Buying British?

[sailorgirl]

No idea what boaty stuff is actually made in Britain.... think we should bring back the Made in Britain campaign with nice prominent logos on things.... come to think of it the current bods in Westminster suggested something like that recently but I've no idea if anyone was listening

Anyway some food for thought can be found here: http://makeitingreatbritain.bis.gov.uk/Myth-buster-challenge

 

[lustyd]

No idea what boaty stuff is actually made in Britain.... think we should bring back the Made in Britain campaign with nice prominent logos on things.... come to think of it the current bods in Westminster suggested something like that recently but I've no idea if anyone was listening

Anyway some food for thought can be found here: http://makeitingreatbritain.bis.gov.uk/Myth-buster-challenge

Lewmar are in Havant
Spinlock in Cowes
Crewsaver in Gosport

I'd be amazed if they all make everything here though, it's not really a clever move from a business point of view due to high costs, hence the outsourcing. Ironically minimum wage probably gave the biggest blow to manufacturing jobs here (the chinese don't have minimum wage AFAIK).

 

[WestWittering]

Have you tried instead looking for British designed goods? Or British companies who outsource the manufacturing? Just because it's not made here doesn't mean the fat end of the profit doesn't get back here and filter down the economy. As I said, coffee shops account for a huge number of jobs and the people supporting them are the designers of goods, the technicians, the consultants. Even the travel industry benefits as more flights are being taken by people inspecting factories, signing deals and controlling quality.

I think it's good that this is in the public eye, not because manufacturing needs to return, but because people need to be educated as to what our economy is actually doing these days and to widen their view of a job being a man with a hammer!

I don't get this. I watched a Question Time on this morning - either Grant Shapps or Roland Rudd said exactly the same thing but as part of a different debate - apparently, we need High Streets to buy a coffee and get our hair cut. Brilliant. And you seem to be saying that is a good thing.



British industry is out there & can be supported (or not).

I didn't realise for example that Icom was British - so if I need electronics in the future I will look more closely at their product. Actually, I need a chart plotter, but for some reason can't find a stockist nearby. Cello televisions are made in the UK - I own one, purely by chance - but if I had known that they were British my other TV would have been a Cello too.

I would prefer to spend my money directly, putting money into 'proper' UK companies. Implying that our economy can run by spending our money in coffee shops, drive throughs and hair salons is just crazy IMVHO. Very few of our businesses go to the wall because the products or staff are ****. For the most part it is the very un-level playing field that our companies have to contend with that prices them out of the home market and ultimately out of business.

The aim of the question was really to see if a) can you get every single item you need for the boat Made in Britain and b) does any forum member choose British made goods specifically to help support British manufacturing or for other reasons or specifically don't choose British made and the reasons.

Dianne
]

 

[halcyon]

I'd be amazed if they all make everything here though, it's not really a clever move from a business point of view due to high costs, hence the outsourcing. Ironically minimum wage probably gave the biggest blow to manufacturing jobs here (the chinese don't have minimum wage AFAIK).

My brother used to be company sec to a big importer from China, he was saying the other year that prices were going up due to China bringing in control on wages, hours worked and holiday entitlement. So in a few years we could have high prices and no options, time w[ll tell.

Brian

 

[Marsupial]

Read all about it here

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscor...2-1140-industrial-strategy-uk-sector-analysis

my take on it is that we cannot and will not ever make a profit by opening doors for each other (services).

 

[maby]

Have you tried instead looking for British designed goods? Or British companies who outsource the manufacturing? Just because it's not made here doesn't mean the fat end of the profit doesn't get back here and filter down the economy. As I said, coffee shops account for a huge number of jobs and the people supporting them are the designers of goods, the technicians, the consultants. Even the travel industry benefits as more flights are being taken by people inspecting factories, signing deals and controlling quality.

I think it's good that this is in the public eye, not because manufacturing needs to return, but because people need to be educated as to what our economy is actually doing these days and to widen their view of a job being a man with a hammer!

I don't count British owned companies that outsource production - we need the manual jobs here. No matter how hard we try, we are always going to have a significant slice of the population who are not capable of anything more skilled than metal bashing and they need some metal to bash.

 

[lustyd]

I don't get this. I watched a Question Time on this morning - either Grant Shapps or Roland Rudd said exactly the same thing but as part of a different debate - apparently, we need High Streets to buy a coffee and get our hair cut. Brilliant. And you seem to be saying that is a good thing.



British industry is out there & can be supported (or not).

I didn't realise for example that Icom was British - so if I need electronics in the future I will look more closely at their product. Actually, I need a chart plotter, but for some reason can't find a stockist nearby. Cello televisions are made in the UK - I own one, purely by chance - but if I had known that they were British my other TV would have been a Cello too.

I would prefer to spend my money directly, putting money into 'proper' UK companies. Implying that our economy can run by spending our money in coffee shops, drive throughs and hair salons is just crazy IMVHO. Very few of our businesses go to the wall because the products or staff are ****. For the most part it is the very un-level playing field that our companies have to contend with that prices them out of the home market and ultimately out of business.

The aim of the question was really to see if a) can you get every single item you need for the boat Made in Britain and b) does any forum member choose British made goods specifically to help support British manufacturing or for other reasons or specifically don't choose British made and the reasons.

Dianne
]

Do ICOM actually make their stuff here, or just design it here (as I said, the VALUABLE jobs are here!). Someone getting paid £60k to design a VHF which will sell all over the world is better for the economy than several people getting £10k to make them. This is because all of the profit from all of the radios comes to Britain for a British company but a tiny (and it's MUCH smaller than you think) portion goes to China for manufacturing. The £60k gets distributed around the UK in services where people earn reasonable wages for pleasant if boring work. You can try to argue that it would be better to have the £60k and the several £10k jobs here but you'd be wrong. This would raise the cost to a point where everyone in the world would buy the competing product for less money because £10k is too much for a factory worker in todays global economy. The only exception to this is very high value products such as luxury cars, boats, and other hand made goods. In these non mass produced items, skilled and highly paid workers create the product for larger profit margins which people are prepared to pay for a premium product. Cornish Crabbers are a good example, compared to JenBenBav they are extortionately priced, but there is a percieved value that people are willing to pay more for. Same with the McLaren, Lotus, Eurofighter helmets and thousands of other products we make here in the UK. What's common to all of them though, is there are no large colume "manufacturing jobs", they require highly skilled workers often with advanced degree level education, and so these factory workers are in the higher tax bracket and therefore are contributing to everyone else by shopping at Asda and buying coffee.

 

[lustyd]

Utter carp. I explained earlier that those people are now working in Coffee shops, supermarkets etc. and as such we don't need unskilled factory workers bashing metal. The very fact that so many British people believe manufacturing involves someone bashing metal shows how out of touch we are with manufacturing in modern mass production. Machines do the bashing now, and a man/woman/child simply places one component on top of another one for about 4p per hour. If they got even minimum wage do you imagine that you could afford any of the pound shop trinkets you take for granted? The iPad for instance takes 5 days and 325 sets of hands to make. Add 5 days worth of British labour to the bill and see how many "cheap tablets" are still purchased!

 

[lustyd]

my take on it is that we cannot and will not ever make a profit by opening doors for each other (services).

I never implied we would - that's just how the wealth gets distributed down the chain from the very profitable services at the top.

 

[lustyd]

My brother used to be company sec to a big importer from China, he was saying the other year that prices were going up due to China bringing in control on wages, hours worked and holiday entitlement. So in a few years we could have high prices and no options, time w[ll tell.

Brian

I've read that Africa is the next move once China finish their transition. Apparently even China is starting to outsource to cheaper labour elsewhere!

 

[WestWittering]

Going by your logic, Lusty we need those 6 x 10k workers because that would be 6 x coffee & 6 x haircuts..... No matter what you earn, you wont have a hair-cut every day.

Africa the next move - please - South Africa is such a success story - isn't it?

Di

 

[WestWittering]

And as for those designers & engineers & IT consultants - they are self-employed now and the only money they spend on services is paying my partner to reduce their tax to F.A. Wake up and smell the coffee - pun intended

Di

PS Meat shanks are in - (Tim'll understand)

 

[lustyd]

Here we go, for the 5 days to make an iPad:
Minimum wage £6.19/hour
7.5 hours per day = £46.425/day (assuming no pay at lunch)
5 days = £232.125
Employers NI = £264.158
VAT on this extra cost = 316.99

The current CHEAPEST iPad model is £329 (16GB WIFI) which will henceforth cost you £645.99 made in Britain. I decided not to deduct the £3 savings due to not needing a chinese child for 5 days, or the £2.50 shipping cost since these make almost no difference at all.

Sir Jonathan Ive is English though, and he designed many of Apples products. Admittedly he's a poor example because he fled to warmer climes, but the people who educated him are here, and still churning out British designers who make world class products for British and foreign companies alike.

 

[lustyd]

Going by your logic, Lusty we need those 6 x 10k workers because that would be 6 x coffee & 6 x haircuts..... No matter what you earn, you wont have a hair-cut every day.

Africa the next move - please - South Africa is such a success story - isn't it?

Di

SA probably will be once they get lots of investment like China did, yes. See my other post about why those 6 people will never get a low end manufacturing job.

 

[ditchcrawler]

When I was at the Boat Show I was enquiring about some genoa cars on the Barton stand, who were very helpful and they pointed out that there stuff was British.Whether that means just assembled or all made in Britain I do not know but all power to them.

 

[maby]

Here we go, for the 5 days to make an iPad:
Minimum wage £6.19/hour
7.5 hours per day = £46.425/day (assuming no pay at lunch)
5 days = £232.125
Employers NI = £264.158
VAT on this extra cost = 316.99

The current CHEAPEST iPad model is £329 (16GB WIFI) which will henceforth cost you £645.99 made in Britain. I decided not to deduct the £3 savings due to not needing a chinese child for 5 days, or the £2.50 shipping cost since these make almost no difference at all.

Sir Jonathan Ive is English though, and he designed many of Apples products. Admittedly he's a poor example because he fled to warmer climes, but the people who educated him are here, and still churning out British designers who make world class products for British and foreign companies alike.

So, pay more for Britsh made products, reduce unemployment, reduce taxes that we pay to support the unemployed and we all end up better off - apart from the Chinese, but does anyone actually care about them?

 

[WestWittering]

Here we go, for the 5 days to make an iPad:
Minimum wage £6.19/hour
7.5 hours per day = £46.425/day (assuming no pay at lunch)
5 days = £232.125
Employers NI = £264.158
VAT on this extra cost = 316.99

The current CHEAPEST iPad model is £329 (16GB WIFI) which will henceforth cost you £645.99 made in Britain. I decided not to deduct the £3 savings due to not needing a chinese child for 5 days, or the £2.50 shipping cost since these make almost no difference at all.

If by your logic, it takes five days to build one iPad (?) they have sold over 100,000,000 yes a lot of noughts, then that is 500,000,000 man days.. And lovely though the idea is that there is one gentleman responsible for building my iPad - I really, really, really don't think that is true. Five days in the production process yes BUT 5 days = 1 person = 1 iPad don't be daft - they would cost £2000 if that was true!

And the top of the range iPad is £550 (cheapest price) it is nearly as cheap (by your sums) to have one man building one iPad per working week - the component parts wont cost that much more relatively

Di

 

[lustyd]

So, pay more for Britsh made products, reduce unemployment, reduce taxes that we pay to support the unemployed and we all end up better off - apart from the Chinese, but does anyone actually care about them?

The problem with this argument is that most people won't even pay extra for quality let alone being bothered who made something. This country is not short of jobs for those that want one and are willing to try to get one. Unemployment was no better when we were manufacturing things.

Personally I think the best thing we could do for the economy is reintroduce student grants. The money will come from unemployment benefits and the unemployed who are "genuinely looking for work" can go and do the part time jobs the students are currently doing. If there genuinely are no jobs available, how come so many people are supporting themselves while at Uni? BTW, I don't accept "there aren't any jobs where I live" as an excuse. I have moved many times for work and improved career prospects and it was easy!

 

[WestWittering]

You dont seem to know much about SA And to me your arguments are so bizarre and flawed, I really dont want to respond point by point - we can happily agree to disagree.

Di

 

[lustyd]

If by your logic, it takes five days to build one iPad (?) they have sold over 100,000,000 yes a lot of noughts, then that is 500,000,000 man days.. And lovely though the idea is that there is one gentleman responsible for building my iPad - I really, really, really don't think that is true. Five days in the production process yes BUT 5 days = 1 person = 1 iPad don't be daft - they would cost £2000 if that was true!

Di

Yup, those figures are from FoxConn and that is how cheap labour is in China. 5 days is (as I said...) 325 people doing a little something to the ipad. It would probably take 2 days to "pass the parcel" with 325 people so 5 days to make a very complicated object with very low tolerances sounds about right.

ETA - I think you may underestimate the size of these factories. FoxConn has hundreds of thousands of people working in China, all of whom have been working for many years so 500M man days is probably not far off the number.