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Brian Edmunds's avatar

Great piece Jonathan. Yes why are costs higher in the UK? As we know the costs of most things are higher here. Even utilities and fuel. We have a lot to complain about for sure. Costs of production, delivery and tariffs aside the friction costs you refer to are the reason. Despite globalisation, each market has its own eco system and many things play on the reason for the difference. I expect a market day in Australia with cars expected to go long distances is a hard market to sell an electric vehicle with a range that may be considered too small. So price incentives are key. Also you must consider local costs placed on the retailer. Employment costs and salesman, mechanics or managerial costs for example, may be higher locally. Aldo the gists of running a business itself. Buildings costs, rents real estate, taxes and not forgetting a buoyant market may have to make up the profits required of a tight market elsewhere. Globalisation is one thing but the costs of production may be the same per unit in say China but, the selling costs as we see are vastly skewed. So globalisation on production is one factor only. In the local marketplace globalisation does not mean a jot. Locally sales are only as good as the buyers who walk through the door. In recent years sales of electric cars have been good in the UK but the twin factors of that bubble beginning to burst as buyers who are willing to pay the premium to buy electric are getting fewer and the ability to buy any new car is diminishing with our cost of living crisis. We have seen dealerships close, go out of business, reduce capacity and get swilled up by larger conglomerates from foreign shores. So the immediate future for cars as a whole and electric vehicles in particular may have hit the buffers. So Trump and his tariffs may be a nail in the coffin for some. Globalisation of business sounds great. But it does not work for buyers, only producers. For buyers it’s only as good as their ability to spend. If buyers have little or no spare cash it doesn’t matter how much cars are, they can’t afford them! What globalisation has done is a magnification of the local money flow problems. That being the rich get richer at the expense of the poor bring poorer! The mega rich now hold all the money for years on end making the majority devoid of its use for years on end. The poor are now the overstretched middle classes! Who have no spare cash to buy! The key for it all to work, is to make money move faster and in bulk. The top 5% of people have 95% of money. That’s not democratic and explains the rise in right wing Oligarchy’s. Money men hold the power by holding the money. In a world of finite money, they get more because someone has to have less! But for economy’s to work it needs money! So there in a nutshell is the problem. What we need is a democratic answer. 100% of all people must have 100% of all money being spent back at the same time for a globalised or a local economy to work! We should make cash digital. And make it move by putting a spend by date on it for everyone! So earn it and spend it! Enjoy it! Enjoy it all!! Make people earn whatever they can. But that deal is they have to spend it back! For the cycle to be perpetual and enough for tax revenues to be more than enough to pay our way. Be wealthy on the things we buy and enjoy. Not the money itself! Make the minority stop hanging onto it holding power over the majority and take that power of the few and give it back to where it should be, with the majority!

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