HHSBC Moving From London To Hong Kong

[Progenitor A]

HSBC has announced is intention to move its HQ from London to Hong Kong to avoid the punitive tax regime and red-tape of the UK

They currently contribute abour £500million in taxes to the UK economy

But we should expect this sort of thing to happen shouldn't we?
As Tonights TV programe on the Decline Of The West will show, power politics and economics are moving eastward

Britini is surely becomong the EU benefits haven and a third world multicultural country where cheating at the highest and lowest levels raises not an eyebrow

[abacus9900]

Trouble is we not only have to let some people in but also can't seem to prevent illegal immigrants. All this on top of cutting police pay!

[principled]

Naymissus
As was pointed out in the press, HSBC stands for The HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, so perhaps a move to there is more reasonable than say for, say, RBS.
Having said that however, we are just reaping what Mrs Thatcher sowed in the 80s, when she proclaimed that Britain could live by service industries (Banking et al) alone and so let manufacturing go to the wall (well actually ship it out lock, stock and barrel at knock-down prices to some other developing country). I think it was her way of teaching the -then- powerful unions (who I'm sure she felt were blood sucking parasites) a lesson.
Unfortunately, she and all those that have succeeded her didn't realise (or didn't want to recognise) that the genie they let out of the bottle was more blood thirsty and more ammoral than anything the unions were.
I see now that the good old George Osbourne has woken up to the fact that the banking bubble was a huge PONZI scam and has decided to reinvent "making things". What this technological illiterate millionaire doesn't understand is that manufacturing and engineering skills take just weeks to lose but decades to replace. He thinks that training to be an engineer, scientist, craftsman/woman, technician is like training to be a banker, where the only skill one needs is to know how to parcel up worthless bundles into "financial" packages, change the label to indicate that they are valuable triple A products and then get someone to buy them at inflated prices by lying.
Any Arthur Daley worth his salt could teach any reasonably inteligent person how to do that in a week...without the need for any training course!
Great Britain RIP
P

[Progenitor A]

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

Naymissus
As was pointed out in the press, HSBC stands for The HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, so perhaps a move to there is more reasonable than say for, say, RBS.

I agree with this , but the government must nevertheless be very careful with its taxationa and regulation policies if London is to remain a major financial hub

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

Having said that however, we are just reaping what Mrs Thatcher sowed in the 80s, when she proclaimed that Britain could live by service industries (Banking et al) alone

Did she say that? Are you sure?

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

..... and so let manufacturing go to the wall (well actually ship it out lock, stock and barrel at knock-down prices to some other developing country).{/quote]
She definitely did not say this! What PM in their right mind would allow (encourage) manufacturing industry go to the wall?

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

I think it was her way of teaching the -then- powerful unions (who I'm sure she felt were blood sucking parasites) a lesson.

What!
I am flabbergasted at this remark!
How on earth did she discourage manufacturing industry?
Did she put swingeing taxes on them to ruin them?
Just how didshe achieve this self-destructrive aim?
She did allow inefficient state-subsidise industries to go to the wall by simply witholding the subsidies, They were uncompetitive, useless , a burden on the taxpayer, weighing down the spirit of enterpreneuriasm and had to go
Every country in the world has followed that lead!

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

Unfortunately, she and all those that have succeeded her didn't realise (or didn't want to recognise) that the genie they let out of the bottle was more blood thirsty and more ammoral than anything the unions were.

What genie? The spectre of capitalism versus state control ogf industries?
Agreed capitalism can be absused unless rules are enforced,

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

I see now that the good old George Osbourne has woken up to the fact that the banking bubble was a huge PONZI scam and has decided to reinvent "making things".

The chancellor has only limited powers to st-restart manufacturing indistry. The competition i sfar to fierce

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

What this technological illiterate millionaire doesn't understand is that manufacturing and engineering skills take just weeks to lose but decades to replace.

The reason we have lost our manufacturing capacity is quite simple; we cannot compete

Mar 6, 2011 21:38:21 GMT 1 principled said:

He thinks that training to be an engineer, scientist, craftsman/woman, technician is like training to be a banker, where the only skill one needs is to know how to parcel up worthless bundles into "financial" packages, change the label to indicate that they are valuable triple A products and then get someone to buy them at inflated prices by lying.
Any Arthur Daley worth his salt could teach any reasonably inteligent person how to do that in a week...without the need for any training course!
Great Britain RIP
P

Our problem is not lack of engineering skills but a hopelessness in making things competitively
And do not be too quick to condemn the finacial sector - they produce a big portion of out GDP

They need regulation that will keep them straight yet not inhibit their money-making activities - a very difficult thing to manage as Blair and Brown found

[marchesarosa]

HSBC and the rest will locate themselves wherever taxes are least. It's cupboard love, obviously. Since there is no worldwide agreement on regulating global capitalism the banks and others are perfectly at liberty to do this. The Nation State is dead, Long live Globalisation!

Maybe an exodus of the financial sector from the UK will permit a faster evolution of our economy from the glory days of our imperial ascendancy which still influences this economy in so many ways.

On the other hand, maybe things will just get worse even faster! I know I'm sick of paying banks and bankers to gamble with other people's money and subsidise their failure to contribute fairly to national taxation.

Since when was "risk" such an unmitigated good, anyway?

[rsmith7]

I think we're being a bit hard on good old maggie. She did what had to be done at the time and was successful. Unfortunately she was followed by idiots (major) and scum (blair/brown).
How could the poor dear be expected to run the country for twenty years after she was deposed.
It has been socialism that's ruined this country. Package the failure up any way you want but if you analyse it fairly, there's no other conclusion.