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

[matgb]

More people employed in palpably inefficient jobs means lost opportunity costs.

People tied up in crap jobs means they're not able to go off and do better jobs elsewhere.

For better, don't interpret that as better paid, or better for them, merely more efficient economically.

Which is why, for example, the typical Brit is twice as well off in 2007 than they were in 1977, after taking into account inflation, and we were at almost full employment (so much that we were heavily importing labour to make up the shortfall).

We, as an economy, are better off with robots and poorer nations doing the crappy lower end factory line jobs, freeing us up to do better things.

(nb, I state all of this despite having been effectively unemployed for about 18 months now and living at below the poverty line).

I like having a healthy regard for the economy in which I live. Which is why I spend a lot of my free time reading lots about economics.

Ricardo's theories of comparative advantage remain true to this day. They just need interpreting properly. I like buying goods from poorer countries, it makes us all better off, imports, after all, are what makes us rich.