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Post by Toreador on Apr 2, 2023 19:45:26 GMT
Unreliable interest rates? They were very reliable in the late 80s, my cash rich company put money into the overnight bank balancing system and earned £15K a year for three years. Yep, good if you already had money. The Tory slogan should be "Tories, milking the poor to make you richer." You know my history and I never ever started any business with the view to long term borrowing, I started modestly in a barrack hut, moved to a disused nursery, was very profitable in year two and moved to industrial units in Corby. Despite probably being among the highest paying companies there, the labour force was unreliable to say the least. |
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Post by zanygame on Apr 2, 2023 20:25:52 GMT
Yep, good if you already had money. The Tory slogan should be "Tories, milking the poor to make you richer." You know my history and I never ever started any business with the view to long term borrowing, I started modestly in a barrack hut, moved to a disused nursery, was very profitable in year two and moved to industrial units in Corby. Despite probably being among the highest paying companies there, the labour force was unreliable to say the least. Mine is a different model. Each of my centres costs around a quarter of a million to setup. I managed the first one, but to expand needed money I didn't have. It wasn't until we had 6 up and running that we produced enough profit to expand purely from cashflow. Labour is always an issue. |
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Post by sandypine on Apr 2, 2023 20:35:30 GMT
I agree, while at the same time pointing out that borrowing is what the Banks are for. While laying down reasonable treatment of the workforce often needs 'interference' by government. Well you should know better than most what sharks our banks are, how they treat their personal customers. Well guess what, I don't know a single businessman that trusts their bank. As a new business with all the unexpected bumps and pains you hit along the way to success, you need a government bank, one that sees you as a future asset rather than a quick buck. That is because the banks business is lending. Government is not in the business of risk as that removes the risk from the lender and places it on those who are behind the lender which is the electorate. You have to spread the risk across many small risk takers as each will have a different take on what the level of one specific risk is and that is how they make money, by taking risks. The smaller the spread the greater is the ability to take risk, the bigger the banks (until government sized) the less likely to risk capital even if you believe that you yourself are an asset. |
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Post by Pacifico on Apr 2, 2023 21:35:08 GMT
Post-war private investment wasn't an easy thing to secure, particularly as government, in their lunge to nationalise, were doing so little to make an investment in infrastructure or industry and commerce. They should, like Germany and Japan, have got heavily involved in regenerating Britain which in turn would have encouraged private investment; with rare exception little changed thereafter, whichever goverrnment was in power. Had they done the right thing, sorting management and unions out in the process, we would have emerged as a major industrial and commercial giant....then they could have attended to setting up a national health service and sorting out those national industries that needed sorting out, without nationalising all of them. So the private sector dislike Government interference, Thatcher herself said she believed the 'Market should decide'. All I see is the rich saying 'Oh no!, its not our fault, its that nasty government not pampering us'. Nationalised industries: 1 in 10 British people worked in these nationalised industries. Output increased in several industries, for example coal. Working conditions in the coal industry improved as workers benefitted from paid holidays and sickness pay. Railway lines now linked the more remote areas together. Private companies would have seen this as a non-profit making idea and so may have avoided it. More countryside areas were electrified under this new ownership. The Government paid £2700 million in compensation to the previous industries. So what did the industrialists do with this huge bounty of unexpected wealth? They apparently failed to reinvest it in the British economy. It probably felt too good stuck in their Bank accounts, hmm, another new car up their driveway, foreign holidays, a new yacht, a new and better home, or maybe a Folly or two? I guess we will never know. Bunkum - the nationalised railway cut services, the nationalised coal board cut production and nationalised trucking only lasted 4 years before it needed privatising again..  |
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Post by zanygame on Apr 2, 2023 21:42:37 GMT
Well you should know better than most what sharks our banks are, how they treat their personal customers. Well guess what, I don't know a single businessman that trusts their bank. As a new business with all the unexpected bumps and pains you hit along the way to success, you need a government bank, one that sees you as a future asset rather than a quick buck. That is because the banks business is lending. Government is not in the business of risk as that removes the risk from the lender and places it on those who are behind the lender which is the electorate. You have to spread the risk across many small risk takers as each will have a different take on what the level of one specific risk is and that is how they make money, by taking risks. The smaller the spread the greater is the ability to take risk, the bigger the banks (until government sized) the less likely to risk capital even if you believe that you yourself are an asset. Well I think government should be as involved in the countries business as they are with its public. Business in the UK is seen as a cash cow that can be milked with no consequence because it has no vote. Yet without it there would be no country. The government mends people's health without consideration for the return on its investment, it educates them the same. |
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Post by Pacifico on Apr 2, 2023 21:45:06 GMT
We had the Government picking winners in the 70's - it didn't work then and it certainly is not going to work now.
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Post by zanygame on Apr 2, 2023 21:52:59 GMT
We had the Government picking winners in the 70's - it didn't work then and it certainly is not going to work now. Are they any worse at it than other investors? But I don't mind if they use a panel of experts to decide who to lend to. Its the longevity of the investment and the crazy returns that need to be controlled to keep ideas invented in the UK from leaving. |
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Post by Pacifico on Apr 2, 2023 22:05:35 GMT
We had the Government picking winners in the 70's - it didn't work then and it certainly is not going to work now.
But I don't mind if they use a panel of experts to decide who to lend to. Its the longevity of the investment and the crazy returns that need to be controlled to keep ideas invented in the UK from leaving. Of course they were worse. Do you really think that a bunch of bureaucrats making investment decisions based on political priorities rather than economic reality are going to do better than you investing your own money?  |
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Post by zanygame on Apr 3, 2023 6:32:53 GMT
Are they any worse at it than other investors?
But I don't mind if they use a panel of experts to decide who to lend to. Its the longevity of the investment and the crazy returns that need to be controlled to keep ideas invented in the UK from leaving. Of course they were worse. Do you really think that a bunch of bureaucrats making investment decisions based on political priorities rather than economic reality are going to do better than you investing your own money? Well one of the reasons investors give for their high returns is that 2 out of 3 investments don't succeed. So they're not much cop either. |
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Post by Pacifico on Apr 3, 2023 7:21:24 GMT
Of course they were worse. Do you really think that a bunch of bureaucrats making investment decisions based on political priorities rather than economic reality are going to do better than you investing your own money? Well one of the reasons investors give for their high returns is that 2 out of 3 investments don't succeed. So they're not much cop either. Well the market tends to return around 8% a year on average - having a bureaucrat sitting in an office in Whitehall picking winners not on their commercial ability but on arbitrary political criteria is definitely not going to replicate that. The classic example is the Linwood car factory in Scotland that opened in 1963. Rootes wanted to expand their existing plant at Ryton but to qualify for Government handouts they had to build in a depressed area - Linwood was struggling from the collapse in shipbuilding on the Clyde and was thus selected. Almost from day one, the Linwood plant was a major disaster. The local workforce had no experience of motor vehicle assembly, and both build quality and reliability suffered. The assembly work was tedious, repetitive and boring and strikes became a way to break the monotony. Suppliers remained based in the Midlands, adding to transport costs. Engine castings from Linwood were transported to Ryton for machining, then returned to Linwood for final assembly and installation, a round trip of some 600 miles. Linwood was such a basket case that it was one of the main reasons that Rootes went bust. |
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Post by zanygame on Apr 3, 2023 7:33:49 GMT
Well one of the reasons investors give for their high returns is that 2 out of 3 investments don't succeed. So they're not much cop either. Well the market tends to return around 8% a year on average - having a bureaucrat sitting in an office in Whitehall picking winners not on their commercial ability but on arbitrary political criteria is definitely not going to replicate that. The classic example is the Linwood car factory in Scotland that opened in 1963. Rootes wanted to expand their existing plant at Ryton but to qualify for Government handouts they had to build in a depressed area - Linwood was struggling from the collapse in shipbuilding on the Clyde and was thus selected. Almost from day one, the Linwood plant was a major disaster. The local workforce had no experience of motor vehicle assembly, and both build quality and reliability suffered. The assembly work was tedious, repetitive and boring and strikes became a way to break the monotony. Suppliers remained based in the Midlands, adding to transport costs. Engine castings from Linwood were transported to Ryton for machining, then returned to Linwood for final assembly and installation, a round trip of some 600 miles. Linwood was such a basket case that it was one of the main reasons that Rootes went bust. That's a long time ago, interesting though. But you miss my point. The idea is for government to give long term loans to business start ups. not to use that money to manipulate the economy or the countries dynamics. Have a look at how they do it in Germany. |
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Post by sheepy on Apr 3, 2023 7:50:25 GMT
Well the market tends to return around 8% a year on average - having a bureaucrat sitting in an office in Whitehall picking winners not on their commercial ability but on arbitrary political criteria is definitely not going to replicate that. The classic example is the Linwood car factory in Scotland that opened in 1963. Rootes wanted to expand their existing plant at Ryton but to qualify for Government handouts they had to build in a depressed area - Linwood was struggling from the collapse in shipbuilding on the Clyde and was thus selected. Almost from day one, the Linwood plant was a major disaster. The local workforce had no experience of motor vehicle assembly, and both build quality and reliability suffered. The assembly work was tedious, repetitive and boring and strikes became a way to break the monotony. Suppliers remained based in the Midlands, adding to transport costs. Engine castings from Linwood were transported to Ryton for machining, then returned to Linwood for final assembly and installation, a round trip of some 600 miles. Linwood was such a basket case that it was one of the main reasons that Rootes went bust. That's a long time ago, interesting though. But you miss my point. The idea is for government to give long term loans to business start ups. not to use that money to manipulate the economy or the countries dynamics. Have a look at how they do it in Germany. So then, your problem is you cannot get enough government money, but the EU would elevate that? who are much less for the individuals right? central Brussels control would be a much better bet and the rights of the individual can go and whistle? |
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Post by Orac on Apr 3, 2023 8:47:32 GMT
Any government 'investment' is going to be instead of, rather than than in addition to, private investment decisions.
As he can't gain from his decisions by supporting winners, the game for such decision maker becomes to exploit the position in a corrupt way - ie the incentives are all wrong.
It might be 'okay' for a period if honest people can retain control, but it isn't self fixing in the way private investment is and it will become corrupt.
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Post by sandypine on Apr 3, 2023 9:03:02 GMT
That is because the banks business is lending. Government is not in the business of risk as that removes the risk from the lender and places it on those who are behind the lender which is the electorate. You have to spread the risk across many small risk takers as each will have a different take on what the level of one specific risk is and that is how they make money, by taking risks. The smaller the spread the greater is the ability to take risk, the bigger the banks (until government sized) the less likely to risk capital even if you believe that you yourself are an asset. Well I think government should be as involved in the countries business as they are with its public. Business in the UK is seen as a cash cow that can be milked with no consequence because it has no vote. Yet without it there would be no country. The government mends people's health without consideration for the return on its investment, it educates them the same. In part I agree but leaving final decision making to just a few people is dangerous in terms of efficiency and corruption. If a small investment firm makes a wrong decision it goes to the wall, if a government agency makes a wrong decision then we all pay a bit more. I agree business is seen as a cash cow to be milked but it has the same level of vote as everyone else, are you saying it should have more voting rights? Government seems to be poor at business as the NHS, Education, Mining, Policing, defence, GPO, Railways, etc. all indicate. It is the job of government to regulate to create the conditions whereby the system, whatever system is chosen, works effectively. Thatcher was the only one that came close, as she was effective in making the chosen system work to some level of competence. There were many things I disagreed with but then there were many more I disagreed with with most other administrations. |
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Post by Pacifico on Apr 3, 2023 10:56:48 GMT
Well the market tends to return around 8% a year on average - having a bureaucrat sitting in an office in Whitehall picking winners not on their commercial ability but on arbitrary political criteria is definitely not going to replicate that. The classic example is the Linwood car factory in Scotland that opened in 1963. Rootes wanted to expand their existing plant at Ryton but to qualify for Government handouts they had to build in a depressed area - Linwood was struggling from the collapse in shipbuilding on the Clyde and was thus selected. Almost from day one, the Linwood plant was a major disaster. The local workforce had no experience of motor vehicle assembly, and both build quality and reliability suffered. The assembly work was tedious, repetitive and boring and strikes became a way to break the monotony. Suppliers remained based in the Midlands, adding to transport costs. Engine castings from Linwood were transported to Ryton for machining, then returned to Linwood for final assembly and installation, a round trip of some 600 miles. Linwood was such a basket case that it was one of the main reasons that Rootes went bust. That's a long time ago, interesting though. But you miss my point. The idea is for government to give long term loans to business start ups. not to use that money to manipulate the economy or the countries dynamics. Have a look at how they do it in Germany. So the Government takes on the role of Venture Capitalists - who in the Government (or the Civil Service) is going to be better to make an informed decisions about the prospects of a particular company?. Will they be better than the VC managers we have now? |
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