Rjan:
No I’m saying the reason why the Germans didn’t experience so much industrial ructions in the 70s was because they had better relations to start with. Workers in this country basically refused to pay a single penny of the increased oil cost, and flexed their muscle to make it so, which is why inflation took off, whereas I suspect in Germany the bosses were able to go to the unions and say “listen, costs have gone up for external reasons, we need to work together to absorb them”, and basically German workers sustained below-inflation pay rises for a few years because they trusted the bosses more.With British bosses, workers had spent the entire 1960s walking out (or being locked out) at the drop of a hat (partly because there was already a culture amongst bosses of casual, at-will employment, which is why the Labour government introduced compulsory notice periods in the 1960s to try and clamp down on walkouts and lockouts), and Heath in the early 70s had already unnecessarily provoked both inflation and industrial trouble (which is what led to his “Who governs?” gambit).
But nobody disputes that the likes of Benn were amongst the most left-wing in the Labour party.
Well, to be more precise, the stocks were sold to the Germans at the excruciatingly high market prices of the time, rather than “handed over”. And the fact is that oil exports under Callaghan did decrease, but the point I’m making against you is a much larger one, that this idea of just turning off the taps to other nations (without even the pretense of trying to share based on some notion of fairness or industrial priority, whether politically determined or through the market mechanism) would be an appallingly badly judged policy - because you’d put nations like Germany (and others, like Japan) back in the situation they were pre-WW2, of saying that they have to launch outright wars to have any hope of getting access to the basic raw materials their economies and people need. Whatever basis upon which raw materials are shared, it cannot be on that basis, because it’s the purest possible motive for war, imperial expansion, and territorial struggles, in which your opponents have nothing possible to lose and everything to gain.
When the fact is that most of the guys in politics at the time had been on the fronts fighting precisely such a war for precisely such reasons, it’s easy to see why they weren’t going to go down that road.
But we weren’t being screwed to the ground by the whole deal. Germany suffered the effects of the oil shortage too (although I don’t think they were directly embargoed), along with every other country in the world.
The reason Germany has an advantage in engineering is because it invests in it - in the skills and the machinery - while the British spent the 60s and 70s using clapped-out machinery and labour-intensive methods. For example, instead of investing in modern milling and boring machines for engines, they’d have a fella using a feeler gauge trying to match by hand the tolerances of a variety of pistons and blocks (whose dimensions were all over the place).
It’s no different today. We have the technology for automated warehouses - but the British prefer to hire legions of low-paid workers working long hours to do the work manually. And one day sooner than the British no doubt, Germany will be covered in automated warehouses that out-compete even the low-skill, lowest-paid workers of Britain, because their machines work for free 24 hours a day (once the initial capital investment is sunk), and they’ll have all the skill and experience (and high-pay jobs) in designing and building those machines.
And because they can then move and store physical goods cheaper in Germany (i.e. with less labour required), their products will be cheaper (as well as being higher quality), and they’ll also capture global market share from British bosses who squandered their years, and who took their billions out of the economy as higher immediate profits.
Since the 1980s, British bosses have been dropping their trousers and showing their @rses to the German bosses, bragging about easy profits in Britain, bragging about British “competitiveness”, whilst the Germans were ploughing their money into their own development and economic future. So-called “anglo-saxon capitalism” incenses the Germans and the French, because whilst they’re trying to do things responsibly, making their investments, retaining their profits, paying their taxes, they have us dropping wages and dropping taxes to undercut their economic models in the short-term. The British worker, of course, does not benefit, because the only jobs he gains are those with crap pay and squalid conditions consistent with this model, and it is the good jobs that he loses - but for the British boss, what does he care whether his profits are made from providing good jobs or poor jobs?
It’s why the Tories have got a shock when they thought they were going to leave the EU and force down wages, taxes, and regulations even further, and the French and Germans have made clear that it will be followed up by tariffs on access to their markets, and that they’re not going to give us a single inch of maneouver on the issue of standards if we want tariff-free access to the EU market.
Let’s get this right.First you correctly inferred that it was the oil crisis that did it thereby kicking off a ‘price led’ not ‘wage led’ inflationary spiral and not the fault of the workers and their unions ?.
Now you’re saying that it was actually the fault of the unions by them not being prepared to compromise on incomes in real terms,which is actually what they are supposed to do and not the fault of Callaghan for effectively giving away our own oil and flogging it here at home at a world market price to us.When the muppet could have kept it and used it to insulate us from all the resulting economic problems in addition to slowing down the depletion rate.
Then to add insult to injury you’re defending the situation of the Germans having a good laugh,in it not being them facing any issues of wage cuts from an already lower level,let alone them being the ones going begging to the IMF,at the expense of the Brits.All that based on a bs notion that the Germans were superior.Not to mention the economic illiteracy in that the last thing that our economy needed was more foreign cash in exchange for oil pumped into it.When what it needed was cheap oil,you know our own oil not Germany’s,to reduce inflation.Not more paper currency to add to it and to buy yet more German imports with.As for the Germans better tooling yes we know all part of the same post war geopolitical stitch up which perceived that the Germans would go running off to join the Russians or kick off again if they didn’t get preferential treatment over the Brits in the Post War stitch up.Including a clause that any repayments they did make on the loans were conditional on Germany remaining in trade surplus with its major trading ‘partners’.
Then you’ve got the nerve to say that if we don’t keep up the same scam they’ll hit us with trade sanctions.When it’s us who buy more stuff from them than they buy from us.To the point where we are Germany’s third most important export market while we don’t even make it into their top ten for imports being behind Belgium.
On that note you’ve absolutely confirmed to me that you’re just following the same old Callaghan line in pretending that you’re for the workers when you’re actually all about looking after the interests of foreign workers at the expense of our own.So there we have it as expected vote Corbyn get Callaghan and the type of back stabbing zb’s that made up most of his cabinet who mattered and by implication Blair.All being Socialists/Globalists who actually despise this country and its workers preferring to look after the interests of Germany,among others,instead.Which explains why all you could do when questioned on if Corbyn is pro Brexit why did he appoint remainer Starmer as shadow Brexit minister was to make a lame excuse along the lines that Hoey is too ‘controversial’.Yeah right because,like Shore and Benn and Heffer,she believes in the Nation State and putting our interests first.In which case I’m not disputing that Benn was left wing just like Hoey is.My point is Nationalist is no less ‘left wing’ than Socialist and possibly even moreso.Also bearing in mind that no left winger worth their salt would want a situation of excessive unnecessary automation and resulting mass job losses.Leading to the less employment,less consumer spending and less tax revenues,situation that you seem to be supporting.While I worked with and knew plenty of those who fought in WW2 and all of them agreed that we were deliberately stitched up by the post war economic programme to the deliberate advantage of Germany and in fact shaped my views on the subject.
While this specific line of discussion belongs at least in the Brexit topic not this one.In showing Corbyn supporters’ true colours in being anything but pro worker pro union when it doesn’t suit their Socialist anti nation state agenda and trying to infiltrate the leave vote to create the remain in all but name result that they really believe in and want.
Although having said that,contrary to your comments regarding the so called peace loving Frogs and Krauts the big players in the EU all seem hell bent on ■■■■■■■ off the Russians when they aren’t supporting the Saudi colonisation of Europe.So maybe it’s on topic after all.