I used to think Germany was a country to emulate, but did

Comment on BNP Manifesto 2010 : The Economy: Putting Britain Back on the Road to Recovery by David.

I used to think Germany was a country to emulate, but did you know Germany has a debt level higher than ours?

German debt levels been higher than ours for a while (before the banking crisis).

Take a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt and you can see how our debt compares to that of other countries.

German debt 77.20% of GDP
UK debt 68.50% of GDP

If Germany is so great why have they got a higher debt level than we do?

Don’t get me wrong some parts of Germany should be emulated, just don’t think Germany is some holier than though economy that puts us to shame. We are just as good and in some respects better than Germany.

I believe government should and could do more for our traditional manufacturing industries, but they can NOT resort to outright protectionism since it will harm trade with our trade partners.

I look at it from a perspective of full employment, if the entire country is working, we’ll be more prosperous as a country. Maybe not a realistic goal, but we should be aiming for full employment.

If it costs £X to keep a person unemployed (taking everything into account like less money flowing through the economy) and costs the country £Y to ‘subsidise’ keeping a person in work and Y is lower than X it makes sense to subsidise workers pay in someway to keep them employed since overall it cost the country less.

I’m not think directly subsidising a persons actual wage, (although you could argue Labours Working Tax credit is directly subsidising relatively low pay, though it’s not targeted to specific sectors) but reducing the costs of doing some forms of business in our country, so we can compete, if not compete in a global market (we can’t compete on price with countries like China because their labor costs are much lower) at least compete in our own country business to business.

For example it makes sense for British businesses to be able to afford to buy resources like steel from British companies that produce steel. If government can make businesses that make steel in Britain more affordable with tax breaks etc… for creating steel directly in our country, it would make it easier for them to survive and compete.

My go to success story is Canada and the film industry. Canada provides tax breaks for that sector which has resulted in Canada becoming a major player in the film industry: you ever noticed how many films and TV shows are filmed in Canada. We need to emulate this type of system to promote all sorts of business sectors in the UK.

The good news is Britain is one of the top countries for starting a business and attracting foreign investment, but we aren’t doing so well at promoting our traditional manufacturing industries (it’s the labor costs relative to places like China, it’s killing our competitiveness!). Which is a real shame as when they go under it results in hard working middle aged men not only loosing their jobs, but loosing their sense of who they are when they find themselves 50+ years old, skilled in a dieing industry (making their skills worthless) and because of their age more likely to become long term unemployed than any other age group!

David