being very un-pc and definately not charitable

being very un-pc and definately not charitable

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cazzer

Original Poster:

8,883 posts

255 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
I just watched the news and was annoyed to hell by a story about bangladesh textile workers....
Cos theyre removing a protective import tariff or some such malarky and that we should all try and buy textiles made in Bangla-bleeding-desh to help em out.

I grew up in Oldham, a town that, at one point, had over 300 textile mills employing over 50,000 people.
It now has precisely non. Because it all went to places like bangladesh.

Did anyone give a stuff when my grandparents (both cotton workers) were made redundant when the mills shut down? No? Did anyone start a campaign for them?
No....
Sod Bangladesh, I for one will be rembering where charity begins.

You may begin the flaming now cos I dont care.

*rant off*


>>> Edited by cazzer on Thursday 16th December 00:56

shirley temple

2,232 posts

239 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
hear, hear

wedg1e

26,891 posts

272 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Yeah, f**k 'em.

JMGS4

8,772 posts

277 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Agree with this sentiment 100%! We should look after ours first and foremost and not give away our (european and British) heritage to the far east or any developing nations....
OK, business is there for making money, but also for keeping Britain great, but as long as socio-fascists and liberal do-gooders keep giving away our heritage, destroying anything which is not socialist (House of Lords, Britons rights, etc, and pandering to chavs and scum) we can only keep on fighting to keep Britain great as long as there is something to fight for.....
hopefully not a lone voice in the wilderness

miniman

26,312 posts

269 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
JMGS4 said:
hopefully not a lone voice in the wilderness
Nope, plenty of us feel the same way! IMHO this country is developing a dangerous propensity to helping everyone other bugger before looking closer to home.

IvIark

1,238 posts

244 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
With you all the way. I went out with a girl from Chadderton a while ago and I always found it depressing to see the number of mills that had been turned into lighting superstores and other similar tat.

What a shame our own industries didn't mean as much to governments gone by.

The Wiz

5,875 posts

269 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Totally agree. Charity begins at home.

turbobloke

107,804 posts

267 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Agreed. When will our government start to help our own businesses instead of making life worse with miles of red tape and fiscal greed? The answer's clear. Never. Nobody in government knows the first thing about business - they're all professional bliars.

mrmaggit

10,146 posts

255 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Nail, Hammer, Thud.

pug406

3,636 posts

260 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
All the billions of £'s the government send abroad in aid should be used to help those that need help in this country. Hospitals and the old spring to mind. Lets get this country up and running first. Get the imigration problem sorted and stop the dross of Europe sponging of off this country. Let the French and Germans take them. Sod the rest of the world, charity begins at home.


Waits for flames!

>> Edited by pug406 on Thursday 16th December 09:15

swilly

9,699 posts

281 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
cazzer said:

I grew up in Oldham, a town that, at one point, had over 300 textile mills employing over 50,000 people.
It now has precisely non. Because it all went to places like bangladesh.


You may find that the demise of such manufacturing industries has its roots in the period of British rule over the Indian subcontinent which at the time included Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It was of course the industrialisation introduced by the British that turned the tables on British industry.

bor

4,840 posts

262 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
While capitalist scum business owners are more concerned with screwing more profits out of their businesses than they are about the people who work in them, then the closing down of British factories which then re-open in the far east will continue.

Lower profits, British jobs, British factories, or outsource and get the money for another big house and a new Porsche ?

Oooooh, new Porsche please !

Mon Ami Mate

6,589 posts

275 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
bor said:
While capitalist scum business owners are more concerned with screwing more profits out of their businesses than they are about the people who work in them, then the closing down of British factories which then re-open in the far east will continue.

Lower profits, British jobs, British factories, or outsource and get the money for another big house and a new Porsche ?

Oooooh, new Porsche please !


Utter nonsense. Business owners do everything they can to make them competitive, otherwise they go bust and take the owners with them. My business will make a healthy looking profit this year but my salary is lower than the person who cleans my office. British businesses are strangled by outrageous meddling government bureaucracy and swingeing taxation, and can't compete with third world sweat-shop manufacturing costs.

Plotloss

67,280 posts

277 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Completely agree with the general sentiment.

Its one of the reasons I find the bidding for the Olympics rather distasteful given that there are 250,000 homeless on the streets of London a goodly number of which are ex-servicemen.

If you are going to throw a load of money down the toilet, at least try and help people rather than creating a big sports day...

We need to sort our own house out first then we can possibly consider sorting out other peoples...

GasBlaster

27,428 posts

286 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Mon Ami Mate said:
but my salary is lower than the person who cleans my office.


Often the case with SME's my friend, but equally often dividends and /or pension contributions seem to make up for it !!

On the subject of cotton workers, most of the cotton produced in those dark satanic northern mills was shipped over to the sub-continent and sold to the natives there. Ironic really...

bga

8,134 posts

258 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
The textile industry went overseas because of refusal to invest, inflexible workforce (not willing to accept change to reflect business environment) and lack of desire by management to develop a quality product for the price.

The remaining industry is that made up of the few who could be competitive. They did this by making hard decicions, having a bit of luck and looking further than 2 years ahead.

Now there are very good factories in Spain, Italy, India and China.
India is probably the biggest producer due to the scale of their operations - their domestic market is huge so they are able to ramp up reasonably cheaply. Other producers are trying to get a slice of the action but quality still remains an issue at the prices they are trying to sell at - China especially.

As much as we should look after our own interests, I am not a great fan of too much protection of industries as it can remove the ability or desire to become competitive.

The IT industry is an example, outsourcing provides great savings in some areas but has a far greater cot of operation in other areas - particularly quality in some sectors. The UK and US industries have jumped on the quality wagon and this has raised standards (at least in the fields I operate).

On to Bangladesh, I have sympathy for their situation, but will not be changing my buy British philosophy if the quality is up to scratch. If we don't support our own industry we as a nation are scuppered. That shouldn't however let them rest on their laurels.

granville

18,764 posts

268 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
To say I agree with the proposition would be an understatement.

Some days, I can barely look in the mirror due to my treacherous ownership of hun-sourced carriageworks.

Two options exist, therefore.

1 - stop shaving and develop an Open University style facial birds' nest.

2 - carry on utilising the male grooming products of the Beckhamic marketing empire and revert to TVR and Jaguar/Bentley ownership.

There is a third (way): the beard could stay, along with the Nazi staff viggens but foul tasting warm beer, over dense cardigans and propensity to stick a Lib-Dem totem pole next to the flag mast come election time would seem a tad incongruous.

Ergo, I think solidarity with our glorious monarch's Anglo-Saxon gene sequence seems the more cunning plan.

Hail to The House of Tintagel.

turbobloke

107,804 posts

267 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
GasBlaster said:
Often the case with SME's my friend, but equally often dividends and /or pension contributions seem to make up for it
Yes, and quite right too.

Business success arises from enterprise, investment, risk, and effort. It leads to employment for others lacking in any or all of enterprise, effort, risk taking (or lacking the will to use them). Hopefully the work ethic will be there nevertheless.

Employment arises from filling out a form, succeeding at the selection stage, and then exercising a duty of loyalty to the employer that includes effort at work.

The job of government is to create and sustain the conditions that foster both approaches to crust earning, but the former is more important as without it the latter can't happen. HMG UK is failing to do that on the domestic front while appearing to be more concerned about our competitors.

Some folk fail to realise that working hard isn't enough to create business success. Risks must be taken, the consequences of which can be dire, and that's why the rewards are deservedly higher.

mmertens

397 posts

289 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
Welcome to the wonderful world of global capitalism. The words cake, having and eating come to mind. Unless you put a big fence around the UK and start taking care of your own business in every respect (well you couldn't expect to export and not import could you) the situation is here to stay - and it will get worse until Asia gets rich & developed enough to have pay their people enough to reduce their competitiveness.
This is about making money, not charity. Shareholders and owners of industries these days (or even before) don't give a toss about social aspects. Well they say they will but only if it's in some way profitable (tax breaks and such). I suppose the government could start sponsoring them more than they do now, but that kind of state support doesn't work in the end and these days you'd have all kind of US and EU lawyers crawling all over you to show you you can't do that as it impairs their competetiveness.

Communism doesn't work, as shown. Capitalism does so far but has some (VERY) nasty side effects. This is the world we live in, like it or not.

But anyway, there is a certain harcore group of whiners on here who ALWAYS go on how great things were before in Blighty, how immigration should stop, how Europe is sh*te, how taxes are to high, how Tony is a bastard, etc. etc. Why don't you all chip in, buy yourselfs a sizeable island and create your Utopia? You're not gonna get what you want in the UK, Europe, the US or anywhere under current or future governments.


>> Edited by mmertens on Thursday 16th December 10:40

turbobloke

107,804 posts

267 months

Thursday 16th December 2004
quotequote all
mmertens said:
You're not gonna get what you want in the UK, Europe, the US or anywhere under current or future governments.
If you know the results of future elections and referenda in advance, please could you e-mail me some numbers for the UK Lotto and Euromillions draws this Friday / Saturday? Ta.