Originally Posted by
willibrord
Its kind of sad that the Taiwanese Sturmey Archer are better than the English hubs. Do you think that Brexit will improve the quality of English manufacturing and return those manufacturing jobs to the UK?
Laws are one of the biggest factors, namely the effects on market forces. Whilst some people believe in heavy governing, fact is that market forces are like water penetrating leaks. If you heave a hole somewhere it will act as a gateway, and business works that way along with any other motivation - meaning, business happens where there's a market for it.
Here in Britain, we lost our car industry to foreign companies because our infrastructure wasn't adequately shaped to compete anymore. But all was not lost, because we had laws restricting Japanese manufacturers importing cars here. So what did they do? Built factories here - they could sell as many cars as they liked, then...
Today, and things aren't so rosy, and for the same reasons. Honda are quitting the UK because it no longer makes economical sense to stay. Our steel industry is on it's knees because, unlike the USA, we failed to restrict cheap Chinese steel.
Tens of thousands of jobs change hands on a whim, when the condition of market forces guide business. And at the moment, SunRace (who own Sturmey Archer) have no incentive to bring production here.