2015 UK General Election

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Sorry I think that's nonsense. We have a majority tertiary sector economy, sure, but we still have a vast manufacturing base which exports several billions of goods each year.

Manufacturing in the 80s died, yes, but it evolved and changed into high end manufacturing as that was the only viable way it would survive. And survive it has, and flourished.

The reasons for the credit crisis and subsequent recession are more nuanced than simply a lack of exports. One area is the over supply of housing capital coupled with a flooring of the demand led to the loss of billions in the markets which collapsed several credit based industries (housing and sub prime Markets). But the UK economy is interlinked with every other nation in the world and so naturally the ability of any state to 'recover' is constrained by that.

In fact we look are exports we export more now than we did 10 years ago.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/exports

BOP are net imports but crucially the amount we export is still staggering:

https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/E...EuOTS.aspx

I don't know where this story of the UK not having a manufacturing base comes from but it's poppycock.

Just after World War 2 manufacturing was 40% of the UK economy today it is 20% half of what it was the decline has been relentless.

The service industry now accounts for 66% of the economy.

How else can I see this other than a shift from manufacturing to service based economy?

Never said there wasn't. In fact, I said we had a tertiary based economy, which is true. Seriously, re-read what I said and see it for yourself. I also made no comment about the diversification of the UK economy from Manufacturing to Tertiary. I agree that's happened, and disagree that that is inherently bad. Services are a requirement of our global economy.

Talking of percentages of the economy isn't very helpful. You can have a 99% secondary sector economy and it still produce less than 10th of a tertiary sector (exports don't just mean hard goods/raw materials). My point is that when people say 'the UK doesn't have a manufacturing sector' or 'the UK doesn't produce anything' , they are touting a demonstrable and factual untruth.

Again, I don't know where it comes from, but the UK produces hundreds of billions of pounds worth of exports and goods for consumption (BOP in favour of exports is not universally good, either).

Again, to reiterate, the only two points (facts) I'm trying to make in response here is that the UK is neither an economy that produces nothing nor is it 'irrelevant' on the global economic and social stage. It is a major player in both, one of the most powerful in fact. I haven't made any other points that can be responded to, including trident and how great Germany is. I don't care about either of those points.