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The Brexit job losses are beginning to hitI have a one word comment this morning.
Honda.
I could add I, and just about every other serious economist, was right. But the evidence will still be ignored.
And everyone at Honda is absolutely insistent that the decision has absolutely nothing at all to do with Brexit.
But then Spuddo does know more than anyone who actually has to take decisions, obviously.
Turkey isn’t even in the EU even though it enjoys some of the tariff privileges and Honda is withdrawing from there as well.
Nothing at all to do with the new Japan/EU trade agreement at all.
He’s a serious economist now, impressive.
I have a one word comment this morning.
Honda.
I also have a one word comment.
Liar.
Employment is giong up.
Because of course business executives always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth the whole time?
May well be that they are on this occasion, but to go through life with that as a maxim?
Well fuck.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/19/brexit-uk-will-apply-food-tariffs-in-case-of-no-deal-michael-gove-says
Morons.
Sarah Wollaston is making the same allegation.
Those remainiac bastards will lie about anything.
BiG,
In this case the options were:
Were moving our production to Japan because:
1. Brexit
2. Were economic nationalists who want to employ only Japanese workers
3. The factory’s been running at 50% capacity for ages, the car industry’s in turmoil and this is the optimum solution.
Granted, the political risk caused by the fuck up the Tories have made of Brexit can’t have helped.
Off topic, but whatever.
In another place (ElReg) I used the word “eldritch” in a comment and the spelling checker wanted to correct it to “Ritchie”. The man’s obviously an abomination.
Wait, is he talking about E. Honda the sumo wrestler, or Piston Honda the boxer?
I wonder if any of them are up-in-arms about the decimation of the fishing industry? Twats.
I asked this of a remaniac friendof mine last night. Reply “Ther is no fish left in the fisheries.
Remainers – apart from having a serious bout of Stockholm Syndrome – also seem to be suffering from \ UK equivalent of the Trump Derangement Syndrome that afflicts half of the USA. Folks, meet Brexit Derangement Syndrome. OR perhaps they are the same thing.
I look forward to the day when the Brexit job losses extend to certain sinecures in former technical colleges now called Universities funded by the EU.
But what will the remainiacs do if it’s *not* a disaster?
Edited version of this morning’s Today interview.
Remainers – apart from having a serious bout of Stockholm Syndrome – also seem to be suffering from \ UK equivalent of the Trump Derangement Syndrome that afflicts half of the USA. Folks, meet Brexit Derangement Syndrome. OR perhaps they are the same thing.
Its two things:
The establishment throwing its toys out of the pram because for once they’re not getting their own way
And, whilst the number off people who believe the MSM is decreasing, the MSM’s ratcheting up of the hysteria certainly has warped the more gullible into hysteria.
BiG,
“Because of course business executives always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth the whole time?”
Considering how much Honda complained that no deal would screw up their supply chain, it seems odd that they’re now changing their tune, doesn’t it?
Civic production has been falling, like all saloon and hatchback cars (people switching to SUV). In 2013, 800 jobs were cut in Swindon due to falling production. Combine that with falling EU tariffs from Japan and that Honda want to switch to making a lot more electric cars, and it’s not viable to run. I’ve no idea how much it costs to either add a 3rd line for electric or replace the diesel line with it, but it’s not cheap and it’s going to be a lot cheaper doing it in one factory than 3.
For all sorts of reasons I’ve been saying that car making just isn’t worth getting worked up about. Even without Brexit, there’s all sorts of forces working against car making generally, and particularly car making in rich countries. Turkey is nearly making as many cars as the UK and if they can make Clios and Corollas there, how long is car making in the UK going to last? What’s the wages in Turkey vs Sunderland?
Honda’s decision is related to their customer demographic: a decline in the number of retired middle-managers that live in bungalows and smell of Old Holborn.
“Remainers – apart from having a serious bout of Stockholm Syndrome – also seem to be suffering from \ UK equivalent of the Trump Derangement Syndrome that afflicts half of the USA. Folks, meet Brexit Derangement Syndrome. OR perhaps they are the same thing.”
As I pointed out on Twatter, next time a Remainer starts talking about economic damage of Brexit ask them if they support building on the Green Belt around London and our major cities. Lack of housing is doing far more economic damage than Brexit, IMHO.
It’s hard to see how lack of housing is doing any economic damage BiND, because it’s hard to see there’s any lack of housing. Tent cities arising on Hampstead Heath? Every doorway blocked by rough sleepers?
There’s a lack of housing available in the London area for those who aspire to live in the London area but don’t aspire to paying London prices. So what? There’s also a lack of affordable Rolls Royces & Lamborghinis, although thankfully families of Somali asylum seekers aren’t being given key fobs with RR or italic L on them. Yet. Clear the people being subsidised into London housing out of London housing & watch house prices plummet. And listen to the screams of anguish from London property owners.
To Matthew L, re: Gove, tariffs etc.
I’m willing to consider the possibility that he is primarily lying to French farmers. The feelings of his local audience would just be collateral damage.
Honda morphed into Ford so slowly nobody even noticed. Just as Toyota morphed into GM.
Hell, Hondas are built here in Central Ohio and you basically only see CR-Vs anymore. 25 years ago every other car around here was either an Accord or a Civic. Young people are driving Kias, Subarus or VWs these days. If you drive a Honda in 2019 you’re either a soccer mom or an old fart.
You wogs are losing Honda because Honda has become old and fat and complacent. Their vehicles, for the most part, no longer represent good value for the dollar (pound). Not sure Brexit has anything to do with that.
@Henry Crun February 19, 2019 at 2:51 pm
+1
All to do with the new Japan/EU trade agreement – Nissan then Honda, Toyota next?
Japan is very insular and opened in UK through gritted teeth
EU Regs & energy cost will be a big factor too
As mentioned, Honda’s global reorganisation has nothing to do with Brexit and plenty to do with the the EU’s removal of tariffs on Japanese vehicle imports.
Secondly, and more significantly, with the intention being to strike down EU policies which have grossly distorted the economy for decades, it is expected and greatly desired that inefficient, protected industries will wither; replaced by others which are genuinely competitive. There’ll be winners and losers as the dead hand of the EU is removed; with the overall result being a more-efficient/productive economy.
Only a complete fucking imbecile would identify just the losers in this rebalancing.
“I could add I, and just about every other serious economist, was right.”
Ritchie, you’re not an economist. You’re just a retired gob-shite book-keeper who doesn’t have the faintest clue about economics.
If I was running a car manufacturing company, I wouldn’t be bothering much with a country that had announced it’s intention to ban all petrol/diesel car manufacture by 2040 anyway, but what do I know?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40723581
Even the Guardian has a story today about employers complaining that they’re having to raise wages to attract staff, and worrying that post-Brexit immigration rules will narrow their pipeline of cheap foreign labour (subsidised by mug taxpayers).
Employers squeezed as job vacancies grow to record levels
UK firms struggle to find staff as unemployment falls to lows not seen since the mid-1970s
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/19/employers-squeezed-as-job-vacancies-grow-to-record-levels
Damn Brexit!
The Guardian frantically handling their worry beads as poorer people get paid more. Who’d have thunk it?
I could add I, and just about every other serious economist, was right
Amazed I missed that bit. He can lose the word ‘other’ from that sentence and it begins to approach reality, though the “was right” is a real problem at the end.
intention to ban all petrol/diesel car manufacture by 2040
Tony, it is far worse than that, for the London Assembly,and the Scottish Parliament want to bring the ban forward to 2030 on their own patches (why not 2029 or 2031? Because thickos can’t handle non-round numbers perhaps).
And last year 3 Westminster committees also recommended 2030.
As I pointed out on Twatter, next time a Remainer starts talking about economic damage of Brexit ask them if they support building on the Green Belt around London and our major cities. Lack of housing is doing far more economic damage than Brexit, IMHO.
The green agenda is also a massive dead-weight cost on the economy.
“If I was running a car manufacturing company, I wouldn’t be bothering much with a country that had announced it’s intention to ban all petrol/diesel car manufacture by 2040 anyway, but what do I know?”
Yes I’ve not noticed the politicians being brought to task for their part in all this, with all the Green BS they’ve been spouting recently, which is undoubtedly partly responsible for sales of diesel cars hitting the floor. Who wants to spend a fortune on a new diesel car when the government is constantly berating people who have them? And could face some new virtue signalling eco tax that reduces the value of the car over night?
I mean don’t these people realise that a significant chunk of the UK is involved in making the very things they’re threatening to do away with? And then react like maiden aunts being shown Page 3 when some of the manufacturers up sticks and leave?
Funny how companies which say their strategic moves have nothing to do with Brexit can’t be trusted, yet those which predicted disaster in the event of leaving the EU could be taken at their word.
It’s also funny that every company that says its relocation/closure is because of Brexit are being truthful and not using Brexit as an excuse to dodge abuse.
In fact there’s little reason to lie to say its nothing to do with Brexit and a big reason to lie about blaming it on Brexit.
I too have a one word comment.
Cunt.
By the way Jim’s comment is spot on. The car industry all over Europe, and including the Germans is in turmoil largely as a result of years of idiotic intervention by national and supranational governments.
These chickens are now coming home to roost, and governments are desperate to avoid the finger of blame.
Oh for fucks sake grow up
Headline” Brand disinclined to get into heated political argument shock – wankers miss obvious ! ”
Honda was telling everyone it was here for good only a couple of months ago – was that also gospel ?
Try to understand , the Uk making itself the worst place to export to Europe form in Europe is not just a problem its an opportunity to move faster than your competitors and when there is clearly no long term future for that model the slow are vulnerable
Of course there are always many factors but Brexit is quite obviously one of them and if the motor industry is suffering that was all the more reason not to tip a load of familes on the scrap heap just because some senile cunting old lady doesn`t like brown people
Newmania, so why aren’t they moving to an EU27 country then?
I could speculate , literally , all day but if you think of the process by which the Uk won the investment we have now lost , it was not quick or simple.
I doubt we know the end of the story yet
Flounder from the Islington Chippy today.
Pmrofl. Well done Newmania for the funniest response ever. Have applied to become a teletubby?
“Last month, Ford said it was cutting thousands of jobs across Europe as emissions rules and declining demand ate into its profits. Another American carmaker, General Motors, pulled out of Europe in 2017 after persistent losses in the region…Like Nissan, Honda stands to benefit from a new trade deal between the European Union and Japan, which will make it easier to produce cars in Japan for export to the bloc. Their production lines in Japan will also be closer to markets viewed as having greater growth potential, like China and Indonesia….” [NYT]
And note that Honda’s European headquarters will remain in Britain.
Still, I’m sure that’s all complete nonsense and Newmania is correct in claiming it’s secretly all about BREXIT.
I did not say it was ‘all’ about Brexit , it is never one thing . I do say that the breadth of the Brexit challenge is “unprecedented in terms of its total impact”,
Oh no that was actually a Mr Howells,of Honda last Summer ……. but you know best
If I were charged with making a multi-billion pound decision and thought Brexit was a significant factor, I think I’d wait for a month and see what the final outcome looked like rather than decide today. But I’m not a business genius like Newmoania.
Corporal Newremania Jones, regardless of what Mr. Howells-san did or did not say last summer, the ultimate decision would have been made in Japan. Those inscrutable directors would have looked at the UK business and the forthcoming conditions regarding the proposed ban on diesel/petrol powered vehicles and thought “fuck this for a game of soldiers”.
Were you born a fuckwit or did it merely take ahold of you on June 17 2016?
“If you think of the process by which the Uk won the investment we have now lost”
That would be the investment made because the EEC (as then was) had a hefty tariff on all Japanese made cars, so producing some inside the tariff barrier for the European market made sense. Said tariff barrier is now (as of July last year) zero, so the need for any Japanese car plants inside the EU is now removed. All the Japanese plants were on borrowed time once that deal was signed. As is (I’m afraid) a lot of other Japanese inward investment in the UK – there just is no need for it now they can produce at home and give their own workers the jobs instead.
As rightly pointed out above, the basis of the UK’s future trading status with the EU is not fixed yet, if that was the biggest problem for Honda, why on earth wouldn’t they wait until March 29th at the very least?
@bis,
Miss-allocation of resources. Lots of money going to your property speculating mates, for starters. Add in friction in the labour market, comapines paying massive rents instead of dividends/wages etc.
@Tony Querfotze
“If I was running a car manufacturing company, I wouldn’t be bothering much with a country that had announced it’s intention to ban all petrol/diesel car manufacture by 2040 anyway, but what do I know?”
But, but, but …. I thought evil capitalists only made short term decisions for personal gain?
The Company I work for has been obliged to assume the worst since the referendum . Do you seriously think anyone would sit around and wait. That’s the problem commitments have to be made and have been. You don`t have a choice
“The Company I work for has been obliged to assume the worst since the referendum . Do you seriously think anyone would sit around and wait. ”
Well May’s government certainly sat around and waited, so yes. Their first responsibility was to plan for the default no-deal scenario. The fact that they didn’t is the reason – the only reason – for the current farce.
Apparently Britain was offered a free trade deal with the EU which, since she is actively trying to sabotage negotiations, May declined.
So any tariff-related impacts will not be the fault of Brexit, they will be the fault of traitors like May who have done all they can to thwart the democratic process.
Honda leaving as EU is a low-growth / moribund market
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/02/19/remainers-are-lying-about-honda/
https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/opinion-why-brexit-not-factor-honda-swindon/
“So any tariff-related impacts will not be the fault of Brexit, they will be the fault of traitors like May who have done all they can to thwart the democratic process.”
Bing! I’m currently trying to bang this into idiot Remainers (but, I repeat myself) brains.
I’m going along to a local Leavers of Britain gathering tomorrow. First time. Anyone been to one?
@Newmania
Are you seriously trying to argue that a decision to close a plant in two years time, couldn’t wait a few weeks to see the result of the negotiations?