Britain, he said Monday in his keynote speech, made a fundamental mistake in the 1980s with its “conscious decision” to ditch grubby, large-scale engineering and manufacturing so it could concentrate on services such as banking. Industries that took decades, even a century or longer, to develop – machine tools, cars, trains, ships – melted away. “The equilibrium of the entire [British] economic system has been undermined,” he said to an auditorium of executives and entrepreneurs.
11/23/11
Britain caught between its debt and a hard place - by Eric Reguly
As the chief executive officer of Fiat, one of the world’s biggest auto groups, Sergio Marchionne isn’t prone to taking swipes at Britain, where he builds no cars. But he couldn’t resist doing so at the Confederation of British Industry conference in London.
Britain, he said Monday in his keynote speech, made a fundamental mistake in the 1980s with its “conscious decision” to ditch grubby, large-scale engineering and manufacturing so it could concentrate on services such as banking. Industries that took decades, even a century or longer, to develop – machine tools, cars, trains, ships – melted away. “The equilibrium of the entire [British] economic system has been undermined,” he said to an auditorium of executives and entrepreneurs.
Britain, he said Monday in his keynote speech, made a fundamental mistake in the 1980s with its “conscious decision” to ditch grubby, large-scale engineering and manufacturing so it could concentrate on services such as banking. Industries that took decades, even a century or longer, to develop – machine tools, cars, trains, ships – melted away. “The equilibrium of the entire [British] economic system has been undermined,” he said to an auditorium of executives and entrepreneurs.
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