Foreign Owners and Seb Coe
Hi
I wonder how many people watched the Seb Coe programme on "Who do you think you are", http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b013yx6f/Who_Do_You_Think_You_Are_Series_8_Sebastian_Coe/?
But how many of you thought about the foreign ownership of firms whilst watching it? It just shows how strange some might think I am when watching the bit about Jamaica that is what I was thinking.
At that time Jamaica was making a fortune out of sugar plantations. The profit was large because of the slave trade, but most of us knew that. However the programme made the point that the profits were all exported back to Britain and, it claimed, funded the industrial revolution.
Now turn to modern times, two profitable companies have recently been sold to the Americans, Cadbury and Automony. You always find the CEO thinks it is all great, they usually walk away with millions of pounds. In the short run money get filtered to Britain, but what happens in the long term. The profits get squirrelled away back in the home country of the owner and helps to build their economy.
It does matter who owns what, the politicians, economists and business men who say we shouldn't care are just wrong, we should care because in the end the working lives of most people are at the whim of foreign owners and British business people who want to expand will find it harder to raise funds.
Is that why we have gradually stopped be a nation of manufacturers. How many of the dragons in "Dragons Den" make anything?
I wonder how many people watched the Seb Coe programme on "Who do you think you are", http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b013yx6f/Who_Do_You_Think_You_Are_Series_8_Sebastian_Coe/?
But how many of you thought about the foreign ownership of firms whilst watching it? It just shows how strange some might think I am when watching the bit about Jamaica that is what I was thinking.
At that time Jamaica was making a fortune out of sugar plantations. The profit was large because of the slave trade, but most of us knew that. However the programme made the point that the profits were all exported back to Britain and, it claimed, funded the industrial revolution.
Now turn to modern times, two profitable companies have recently been sold to the Americans, Cadbury and Automony. You always find the CEO thinks it is all great, they usually walk away with millions of pounds. In the short run money get filtered to Britain, but what happens in the long term. The profits get squirrelled away back in the home country of the owner and helps to build their economy.
It does matter who owns what, the politicians, economists and business men who say we shouldn't care are just wrong, we should care because in the end the working lives of most people are at the whim of foreign owners and British business people who want to expand will find it harder to raise funds.
Is that why we have gradually stopped be a nation of manufacturers. How many of the dragons in "Dragons Den" make anything?
Labels: Who owns Britain
posted by Unknown at
2:41 PM
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