Importing & Brexit

[proffrink]

2 hours ago, Samurai said:

Won't happen.

We all feel the impact of Brexit in our wallets. If you have less money, you buy cheaper. Keeping the same standard of living is coming before supporting the UK economy. Yes, in the long run this will affect our wallets more but that doesn't matter with day to day decisions.

Agree. It's a completely false economy that's been proven wrong time and time again. Buy from a business because they're better or because they provide a unique service; buying for any other reason isn't healthy for industry in the long-term. They either innovate or they die. You're probably ok with buying a punnet of strawberries that costs 30% more than some grown in the Netherlands, but are you ok with buying a car that costs even 15% more just because it supports British industry? This is one of if not the core tenet of capitalism.

 

One of the most significant parts of leaving the EU is that the UK - with its well established scientific community - gets a lot of R&D grants back from Brussels, and that helps many medium-sized businesses. I'd argue that even that money hasn't been enough to really support the innovation that Britain has historically been on the forefront of for the last 100 years. Unless everyone is willing to take a significant cut in standards of living, we must understand that getting a few farming, light manufacturing and labouring jobs back has never been the ace up the sleeve of the UK economy: It's always been high-end services, very niche manufacturing or research.

[commanderpegasus420]

If a business is to succeed it needs customers if it has little or no customers it cannot survive alot of these airsoft shops are running sites too so if they dont get paid enough to keep it running you cant play there.

Ultimately that shop abroad doesnt provide you with the sites and services here they just sell you guns at an undermining price.

 

On the subject of niche versis basic services. No. Basic manufacturing and labouring is the legs to the captialsim pyramid without them noone can stand.

 

 

 

[proffrink]

1 hour ago, commanderpegasus420 said:

If a business is to succeed it needs customers if it has little or no customers it cannot survive alot of these airsoft shops are running sites too so if they dont get paid enough to keep it running you cant play there.

Ultimately that shop abroad doesnt provide you with the sites and services here they just sell you guns at an undermining price.

 

On the subject of niche versis basic services. No. Basic manufacturing and labouring is the legs to the captialsim pyramid without them noone can stand.

And as I've said - they'll get my business if they're cheaper/better value, or a better or unique product/service. UK companies do very few of these and many that rely solely on convenience are struggling to compete with imports or larger, more efficient companies (Amazon vs. basically every department store is a great example of this). There's nothing wrong with this (on the contrary, these services do provide a better quality of living - even if ever so slight - for millions of people, and that's why they spend there in the first place), but there are limitations for British business.

 

Innovation isn't just making your product unique/objectively better (Rolls Royce engines, for example), but innovation through decreasing cost (imagine if your factory is automated and the one abroad isn't or if you simply have a better skilled management team). It's absolute nonsense that any customer should be relied upon to make any decision other than with their wallet. If you want to bring politics into your spending (i.e. 'buying British' or 'buying green' then go ahead). I've certainly spent more money on a product because I've wanted it to come from a renewable source. However, the fact is that the tide is always going to be against these purchases. People want value, and will always want value until they have the money to decide otherwise. On average they aren't going to spend a penny more than they have to for your product than they have to.

 

Globalism has - by and large - been pretty good for the average person, but it's been excellent for the very top 1% and the benefits to the common man are slowing down hugely. That's a problem, but the solution isn't buying British apples or leaving the largest common market in the world. The point being that we don't mine much iron at all in the UK and haven't had the tin mines open for decades - is anyone complaining? Maybe one or two, but it's pretty much been accepted that no one wants to work down a mine, just like nobody really wants to be picking strawberries for 16k a year. Why are we trying to work backwards towards lower skilled, lower paid and less comfortable jobs? I'm sure many people find the idea of working in a bank abhorrent, but what about aerospace or marine engineering? Consultancy? Research? These are all things the UK excels at selling to the world and should be invested in further. The answer isn't to try and compete with China or India on price, but to innovate through providing products and services that other countries simply aren't able to tender. then who cares if your potatoes were farmed in Norfolk or the Netherlands?

 

Also, I hope you realise a 'capitalism pyramid' is actually a pretty good bit of 1900s propoganda fun at how unfair capitalism is. It's not an economic model at all lmao. Perhaps that was your intention? If so, sorry.

 

[commanderpegasus420]

The social pyramid is real. If workers down tools the political class is fkd and so is the industries food production etc etc. We all need each other for it to work properly.

Same can be said for airsoft. The shops and sites need us and we need them.

 

 

[proffrink]

Ok, but the point is that the 'social pyramid' is still there - it's just that many of the people towards the bottom are abroad. Bring those jobs here and immediately those products would rocket up in price.

 

Airsoft is a highly niche market, but I suppose I see what you're trying to say. The mantra still applies though - if they're more convenient (I don't want to travel to Germany to play a game, for example. I also can't buy BBs from a shop in Belgium if I want them on game day). The reason shops still exist is a mixture of convenience, price and unique selling point. They're convenient in that you can drive to many or get your order within a matter of days (not weeks), they have relatively competitive prices because airsoft guns are highly value dense and don't cost a huge amount to store or ship (relative to their size) and finally they provide something no one else can - you can walk in and handle many of them before you buy them.

 

There aren't people lining up to buy anything because it's British. They're doing it for one or more of the above factors, regardless of where that product is and how it's sold. We don't actually need UK airsoft shops but options are nice. I get most of my stuff from abroad because it's not stocked in the UK (upgrade parts and gear in particular are very thin on the ground in the UK), but equally I will buy gas on the spot if I need it, and I'd prefer if that service not go away. If it does though, I'm afraid that's for the net good - there is no space for dead weight in any economy. Political subsidies really suck in a lot of ways, but I'm completely behind subsidies for the reason of keeping standards of living up for people at the bottom (putting a cap on gas and electricity prices is a good example of this). These examples make up the very slim minority though. Most people don't care where that potato comes from so long as it tastes good and doesn't cost more than it should. That's why we import a surprising amount of them.

 

Ultimately just look 100 years ahead - we are still hoping to have strawberry pickers and heavy, polluting manufacturing in the UK? If you aspire to be a in a country where these low paid and generally less rewarding jobs are the norm then that's a horribly cynical outlook. Educate people into jobs where they're safe, well paid and provide a service or build a product that's less in an inherently competitive market because the barrier to entry is having a solid education, institutions and smart investment. One that relies less on the cost of your labour (which we will never win on when up against the Asia, Africa or South America) to be competitive. Those markets we have already loss the battle in back in the 80s and 90s - frankly for the better, if you look at the living conditions of countries on those continents.

[Solar]

The attitude in this country, particularly from sub-30 year olds, is quite depressing. In the UK, even post Brexit, you will have a better standard of living, education, wealth, opportunity etc than about 90% of people on the planet, and thats just your average Brit. Brexit is an incredible opportunity for the entire country and personally I cant wait to seize the countless opportunities that will become available. Staying in the EU would have been a monumental act of cowardice that luckily just enough people realised to save the rest of the country.

The EU is just about ready to implode and my only regret is that we cant move another 30 miles farther out to sea.

[proffrink]

- snip -

nvm

[Rogerborg]

19 hours ago, proffrink said:

One of the most significant parts of leaving the EU is that the UK - with its well established scientific community - gets a lot of R&D grants back from Brussels,

 

Significant part highlighted.  We get some part of our money back, ring-fenced for those projects of which Nanny Brussels approves.  The cream off the top goes to Jean-Claude Drunker's bar tab, providing Peter Mandelson with hot and cold running catamites, and bribing French farmers to not immolate the contintent.

 

Some generalisation is being applied here, but since the EU both has and hasn't signed off on its own accounts since 1995, I feel a degree of levity to draw my own conclusions.