UK economy - talk is cheap

[2pints-mate 0]

There's a really interesting read about the UK economy (and others actually) in the Guardian today. Quite long too. Lots of hot air. Interestingly, the subject of the article. I bet that was done on purpose.

 

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2082749,00.html

 

We all know what the Germans are good at. They do precision engineering: all those quietly humming washing machines and the cars with their sleek bodywork and gleaming chrome. We also know that Germany is a country in serious trouble, failing as it has to embrace the need for flexibility in the tough new global environment. We know this because Gordon Brown has told us many times over the past 10 years that the European model is washed up.

 

Germany was so abysmally competitive last year that it ran a record trade surplus and was the biggest exporter of any country in the world.

We know what the Japanese excel at also. In Tokyo and Nagoya there are world-beating companies in the field of electronics, designing the latest consumer gizmos. We know, too, that despite Sony, Panasonic and Mitsubishi, Japan, like Germany, is a country in serious trouble. It, too, has tried to stick its head in the sand and persist with an industrial model that may have worked in the 1960s and 70s but is an anachronism in 2007. Poor, washed-up Japan ran a trade surplus of around £50bn last year as it found a ready market in China for its exports.

 

-------

 

One thing I found really surprising:

 

"in 2002, for the first time in the subsequent 38 years, a year went by without one British artist making it into the US top 100. The same trend applied to albums."

 

[pie-eater 207]

That last line there surprised me too.

Isn't Rod Stewart British?