Reply to post: I think you have to look into history, a bit more

I think you have to look into history, a bit more

Here, in the UK, most of the old industries have gone. Not particularly because they were no longer making things, but that the companies were being bought and sold. They were bought with borrowed money, which meant that output was further burdened with paying the interest on the loan, never the capital! To finance this, development was strangled, more efficient methods were rejected as too costly. The carried on, for a while, until the customers walked around them to a better product, from a new maker. I used to work for such a firm in the East Midlands. Exciting days, new and better products came out of Design. The future was assured. The value of the companies went up, making them a target for takeover. After being bought and sold a few times, the drive went out of the window, and it was a long drop into ruin. I left, just in time, and watched as once proud companies died The last time I looked, the factories which had covered most of the city had gone, replaced by a couple of "Industrial Estate" units peddling spare parts. Such successful parts of the enterprise that remained, had been shipped off to other countries, leaving a mere token behind. It was a bit like the "War Reparations", in the other direction.