Post by dodger on Jul 30, 2013 10:55:58 GMT
The Ownership of Britain
imarxman.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/the-ownership-of-britain/
Posted on May 29, 2012 by imarxman
What do the following have in common?
1. Red London double-decker tourist buses
2. Harrods
3. Selfridges
4. Fortnum and Mason
5. Boots the Chemist
6. The Dorchester Hotel
7. The Savoy Hotel
They represent well known features in London, but not one of them is British.
Ownership is now:
1. German
2. Qatari
3. Canadian
4. Canadian
5. Italian
6. Brunei
7. Canadian
Even the airports serving London are Spanish owned. In fact, around 50% of British assets are now foreign controlled, as are almost 40% of British patents.
This take over of Britain was largely initiated in 1979 by the new Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. For all her jingoistic patriotic posturing three years later during and after the Falkland’s War, she led an administration that enacted the crucial measure, the abolition of overseas investment regulations, allowing Britain to be sold off.
In 1986, Thatcher’s government went on to remove regulations concerning the City of London, allowing British banks to be taken over by foreign ones; the Big Bang as it was known.
The explosion of foreign interest in British assets continued to rumble through the subsequent Major administration and, after 1997, into the New Labour regime. Prime Minister Blair and Chancellor Brown not only did nothing to dampen the process, but actively encouraged it.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s cheap borrowing, global investment banks in the City with access to worldwide capital and weakened or removed take over rules continued to encourage foreign takeovers.
Traditionally, banks were loath to lend above 10x their share capital, but by the mid-2000s it was commonplace for them to be lending 40x that capital. Foreign companies used this availability of lending to purchase British companies.
Britain’s tax system also encouraged this lend and buy approach. A foreign firm could write off the interest on borrowed capital against their tax liabilities. This allowed them to acquire assets they could strip and sell on for quick returns rather than develop the companies’ longer term, a major factor in increasing unemployment.
Boots the Chemist provides an exemplar of this process. In 2007 it was sold for £12 billion to the Italian company, Stefano Pessina and KKR, a private equity firm. Despite having been in Nottingham for over 160 years the headquarters went to Switzerland.
The significance for the British economy was the differential in tax revenues. In 2006, while still British based, Boots paid £89 million in tax. After 2007 and the move abroad, the British tax take fell to around a tenth of what it was. British taxpayers have to make up the shortfall.
When companies are sold and effectively move abroad, the subsequent job losses are bad for those made redundant, but also represent a loss of skills for the country. When, in 2008, ICI was bought by the Dutch firm AKZONobel, 29 factories were closed and 3,500 jobs lost, many in Britain, with research facilities in Slough and Newcastle under threat.
It does not matter which of the main political parties in Britain forms the government. Like previous prime ministers from Thatcher, through Major, Blair and Brown, to Cameron, the attitude and thinking remains the same, as the present prime minister showed when he said,
“We are an open, global economy. We cannot start creating ownership barriers, trade barriers and protectionist barriers.”
The only barrier to Britain controlling its own assets and destiny, it would appear, is the political establishment in thrall to finance capital. Foreign companies have no allegiance to Britain which is regarded as no more than a milch-cow to be drained of its resources in the name of profit.
In 2009, Kraft Foods bought Cadbury, undertaking to maintain production at the Somerdale (Bristol) factory: a month later it closed with the loss of 400 jobs directly and many more in the supply chain. Kraft demanded the remaining employees agree to the closing down of their final salary pension scheme or a pay freeze would be imposed until 2013. Who benefited? Kraft’s US shareholders.
If the British people want to retain and develop such resources on their own behalf they will need to find ways of collectively securing them. Most certainly, voting any of the present three major parties into government will mean electing those who will allow, even encourage, further asset stripping in the future.
The question is; who do the British want owning Britain?
imarxman.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/the-ownership-of-britain/
Posted on May 29, 2012 by imarxman
What do the following have in common?
1. Red London double-decker tourist buses
2. Harrods
3. Selfridges
4. Fortnum and Mason
5. Boots the Chemist
6. The Dorchester Hotel
7. The Savoy Hotel
They represent well known features in London, but not one of them is British.
Ownership is now:
1. German
2. Qatari
3. Canadian
4. Canadian
5. Italian
6. Brunei
7. Canadian
Even the airports serving London are Spanish owned. In fact, around 50% of British assets are now foreign controlled, as are almost 40% of British patents.
This take over of Britain was largely initiated in 1979 by the new Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. For all her jingoistic patriotic posturing three years later during and after the Falkland’s War, she led an administration that enacted the crucial measure, the abolition of overseas investment regulations, allowing Britain to be sold off.
In 1986, Thatcher’s government went on to remove regulations concerning the City of London, allowing British banks to be taken over by foreign ones; the Big Bang as it was known.
The explosion of foreign interest in British assets continued to rumble through the subsequent Major administration and, after 1997, into the New Labour regime. Prime Minister Blair and Chancellor Brown not only did nothing to dampen the process, but actively encouraged it.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s cheap borrowing, global investment banks in the City with access to worldwide capital and weakened or removed take over rules continued to encourage foreign takeovers.
Traditionally, banks were loath to lend above 10x their share capital, but by the mid-2000s it was commonplace for them to be lending 40x that capital. Foreign companies used this availability of lending to purchase British companies.
Britain’s tax system also encouraged this lend and buy approach. A foreign firm could write off the interest on borrowed capital against their tax liabilities. This allowed them to acquire assets they could strip and sell on for quick returns rather than develop the companies’ longer term, a major factor in increasing unemployment.
Boots the Chemist provides an exemplar of this process. In 2007 it was sold for £12 billion to the Italian company, Stefano Pessina and KKR, a private equity firm. Despite having been in Nottingham for over 160 years the headquarters went to Switzerland.
The significance for the British economy was the differential in tax revenues. In 2006, while still British based, Boots paid £89 million in tax. After 2007 and the move abroad, the British tax take fell to around a tenth of what it was. British taxpayers have to make up the shortfall.
When companies are sold and effectively move abroad, the subsequent job losses are bad for those made redundant, but also represent a loss of skills for the country. When, in 2008, ICI was bought by the Dutch firm AKZONobel, 29 factories were closed and 3,500 jobs lost, many in Britain, with research facilities in Slough and Newcastle under threat.
It does not matter which of the main political parties in Britain forms the government. Like previous prime ministers from Thatcher, through Major, Blair and Brown, to Cameron, the attitude and thinking remains the same, as the present prime minister showed when he said,
“We are an open, global economy. We cannot start creating ownership barriers, trade barriers and protectionist barriers.”
The only barrier to Britain controlling its own assets and destiny, it would appear, is the political establishment in thrall to finance capital. Foreign companies have no allegiance to Britain which is regarded as no more than a milch-cow to be drained of its resources in the name of profit.
In 2009, Kraft Foods bought Cadbury, undertaking to maintain production at the Somerdale (Bristol) factory: a month later it closed with the loss of 400 jobs directly and many more in the supply chain. Kraft demanded the remaining employees agree to the closing down of their final salary pension scheme or a pay freeze would be imposed until 2013. Who benefited? Kraft’s US shareholders.
If the British people want to retain and develop such resources on their own behalf they will need to find ways of collectively securing them. Most certainly, voting any of the present three major parties into government will mean electing those who will allow, even encourage, further asset stripping in the future.
The question is; who do the British want owning Britain?