Friday
Mar072014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Goodbye industry
Mar 7, 2014 Quotes I recall the extinction of the European textile industry happening before my eyes as a young graduate at Courtaulds in the 1980s. Chemicals could go the same way. It could well be another European dinosaur.
Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe tells the European Commission that the chemicals industry could be extinct in Europe within a decade.
Update on Mar 7, 2014 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
In the circumstances, you have to wonder why chemical companies like Boots, BASF and Unilever are sponsoring environmental groups like the Green Alliance. Perhaps we need to spell it out to them...
Don't do this. They're trying to put you out of business!
Reader Comments (58)
Perhaps the "anti-chemical" protesting energy of Greens could be channeled into cleaning up the enormous, toxic dihydrogen monoxide spill on the Somerset Levels?
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Steve, Don't think of it as a loss. Think of it as a reallocation from one place to another all because of EU directives.
It isn't 'Economic theorists'. It is the entire movement. Just how many times do you hear CiF commenter's (or senior politicians/bureaucrats) talking about 'punishing polluters' as though the increasing price of 'X' has nothing to do with 'the punishment'? They seriously believe that if you artificially increase the cost of energy then these companies will go out of business. Reality is that every 'Tax' on 'nasty industry' is simply handed down to the 'consumer' in the form of increased CoL. Business suffers not one jot in the short term.
If I make 'widgets' and The EU adds 16% to my costs then the cost of my 'widgets' goes up by 16% to my 'customer'. Simple really.
Longer term, my 'customer' finds that he can source his 'widgets' elsewhere considerably (at least 16% ) cheaper and still sell them on as he did before. (probably half way between my price and his new price). I go to the wall - his new supplier becomes an international 'stock to buy'.
What some posters should recognise is that there is no 'conspiracy'. Simply put, if the parasites make my business untenable then I will stop doing business. I'm not here to finance parasites, I'm here to make a profit on my activities. If I can't then I won't.
I had a customer in recent times that sold his entire business to an Indian consortium. His reasons were energy price, inability to keep up with EU regulation and a general desire to get back to 'design and build' rather than 'form filling'. In other words he didn't mind working 18 hour days in order to develop new products and sell them but now he spends his time dealing with 'The Bureaucracy' and there just wasn't another 18 hours in the average day.
Ho Hum, 25 people are no longer employed in The UK and he heads off to Ireland where he buys a cheap house in a country in collapse. I just love The EU.
I don't usually follow links to aht Nurg. I figure that they (The Grun) are always looking for something that will get some 'comment' (and hence ad revenue).
Then again I figured that the 'comments' would be well worth a read on this one. I wasn't disappointed.
'They' do say that the main reason for studying history is so that one might not make the same mistakes again. Obviously the CiF cloud just want us all back into the 'swinging 70's'. Black outs, scrounging at the IMF for a loan and big 'flairs'. "Ma mama we're all crazy now". (puts on Noddy Holder boots)
When it comes dow to it, down 'to brass tacks' as the people of Yorkshire (what a metapore of former industrial times!), it is that there are no men or women anymore - or so marginalised that they are overwhelmed by the pusilamity of this Establishment - I mean none of that clear eyed, courageous, four-square, standing up, looking in your eye honesty and manliness and womanliness. What the rennaisence called virtu! We have, instead, a squint eyed, hunch backed, avoid the eye, shameful, spiteful, petty, viscious rancour and cowardice. European nihilism.
Sorry about the spelling and other grammatical faux pas - I was doing it on an old symbian n8 (because someone nuicked my android phone last weekend! O times! O morals!) using opera mini! Old times.
"you have to wonder why chemical companies like Boots, BASF and Unilever are sponsoring environmental groups"
The "eat me last" strategy may be their only choice. No one is out there defending chemical companies. Their only hope is to ride out the siege.
A lecturer in political economy put forward the view that a manager in large company was no different to an apparatchic in the communist system. Basically the individual is told to obey orders :consequently they have little backbone. The Green movement has been taken over by ex-trotskis who understand that if one is verbally aggressive to most people they will do what they have been told what to do. Very few managers in large companies have any backbone.
I think it is part the nature of decline. If one looks at companies the grandchildren of the founder tend to start to become feeble. If one takes the generation who fought in WW1 as the founders, the children fought in WW2 and those who went to university are the grandchildren. What the 1960s showed is that a large percentage of the grandchildren did not want to enter the firm but undertake useless arts degrees and undertake work more stimulating employment. What we see is that the middle class left almost completely dominate the public sector, NGOs, charities, local and national government whose employment depends upon legislation and administration.
Unfortunately most large companies are run by people who are incapable of standing up to the parasitic legislators and NGOs .