Comments by "Jim Taylor" (@jimtaylor294) on "Why the UK's IBM Failed" video.

A company doesn't change nation when bought; that's a comical oversimplification. Take Jaguar-Land Rover , they are owned and partially funded by a Indian company... but the R&D and manufacturing are still British. Why?, because the indian owners aren't stupid. They bought Jag' & L-R because the latter British firms can design and make what indian companies cannot make, nor profitably sell domestically. (even the TATA Nano, a dirt cheap car by global standards, was too expensive [especially for what it was] for most Indians) Foriegn ownership of a UK firm has two main outcomes: 1: It's asset stripped into non-existance, as Rover Group was by the germans. (they bought it only so as to off a former rival, despite lying profusely to the contrary) 2. The JLR example, which has proven a better partnership than the prior Ford one (less low end plastic switchgear for a start) So nope: JLR's still British, in all meaningful measures, as are other such firms. Aston Martin also has proven in recent years that a firm can go from wholly foriegn owned (by Ford), to partly British owned again... so it's hardly a one way street.
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Nah. Sounds more like lack of mantainance / incorrect use by the end customer, which still affects tons of electronics today. I recall when the Sony PS3 was new, lots of owners where complaining of overheating... when in most cases the console had been set up incorrectly by them, and was not able to draw enough air to cool itself... or worse, was drawing in carpet fibers which swiftly broke the fan and caused the circuit board connections to melt... complete idiocy on the part of the end user, as it said in the manual [to paraphrase] do not obstruct air flow around the unit, nor place on a carpeted/rugged floor. Similar daftness happened in the car sector, with the Triumph Stag getting a bad rep' for blown engine head gaskets, which often was actually due to the end user not having read the manual on how often to get the timing belts changed / service garages not being appropriately aware of it. Product failure is often blamed on the manufacturer in this country [often by a comically underinformed media carping upon matters for which they know nothing, nor bother to], yet later turns out to be someone else not using the thing as directed in the first place.
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"only engine the British invented was the sterling engine" False. The UK actually is also to thank for: Steam Engine (and Turbine), Internal Combustion Engine (Spark & Compression types [though Von Diesel marketed his iteration better], and the Jet Engine (Whittle submitted a viable design before anyone else had). The UK also pioneered Turboprops, was the first to apply the principles of mass production to a road vehicle (albeit a Traction Engine rather than a Car), produced the first known Car with four wheels... and was the first to come up with the Steering Wheel (for a Traction Engine). You're Welcome :-P
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x5 False, on both counts. 1. Nobody in the UK cares about class, apart from Socialists (who love grifting any possible difference between people, to split society). 2. The USA has a noticable class devide, as illustrated by the "Flyover States", and the term "white trash" used by various democrat politicians there, particularly on southern voters. We Brit's are tired of yank' Grievance Politics , which is what cause all those ""mosy peaceful"" race riots a few years back. (by contrast the UK literally had never had a race issue, prior to postwar mass immigration)
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^X2 That makes no sense as a counterpoint (especially as wholly British owned firms use some foriegn designed &/or made parts, or indeed outsource production entirely [usually because politicians & trade unions have made it cost inefficient to make everything domestically]), and misses the point entirely. @smorrisby Granted, foriegn ownership is definitely not preferable to entirely British ownership (especially not with strategic industry / infrastructure), but I didn't state that, rather that the notion that a British company that's foriegn owned is thus no longer British is not accurate, at least not inherently. A supplimentary point, is a lot of foriegn made products (from the cheapest tat to highest end luxury goods) are often ordered, imported & marketed by wholly British owned firms (particularly a lot of the stuff sold in Pound Shops), blurring the line even more. I wouldn't say the latter fact is a good one, but it's a pretty significant example of what happens when it costs more to make a product domestically, than to ship it from another country which is more compeditive.
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@smorrisby Agreed. In the early 00's pretty much all the F1 cars were only possible due to UK innovation and manufacture. Some industry has come back too, such as Airfix with a notable portion of their range. (first time they'd made kits here since the early 1980's)
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@b22times Jag' having committed PR suicide in the months in the last few weeks doesn't invalidate my original point though. TATA certainly wasn't the ones behind that mental ad' campaign, unlike the various PR disasters BMW caused for MG-Rover.
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@jonathanhopkins4042 It's certainly an epidemic among management and politicians here atm. The scrapping of HMS Illustrious by the May government proved it for me; private sector interest and money was there to preserve the ship, but the politicians just didn't give a damn 🤦‍♂️ .
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@b22times Quite a few aye, though Jag's deranged manager's defending of this dogshite suggests he's either a moron, &/or actually believes the crap he's espousing and Jag' made this crap in-house. Either way the company's destroyed in a month an image that even 15 years stuck under British Leyland had failed to ruin 🤦‍♂️.
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@smorrisby Yup. It's weird that those in management can't even do basic math's on how it recently and very publicly tanked Gillette, Bud Lite, PG Tips & more... or for that matter classic examples from the 1980's such as how Q4 tanked The Real Ghostbusters or how the female staff at Mattel crashed the original He-Man product run. Heck: here in the UK "pulling a Ratner" is a dictionary phrase for a PR disaster that destroys public confidence in a company and its products.
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^ Socialist codswallop. State schools are crap, always have been crap, and always will be. Why?, because the reason for their creation, wasn't to educate children - what an idea - ... rather it was a move by the Labour Party to give the Trade Unions more control over schools (Grammar School staff were rarely into unions at all), and to tell kids What to think , instead of How to think. Sincerely, someone who experianced state schools, non-state schools, and home education. The foremost of which I wouldn't wish upon the offspring of my worst enemy, whilst the latter two taught me everything of any worth.
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