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How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

construction-physics.com

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Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#171

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

clarionbell wrote: post #167

General economic defeatism in this, and similar discussions, is staggering. Historically, many countries were suffering from various forms of economic malaise and managed to pull trough. Countries that lacked almost any form of industry have become powerhouses. South Korea is a good example. The previous century hasn't been kind to Korea in general. By the 50s, the southern part of peninsula was generally less indust…

You give two examples of countries that managed to save themselves but there’s far more historical examples of empires that faded and disappeared entirely, or more modern examples of countries in perpetual (so far) decline and failure. No, stories of turning around failing countries are not in fact abundant. There is no reason to believe the UK will be a success story and lots of reasons to believe its time has come and gone. It is in many ways a failing state with no prospects for recovery. Across virtually every metric it looks bleak. And vague comments about withstanding short term pain and planning for the future ignores that they already tried that, and it didn’t work.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#172

Post by giorgioz »

Italy is barely mentioned in the whole article. Today Italy is the biggest shipbuilding manufacturer in Europe: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/countries-dominate-global-s...

I feel the double standard of such articles quick in pointing out Italy being behind in many statistics (which it is and is fair to point it out). When it's Britain behind the whole article is written only from the point of view of the UK and avoids mentioning what other countries did better. This is unfair.

Italy manufacturs the Costa Crociere cruise ships and many other things. Everyone loved to laugh when Costa Concordia sink. It made them confirm their bias that Italian are funny and bad at technical things. While other metrics of Italian excellency are ignored.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#173

Post by gehsty »

mike_hearn wrote: post #5

It's a good analysis but probably over-fixates on shipping specific factors. The UK also lost its car industry, its steel industry etc. The root cause in most industries is the same, there were just too many Labour supporters and the unions got too strong as a result. From the comments: > I can relate to British union rules being head-bangingly stupid. In the mid-1970's I worked on the night shift as a spot-welder on…

Blame the workers, it’s absolute bullshit (apologies for language).

My view is privatization opened up the British market to globalization, and fundamentally once everyone is trying to get things for the cheapest price the domestic supply chain shrinks, in the UK it has shrunk to the point it vanished. Other countries with stronger protection for domestic production (like the US with the Jones act and dredging acts, Norway) avoided exposure to the global market and survived.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#174

Post by Neil44 »

KingTravis wrote: post #143

I've struggled to understand exactly why our productivity is so bad here and I feel that this really explains it quite well - over reliance in tried and tested methods coupled with a lack of capital investment - for example relying on push-carts in the yards rather than looking at whatever was a more automated approach. It's not necessarily a case of a "productivity puzzle" but rather a puzzle as to why business owne…

Ha, see what the unions have to say when you threaten the livelihoods of the poor downtrodden push card operatives, there will be placards and flaming braziers by the front gates before you can blink.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#175

Post by realityking »

noir_lord wrote: post #110
Vespasian wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting question. Its plausible that there are not many vessels that are UK flagged anymore. The more interesting question is how many of these are under "control"/influence of domestic operators If required, a flag can be exchanged in a pinch and tax codes /regulations can be adapted to allow/encourage this.

Happened during the Falklands War. There are peacetime rules and war time rules, war time rules are best summarised as “government does what it wants and justifies it after the fact”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War_order_of_battle:... under “Ships taken from trade”.

I just clicked through to some of the listed ships and it appears they were all flying a British flag in 1982 before being requisitioned.

It’s not at all clear to me a government would have that power about a foreign flagged vessel, even if the shipping line owning it might be British.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#176

Post by yanhangyhy »

csomar wrote: post #170
yanhangyhy wrote: post #4

This is called mean reversion in history. The UK and Japan are small island countries. They lack the resources and manpower to sustain long-term industrial prosperity. Everything they have is temporary. In the end these industries flow to large nations with vast resources and large pools of technical talent. It used to be the United States. Now it is China absorbing Japan and Korea. This applies not only to shipbuild…

Japan has always been an industrious, populous and quite productive country even back then (before the colonial era). It tops rankings on historical GDP. I agree to a certain degree about the UK, but even in this era of Japanese depression, they are still the world 3-4th most productive country.

yes but for now.if you analyze Japan's industrial data in detail, you'll find that they are in an unstoppable downward trend. Basically, all the industries they excel in, just like those in South Korea and Taiwan, are being replaced by China. Shipbuilding has become a game dominated by China(>50%) and Korea; home appliances, automotive industry, steel, chips, computers, and so on. Of course, right now, like in the automotive sector, Japan still holds an advantage in terms of volume, but everyone knows that electric vehicles are the future, and the core technology for the battery industry is almost entirely in China's hands. Even Tesla initially used Japanese technology, but they were ultimately surpassed by China. Relying on native protectionist strategies from the US and Canada, Japanese cars still have many advantages. But in open markets, Chinese electric vehicles are making inroads everywhere. Vietnam is gradually banning fuel-powered motorcycles, which is one of Japan's main products, but policy changes will allow Chinese electric vehicle brands and VinFast to capture more market share. We cannot predict exactly how long it will take for Japan's industry to completely exit the historical stage, but what we see is indeed a dying man. (Of course, Germany is already dead.)

so i wouldn't say 'always', even it can be reach to 100 years(unlikely). its a great achievement, but its not 'always'.

(Moreover, when predicting industrial trends, we must note that the future trend is robots. In this regard, due to China's vast population, the per capita number of robots hasn't yet reached the top spot, falling below Singapore and South Korea. But in terms of robot technology, I believe even the United States can't compare. Of course, in large models, the United States is still leading by a wide margin. So, determining how long China can rule industry in history, first of all, it will definitely be much longer than Britain and Japan, and another core reason is the decisive role of robots. If robots lead to the end of industrial transfer, then as long as China doesn't collapse for other reasons, China will forever have industrial advantages.)

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#177

Post by widdershins »

sefrost wrote: post #47
colesantiago wrote: post #31

If we zoom out a bit the UK is a failed country. All the industries in the UK are on the decline and most UK companies are being either sold off, shut down or are being owned (for a long time) by foreign companies. It may take several decades for the UK to come back from this.

The economic situation in the UK has become bizarre. I would recommend interested HNers to read up on the State Pension Triple Lock; and the various income tax cliff edges as some key examples. With respect to the income tax, it is possible for higher earning (not by US standards) employees to receive a bonus and actually take home less money than before they received the bonus. The triple lock is a politically motiv…

> With respect to the income tax, it is possible for higher earning (not by US standards) employees to receive a bonus and actually take home less money than before they received the bonus.

What are you referring to here? Higher rates of income tax are only taken on the money earned over the band. So If you earn £50,271, you pay 20% on £50,270 and 40% on £1.

Are you referring to some other kind of tax then?

https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#178

Post by jopsen »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #40
ggm wrote: post #2

The best time to try and fix this is 20 or 30 years ago, but absent a time machine, the next best time is now. Either you feel this kind of construction process is national-strategic and you ignore the cost over imports, or not. If you don't regard this as a core competency which should be kept in the national register, then sure, buy the ships from other places. But, don't come whining when the national-strategic in…

Every country should be able to defend itself, without reliance on allies, as a national priority. If this means building cars, ships, tanks, and planes, then that infrastructure should be built and maintained at taxpayers expense. Whats more, you need to have market forces within your own country so competition can deliver you the best products. You can't just fund one ship building company, you need to roll the dic…

I'm sure the Baltic States with a population between 1-2M each, would find that problematic :)

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#179

Post by jimbohn »

lm28469 wrote: post #152
thorin wrote: post #138

Same reason it got out of every other industry. It wasn't short-term profitable. After the 70s at least everything began moving to the private sector and there was no strategic thinking. This completed in the 90s and there was no reason for anyone to think that semi-conductors, minerals, even oil and gas now shouldn't be bought from a friend rather than being produced internally.

It's almost as if Europe entirely gave up sometime in the 70s. People used to have vision for the next 50+ years, now they care about the next 3-5 years because they know they'll bounce to another position. That's why everything is seemingly slowly crumbling away (healthcare, industries, culture, education), we're putting bandaids here and there to maintain the illusion but I think everyone can tell the general trend

I think it's in part generational (a bunch of western countries have a quasi dead-locked democracy because boomers will vote whatever suits them short term, they will be dead when the bill comes anyway) and part due to the lack of accountability that democracy has brought to the upper echelon of society, or lack of skin in the game for the ruling class.

Revolving doors, blatant corruption, and downright incompetence lead to absolutely no repercussions; what's there to lose? Schröder is the poster child of this.

We are creating generations of people with no stake in society (no housing, no family because it's costs too much and no time anyway) while at the same time having a complete lack of ethos as a civilization, with a terrible ruling class. Europe (and the UK) are in a horrible position.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#180

Post by ben_w »

lm28469 wrote: post #152
thorin wrote: post #138

Same reason it got out of every other industry. It wasn't short-term profitable. After the 70s at least everything began moving to the private sector and there was no strategic thinking. This completed in the 90s and there was no reason for anyone to think that semi-conductors, minerals, even oil and gas now shouldn't be bought from a friend rather than being produced internally.

It's almost as if Europe entirely gave up sometime in the 70s. People used to have vision for the next 50+ years, now they care about the next 3-5 years because they know they'll bounce to another position. That's why everything is seemingly slowly crumbling away (healthcare, industries, culture, education), we're putting bandaids here and there to maintain the illusion but I think everyone can tell the general trend

Europe as a whole didn't give up in the 1970s, but the 1970s was famously bad for the UK.

That said, I think this was more a case of when the rot in the UK became visible rather than when it started; the British government hasn't been competent for a very long time, and still isn't. With the caveat that I'm not a historian and have only an amateur knowledge of the events, I'd say the problems set in even before the peak of the British Empire, which itself I place at just before the outbreak of WW1 owing to how Pyrrhic that victory was.

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