Spa Tek

Export Drive

We do have a problem, as there is very little that we can provide that the rest of the world wants. Our manufacturing industry finally went with Thatcher, although I can recall how we all laughed when Japan sent its first consignments of small mopeds. How could they ever compete with our Triumph, BSA, Norton? Since then most industrial sectors have collapsed. During the 1990s I played my part by sacking 350 skilled workers, as my boss tore apart eight building service companies and retired to the sun with his ill-gotten gains. Now we do not have the skills needed for large projects.

What now as India, China, Brazil and the rest increasingly show their potential? What do we have that the rest of the world wants? Alongside that conundrum is the perceived need to allow more young people into the country, as our indigenous population ages, and require more support. We need a workforce, so they say. If we don't have any industrial base then it is difficult to understand why we need more people.

Our real problem is the ageing population. If the government had invested our money in individual accounts, over which we had some control and choice, then the interest accrued over a lifetime would have been enough to cover the cost of looking after us in our decrepitude. Instead the government has always robbed Peter to pay Paul, taking cash from today's workers to pay pensions.

Getting old is frightening. If Alzheimer arrives all could be well, provided the illness does really cover up reality. Living in a dream world could be OK. I have at least one reader who lives in that state permanently, only occasionally coming back to this world to make inane remarks, as the comments to some of my ramblings confirm. For most of us become increasingly helpless, being forced into retirement homes, whose main task is to drain us of our life savings as quickly as possible, at the cheapest possible cost. Thankfully men are less likely to face this horror, as our life span is (on average) five years less than that of a woman. How that equates with women retiring five years earlier is beyond my ken.

There is an answer. We should send our old folk to developing countries, where they can provide jobs for an emerging people, so bringing much-needed income. All of the factors necessary to make that workable are already in place. It could provide a great investment opportunity. It has worked reasonably well in America for years, where retirement villages have been built, which provide all the facilities that some old folk seem to need. So, why not build such complexes in the foothills of the Himalayas, the Far East or anywhere in South America? They could have good satellite communications, with sound systems and screens loud enough for the aged to hear and see their loved ones.

More entrepreneurial advice may well come along again soon.

posted by Suffolk Notes @ 9:13 am