3 Comments
Jan 28Liked by Justin

You lament the sale of British companies to foreign investors, but I seem to recall reading that conversely UK investors own considerable numbers of foreign companies. If that is so then it works both ways.

It is hard to find much information on this with web searches, since most return "the UK is being sold abroad" type articles. But the following looks like an interesting relevant discussion. (The person posting the initial question also complained of exactly the same difficulty I had in finding relevant information!)

https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/5dbjh2/what_do_british_companies_own_abroad/

I think another motive for the UK Government in allowing company and utility sales to foreign investors, besides the obvious short-term benefits of the UK gaining the sale proceeds, may be to try and insulate the companies somehow from industrial action by bolshie UK trade unions. But how well that works, if at all, is hard to tell.

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"I don't understand. I thought that the hundreds of thousands of net migrants every year would turbo-charge the UK economy!"

In all seriousness, a lot of British economic history since 1965 seems to be the boomers looting this country and kicking away the ladder - QE/money printing, high income taxes to pay for state pensions, high house prices, immigration leading to low wages, and saddling their kids with student debt to have something to boast about whilst they had tuition paid for them.

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author

Exactly, M'Crowdy. Agree with your mini-analysis there as well, I would add privatisation to the list and completely selling off assets to foreign investors too.

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