From: martin.baines@uk.sun.com (Martin Baines - Sun UK - SE Manager Cambridge)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: The Price of Coal (was: Currency Probl
Date: 2 Oct 1992 10:15:06 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Ltd
Distribution: world
Reply-To: martin.baines@uk.sun.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: bottomdog.uk.sun.com

In article 17213@bristol.ac.uk, smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:
>In article <1aemq5INN5b4@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM> martin.baines@uk.sun.com writes:
>>Typical looney middle thinking (smiley deleted for cultural
>>reasons). We are all paying to subsidise uneconomic pits:
>>it makes little difference if I subsidise a Yorkshire miner
>>miner via my Electric bill or Tax bill: I still pay. At
>>least if it goes on un-employment benefit the miner is
>>available for re-employment in an economic industry, rather
>>than locking part of the economy in to uneconomic, out dated
>>industry.
>
>In an ideal world, again, probably so.  However, your statement does
>carry the assumption that there IS an economic industry looking to
>re-employ this person.  There are presently nearly 3 million (Govt
>figures) or 4 million (estimates of what Govt figures WOULD be, if they
>still used the same rules for counting as they inherited 13 years ago)
>people 'available for re-employment', and not finding a lot of people
>who want to re-employ them.

I tend to agree that having people paid to sit idle is daft, but if
we are going to give these people "make work" let's do it openly,
and use them for things that wouldn't otherwise get done. (My personal
favourite use of them would be to get them restoring the canal system).

If we want to ensure some mines are kept open "just in case" then
we should issue a contract to do just that: not hide the subsidy
in overall energy costs.

As for the workforce being redeployed this country has a real attitude
problem: talk to some Hong Kong chinese, or some your local Asian
grocer for another point of view. I may disgree with Lord Chingford
about Europe, but I fully support his views regarding people helping
themselves more: after all bikes are cheap and non-polluting!

>Further (last night's figures) there are at present about 1200 business
>failures a week in this country, i.e. companies going out of business;
>admittedly most of them small operations, one to a handful of
>participants.  (Failures so far this year are ahead of all of last
>year.)  And, the teletext every night lists yet more companies
>announcing staff cuts, and very few listing expansions.  So, the
>situation does not look rosy, just at the moment, for these lucky
>people who have been freed to find jobs in 'economic industry'.

But I am not convinced that proping up uneconomic old industry
is the solution. Look at China: by far the most successful part
of the country is Guang Dong, the area where they have removed
the old central planning system, wage and profit controls and
replaced it by free market system. The area is thriving from
a combination of local enterprise and inward investment. We already
have a working free market system, lots of inward investment
(e.g. Nissan, Toyota, Sanyo etc) what we need is a lot more local
enterprise and less whinging.

(Now off my soap box)

Martin (Made in Hong Kong, and proud of it!)

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"You might say that, but I couldn't possibly comment"

Martin Baines, Sales Support Manager,
Sun Microsystems Ltd, 306 Science Park, Cambridge, CB4 4WG, UK
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From: ian@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Ian Watson)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 18:08:35 GMT
Subject: Re: Currency Problems
Organization: Hewlett-Packard ISG-SBU-PWD, UK.