The whole de-industrialisation process will have to be reversed

Above: I was very encouraged by reports earlier in the week that Business Secretary Vince Cable is going to make it harder for foreign take-overs similar to Kraft's raid on Cadbury. The takeover of Cadbury was done with leveraged finance (ie the deal was loaded with debt) and the debt paid for by exporting British jobs to cheaper parts of the world. Unpleasant, unacceptable face of capitalism, as they say.



Above: a selection of Eurochoc - what does it matter if the chocolate we eat is made in Poland or Belgium or Ireland since globalisation is good for everyone.

Mind you, even Jonathan Freedland on The Long View tried to maintain that the Cadbury take-over was nothing to get bothered about (unless of course you are one of those who have been made unemployed).

Globalisation is inevitable and good for everyone.

But what happens in say thirty years time when salaries in the Far East and Europe are roughly equitable (the Chinese ones rising, the European ones absolutely plummeting)? There will then be no advantage in making manufactured goods in the Far East - they may as well be made close to the local European markets to save the cost of transport. So the whole de-industrialisation process will have to be reversed.

In the meantime a few (comparatively very few) people will have made huge amounts of money out of globalisation while everyone else is going to pay.