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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

#271

Post by foldr »

coldtea wrote: post #189
throwaway290 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would they prioritize national interests? Because they were elected to do so? How about because they are human people like you and me. You don't think you are a bad guy who always does things only in your own interest right? So why do you think they are like that? How about if they really screw people over they know there will be mass protests etc.

> How about because they are human people like you and me Oh, sweet summer child. > You don't think you are a bad guy who always does things only in your own interest right? So why do you think they are like that? Because I wasn't promoted and passed all the exams of a system designed to promote sociopaths, party interests, and corporate/financial/M.I.C. interests, nor did I have the sociopathic self-selection to wan…

Neither was Jeremy Corbyn, but he would have been Prime Minister if enough people had voted for him. Say what you will about him (I am not a fan), but he is not “establishment approved”.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#272

Post by fmajid »

oblio wrote: post #137
agobineau wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

australia has almost no fuel refining capacity most of australia has less than 2 weeks of gasoline and imports it on weekly barges from singapore. in the XXIer century some australia cities have run out of gasoline for half a day, an afternoon, a few days https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-15/singapore-bound-duel-...

> XXIer century Sorry, but it's a bit funny. Based on the name I assume you're French (speaking, at least)? That "XXIer" contraption is really funny to me, I speak a bit of French. In English it's twenty first so XXI or XXIst, in French as far I know it's vingt et unième, so XXI or XXIème. Is "XXIer" from another French dialect or another language entirely?

Probably German (Zwanzig Erster)

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#273

Post by dgroshev »

Aromasin wrote: post #221
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The UK faces serious structural problems (low productivity, weak investment, stagnant wages, and an over-centralized economy), but none of that automatically translates to terminal decline. In the 1970s, the UK was dubbed the “sick man of Europe,” reliant on IMF support and wracked by strikes, but it entered a multi-decade period of renewed growth and influence before Brexit and the COVID-19 crisis. The US in the 197…

Beautifully said.

We are punching way above our weight in arts (disproportionally many Hollywood actors and directors are British), complex engineering (off the top of my head, Rolls Royce, Sheffield Forgemasters, and BAE are good examples), and recently building alliances (Japan's JASDF just made their first European deployment in 71 years). We are unusually constitutionally resilient, still maintaining control of the legislature over the executive, which is becoming rarer and rarer in the west.

But below all of that is bubbling energy and drive to fix and improve things. I saw it at startup meetups, I saw it in thinktanks, I saw it at Labour Conference. I see it in your comment.

There are massive risks to navigate, but I'm optimistic about this country's future.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#274

Post by Neil44 »

exasperaited wrote: post #261
Neil44 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come now, trying to talk about UK industry in the 70's without mentioning unions?

Except the post that you were replying to was not, was it? And you were talking in the present tense. If you think unions have no possible value in 2025 you are either independently wealthy, retired on an excellent pension, or very misinformed. Right now everyone should be considering whether there is a union for them, because what is coming down the pipe is not good.

Nobody here is talking about unions in 2025 except you, the whole post is about the decline of British shipbuilding which happened in the second half of the 1900's, along with a lot of other industry.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#275

Post by rapsey »

ReptileMan wrote: post #210
csomar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US (and maybe the EU) are currently in the process of destroying their knowledge-based economy in the pursuit of dust manufacturing. The reason China is willing to negotiating with the US or the EU is because of massive leverages these countries have when it comes to the monopoly of the knowledge and information economy. If China could turn on a switch and become independent, they'd do it. They can't and it's int…

>The US (and maybe the EU) are currently in the process of destroying their knowledge-based economy in the pursuit of dust manufacturing. The reason China is willing to negotiating with the US or the EU is because of massive leverages these countries have when it comes to the monopoly of the knowledge and information economy. Except that we don't have monopoly on that. Assembled in China, designed in California worke…

Somewhat ahead in a few areas but those are only temporary.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#276

Post by fmajid »

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…

The UK imports half its food, and was almost starved into submission by Nazi U-boats during WW2,, so you’d think they would know this, but laissez-faire ideology is strong in the ruling class.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#277

Post by [deleted] »

wahern wrote: post #264
energy123 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small island countries shouldn't build their own ships only because they can't due to their size. But they probably should have sovereign manufacturing of asymmetric deterrence tools like anti-ship missiles. Friends aren't good enough, unless you have a mutual defense treaty, they aren't real friends and can't be counted on. Look at Ukraine struggling to get Tomohawks and ATACMS now, or struggling to get tanks and je…

> Friends aren't good enough They are if you actively manage your relationships with an eye to maintaining redundant access to necessary materiel or having multi-pronged defense strategies. Singapore is constantly nurturing strategic defense ties with multiple allies and attempting to avoid existential reliance on any single ally. And the one nation they definitely wouldn't rely on is Malaysia, the country most likel…

[deleted]

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#278

Post by graemep »

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…

> Either you feel this kind of construction process is national-strategic and you ignore the cost over imports, or not.

The UK does not even make any effort. Look at the level of dependency on US cloud providers to deliver basic government services. To be fair, the UK is no worse than the rest of Europe (some small gestures and exceptions aside) in this, but that only makes the overall situation worse.

Successive British governments have not really thought this through, and what dependencies are a problem. Again, not the only country that has done that, but, again, that does not help solve the problem.

> There is Autarky, and there is total dependency, and there is a massive road in-between. Right now, we're very far from Autarky and we're far too close to total dependency.

Absolutely, but people are not aware of it, politicians do not care, the the ruling class are declinist.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#279

Post by epolanski »

Jm2c, but this sort of problems would've been smaller if the UK stayed in the EU. Then you can do this sort of strategic planning on a larger scale as the EU tends to promote economical activities that make sense for specific countries.

The EU, while not subsidizing ship building per se, it did subsidize the R&D.

Ship building subsidies are banned in the EU for a very specific reasons: from the 70s to the early 90s European ship builders could not stay competitive with the asian ones.

This led France, Spain, UK, Germany into a race of subsidies that:

1. created a lot of overcapacity

2. tanked prices

3. didn't make shipyards more, but *less* competitive with their asian counterparts, as they had less reasons to invest with the guarantee of minimal effort and guaranteed money

This is really a damn if you do, damn if you don't situation for which there are no real solutions.

We lack the materials, we lack the energy, even if we stepped up to the great levels of efficiency of Japanese/Korean/Chinese ship building have (and we're unlikely to do, it's not just a technological but cultural challenge), we'd still not be able to compete on costs (energy, materials, labor) and R&D (the asian dragons produce way more engineers in the sectors than we do).

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#280

Post by potato3732842 »

coldtea wrote: post #129
xboxnolifes wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also the people with the most ability to jump ship should something happen.

aka zero skin in the game, and, worse, a lot to earn by doing favors and pushing for quick profits for their friends in the corporate and finance worlds

It's the old world old money version of cashing out your tech bucks and retiring to Colorado.
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