck and stopped shoeing any horses, and we gave a good shoeing to those that tried.

 

After a while people paid us lots more money, and we got to make some horseshoes that were not needed because there was less horses. We demanded that the Govt help us so they said there was a minimum price per shoe. This let us make crappy shoes and charge lots of money for them. However this just meant people bought cars as they were cheaper then horses and these were ordinary people as well now not just fat capitalists.

 

Since the Govt wouldn't make cars very expensive so only fat capitalists were driving them we soon had almost no horses coming to our workshops, and we had piles of cruddy horseshoes that we didn't get paid for because no one wanted them. We went on strike for not a minute on the day and not a penny off the pay but people laughed at us. Pretty soon we had no money, no food, no job but sheds full of horseshoes.

 

We tried to get jobs as chauffers, and mechanics, and tyre fitters but we didn't know how to do this and the Poles had beaten us to it. Can't understand why it didn;t work out for us, but it must have been the Govt cos they never helped and let the Poles steal our jobs, and never trained us either.

 

 

 

Coal was supplanted as the fuel of choice, and the writing on the wall was there in the late 1970's. There is no point whining about it thirty years later - that's thirty years of utterly pointless navel gazing. Like the farriers, markets and technology moved on - either wise up and follow or be doomed to obsolescence.

[rossyrooney 12]

Yup,sod the folk involved,they're all history now.

[rossyrooney 12]

No, he's only pointing out the truth. He's not knocking the people of Sheffield, just the ones that continually trot out codswallop.

 

How on earth do you know what he is doing,it seems that because you think something in your mind it becomes fact.

I'd much rather be accused of trotting out codswallop than be regarded as a condescending **** anyday.

[Rupert_Baehr 10]

What a break that was for big business. Export the job to China where there was a large labour force of people who were only too willing to work hard for a fraction of what the labour cost was in the home country.

Export the finished product back to the home country for the same price that the product would have been sold for had it been produced in the home country and what do you have? An obscenely large profit margin whose profits are not taxed as they should be.

Well, why should they be? The bigger the profit, the more money the big corps have to invest and dont worry all you job seekers out there because you're all going to have jobs again when the "trickle down" starts

...

 

But that's not what happened, is it?

 

Developing countries started making steel. All on their own. And they could - and did - make steel far more cheaply than the Western steel industries.

 

For some strange reason, the people who used steel in the manufacture of their products chose to buy steel from the cheapest suppliers... Could it be that their customers weren't prepared to pay higher prices than they would have done if the manufacturer had used cheaper raw materials?

 

"...for the same price that the product would have been sold for had it been produced in the home country..."?

 

That doesn't happen either, does it?

 

If the article manufactured in China sold for the same price as the same article manufactured in the US, why do US customers choose Chinese products?

 

I wanted to buy a computer desk earlier this year. I ended up buying an item which had been made in China. - The timber (there was some in it ) had probably been shipped from the US to China, made into components, re-packaged and shipped back to the US.

 

I paid about $200 for the item. I tried to find a US-made desk. Not easy to do. I could've probably bought something made in the US from US-grown timber for under $3000. - If I was lucky. There are no (mass-production) computer desk manufacturers in the US. Why did they go out of business if - as you claim - imports from China are sold at he same price?

 

It's not the manufacturers who drive the market, it's the customers. If the customers aren't prepared to pay high prices and one manufacturer charges significantly higher prices than does another, then that manufacturer must either reduce his prices or go out of business.

 

If you put two identical items side-by side in a shop and one (the one produced locally) costs more than the imported item next to it, how many customers are likely to choose the more expensive item?

 

Germany is hardly a low-wage economy and it usually doesn't attempt to compete on price.

 

Americans buy lots of German cars, don't they? Why is that? - It's not because they are cheaper than American cars. Can't the American manufacturer make cars?

 

Americans also buy lots of Geely cars. Geely doesn't make the cars it sells in America in China - nor does it market them under the Geely name. About 70% of the cars manufactured in the factories owned by Geely in Belgium and Sweden are sold in the US.

 

From an article talking about the Daimler buyout of Chrysler: "...American cars, every single one a pinnacle of technologically possible, manufactured with nanometer error margins in worlds most modern plants and using best available components, were destroyed by haphazard German managers and sloppy German engineers, with their non-existent quality standards. And they did all that as employees of a overrated German manufacturer of crappy cars, with well known tradition of building cars with defective parts!

 

Well, It is a common knowledge that things like that are exactly the reason why German cars and Daimler in particular are a laughing stock of all the worlds car makers. And customers. And exactly that's the reason why their cars are selling so badly for the last 100 years..."

 

Customers aren't always logical ... but they are always customers and if the manufacturers/retailers don't produce what the customers want (at the price the customers are prepared to pay) then the customers will go elsewhere.