EoW January 2009

The International Magazine for the Wire and Cable Industries

Happy New Economy?

As we embark on a new year, I wonder how we’ll be viewing the events of the latter half of 2008 – the global financial crisis? One thing is certain. In Autumn 2008 many governments found they had surprisingly long arms; long enough to reach deep into pockets to find billions of pounds, euros and dollars that the taxpayer had never suspected was up for grabs. Let’s hope that this money hasn’t ultimately been thrown into a lost cause, when it could have done so much to, say, provide aid for developing countries, support research into sustainable energy sources, or provide investment in infrastructure and education. For at the same time as the UK government was pumping money into the banking system the vacuum innovator, James Dyson, lost the comparatively paltry government funding he’d been promised to establish the Dyson School of Design Innovation. This project, jointly-funded by the government and the James Dyson Foundation, was to be a school of design and engineering, providing students with the opportunity to work on engineering projects with industry experts. Most engineers and manufacturers won’t have been surprised by the discovery that lending money to make money isn’t a sound basis for national growth. I know that, because over the years I’ve heard so many of them say it. So now is the opportunity to try something new; time to support manufacturing which, incidentally, has been quietly working through its own crisis in recent years without attracting much in the way of national headlines. Innovation, design and trade should be the way forward, with banks and the financial sector relegated to doing what they were always intended to do – providing the finance and backing to fund the growth of the manufacturing sectors. We’ve been bombarded with economic concepts over recent months – sub-prime investment, tier-one capital, subordinated debt, collateralised debt obligation. Here’s another we should be considering – opportunity cost: what could have been

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