Current economic trends - call for evidence

[mockney piers]

I'm not going to argue with you mainly because I completely agree with you. The shagsacks of governmets we've had are exactly the ones we deserve. It's what we voted for after all and maintaing the frame of debate politically where it's stagnated for thirty years in a pitiful pool of selfinterest is entirely down to our cognitive dissonance.

I want I want I want. Why have 'they' sold of the family jewels? Because we asked them to, we want to have our cake and eat it.

Youre right I agree.

But again you're examples of why it's hard, fuel running out, the impotence and complexity of carbon tradng schemes will be a result of this dissonance maintaining the frame of debate about how we can solve our problems whilst maintaing our status quo in terms of the life we're used to.

If we have the balls to bring people in who will change the frame then things can be done. It can be easier than all the excuses given.

If we have already moved away from petrol engines, if we are moving our freight in trains powered by clean renewable/nuclear/fusion power, then the trucks aren't grinding and the carbon doesn't need trading.

The frame of debate needs to change now in order for us to have the research scientists to invent fusion or improve food yields without recourse to organophosphates etc etc

there are so many challenges and we need a cognitive revolution as influential as, say france's political one ofthr first world war gave us sea changes in the way we think about mankind and society.

As I said out of adversity shouldn't we be better, lime WW2 gave us a united nations (*coughs cynically*) and the concept of universal human rights (*coughs AND chokes a bit*)

[mockney piers]

Ok I'll give it a rest now as I'm boring myself now and all my warblings boil down to 'yes we can' in the face of emotive straw men about closing down children hospitals and dimmer switches 'sorry your home is under water little tommy but my lounge had a dimmer switch you see'. ;)

[alphacalifragelistic]

@ Mockney

I live on a hill. Hence the lack of concern about rising sea levels.

My ceiling lights don't work with low emission bulbs (due to the constant minimal current of a dimmer). Hence my annoyance about being left in the dark before ceramic, OLED lighting has reached the market. They've just been a bit previous with the policy, that's all.

More seriously, apologies for the hospital / carbon juxtaposition, which was unfair. However, there is a serious point about the likely cost to the NHS from the EU carbon trading scheme. Certain loss for uncertain benefit = difficult sell.

[mockney piers]

No worries, I too live on a hill so shouldn't drown but will get lovely sea views over camberwell.

I've posted this site before which I recall got Dulwichmum terribly excited!

Http://flood.firetree.net

[alphacalifragelistic]

@ Mockney

I'd get a beachside residence and Bermondsey disappears. What's not to like?

[HAL9000]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> If we have already moved away from petrol engines,

> if we are moving our freight in trains powered by

> clean renewable/nuclear/fusion power, then the

> trucks aren't grinding and the carbon doesn't need

> trading.

Thermo-nuclear reactors on wheels speeding back and forth across open countryside - are you serious?

> clean renewable/nuclear/fusion power,

Nuclear is hardly 'clean' - fission reactors are potential sources of the dirtiest and deadliest pollution conceivable - and they'd be pumping more waste heat into the atmosphere than that presently generated by greenhouse gasses (the same goes for wind power, in that respect).

Fusion power is still a pipe dream that is unlikely to be realised in time to make any difference.

The only viable long-term solution is to stabilise human population at the planet's natural carrying capacity - somewhere between one and two billion people - sooner rather than later: fuelled by renewable wood, steam and horses.

[HAL9000]

I live at the top of one of the highest hills in South London - 235 feet above sea level. Yet my home will lie under 75 feet of water if all the Antarctic ice melts.

[mockney piers]

No, obviously powered by electricity generated cleanly elsewhere.

Of course one might say 'millions of inefficient carbon powered vehicles taking one person at a time on the same journey pumping out noxious greenhouse gases, are you mad?

And yes I know the arguments, they weren't definitive solutions, just a cluster of non greenhouse alternatives up for discussion.

God, everyone with the negative nancy vibe today, and you're the clever ones.

Perhaps we are doomed after all as if we can't even persuade ourselves of the need and feasability what hope the man on the street who wants his car, insists it's his right to leave his telly on standby and the governemnt can prise his remote out of his cold dead hands and don't even think about coming near his dimmer switch!!

[Brendan]

I read the following in the Daily Mash today and I think it is rather pertinent to this conversation, "Now, for the love of Christ, would you all please stop shouting at each other and just make an electric car that's not fucking shit."

[????]

hate to be pedantic but TOPIC...drawing room in completley random modding shocker...wouldn't happen in the Lounge

[SteveT]

Jeremy wrote:- IMO the stimulus is going to be the same thing which got us into this mess in the first place - the city.

I do not think the city is the answer, it has been in decline for many years and this will continue.

Industry and what is produced here competitively, then sold abroad for a profit certainly will.

Although we will never be able to sustain the population we have, from the resources available.

[Jeremy]

> I do not think the city is the answer, it has been in decline for many years and this will continue.

I don't think 2007-2009 counts as "many years"!

I would welcome significant growth in other sectors, hence reducing our dependency on financial services. But I don't see that happening any time soon unfortunately.

[SteveT]

Jeremy wrote:- I don't think 2007-2009 counts as "many years"!

The city has been shedding its labour force for much longer than that Jeremy.

[Jeremy]

Source?

Recruitment was rampant as recently as early 2007, as far as I recall.

[mockney piers]

I think Steve may have been Reading all those 'City sheds N jobs' as cumulative figures rather than a very shirt term cyclical effect of:

knee jerk cost cut -> recruitment freeze -> everyone complains -> freeze circumvented bit by bit via contractors -> cost needs cutting make them permy -> poor performaces too many employees -> knee jerk cost cut ...

Jbs really only get reduced during mergers etc. Ignore the rest.

[Moos]

Actually, I'd like to see the figures over a 15-year period. It may be that though the City was busily recruiting away in the go-go years, that overall jobs were being quietly shed by outsourcing/offshoring and efficiences through technology and process upgrades. Anyone have any idea where we could get some numbers?

[SteveT]

Perhaps a photograph of the rush hour crossing of London bridge, one for each decade since the sixties would be proof enough Jeremy.

Sadly I personally do not have the technical expertise to achieve this.:-$

[SteveT]

Brendan wrote:-

I read the following in the Daily Mash today and I think it is rather pertinent to this conversation, "Now, for the love of Christ, would you all please stop shouting at each other and just make an electric car that's not @#$%& shit."

This was achieved a few years ago by a US car giant I think it was General Motors, they made a proper electric car which was well liked by the users in the trial cars who did not want to give them back when the company decided to scrap the idea.

Would be a good idea to buy the tooling and start production, so if there are any venture capitalists out there looking for an investment opportunity.

[Jeremy]

SteveT Wrote:

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> Perhaps a photograph of the rush hour crossing of

> London bridge, one for each decade since the

> sixties would be proof enough Jeremy.

Possibly not, as half the industry has moved to Canary Wharf! Not to mention a whole load of back-office "low cost" sites around the country.

Unfortunately I don't any stats either, so this is likely to remain in the realms of speculation...

[alphacalifragelistic]

You want stats, I got stats...

In 2007, financial services contributed ?33 billion to the balance of payments (up ?7bn from 2006).

The sector accounted for 10.1% of UK GDP, rising to 14% if ancillary activities (such as accounting & legal services) are added.

Jobswise, it was responsible for 1 in 30 jobs in the UK that year.

In 2006, 1.07 million people were employed in financial services, up around 7,000 compared to 2005.

The share of GDP dipped from 6.6% in 1996 to 5.5% in 2001, before rising to the 2007 figure quoted above.

By comparison, manufacturing's share has fallen from 21.1% in 1996 to 13.2% in 2006, with the trade deficit in manufactured goods rising from below 20 billion Euros to 80 billion Euros over the same period.

By 2006, financial services paid a quarter of all the corporation tax raised that year (equivalent to 8.9 billion Euros) and the sector's workforce paid 13.6 billion Euros in income tax, which was 12% of all income tax receipts. I.e. The tax contribution of the sector and its workforce was both massive and disproportionate to its size.

Sources:

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/KnowledgeExch/Financial.aspx

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Images/Financial%20Services_tcm6-29921.pdf

http://www.sii.org.uk/crm/SIIRevie.nsf/articlesbyunivid/Z643D5367556E96EA8025736900367DBB?editdocument

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/uks-financial-services-share-rises-to-9.4-of-gdp-in-06/256893/

http://ukintaiwan.fco.gov.uk/en/doing-business/business-investment-in-uk/uk-business-environment/uk-financial-services/

Citing, in turn, reports from 'International Financial Services, London'. (No, I haven't heard of them either, but they appear creditable enough for the ESRC to quote from.) Sorry for the 'Euros' denomination above, but you have to work with what you're given I guess.

So, lots of people in the sector and payroll appeared to be growing overall during the recent boom. (Although, with a single 2005-2006 observation detailed above, you would be within your rights to still be sceptical.)

Just some observations, but the sector dipped in 2001, courtesy of the dotcom crash, the twin towers attack and Enron I presume, with a much lower share of GDP. I.e. It was - and is ? both volatile and susceptible to global conditions.

I would guess that the cusp side of that, is that if London based trading of bonds, foreign equities and derivatives comes roaring back, then there is scope for a significant recovery, given the City's share of global trading. However, there is the potential that we could lose that to Singapore, Shanghai, Mumbai or Dubai. Hence the sensitivity over new capital adequacy rules, bonus curbs, further regulation, etc. (The ex pat tax driven hedge fund exodus to Geneva was talked up two years ago, but I wonder how significant it proved to be in the end. - I recall that European finance was supposed to be marching over en masse to Frankfurt in the mid-1990's, so perhaps the City is more resilient than we may fear.)

Secondly, manufacturing is knackered, falling by roughly 40% in a decade in terms of its share in UK GDP and with an egregious balance of trade in that sector.

[HAL9000]

alphacalifragelistic Wrote:

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> ? if London based trading of bonds, foreign

> equities and derivatives comes roaring back ?

We now know that most of the frenzied trading over the last few years was neither productive nor socially beneficial: it destroyed wealth and bankrupted the western banking system.

The only way trading can come ?roaring back? to the City is if no one has learnt anything from the Great Financial Crisis. Are we that dumb?

> (The ex pat tax driven hedge fund exodus to Geneva

> was talked up two years ago, but I wonder how

> significant it proved to be in the end.

Gordon Brown?s recent plan for a 50 per cent top rate of income tax has encouraged some fund managers to relocate and many more to consider moving to Switzerland (where rates are 10-15%). See Swiss target Brown?s tax rises

[SteveT]

Did you know that

if it wasn't for the city this would be a third world country.

Not many people know that.

[HAL9000]

Thanks to the City we almost became one - and may yet do so.

[SteveT]

That is the deeply worrying bit HAL.

[louisiana]

Yup, the great public debt crisis - how easily it moved from private to public, eh? - is still to come. Debt, jobs, services...