Tuesday 20 October 2015

Highly unusual to see these three sources saying much the same thing on the same day.

From City AM, normally a huge supporter of the rent seekers and the practices referred to in The Guardian article below:

The government is making its case for stepping up the Sino-British relationship by announcing £30bn worth of new trade and investment deals, despite escalating concerns that the UK steel industry is crumbling at the hands of Chinese manufacturers.

The Prime Minister announced the business deals, which the government says will create more than 3,900 jobs across the UK, one day after reports that [British steelmakers are to cut over 5,000 jobs in the face of Chinese steel dumping].


From The Guardian, actually hitting the spot for once:

Osborne is all for renationalisation – so long as the nation isn’t Britain

To secure EDF as a builder, Cameron guaranteed a fixed price for electricity from Hinkley of £92.50 per megawatt hour. That is around double the going rate for electricity on the wholesale markets, a price so high that equity analysts term it “financial insanity”.

Change your supplier as often as you like, you and everyone else in Britain will be paying for that de facto subsidy in your electricity bills for decades to come. Britons will in effect be paying more for their energy so that French households can pay less. Indeed, so generous are the terms of this deal that the government of Austria is currently taking Britain to court on the grounds that it’s handing out state aid to EDF.

Yes, you read that last sentence right: the UK stands accused of dispensing state aid – to another state. How many times have you read about some age-old manufacturer and thousands of jobs going down the swanee, while ministers wrung their hands over European state aid rules? Now we know that such rules can be tested – provided the recipient is headquartered not in Port Talbot, but Paris.


And finally, from The Daily Mash:

As thousands of redundancies in Redcar are followed by hundreds more in Scunthorpe, the business secretary said he wishes there was something he could do.

Sajid Javid continued: “Tragically, the industry has been hit by a perfect storm of being in the provinces, traditionally supporting Labour and not being financial services. Add that to us not wanting to do anything that might offend our new Chinese friends, and there’s absolutely nothing we are prepared to do.

“If only these plants manufactured something useful, like insurance derivatives supported by credit default swaps, then we’d gladly go billions into debt for them. But steel? What’s that even for?”

5 comments:

A K Haart said...

“If only these plants manufactured something useful, like insurance derivatives..."

Ha ha - there is nothing like satire for hitting nails on heads.

Random said...

The problem is its not satire. It is reality!

Random said...

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/large-china-steel-firm-to-default.html?m=1
China sprays free money at steel firms :)

Antisthenes said...

Your article today and watching the BBC interviewing eco-loons today about their opposition to nuclear energy has made me want to point out some truths or what I believe to be true.

The nuclear deal with EDF is I agree a disgraceful one and should be renegotiated. The eco-loon statement that nuclear should not happen because it will increase energy costs is true. However what they forget to say is that it does not nearly as much as the renewables they favour bird mincers and the like is already. I thought what hypocrisy I know hypocrisy is a British trait but this hypocrisy is a blatant unacceptable hypocrisy writ large. It speaks volumes about these people and most of the left. They know not of what they speak of and their reasoning is way below rational and is devoid of all common sense.

As for China dumping cheap steel causing loss of jobs is not as horrific as it seems. In fact if thought out counter intuitively it is possible to discern that it is a good thing. The UK consumer benefits from lower prices on the goods they buy and the workers are removed from an unproductive sector of the economy to enter a productive one. Unfortunately there is no gain without pain.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anti, I completely agree on all three of your points.