EU Wanted to Help British Steel Industry...

[Boz33]

I have no idea, it was profitable until fairly recently though otherwise how was it ever open? When a big industry like that goes so does a lot of supporting businesses and has a huge knock on which has an impact on the tax payer through the various types of support required. Must be a certain point where even if all you want to think about is the financial side still makes subsidies the preferable option.

How much has all the towns and villages in the UK decimated by the decline of heavy industry cost the taxpayer in the long run with all the associated socioeconomic problems?

Well last quarter tata lost £220m, the quarter before they showed a small profit of £1.57m. Iirc they were £500m in the hole when they decided to start shutting up shop. Now if we say that the steel crisis could last another couple of years till the world economy recovers and maybe starts building again, and the massive stock of Chinese steel is used up, that would be a possible 2bn quid we may have to give tata, a private company. Even after the steel market recovers, you'd still have the problem of competing with cheap Chinese steel that they will be making in the interim. How much is enough for a government to subsidise. The labour costs are never going to be able to beat the Far East countries, and raising massive tariffs etc here, would harm other industries, if we went down that route with Chinese steel.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but when we are having cuts left right and centre on services and everything else, subsidising private steel firms isn't really high on my list of priorities

 

[---Nemo---]

Why should the government prop up an industry that continually fails to make a profit ?

It's important to preserve a strategic rump in case we revisit 1939? Besides, when the muzzies finally take over France and Germany they may well prove to be a threat at some point in the future. An island that can't build ships or feed itself wouldn't last long.

Besides, taxpayers are currently subsidising a business that continues to pay dividends to its shareholders. Not to mention tax credits.

 

[Some Random Guy]

And what would make it change? And how long do you think subsidies would have to be given, bearing in mind it's not a few quid, it will be hundreds of millions a year?
And if we subsidise that do we then have to subsidise all the other none profitable industries and private companies hoping that they come good again?

Given China's one child policy they are going to get into a lot of bother with the aging population and a smaller workforce. The fact that it's being reversed means very little when it's been going on for 30 years, they've changed their entire demographic and it will bite, as will the population they have expecting a better standard of life than the have had in the past. Their population is now set up for a boom and bust that will cycle every 30 or so years for the next 100-150 years.

Don't get me wrong, not going to destroy the country, but it will effect productivity. We're getting hit right now with pensions and social care costs because of the baby boomers for example.

 

[Boz33]

I think it is a generational thing to a certain extent, but not because we've become lazy all of a sudden. It used to be a case of go work down the pit/in the fields/down the docks and get a fair wage or....starve and die. Now it's a case of, for a lot of people, go work in Primark or Starbucks for not enough money to have a life or....don't go and work a shit job and have not enough money for a decent life.

The number of people working in the family doesn't matter. My point was that over time you could turn a 37-40 hour week into a 30-32 hour week, so in theory, yes a 5 day week in a 1 income family would become a 4 day week in a one income family.
Say over the next 2 years the norm went from a 37-40 hour week to a 35-37 hour week would it affect the majority of people to a dreadful degree? I think we'd all adjust pretty quickly. If that cash was then put into new jobs to keep the man hours at the same level a lot of jobs are created. If you keep slicing over a long enough period of time society adjusts, by the time you have your 30 hour 4 day week we're all retired and out grandkids think it's the norm. You have to think, there was a time when the idea of a two day weekend was nuts.

It would effect people massively, also how do you enforce people to stop working, or just doing a 35 hour week and then just doing overtime? That's still an 8-10 hours less a month(depending on weeks in month) that's maybe 200-250 quid a month less for people, could mean the difference between making a mortgage payment or not
Perhaps as a society people expect more and now...the newest phone, a new car, designer clothes, big telly for btw doesn't matter as debt will cover that.

Dunno about you but when I was a lad, it seemed if you had the money fine, if not you saved until you had enough for the luxuries.

Given China's one child policy they are going to get into a lot of bother with the aging population and a smaller workforce. The fact that it's being reversed means very little when it's been going on for 30 years, they've changed their entire demographic and it will bite, as will the population they have expecting a better standard of life than the have had in the past. Their population is now set up for a boom and bust that will cycle every 30 or so years for the next 100-150 years.

Don't get me wrong, not going to destroy the country, but it will effect productivity. We're getting hit right now with pensions and social care costs because of the baby boomers for example.

In fairness there's 1.3 billion of the little people, even if only 100m of them were of a working age that still far outstrips our total population.
And the Chinese aren't like western countries, it's not unheard of for them to sacrifice the population...Mao killed nearly 70 million....although Abbott did commend him on modernising the country

And that's before we even think about India...again a country that isn't afraid to sacrifice the population

 

[Some Random Guy]

It would effect people massively, also how do you enforce people to stop working, or just doing a 35 hour week and then just doing overtime? That's still an 8-10 hours less a month(depending on weeks in month) that's maybe 200-250 quid a month less for people, could mean the difference between making a mortgage payment or not
Perhaps as a society people expect more and now...the newest phone, a new car, designer clothes, big telly for btw doesn't matter as debt will cover that.

Dunno about you but when I was a lad, it seemed if you had the money fine, if not you saved until you had enough for the luxuries.

So...the numbers I pulled out (of my arse) amounts to around a day a month of lost pay. If you're earning £200-250 a day after deductions I don't think you have much to worry about in the grand scheme of things, and if you do you have seriously overstretched yourself. That's £4-5k a month man, after tax

Overtime? Not every job gives you the option of it, jobs that do mainly don't have it available constantly. Your phone/car/telly/clothes etc argument really doesn't matter, if that's an issue it's a different one.

Put it this way, if one of us lost our job tomorrow, and if we walked into a job that paid around 95% of our current salary we'd get on with it and be fine. That's the kind of reduction we're talking about.

 

[Boz33]

Well, we got shot of mining, shipbuilding, the power companies, water, the railways, national grid and just about everything else that was supposed to be dragging the economy down and still failed to reduce taxes or the deficit. Must be us pensioners that's the problem then eh.

A joking point but at some point it has to be realised people live longer that's just a fact. How many 90 year olds did you know when you were a lad? Not many I bet.
It's quite common now, and with that will go all the healthcare housing and pension costs.
It used to be you grew up, worked, retired and generally popped your clogs a few years after sitting in the garden.
Now you can't get shifted round here for old people riding their bikes round, fit as fleas
It's a good thing people live longer but it is a huge expense, and I guess the cost will just increase year on year.

I feel sorry for the people having to look at working till their 68 is it now? Probably be 75 in 20 years time

So...the numbers I pulled out (of my arse) amounts to around a day a month of lost pay. If you're earning £200-250 a day after deductions I don't think you have much to worry about in the grand scheme of things, and if you do you have seriously overstretched yourself. That's £4-5k a month man, after tax

Overtime? Not every job gives you the option of it, jobs that do mainly don't have it available constantly. Your phone/car/telly/clothes etc argument really doesn't matter, if that's an issue it's a different one.

Put it this way, if one of us lost our job tomorrow, and if we walked into a job that paid around 95% of our current salary we'd get on with it and be fine. That's the kind of reduction we're talking about.

What about the other end tho? People on small wages earning like 20k a year, losing that many hours will count, and like you I pulled the 250 figure out my arse for an average so I'll do wages for a low paid worker...bearing in mind the absolute riot it caused when welfare was going to be change, which would have been maybe a similar figure

 

[Some Random Guy]

In fairness there's 1.3 billion of the little people, even if only 100m of them were of a working age that still far outstrips our total population.
And the Chinese aren't like western countries, it's not unheard of for them to sacrifice the population...Mao killed nearly 70 million....although Abbott did commend him on modernising the country

And that's before we even think about India...again a country that isn't afraid to sacrifice the population

China is very different today than then, it's capitalistic despite calling itself communist. Let's be fair, the Great Leap Forward was a massive clusterfuck caused by incompetence and internal party bullshit rather than a willingness to sacrifice millions of people.

 

[Boz33]

China is very different today than then, it's capitalistic despite calling itself communist. Let's be fair, the Great Leap Forward was a massive clusterfuck caused by incompetence and internal party bullshit rather than a willingness to sacrifice millions of people.

If they were struggling they'd do a great leap back, what would be the alternative if they were on the bones of their arses.
As well as this we still have the Africans coming of age much like china and India

 

[Some Random Guy]

What about the other end tho? People on small wages earning like 20k a year, losing that many hours will count, and like you I pulled the 250 figure out my arse for an average so I'll do wages for a low paid worker

Back in 2009 I worked for 20k a year, I lost my job and went down to 16k. You make it work.

The average salary is about 26k I believe. After deductions that would be about £80 a day. (I pulled that out of the air but I'm sure it's not far off, the ONS will have a data set if you're that arsed).

The minimum wage is being increased to a living wage which means that even losing a days pay would still make them better off. Remember there will be a load of shiny new jobs created in this fantasy land so there's an increased chance of them getting something better.

 

[Boz33]

Back in 2009 I worked for 20k a year, I lost my job and went down to 16k. You make it work.

The average salary is about 26k I believe. After deductions that would be about £80 a day. (I pulled that out of the air but I'm sure it's not far off, the ONS will have a data set if you're that arsed).

The minimum wage is being increased to a living wage which means that even losing a days pay would still make them better off. Remember there will be a load of shiny new jobs created in this fantasy land so there's an increased chance of them getting something better.

Nah too much hassle digging figures out, @Frijj will be along in 5 hours to blast us both with google and pie charts it's just nice arguing the toss without all the usual fuckwittery that goes on round here.

Right bed for me, but been a good couple of hours chewing the fat and I'm happy to call it a draw if you are

 

[Teed]

What people voted for

This ^^^^ all of our Tory SMBers can give themselves a sound slap on the back, well done you!

 

[Scotsmackem]

Well last quarter tata lost £220m, the quarter before they showed a small profit of £1.57m. Iirc they were £500m in the hole when they decided to start shutting up shop. Now if we say that the steel crisis could last another couple of years till the world economy recovers and maybe starts building again, and the massive stock of Chinese steel is used up, that would be a possible 2bn quid we may have to give tata, a private company. Even after the steel market recovers, you'd still have the problem of competing with cheap Chinese steel that they will be making in the interim. How much is enough for a government to subsidise. The labour costs are never going to be able to beat the Far East countries, and raising massive tariffs etc here, would harm other industries, if we went down that route with Chinese steel.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but when we are having cuts left right and centre on services and everything else, subsidising private steel firms isn't really high on my list of priorities

When the us government put a huge additional tax on foreign motors there was no associated slow down anywhere, the prices of motors stayed pretty much the same and the motor industry benefitted massively. It's been done before and works, not sure why condom head wouldn't want to do it in the case of steel.

 

[RTRsBM]

Hardly a surprise when Gideon and Dave sold them the country earlier this year. Traitorous bastards.

 

[Boz33]

When the us government put a huge additional tax on foreign motors there was no associated slow down anywhere, the prices of motors stayed pretty much the same and the motor industry benefitted massively. It's been done before and works, not sure why condom head wouldn't want to do it in the case of steel.

The American internal market is completely different to ours tho, bearing in Mind the size of their population and relative wealth when they did that
Also we couldn't put a levy on Chinese steel alone, it would have to be EU wide.
What would you do when the price of everything else goes up if we stuck a massive levy on steel? To artificially ease one industry your hitting a lot of other manufacturers.

 

[vinegar hill]

People shouldn't be surprised, they've been doing this sort of thing since that cow Thatcher.
They fly the flag and sing "Land of Hope and Glory" at their conference, but they're the most unpatriotic shower of shit imaginable.

 

[Scotsmackem]

The American internal market is completely different to ours tho, bearing in Mind the size of their population and relative wealth when they did that
Also we couldn't put a levy on Chinese steel alone, it would have to be EU wide.
What would you do when the price of everything else goes up if we stuck a massive levy on steel? To artificially ease one industry your hitting a lot of other manufacturers.

A massive levy on non British steel wouldn't put the prices up though. It would be similar to what happens with the farming industry

 

[Boz33]

A massive levy on non British steel wouldn't put the prices up though. It would be similar to what happens with the farming industry

Nope that's wrong, how wouldn't a massive levy put prices up? If they have to put the levies up so far that British steel becomes the cheapest option in this country, by definition the cost of steel is going to go up for everyone, because your having to pay British prices, not Chinese prices as they are now?
That in turn would raise the cost of everything that uses steel what happens to manufacturers of cars? Do they say fair does, we raise the price of a car for the consumer because they won't mind or do they think, well this is gonna cost a fortune, let's move the car plant to somewhere that either hasn't got a steel tariff as draconian as the uk, or we will save the costs and move to Eastern Europe in the eu for example and we can still ship to the uk, and the levy becomes mute, but the car industry leaves, shocking for the likes of the Nissan lads, but will save a couple of thousands steel jobs.
It would also hit exports as well, anything we make from steel would be more expensive, therefore harder to export and sell at the higher price

 

[Hair Flick]

Nope that's wrong, how wouldn't a massive levy put prices up? If they have to put the levies up so far that British steel becomes the cheapest option in this country, by definition the cost of steel is going to go up for everyone, because your having to pay British prices, not Chinese prices as they are now?
That in turn would raise the cost of everything that uses steel what happens to manufacturers of cars? Do they say fair does, we raise the price of a car for the consumer because they won't mind or do they think, well this is gonna cost a fortune, let's move the car plant to somewhere that either hasn't got a steel tariff as draconian as the uk, or we will save the costs and move to Eastern Europe in the eu for example and we can still ship to the uk, and the levy becomes mute, but the car industry leaves, shocking for the likes of the Nissan lads, but will save a couple of thousands steel jobs.
It would also hit exports as well, anything we make from steel would be more expensive, therefore harder to export and sell at the higher price

There's an easier way and that is to impose minimum quality standards for anything manufactured in UK using steel products. We have quality standards for many aspects of our life allegedly for Health & Safety reasons etc., it would be fairly straightforward to impose and justify something like this.

We want our bridges, buildings, railways, cars etc all built to a quality standard where we know they won't pose a danger to the public. Job done.

 

[Boz33]

There's an easier way and that is to impose minimum quality standards for anything manufactured in UK using steel products. We have quality standards for many aspects of our life allegedly for Health & Safety reasons etc., it would be fairly straightforward to impose and justify something like this.

We want our bridges, buildings, railways, cars etc all built to a quality standard where we know they won't pose a danger to the public. Job done.

Quality standards of build are already in place, stuff isn't just knocked up, bridges, buildings everything pretty much has to be fit for purpose and how many times have we heard people bemoaning the regulations and standards the EU insists on.

If the steel used from china passes the bench marks and testing that's needed to fit the specification then it's fit for purpose.

 

[Hair Flick]

Quality standards of build are already in place, stuff isn't just knocked up, bridges, buildings everything pretty much has to be fit for purpose and how many times have we heard people bemoaning the regulations and standards the EU insists on.

If the steel used from china passes the bench marks and testing that's needed to fit the specification then it's fit for purpose.

So what's all the noise on here about Chinese steel not being up to scratch then? Genuine question as it's not an area in which I have any specific knowledge.