[dennisw]

From this article's comments section. What Brits think of this mess

 

So much for the City of London and banking making our living in the future. It was never going to happen and now we're paying the price. We've put too many eggs in the banking basket.

For a nation which was once the "Workshop of the World" it is humiliating. We are now rueing the day we let our once-proud industries fold without a fight.

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Saturday, 7 March 2009 at 05:25 pm (UTC)

it seems the workshop of the world ran out of customers and could not compete i bet we will need all those lost skills one dayjust like we will need the coal in the mines that maggie flooded drowning bilions of quids worth of equipment. banks don't make anything useful

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The current generation of 'City Traders' has destroyed the reputation for acuity and probity established by the previous ten generations. The victory of greed over judgement.
abbalong

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All those fees imposed on funds from all that foreign money even before it was traded/invested - Gone!

That translated into salaries and bonuses.

I guess we'll now have to concentrate on getting jobs in which we actually 'do' stuff instead of sitting in front of PCs chatting about last night's telly!

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[TigerLikesRooster]

Yes, Britain as a country can no longer make living by playing the traders of the world.

The idea of having a permanent thriving post-industrial economy based on finance is now pretty much dead.

[jpsb]

"We are now rueing the day we let our once-proud industries fold without a fight."

BUMP!

[yankeedame]

I have just finished a book called "Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 (Tales of a New Jerusalem)"

Which, off hand, I don't recommend. It's very long [600+ pages], and very,very detailed which assumes you have a more-than-average knowledge of early post war Britan. IOW, it's a great if you're doing research, but over-kill if you just want to learn about that time.

Instead I would recommend a book I'm about half way through right now, "The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities 1945-1950"

It runs half the length of the above book, and much more "user friendly" to the non-British reader.

Anyway, I digress, both these books are in agreement that by 1870 GB had reached it peak and was on an unmistakable downward slope, and that by 1946 GB was a financial basket case -- thanks in no small part to Socialism and Liberals determination to create a "New Jerusalem".

[GOPJ]

For a nation which was once the "Workshop of the World" it is humiliating. We are now rueing the day we let our once-proud industries fold without a fight.

It's a sad time for the Brits.

[stockpirate]

What was the reference to maggie flooding the mines?