Apparentely banking's worth more more to the ecconomy than manufacturing.....
Especially if you are a banker........

With the government scrappage scheme there should be even more need for steel at the moment to make more new cars.

Yes Crossy  but who has the money to buy them....Oh yes! The bankers with their fat bonuses that we've all paid for.

Very sorry to hear about Redcar ...it's always the NE that cops it

The government scrappage scheme also has a detrimental effect on the used car market because there are now less 2nd hand cars available for those people who would never buy a brand new car anyway.

Oddly enough I bought one yesterday, and  gave mine to my son. I would never ever buy a new car.

 a very sad incident immediately prior to Christmas

A few weeks ago, we had this locally:

"The history of the R&D centre at Ansty Park, Coventry, which current owner Ericsson is closing with the loss of 700 jobs, highlights the changes which have taken place in the UK's telecoms industry on the last decade. The R&D facility was part of a huge telecoms complex created by Marconi at the peak of the telecoms boom of the late 1990s."

That's the culmination of the decline of my particular industry.  High-tech industry would be the better place to subsidise as the UK can add value there.  Labour costs for steel and so on are lower elsewhere and just as easily done there surely?

Indeed! Thatcherism looks at unit costs but never social costs. Unable to see a bigger picture the poor baffled souls continue sending all our money elsewhere.

Corus is owned by Tata of India.  Why would an internationally operating company based in a foreign country lose large amounts of money supporting 1700 Teeside residents?  I expect the decision-makers at Tata are not poor baffled souls at all but very sharp people looking at balance sheets and chasing profits.  It's their money, not ours, afterall.  Possibly our government, who are indeed responsible for social concerns, could subsidise or even buy the local industry to protect workers but why would other private companies buy the steel products if they're more expensive or why would tax-payers make up the difference to protect steel-workers but not any other parts of our globally-interconnected economy such as my former Swedish employer in Coventry?  Or perhaps we should follow North Korea's economic model and try to be self-supporting and self-contained?  And hopefully not end up in the dire straits that they're in now for doing so.

Daniel, I see where you are coming from and I am sorry that there is a downturn in your workplace as well, but British Steel and Corus between them over the last 30 years (strangely starting when Maggie Thatcher came to power back in 1979), have systematically destroyed the steel industry in this country.

In my area alone, we lost 3 huge steel works, Wednesbury's Patent Shaft, the biggest employer in the area, Brierley Hill's Round Oak Steel works, again the biggest employer in the area and Bilston's steelworks, all of which was devistating on the local ecomony, because it is not just the steelworks that closes, it is the surrounding steel stockholders, the industry connected with steel, the local businesses that cater to the steelworkers and their families.

Whole families found themselves out of work when this happened, some for the first time ever - and then where were the jobs for them to do?  There was none, especially in my part of the world.  Leaving school in 1982, I had 3 choices, go on the dole, do a YOP's (Youth Opportunity Programme), or go to sixth form and try and improve on qualifications, I chose the latter and I am grateful that I did, and that my family were able to help me financially to do that, but if I had left school a few years earlier, I would have had many more choices, in fact I would probably ended up working at my dad's factory in their offices, this was not an option in 1982 as the factory was in the process of downgrading and my dad was insistent I was not going there to be put on the dole in 6 or 12 months.  As it happened, they did stay open for a few more years, but they were never the same.

My dad used to train apprentices until the early '80's, he was a sand cast moulder, a very highly skilled job and one that now, thanks to the dropping of the apprenticeship schemes and the total decimation of the foundry industries in this country is a dead skill.  It was cheaper and more convenient for the Government to close down such places, transfer the work abroad and then pay more and more money to import the items, than actually try and keep the industries going in my area.  It ruined the Black Country totally and I don't think we will ever recover, so my heart goes out to those Corus workers in the NE, because we here know how it feels and how it ruins whole communties.

You may dismiss my comments as being emotional and that the Government could not afford at the time to keep the industries going with the amount of strikes, but I lived through this happening, saw what it did to my community, saw my dad coming home every Friday wondering if that would be his last week of work and he was not a young man by then, seeing shops close, factories close and people that we know being put out of work because of one feeder industry being closed down and I would never, never want to go back to those days.

Actually, I think the british taxpayer systematically subsidised a loss-making enterprise for decades.  Steel making throughout the 20th century was largely a political activity and the industry has been variously nationalised and privatised throughout that period.  Joining the EEC was probably its first proper knock as government subsidy, effectively to private industry in the UK, to keep European imports out was no longer allowed I think.  Steel making is very dependent on global economic conditions and we're in a downturn again now hence the mothballing of the plant.  It's also very expensive to invest in to increase productivity to counter the cheap labour costs of other areas in the world.

I'm not sure the UK government could actually bail out Tata without falling foul of EU competition law as it has also with the banks even if the tax payer could afford to do so.  I used to live in Consett (not in 1980 though) so I know what social impact a major employer failing can have on an area. In terms of bailouts, I think we have to realise that the UK's annual budget deficit used to be tens of billion quid in the bad years.  It will probably top 200 billion this year and the government is saying it will try to reduce it to 100 billion within 4 years.  That's a staggering amount to be borrowing year on year.  We'll be in debt over 100% of GDP (1.5 trillion pounds or so) in a few years, I reckon, from well below 50% GDP a couple of years ago.  We're in deep, deep trouble and in no position to throw money around.

Daniel, again I understand what you are saying, but all the figures in the world doesn't allow for the human cost of such industries disappearing, I am no economist but I rightly or wrongly see it in human terms, the fact that my beloved home town lost so many industries during the last 30 years and has not recovered, along with the devastation on communities during and after the miners strike all so as we can import the same products that we once used to make in this country, please explain to me in terms that I can understand where is the economic logic in that?

Also how can steel making be in decline globally?  Surely new cars are still produced, using steel and aluminium, the thing my dad worked in for many years, buildings are still being built even with the current obsession of "global warming", I sure that steel is still needed in the construction, bridges constructed, the very thing that steel is needed for.  I wish I understood the economics behind, but frankly I see the human cost 3 weeks before Christmas and that makes me angry.

There's a global recession and so fewer things are made.  The demand is about 8% lower this year I think.  As economies come out of recession then demand will grow and the Teeside plant may be activated again.  Also, there are steel suppliers around the world and they're in competition so someone, somewhere, will lose out.  Perhaps steel makers in South Africa would be up in arms instead of Teeside if it went that way.  This is the way of global free trade.  I live near Nottingham and there were thousands of lace makers there 150 or so years ago.  I doubt there are any now.  Had the labour government existed back then, I suppose we'd still be making lace now at a full craft wage, paid for by taxpayers, and selling it for pennies elsewhere.

Having been made redundant in December 2001 and in June 2004, I can report that it's crap whatever time of year it happens.  I suppose in June there might be more jobs vacancies advertised but that's about it.  The Christmas thing is mostly observer sentimentalism, when you're made redundant then having a nice Christmas is not really the highest priority or concern.

We are not going to agree on this one, I would have preferred industry to be kept in this country, can't pretend to understand much about global economy, and also I am aware I am being sentimental over the workers being made redundant at Christmas, but surely what ever time of year it is people suffer?

Anyway I am not clever enough to continue this discussion as I don't understand economics and all that and I have a tea to cook, thanks Daniel for an interesting discussion.

Obviously I agree with PinkBabe. Running our economy by a single determinism (ie money) just doesn't work.

Neither does direct and large scale market intervention, alongside fiscal and monetary policy by governments as evidenced by the crises of the 1970s.  We also complain bitterly when the French do it with the common agricultural policy and our farmers are the losers.

It's very sad, our friend used to work there years back.

Unless it's the banks in the clarts.

Ah well, the banks are the very plumbing.  Allowing those to go, at least the retail banks, would affect just about everything and would be akin to setting aside the law of the land.  The UK would lose our AAA rating, people would be on the streets setting fire to stuff because their wealth was gone, and everything.  Just ask the North Koreans.  Or perhaps the Icelandic lot.

Did you know that there is a metal factory still operating quite near to here? 
It's exact situation must remain a secret since if we are not careful they'll be up here from that London, shutting it down, stripping it's wealth, and wasting the money on their Olympics. (Or the Bankers)

Corus did the same in South Wales a little while back - Wales tends to cop for it every time industry gets cut back, too.
It's become increasingly obvious that the only countries not to have been heavily hit by recession are those with a strong manufacturing base, like China. Banks are no good if no-one has any money to put in them.

Perhaps we could get our banking services cheaper from another city/country?

Wouldn't that be nice? After all the banks being so keen on outsourcing call centre jobs to India, maybe we should outsource the top brass's posts there as well!

It's a little more complex than that I think.  Countries like China and Germany are large exporters and Germany has been hit by recession despite having a strong manufacturing base.  China's growth fell quite dramatically during the period, mainly because other countries reduced demand, and its exports dropped by 25% earlier this year.  China also has low costs compared to the West and the global trade is very unbalanced there.  In other words, I think it's the fact that China can export and make money that allows it to have a strong manufacturing base.  We probably couldn't even if we wanted to.  Germany also went into recession but appears to be out of it.  In Germany, there are significant differences in the way company finance and the way the jobs market and unemployment are handled.

The main issue with the UK, in my opinion, is that the Labour government has let the City grow out of proportion to the rest of the economy (we still have a manufacturing base, you know) and they then spent the money building a large public sector and borrowed more on top even in the good years.  On top of that, they allowed the housing bubble to develop even though it was obvious to most people back in 2004 that it was going to come a cropper, and they allowed cheap credit to everyone so that we have a much larger personal debt level than places like Germany.  It's truly shocking what Labour have done to the country.  We're stuffed for decades now.  This is much worse than Thatcher's legacy.  I think the extent of the crisis will become obvious to everyone over the next year.

You'd think so wouldn't you, however I watched a documentary on the scrappage scheme, it seems most people have traded in for foreign cars, Germany is coming out of the recession with help from us buying their cars, less than 14% (or thereabouts) of cars sold under the scrappage scheme are made in the UK or have parts made in the UK. Effectively, it seems that the money set aside for this has gone abroad.....

This is Thatcher's Legacy. Remember when all the right wing crackpots started messing around with the Heritage Foundation? Reaganomics? No great helmsman since has changed course. We told you nothing good would come of laissez faire and boom and bust. But did you all listen? No! You had to go your own way.
  (Can anyone remember the next line?)

I'm a bit of a politics ignoramus!....but am of the firm belief that Thatcherism...created the F**k you I'm all right jack thought!...our downfall imo!!
*backs outta fred*...

No, this is monetarism without any oversight at all.  Actually, that's not true.  I think Gordon realised that the City was too big and that financial regulation was too lax but by then he was too addicted to his social Marxism for the modern day and couldn't bear to stop the money rolling in from the City for it.  And what good has it done?  None.  We'll be back to the levels of real world investment the Tories left us with in 1997 and a truly enormous national debt to service and we've had our civil liberties stripped in the meantime.  Typical Labour profligacy and nanny-state tendencies.  Thanks to Labour voters, our country is pretty much ruined for the foreseeable.

I can assure you that no Labour voter expected the spanish  things to turn out in this way, they expected a change in policies. What Civil Liberties have we lost? Religion, speech, judicial, sexuality, or privacy? I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one Danjay.

Thatcher,,,de'il  disnae want her!

Look up Henry Porter.  He's tracking the lot for liberals like me.  The Grauniad has a site dedicated to it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm...sfree/libertycentral

Labour have been very successful in this.  I only need to point you at the various people on forums who say "If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" ... before drawing their curtains in the evening.

Are you seriously suggesting that Mrs Crossy and I put on a show for the people opposite?