This explains why Trump got so many votes

[Lloyd90]

Our standard of living (4 worlds) is so high that we like the US rely on exploiting the rest of the world to maintain our standard. All great empires rise and fall of the back of those weaker than themselves. We are now seeing a leveling of the playing field as the poor nations get richer and the richer get poorer.

That's a bit simplistic,

 

When some of those poorer countries get too big for their boots the Government can soon be replaced by someone else eager to have the position of the "president", rebels over thrown, they lose elections etc etc

 

CIA ops in South America, Funding/arming rebels, funding political campaigns, you can bet we do the same as well.

[four-wheel-drive]

Our standard of living (4 worlds) is so high that we like the US rely on exploiting the rest of the world to maintain our standard. All great empires rise and fall of the back of those weaker than themselves. We are now seeing a leveling of the playing field as the poor nations get richer and the richer get poorer.

So you would be willing to work for next to nothing would you I think not.

[keg]

I think that you will find that the Americans still love there big V8 cars and trucks and I do not think you have had a Jap car as the ones made in Japan do rust have you not seen the about the Nissan puckups that and snapping in half as the chasis rust out Nissan have to buy them back and anyone can sell stuff to other countries all that you have to do is pay your workers £20 per week.

Not during the 70's oil crisis they didn't, how do you think the Japanese got a foothold.

 

Nissan pickups, one model, one type, LR and Ford have had their own issues. For balance, our ten year old Toyota Land cruiser is 10 this year and has cost us a starter motor and 2 brake pipes, no rust. For further balance i love my Defender too.

 

Japanese imports rust as they were not designed for uk roads and the salt we use in winter. Who pays anyone £20 a week?

[digger]

The problem is that America is secular in its buying habits. On a farm it's nought but John Deere. They use almost exclusively American made plant on sites as well as power tools. They drive immense gas drinking cars that are almost funny in their absurdity. That's their choice,fuel is cheap and practicality is an irrelevance.

No one pays anyone to produce export grade goods £20 a week.

If you visit the affluent parts of the states premium brand cars are 95% European. Regardless of the parent company,Rolls,Jaguar,Aston and Range Rovers are exported in large numbers not just to there but globally.

Don't think the craftsmen that build them are on minimum wage.

[oowee]

So you would be willing to work for next to nothing would you I think not.

I am retired.

 

It's not a case of being prepared to work for next to nothing its a realisation that we cannot sustain the standards that the UK has been used too. We are being gradually unpicked by nations in growth mode. Only those able to adapt, retrain ride on a wave of knowledge will prosper. For the rest (majority) I suspect a general relative decline. History suggests the same, Persia (Iran) Turkey, Greece, Italy and so on.

[matone]

When you look back there were a series of wrong decisions All along the line right back to the first world war. When it was clear that we would win WW2 we were to slow to take steps to get our country's industry and economy up and running and either distroyed or gave away our expertise and technology. on into the fifties and sixties and we saw the constant decline of the automobile industry and engineering. Into the seventies and the loss of more industry such as motorbikes and other stuff. Then came the Thatcher era when the idea was that we could survive on the financial and service industry. Then China has been allowed to virtually distroy the value of almost everything to a bargain basement jumble sale. We have ended up with no planes for the navy and even when we do get some there are no aircraft carriers to put them on. We scrap planes that are virtually new and make trained pilots and servicemen redundant and then start advertising for replacements. It's almost like sabotage from the inside. The old boys network kind of thing. Everything seems to be so low geared and inept.

Agreed ,our enemies must find us laughable still ! The donkies did indeed lead us .......to where ?

[400_racer]

Coventry is my home town and the demise of the leyland and jaguar land rover brands is another example of protectionist policies in manufacture and union control that undermine competitiveness.

You can't really level that at JLR though, I've worked for them at Gaydon since 2008 when it really was close to demise, right now it's never been stronger selling more cars than we ever have (biggest auto manufacturer in the UK in 2016) and the brands are central to that growth

[bruno22rf]

After the War countries such as Japan and Germany were re equipped with, at the time, the latest manufacturing equipment with which to rebuild their bombed out Industries. When we were still plodding along with 100 year old machines they were using their modern equipment to produce cars that actually started in the Winter and ran smaller engines with better economy and came, as standard, with a plethora of extras normally only found on high end British cars. Many people laughed at things like indicators and the high revving buzzy engines were cause of much mirth among the die hard Brits who seemed to like nothing more than pushing their latest car home when it constantly broke down. But one by one, as BL produced embarrassing behemoths such as the Marina and Allegro, the importers took the market with their superior products one customer at a time until, with clever marketing and a good product, the idea of owning a car built by a man who may have tortured your father became acceptable. How many billions of £'s would it cost to restart the British car industry I wonder? And who is going to pay?

[AVB]

After the War countries such as Japan and Germany were re equipped with, at the time, the latest manufacturing equipment with which to rebuild their bombed out Industries. When we were still plodding along with 100 year old machines they were using their modern equipment to produce cars that actually started in the Winter and ran smaller engines with better economy and came, as standard, with a plethora of extras normally only found on high end British cars. Many people laughed at things like indicators and the high revving buzzy engines were cause of much mirth among the die hard Brits who seemed to like nothing more than pushing their latest car home when it constantly broke down. But one by one, as BL produced embarrassing behemoths such as the Marina and Allegro, the importers took the market with their superior products one customer at a time until, with clever marketing and a good product, the idea of owning a car built by a man who may have tortured your father became acceptable. How many billions of £'s would it cost to restart the British car industry I wonder? And who is going to pay?

But don't we have a booming British car industry -JLR, Honda, Nissan, Toyota etc?

[oowee]

You can't really level that at JLR though, I've worked for them at Gaydon since 2008 when it really was close to demise, right now it's never been stronger selling more cars than we ever have (biggest auto manufacturer in the UK in 2016) and the brands are central to that growth

Absolutely right. Protectionist closed border policies prior to German and then Indian ownership. Countries like Japan thrive on bringing home the cash from international investment. Tata looks (from the outside) to be doing a great job. The new Defender to be made in SK is part of that currency protection, low labour rate hunt that underpins successful business whilst exploiting the British brand values.