Jeremy Corbyn Elected

rosesarered, how kind to point out my error of an extra 0

Jane, Tata sold to SSI, a Thai company.

You said there is no Ritish Steel any more, dj. My comment was because I was wondering for how long there had been no British Steel which I don't think you did say.

British

" WE all know the steel industry is very up and down price wise, but there are certain things that can be done to support SSI on Teesside when prices dip by 40 per cent (Echo, Aug 21).

The Government can look at reducing the very high energy costs which are big outlay in steel production. Then Redcar and Cleveland Council can give SSI a business rate reduction, as happened a couple of years ago which was tantamount to £19m loan.

It appears the steel staff are pulling out all the stops with the Redcar plants breaking production records just recently.

George Dunning, former Teesside Steel worker and Steel Union Branch and Joint Shop Stewards Secretary, Middlesbrough "

People need jobs in Thailand too.

1999, bags. Sold to Tata.

Okay, bags, lets forget about it. It's only Teesside after all. Just 2000 more jobless.

Wrong interpretation of what I said, dj. Nothing new there then

No it isn't. What happens if SSI close the steelworks on Teesside? Those on Teesside lose their jobs. They will not move them to Thailand to work. No extra steel will be made in Thailand because of this closure. It will just be a loss of 2000 jobs.

Perhaps you can enlighten me about how I should have interpreted your statement.
Lots of people say I interpret what they say wrongly, so many I feel quite ganged up on. However, I have yet to have anyone tell me what they really meant in words that someone as simple as I obviously am can understand.

Jane, the quote at 19.41 shows it's nothing to do with the EU.

There are some EU restrictions on governments subsidising industry. It's to do with equal competition across the EU, but there are ways around the restrictions. Usually the government will go into partnership with the company and they set up as a separate entity. The agricultural arm of Renault in France was one of the first companies to get government support this way back in the 90s IIRC.

The difference in the UK these days is the government only wants to enter into these partnerships if the organisation/company can become self funding. Defeats the original intention of the practice, but it's given the government an opportunity to reduces the number of Civil Servants by a different means of privatisation.

No, I don't think it was sold to Tata in 1999. I thought I said in a previous post that it amalgamated with another company in 1999 ahd becane Corus.
It was sold to TATA in, I think, 2007.

www.tatasteeleurope.com/en/about-us/heritage

Hope that helps

Spelling! Duh!

and became

Well, of course thatbags Thailand needs jobs too. But unfortunately we don't have a system whereby countries work together to make a better world for everyone. We have brutal competition, with countries competing with each other to pay the lowest wages in order to extract the highest profits. Given that is the way things are, I don't think the majority of Britons would be so generous as to say "never mind about our jobs - the Thais need them more than we do".

I looked at the EU site to find out what the position is on subsidies. I found it quite confusing since it seems some sorts of payments can be made but there are strict conditions. I expect it works a bit like our tax system where countries do their best to devise schemes that circumvent these restrictions. It seems that agricultural subsidies are an exception because they are provided to all countries so presumably they do not give an unfair advantage to one country over another (but presumably these subsidies provide an unfair advantage to Europe over developing countries).

I am torn about the EU. On the one hand I think it provides a set standard of health and safety and consumer and employment rights across its member countries, which I think is a very good thing. On the other hand, it is difficult enough for people to get their heads around how our own government and local government systems work without adding to that the very complex structure of the EU. The EU has, in my opinion, behaved disgracefully towards Greece - with Germany in particular buying up huge swathes of Greek publicly owned infrastructure as if it were a fire sale. Add to that its inability to recognise that introducing a common currency to countries with very different economies would cause problems, its complete inability to work together to try and deal with the refugee crisis, and the masking - by way of "quantitative easing" - of its financial crisis, and I am losing what little confidence I had in the arrangement.

Sorry, I've gone off the point.

I don't suppose the Greeks have seen a cent of this either:
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-wants-germany-to-repay-279bn-it-was-forced-to-loan-the-nazi-authorities-during-wwii-10159738.html

nhaspace.com/2015/09/18/lets-all-bash-corbyn/

Durhamjen

You must have missed the Parliamentary Steel Debate which took place last week 17th Sept. It was brought to the house by Labour MP Anna Turley/Redcar.

I know you read Hansard and watch Parliament 'live' as you have mentioned doing so on other threads so you know how to look it up. The recording of the actual debate will be on line somewhere no doubt. It was a good debate .

If you read Hansard you will note this point is made .

EU State Aid rules expressly forbid the government from giving any money to rescue or restructure a steel company in difficulty. EU State Aid rules for steel permit support only
for research and development, environmental protection and training, and only then within specified limits.

I think you you might find all the answers to your questions and those of other interested posters spoken of and answered in that debate as figures, dates, the dealings of the last Labour government and this one etc. etc. are all spoken of by intelligent, knowledgable MP's from all parties who debated.

Worth a watch!

It was written about in the Guardian and other papers too.

Seems you have the same problem, eloethan, in assuming I meant something anti-British when I said Thais need jobs too. I didn't say "never mind about our jobs" (your interpretation). I'm sorry it wasn't a clear enough difference for negative thinkers.

On the other hand, if a Thai company owns the company where the jobs are available, it doesn't sound to me as if the jobs are "ours" anyway even if they were once.

And the level of poverty in Thailand is higher than here, so maybe they do need the jobs more than we do. Please note the word maybe. I am suggesting something as a possibility and nothing more.

You mention fierce competition. Well yes. That's how it works. Not sure it's anyone's fault.

thatbags You said: "People need jobs in Thailand too".

Please don't misrepresent what I said, which was:

"unfortunately we don't have a system whereby countries work together to make a better world for everyone. We have brutal competition, with countries competing with each other to pay the lowest wages in order to extract the highest profits. Given that is the way things are, I don't think the majority of Britons would be so generous as to say "never mind about our jobs - the Thais need them more than we do".

I wasn't being "anti-British". I wasn't suggesting Britons are wrong in thinking that way, I was just saying - as you said - "that's how it works".

Was it necessary, because I made some points with which you disagreed, to make the comment about "negative thinkers"?

You say that fierce competition (which leads to what is commonly known as a "race to the bottom" in terms of wages and working conditions with the consequent impact on people's standard of living) is "not anyone's fault". Is it just a happy coincidence (for them) that half of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the world's population?

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-worlds-85-richest-people-are-as-wealthy-as-the-poorest-3-billion/283206/

It's not just the steel industry, though, is it. It has been happening for years.

For example, Dyson moved to Malaysia:
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2860995/Dyson-production-moves-to-Malaysia.html

And just how many manufacturing jobs have been lost to China and other countries - and how greedily do we purchase the cheaper goods?

You can't ringfence one company and ignore the others.

Apologies for the misinterpretation, eloethan. It is rather easy, isn't it?

I don't agree that industrial competition is a race to the bottom. Poverty is decreasing across the world as we speak. I'll look out a reference for that.

Here you are: programme on tonight based on research by Hans Rosling and team. BBC2

There is also lots of information about how things are improving all over the world here: worldindata.org