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Subsidising the Export of Jobs
It is very odd to see that the European Union is assisting in the export of jobs from the European Union to places outside the European Union. I write about the news that the EU has lent (at cheap rates) 80 million Euros to an American business Ford, to improve a plant in Turkey at the same time as when Ford has decided to close a plant in Southampton in order to transfer production that was at that plant to the same factory in Turkey that received the largess of the cheap loan.
Several questions which I am clever enough to figure out the answers myself:-
- What business has the European Union to make cheap loans to any multinational, let alone a non EU multinational? Why should EU taxpayers have their taxes spent in this way?
- Presumably if Ford’s Turkey project was viable Ford could have raised 80 million in the financial markets, so why was a sweetener necessary?
- If Ford’s Turkey project is not viable what business does the EU have in lending any money to Ford, whether at cheap or expensive rates?
- Can someone explain why the cheap 80 million loan is not a subsidy to enable the export of jobs from the EU to a place outside the EU? Have I missed something?
The Ford factory at Southampton made transit vans, which (usually white) are the well known vehicle of the British trades person. Things like this cannot be made on the scale of a cottage industry; they have to be made in large factories to make them viable. Nevertheless the suspicion is that the motor production industry gets more subsidy than it deserves, in the hope that such subsidy will create jobs and prosperity where the manufacturing operates and motor manufacturing is all very happy to grab the money.
Filed under: climate change Tagged: economy, european union, exporting jobs, Ford transit, lending, southampton, subsidy 
2012-11-05 08:20:07
Source: http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/subsidising-the-export-of-jobs/
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