Yes, I should think that bankers do add a fair old bit to GDP, which is why the Swiss get very worried when people start wanting to dismantle bank secrecy laws - one of the reasons people like to bank in Switzerland (i.e., to hide their cash from someone else). But the Swiss are also big in pharma, watches and insurance. There are more patents applied for per head in this country than I think anywhere else in the world. The Swiss still make stuff, have little unemployment and knuckle down. They are an industrious people alright.
Yes, we need to be a little more self-sufficient. Less reliant on the State. if I was to leave Blighty, it would be for Switzerland. Lots of good mountains to ride in he summer and polite people. The commuter trains seem to be reliable in the winter too.
There has been enough taxpayers money invested in education, NHS, armed forces, infrastructure etc etc etc........... ........but there are plenty of idiots and incomptents that have wasted it on p*ss poor procurement, rip-off contracts, unnecessary management that hasn't got a clue and aren't fit to manage filling a bath........ ..........so in reality, sod all got invested. AL
Europe is not in any way unsustainable. No-one knows the future, but if forced to guess I would say the European Union will last for a thousand years. The British Empire lasted for 250 years, and that really was patently unsustainable. The USA has lasted nearly as long so far, surviving several catastrophic crises. The Holy Roman Empire famously lasted just 1000 years. The Byzantine Empire lasted over 1000, weak and lurching from crisis to crisis the whole time. Every one of them continued to conduct its affairs and deal with its problems (or "kick the can down the road", as you oddly put it) century after century. The EU/EEC has lasted 55 years so far, and it will no doubt survive much more severe crises than the recent financial one.
The budget should be linked to forthcoming activity, product cycles etc. not necessarily what happened in the previous year. The difficulty is often linking marketing spend to increase in turnover. Whether you launch a marketing campaign or not, there is no parallel universe to measure the impact of taking the opposite course of action. As Lord Leverhume once said, "50% of your marketing budget is wasted, the problem is, you don't know which 50%"!
Absolutely right. It is a characteristic of free-market capitalist systems that they are susceptible to trade cycles ('Boom and bust' in tabloid headlines) which gradually increase in size, and to inflationary bubbles in particular commodities. Cycles and bubbles eventually reach a crisis point. Intervention by regulators, governments and central banks is required to restore stability; but that intervention is of course contrary to the free-market ethos. Everyone can recognize a bubble in hindsight, but they are notoriously hard to spot in advance. The South Sea Bubble of 1720 even fooled Sir Isaac Newton, and he was one of the cleverest men who ever lived.
Some businesses manufacture physical goods, like Scottish whisky or TV sets, and what you say holds true for them, or at least it used to. However many businesses operate differently and manufacture nothing, and not all are in financial services. For example Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc develop intellectual property and licence it - any manufacturing involved is subcontracted - and they are among the most successful and profitable businesses in the modern world. The physical manufacturers are far less profitable. The economic model of manufacturing for export as the route to prosperity still holds good for nations starting from a low base (Japan in 1950, China in 1990, Burma in 2013) but is hopeless for nations with highly sophisticated technical capabilities.
Absolutely. The City with its banking, insurance, commodities, property, currencies, shipping, etc etc sectors, topped off by the stockmarket is absolutely critical to the UK and indeed to Europe. Without the City the remainder of the UK would be left a bit like Spain, or Denmark. One of the most important and difficult tasks of any Chancellor of the Exchequer is keeping the City strong, credible and profitable. In my view one of the most important policy priorities in the 1990s was to ensure that the prospective European Central Bank should be situated in London. It was a failure, in that the ECB was actually set up in Frankfurt and will stay there for ever. Our descendants in generations to come may regret this greatly, as there may be severe adverse consequences for Britain in the very long term.
Indeed. Goods these days don't have to be physical. They can come in the form of digital bytes. But at the end of the day, this is still exporting. It might not be manufacturing in the strict sense, but it is still the generation of wealth from knowhow and ideas. You might say that financial services are the same thing, but it would be hard to see casino-style speculation in commodities, or anything else, as something that really adds to prosperity. It's a zero sum game: someone on the other side of the trade loses. Not so in information technology. The people who invented this forum software are providing a valuable service, which, we assume, is being covered by the cost of the advertising on the site. What is interesting is seeing nations as having "highly sophisticated technical capabilities". This might be good for some of the population - even a large part of it. But it isn't much good for a fairly large section of society, who just require a job tightening up nuts. If you deprive them of these employment opportunities, unemployment will be endemic. In Aldous Huxley terms, not all of society are Alphas and Betas. You have to have something to do for the Gammas as well. Mechanisation and the drive to productivity naturally reduces these possibilities. I also have the outmoded belief in the therapeutic qualities of actually making stuff. Even the miners were proud of the coal they mined. Is it as rewarding being an office cleaner on a minimum wage? What are you part of?
