On: Car industry investment plummets in UK

[toyg]

Labor costs are not just wages. It would take a social carnage to lower them to levels competitive with Asia.

[benj111 → toyg]

No but the UK does have certain other advantages over low cost producers, that's why it still manages to manufacture stuff. Its the costs relative to the EU and US etc that matter

[toyg → benj111]

To measure those advantages, one only has to look at the UK post-WWII/pre-common-market.

Hint: it doesn't look good.

[repolfx → toyg]

The UK manufactures more stuff than ever before in its history. Do you realise that? The "decline" of British manufacturing is only a relative decline - other parts of the world grew their manufacturing base faster.

[benj111 → toyg]

I don't think its quite the same. We have moved up the value chain since then.

I'm not saying Brexit will be pretty, but I think we'll be running back to the EU well before we end up competing with China on price.