Amusement

[andrewducker]

Name the following business.

It has a workforce of 39,000 outside the UK, with just 6,000 staff in Britain.

Its biggest business is chewing gum.

The focus of much recent investment has been Poland, to replace UK production.

And 50% of the business and management came from the takeover of the confectionery company Adams from an American drugs business some five years ago.

Who is this faceless, heartless global conglomerate, which opportunistically shifts its capital and people to wherever the financial returns are greatest?

It's Cadbury.

From

Comments

[andrewducker]

But why do you think I'm against the economic health of the country? As I pointed out above, economic opennness is correlated with healthiness of the economy.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I don't, I think you're living in a hypothetical situation in which an American company taking over a British one resulting in British job losses somehow doesn't negatively impact on the British economy.

[andrewducker]

I'm talking about the bigger picture - where sometimes we lose jobs to them, sometimes they lose jobs to us, and overall the number of jobs and size of the economy are both improved by the freedom to move companies, jobs and money around.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I think that you're right in that respect but I still don't think the Cadbury takeover, in itself, will not have a negative effect on our economy.

[andrewducker]

I think you're right about this case not being good for our economy, at least not in the short run.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Don't you love violent agreements?

[andrewducker]

Absolutely! Bastard!

Actually, one of the reasons why I'm happy to have these kinds of discussions with people I know is that they do so frequently turn out to be agreements of some kind - where the confusion is over semantic things. The other major one is that I trust people on my friends list to be acting in good faith - you wouldn't be arguing with me unless you thought I was wrong, and had some kind of reasoning behind that, you're not just picking fights for the hell of it.