newmercman:
I used to work on the continent, my UK lorry was able to do the job cheaper than the lorries of the countries I visited, I bought my fuel in the cheapest country and I never gave a toss about how it affected anyone else, no matter what their nationality, it paid my mortgage and bought my beer, that’s all I cared about, if I was still doing that now how many people would be getting upset about it and jumping in to defend the poor foreigners 
I used to work for some major freight forwarders, K&N being one of them, they’re only doing what they’ve always done, when it put money in my pocket I never questioned it, I won’t question it now because if it’s good for the Goose, then it’s good for the Gander 
Talking of Uni graduates, you could blame them for turning us into a commodity, cutting things down to the bone and always taking the cheapest option in the pursuit of making the highest profit possible, but that’s the nature of business, people have been doing it for years, some of the biggest penny pinchers/successful businessmen have been uneducated, in our industry especially
Carryfast, you’re ideas of global ■■■■■■■■■■ are part of the ‘perceived’ problem, but that’s the better of the two possibities, we either have your way, where we all do what we can, the law of the jungle applies and only the fit survive, or we have communism 
Mind you I think communism would suit Carryfast, the former commie countries loved a 6x4 
My ideas are more 1960’s America certainly not communism.What we need to do is to look after our own interests not helping to make other countries richer at our expense.I can’t see as the US government would have handed their economy to the Chinese and there were’nt many bleeding heart US uni students calling for a massive US foreign aid budget and development of less rich Asian and East European states to help every foreign no hoper and their dog get richer while their own workers get put on the dole or have to compete with workers on third world wages. 
And don’t get me started on fuel prices in the US then versus here now and surely a KW with a big Detroit in it is the reality and sound of freedom and capitalism not China.
But you’re right about the law of the jungle applies but what I’m saying is that it’s right to try to trade in the national interest and as Germany showed to have a strong economy you need a strong domestic industrial base and home market,for home produced goods,made in a high wage economy relative to prices.But what we’ve got with the global free market is the opposite to that.It’s that issue of wages versus prices that will probably make the present German recovery unsustainable in the longer term,being that it’s based on relatively low wages in order to export to relatively underdeveloped economies rather than selling big Mercs and BMW’s etc on the home market to domestic workers.
The main issue with uni students is that too many of them are on a guilt trip about being lucky enough to be living in a developed western economy and want to give away that advantage to other countries less fortunate.Not surprising being that many of those students originate from those countries.Although having said that they are’nt so keen when it comes to paying for that by higher income taxes on their future potential earnings,assuming they can find a high paid office job not being done by Indians in foreign based offices.
But the trading conditions are’nt anything like when it was just the UK competing with other developed EU states in that we’ve now got east european competition,with far less wage expectations,far different to the difference between what you were earning compared to your competitors,when you beat them for the work.The conclusion of all that is probably why there’s not many western european trucks,driven by western european drivers,doing international/euro import export work now.They are more likely to be found driving the local dustcart.
