The pound is on the brink

[danny]

Parity or lower than the Euro is a real prospect in the short term, however I am of the opinion that a lower pound will do great things for exports. I see a rate of around 1.10 to the pound by January 2010.

[BillN_33]

As far as our "manufacturing" industry goes - whatever that is - our "import" costs must be soaring

We have always relied on "invisibles" to reduce our visible trade deficit

I cannot see that having the £ any weaker will help anything .........but I have never really agreed with the logic or policies of Mr Brown.

IMHO - This UK Government has gone the way of the US - i.e. if it needs to spend money it will just print more - this is just dishonest.......... the US get away with it as they own "the World Bank" and their currency is in demand throughout the world...............and they seem to have been able to run huge annual deficits because of this.

[Jako]

Íf the BoE would stick to its promise to keep inflation expectations "close to two percent" they should have raised rates last meeting as the inflation expectation for January is already at 3-3.5%.

Instead, the BoE is expected to keep rates very low in 2010, thus inflating the debts away and pushing the pound lower in an obvious attempt to stimulate exports and stop imports. This will eventually revive the economy, but most Brits will exit the recession poorer as the value of sterling is diminished in the process.

[Stan Streason]

[quote user="Chancer"]

My question is what are these products that Britain manufactures and exports?

- Reality television?

- Binge drinking?

No seriously if someone were to ask me the question I would not have a clue what to say apart from a few companies that rely on their brand names to sell Chinese tat at marque prices.

What are the UK's great manufactured exports?

[/quote]

I'm sorry but if this is said as a joke then its not funny, if in seriousness then its just ignorance.  The UK is the world's sixth largest manufacturing nation - the industry accounting for over half our exports and even now contributing £150 billion to the economy and around three million jobs. Until 2009 it had had 50% productivity growth in the previous decade and has attracted more foreign direct investment than any country outside of USA.

In general, those manufacturers trading today are the ones that have survived significant rationalisations, efficiency drives and competition from cheap markets such as China and Eastern Europe. They therefore tend to be well run and have a special story to tell. No we dont manufacture high volume cheap commodity items any more.  UK manufacturing competes on world class quality and innovation, not on price and volume.  Look in High Tech, Oil & Gas, Biotechnology, high end electronics etc etc. Industries where brains are needed and we still dominate.

Sorry I work with lots of manufacturers and I am constantly having this argument with people who should know better.  Its a bit of a red rag to a bull for me.

Rant over

[Chancer]

Well I guess I am ignorant then.

Its just having worked for many years in UK manufacturing, being an apprentice in an engineering firm of 2000 employees on an industrial site with no exaggeration, hundreds of other such companies (although at the time we were the largest).

 I look at it now and see no practically manufacturing at all, loads of corporate headquarters and warehouses and yes a couple of hi-tech companies that I have also worked for that only design now and sub-contract out all manufacture. There are practically no sub-contract or manufacturing support businesses left there.

On the other hand there are BMW, Jaguar; Porsche, Vauxhall, and god only knows how many other car dealerships with cars spilling out for hundreds of yards, its a good job that no-one does actually make anything there any more as the workers would have nowhere to park their cars, back in my day 80% cycled.

3 million employees doesnt sound very many, I wonder how many it was in my day?

Editted.

I should add that when I was young 99% of the people I knew worked in manufacturing for local companies (I was brought up on a council estate in a new town), my company alone took on 200 apprentices a year and a fair few graduates.

Nowadays, hand on heart I do not know of one single person who still works in manufacturing, the majority of people I know drive computers for a living, one friend a qualified toolmaker is a gas cylinder operative for B.O.C which is the only job he could get after being made redundant over 20 years ago, he has been trying to get back into industry ever since.

[Stan Streason]

I suppose it all depends upon your starting point.  I am a partner in a firm of accountants and specialise in manufacturing companies.  As a decent sized firm around 15% of our income comes from manufacturing clients - at least as big as any other sector and is consistent with other firms- yet no one says UK has no property companies, or retailers or logistics companies or distributors etc etc etc despite being worth less.

[Alan Zoff]

I don't doubt your figures, Stan. This was from a BBC report:

"Closer to home, the UK also trails far behind Germany when it comes to manufacturing output as a proportion of the country's overall economy - approximately 16% in the UK compared with 30% in Germany."

It's when you compare our 16% with other countries - and in particular with the share of UK output from manaufacturing compared with past years - it is apparent that the country has become increasingly dependent on less tangible forms of wealth production. Added to which, more and more of the "UK" businesses that remain are shifting production abroad.

 

[Scooby]

But how is their manufacturing measured?  My brother has a successful 'high tech' business that would probably be classed as manufacturing - but he only assembles parts made in China.  Ok the design is done in the UK and the production control is from the UK but the actually labour intensive bit is done in China.  Little bro' tells me he would make no money if he had to pay the UK minimum wage.....  (And, before anyone pounces on me, I don't agree - but this is a capitalist market economy.)

[Sprogster]

chancer, think engines for example!

The worlds second biggest manafucturer of jet engines is Rolls Royce.

BMW make all their four cylinder engines in Britain. Also used by Peugot in some of their models!

Ford make most of their car engines in the UK.

Oh and did you know the success of the Airbus in the main is down to the wing technology, which is the most complex design part of an aircraft. All designed and built in the UK.

One could go on!

[BillN_33]

We are taking about the value of the £ in this thread, if we

have such a “good” manufacturing base why has the £ fallen by so much?

As has been mentioned, one of the measures that maybe should

be considered is the comparisons between the UK and our main EC partners in

terms of manufacturing and other industries.

I would image that the % of financial service organisations in the UK versus other industries is far greater than

say, France, Germany, Spain

and Italy.

The UK financial services sector was praised by Mr Brown for its

"sterling" performance a few years ago and then look at what

happened...........their performance has been the cause of the recent demise

of sterling and maybe, in the past, their performance helped sterling to be

stronger.

I have been around for some time and worked in "manufacturing

industries" from the mid 60s to the mid 80s when their presence was felt

in the UK

economy, today service industries dominate and "The City" is

a unique British institution that the rest of our European neighbours do not

have the “luxury” of.

My views are that the UK

population in general has now a complete lack of confidence in Banks, the

financial service sector and our MPs.  They do not trust "The

City" at all and Banks are now considered to be risky. There are no

incentives to save, (although people will), for small investors to invest, or

foreign institutions to trust a Government that now "talks" down it's

currency on a daily basis. Confidence in sterling is questionable?

The one saving grace is that the BOE and the Government wish to see the £

devalue further BUT judging by their past performance they will not succeed and

the market, at the end of the day, will decide what sterling is worth.

The sterling currency market has become another " roulette wheel" for

the City and their "friends" to spin and this Government will stand

by and watch it happen.............but it may not keep going down and any

sensible £/Euro investor must now be thinking about "spreading his

risk" and buying sterling, (if it is felt that the cancer of certain parts

of “The City” has been brought under control).

Good work buy our "manufacturing" industries can be quickly destroyed

by short term speculation, (currency and other), by our "praised"

financial services sector that is neither controlled nor disapproved of by this

Government, (or, IMHO, will be by any future Government).

But, in my view, the £ is worth more than 1:1 versus the Euro

(I do not know why I keep getting all this "mumbo jumbo", (it that expression politically correct these days), at the top of the page

[Martin963]

A while back on this thread (although I haven't the energy to look!) someone mentioned the international McDo test.

Well here it is again

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/damianreece/6329461/Sterling-is-a-silver-lining-as-the-dark-clouds-of-austerity-gather.html

I almost long for a run on the pound,  for no other reason than to get the IMF  (a rather more responsible organisation than HM Govt at the moment) involved and to finally and unambiguously show the world the disaster than Brown has been.

Sorry to be political but the situation is in my view now so serious that we need a "shock" before the next election.

It's like being in a car driving at speed,  steered by a madman,  who has ignored all the signposts and is driving headlong towards the cliff edge.  We should be acting NOW,  not tranquilising the population of Britain with more of the credit and QE drug.....

[BillN_33]

I have sympathy with your sentiment and that is one of the reasons that we have finally moved, (and will become resident), in France, (even with such a weak £).

It is very difficult to blame one man - but Mr Brown may turn out to be judged to be the worse PM in living memory, not only for what he and Mr Blair have done but also for what they have not done especially as politicians from the left of the political spectrum.

[velcorin]

[quote user="Alan Zoff"]

I don't doubt your figures, Stan. This was from a BBC report:

"Closer to home, the UK also trails far behind Germany when it comes to manufacturing output as a proportion of the country's overall economy - approximately 16% in the UK compared with 30% in Germany."

It's when you compare our 16% with other countries - and in particular with the share of UK output from manaufacturing compared with past years - it is apparent that the country has become increasingly dependent on less tangible forms of wealth production. Added to which, more and more of the "UK" businesses that remain are shifting production abroad.

 

[/quote]

It is worth noting that in Germany if you work in any capacity for a manufacturing you earnings are classified as being in the industrial sector. The same in France. However in the UK if you work for a manufacturing company in R&D, Sales, Marketing, Design, Finance, etc you are classified as working in those sectors, not manufacturing. This will inflate the German figure significantly and deflate the UK figure. Which country I work in, detemines what I'm counted as[:)]

I agree the huge numbers people who worked in "Manufacturing" in the UK have gone, swept away by enormous productivity gains, you simply won't see massive, ugly industrial complexes which with which your generation associates manufacturing. Toyota, Burnaston turns out nearly a million cars, but you wouldn't even know it was there unless you knew where to look. If you want to she the old style industrial industries, take a trip to Teeside, Grangemouth, the Cheshire Salt triangle, etc for their sins, those sort of sites still do exist. All the reports I get state that the %age contribution to GDP (PwC, CIA, KPMG) hasn't actually changed since the early 70s.

I also dispute the statement about shifting production abroad. The mass exodus to China was stopped in it's tracks a couple of years, with one mega sized error of judgement by the Chinese Government. Continuity of supply is even more important than price, it is absolutely vital. China had a monology in the supply of Phosporus, suddenly they stopped exporting for 6 months because it wanted to clear up the air for the Olympics, no notice given, even deliveries paid for were cancelled. Phosporus is a flame retardent. Suddenly no car seats, no plane seats, building insulaion, textiles, furniture..... 8-10 million Europeans were about to be laid off. Fortunately Ineos managed to restart their plant in Widnes, now companies hedge their cheap Chinese deliveries, with guarnteed supply from Ineos. Bottom line is that no European company would trust 100% supply of a product that is vital to production to China ever again, however cheap it might be.

[NormanH]

"I almost long for a run on the pound,  for no other reason than to get

the IMF  (a rather more responsible organisation than HM Govt at the

moment) involved and to finally and unambiguously show the world the

disaster than Brown has been."

I find this party political, rather than patriotic.

[Martin963]

I notice Norman - I can't help it -  that you seem to reply to my posts here with Pavlovian regularity.

I'll leave you to decide whether I'm patriotic or not.    However,   the evidence of Britain's ruin is there for all to see,  provided one is not "blinkered" of course.

[Chancer]

Its rocketed back up this morning.

Guess who bought two bathrooms during the last two days whilst it was at its lowest? [:(]

Oh to have some income in Euros, I could have popped over the channel on a shopping trip instead!

[BillN_33]

[quote user="BillN_33"]The way it has fallen

http://www.fxware.com/forex-currency/fx_chart.asp?f=GBP&t=EUR&d=p&l=en

"not a pretty sight" for many

Is it time to buy Sterling?

[/quote]

[DerekJ]

[quote user="Chancer"]

Guess who bought two bathrooms during the last two days whilst it was at its lowest? [:(]

[/quote]

Sends you mad doesn't it.  So frustrating.

[sueyh]

When you say Pavlovian - does that mean there is meringue invovled!!!!???

[NormanH]

[quote user="sueyh"]When you say Pavlovian - does that mean there is meringue invovled!!!!???[/quote]

more likely egg on someone's face [:D]

[sueyh]

After that spelling mistake, perhaps mine Norman!!

[Sprogster]

EUROZONE EXPORTS TUMBLE SHARPLY.

Appears over valued Euro is taking its toll on Eurozone exports which have tumbled sharply, more than reversing previous quarters improvements. Link to FT report below.

£ back over 1.10 against euro

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c14fd5c0-ba40-11de-9dd7-00144feab49a,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fc14fd5c0-ba40-11de-9dd7-00144feab49a.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fhome%2Fuk

 

 

 

 

[Alan Zoff]

Thanks for the "my generation" label, Velcorin. Yes, when I were a lad, we put kids up chimneys, wore frock coats at week-end and walked 10 miles to work at pit for 6 (old) pence a day.

Not sure why you assumed my reference to manufacturing automatically meant old-style, heavy industries. I was simply referring to making things to sell, rather than relying on services and intangible earnings.

 

[JMB]

Ee bah gum look at this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6360466/UKs-budget-deficit-will-leave-pound-weak-until-at-least-2014.html don't hold your breath out there

[AnOther]

I'll revise my signature then shall I [;-)]