i was reading an article earlier about the past, present, and future euro/sterling exchange rates.
the government don’t want the pound to gain too much strength against the euro as this will damage our ability to export goods from the UK. it is hoped that we can recover from the recession if the euro/sterling exchange rate stays at about 80p per euro. i suppose this makes sense to some in an ivory tower.
but a large proportion of british industry has gone abroad, so what are we going to export?
Jobs.
i was thinking cheap labour to poland.
In Cameron’s world we let it fall to 2 pounds to 1 Euro then the Germans,Greeks,Italians,Spanish,Portugese and French will import loads of British stuff all taken out there by British trucks driven by British drivers.But finding a return load might be a problem that’s if you can afford the diesel to get home assuming that you haven’t been undercut for the job by a Romanian owner driver and assuming the French,Greeks and the Italians etc can afford to pay back the money we’ve got to give them to buy our exports in the first place . 
I think you m,ight be surprised at just how much is still manufactured here. We can’t compete for high labour content stuff but we do OK in the high tech areas.
The problem is the abysmal state of our schools over the last 30 years.
Cheap Euro makes my holiday cheaper so bring it on…
Mot failures + write offs.
Santa:
I think you m,ight be surprised at just how much is still manufactured here. We can’t compete for high labour content stuff but we do OK in the high tech areas.The problem is the abysmal state of our schools over the last 30 years.
Cheap Euro makes my holiday cheaper so bring it on…
I think you’ve misunderstood the government’s intention which is to keep the pound relatively low against the euro not high which just means that we’re earning zb all in real terms for anything which we do manage to sell to them and your holiday will be more expensive not less.
When what we should be doing is making stuff for ourselves in a closed market thereby reducing imports and forget about exports which have been in deficit with the EU ever since we joined it.Not surprising considering the Germans aren’t exactly in it for our benefit.
While leaving school at 15 or 16 and a CSE grade or less was good enough ‘education’ to earn a decent living in the manufacturing based economy here up to the 1970’s in which the job had to be learn’t on the shop floor not in a classroom just like driving a truck has to be learn’t actually doing the job.But compared to those times no we don’t really export much in real terms at all because it’s the Germans that do all the work and who want all the money while everyone else has to pay them for the privilege. 
limeyphil:
, so what are we going to export?
Immigrants!
The Europeans would like to see a weaker euro, but it’s kept propped up by outside interests who want their debts paid in cash that’s still hard.
On the other side of the coin, we’re supposed to be weakening our currency with QE you’d think, but it’s been going sideways against most other currencies, and up against the Euro so far this year.
The continent seems in a lot poorer shape than we are at present, otherwise people wouldn’t keep coming HERE for work and better pay would they?
Is there such a place where truck drivers get a lot better pay & conditions than here? 
Winseer:
The Europeans would like to see a weaker euro, but it’s kept propped up by outside interests who want their debts paid in cash that’s still hard.
On the other side of the coin, we’re supposed to be weakening our currency with QE you’d think, but it’s been going sideways against most other currencies, and up against the Euro so far this year.The continent seems in a lot poorer shape than we are at present, otherwise people wouldn’t keep coming HERE for work and better pay would they?
Is there such a place where truck drivers get a lot better pay & conditions than here?
There’s never been many German,Austrian,Danish,Swedish and French or even Italian drivers wanting to come here for work which must say something.They’re usually all from usual suspects of much poorer countries in eastern europe just like it’s always been immigration from places like Jamaica and Asia coming here to work on the buses etc etc which says everything about the British economy and the motivation behind it’s immigration policies. 
They aren’t using QE (printing money) to de value the currency they’re doing it to hide the fact that we’ve depleted our currency reserves in payments for imports of stuff from China etc that we could have been making for ourselves and to bail out the banks bad debts in foreign investments where they could/should have kept the money at home.