The Week

[Mark Jones]

As the British broadsheets are discussing today, Blair does not want to let
sterling decline against the euro because while 20 pc of British workers are
in manufacturing and suffer from the high pound, most people work in
non-manufacturing and are beneficiaries of the high pound, for the time
being anyway. They enjoy cheap holidays abroad and cheap imports. The
unemployment rate is half that of Germany's. Britain is booming as never
before. For once, we can look down on the Krauts and we love it. Plus which
to devalue the pound would have big implications for Blair's big social
infrastructural plans (spending more on health, education etc, helps jack up
sterling and also squeezes manufacturing while simultaneously widening bal
of payments deficits; but the NHS is a sacred cow as even Goldman Sachs, the
Vikings of the era, seem now to grasp, therefore sterling too is sacred).
Therefore the British govt is ready to let large chunks of industry go to
the wall including vehicle manufacture, which is anyway thought to be
ennui-stricken 'Old Labour', with its archiac fordist sociology and
demographics - we're postfordist now. The Blairista calculation is that auto
workers, even unemployed ex-Rover ones, will still vote Labour in next years
general election cos they have nowhere else to go politically. And we don't
need brainless metal-bashing any more, we need the Internet etc. So the
British auto industry is being allowed to wither on the vine. Yet, oddly
enough, last year British car plants produced more than 2m vehicles, more
than for several decades, and around 80pc of these were exported, the most
impressive export achievement ever. Politically the problem just boils down
to a couple of old clapped out plants (Longbridge, Dagenham) which should be
closed anyway.

People seem to forget just how much Blair has internalised the princiapl
lesson of the Thatcher era. In her fiorst term of office (1979-84) Maggie
engineered the most swingeing assault on British manufacturing ever; even
German WW2 bombing did less damage to the industrial heartlands. The
recession she engineered reduced British manufacturing output by 20pc and
actually it never recovered. The result? A cowed working class, industrial
'peace' and 17 unbroken years in office. Yeltsin understood the lesson. So
does Blair. It's the social-democrats of Euroland who have the
restructuration problems now, not the self-satisfied Brits.

Mark Jones
http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Max B. Sawicky
> Sent: 30 April 2000 16:08
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: RE: The Week
>
>
> > Jim heartfield wrote:
> > > Correction
> > > 148,900,000
> > >
> > eh? 148,900,000?
> > Mark Jones
> > http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
>
>
> Hadn't realized the UK economy was booming so.
>
> Try:  http://perso.club-internet.fr/motorsat/DonneesStat/royaume.html
>
> Keeping in mind that it is French, and possibly
> unreliable, the correct order of magnitude looks
> to be a million something.  1998 was 1.7 m.
>
> clearing the air,
> mbs
> http://www.egroups.com/group/GreatRecoveryList
>
>
>