Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

My point was that it's not a British factory: it's a Sony-owned plant that happens to be in the UK at this point in time. Sony is a Japanese-American corporation; all this chest-beating is quite unwarranted.

The point about capitalism is that "Euro" capitalists don't want to face any risk, as this story proves: British money didn't want to back the Pi when it was unproven, and even now they could only find Japanese-American money.

I live in the North-West of England. I'm surrounded by modern (and mostly empty) high-rise developments built in the last 15 years, alternating with cheap new low-rise which have been rebuilt from scratch on the ashes of failed towns, and they're slowly decaying again, because the problem is that you can't maintain a nice house without a nice job, and construction jobs are not even for local people these days.

the sort of jobs that provide social mobility are in services (as we all know on HN), in high-quality manufacturing, and in the public sector; and it's clear this government has no idea how to help those sectors.




I would argue that it is a british factor, regardless of the name above the door it is based in the UK and as a result help the UK economy.

The reason for all those empty buildings is due to an old insurance policy (now illegal) that meant developers could build and insure against it being empty ... essentially the insurance company pays the rent if the building is empty and as such there is no incentive for the developer to actively let it out.

Setting up a line like this is expensive and unless you are willing to foot the bill for the factory setting up the line then it is understandable that most factories would decline the work if they thought the market opportunity was small of the business plan was weak.

Either way I think we both agree on this being a good thing but we don't know the context in which the work was previously declined




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: