in the living room

Yang Chen is discussing with Yuan Tianfan which industry companies to acquire in the UK. There are many car companies in the UK and there are many choices. There is no need to rush about this.

Other relatively profitable industries must be in industries that facilitate monopoly. Anything involving monopoly will inevitably have unimaginable benefits.

Even if it is a crematorium, the interests involved will surprise people.

Led by industries such as British coal, electricity, petroleum, and steel, the UK, as the most thoroughly industrialized country, has great demand in these aspects. Moreover, these industries are also highly monopolized, and the scale of state-owned enterprises involved in the above industries is also large. Once

Sell ​​the shares, achieve privatization, and turn losses into profits immediately.

You may wonder why the UK, as a capitalist country, still has problems with state-owned enterprises.

This point must start after World War II.

After the end of World War II, the British Labor Party came to power and launched two waves of nationalization, especially in infrastructure and important industrial fields. After these two waves, the proportion of British state-owned enterprises in the national economy reached its peak.

Especially in important strategic industries such as coal, power generation, postal services, railways, communications, and shipbuilding, the proportion of state-owned enterprises has reached almost 100%.

In addition to these infrastructure fields, in many competitive fields, the proportion of the state-owned economy has also reached quite astonishing heights.

For example, in the steel and civil aviation industries, the proportion of British state-owned enterprises exceeds 70%. In the fields of automobile manufacturing and petrochemicals, the proportion of state-owned enterprises is also close to 50%.

Of course, when Britain implemented nationalization after the war, it had its own difficulties.

After World War II, the British economy was in dire straits. Facing a country devastated by the war, the state-owned economy played a very important role in restoring infrastructure and restarting strategically important industrial fields.

With the help of the country's abundant capital, state-owned enterprises did not stick to the advantages of short-term results and gradually played a leading role in intensive industries such as infrastructure and heavy industry. This played a very important role in the recovery of the British post-war economy.

However, as the war faded away, the shortcomings of state-owned enterprises also became apparent.

First of all, production efficiency has dropped significantly, and most state-owned enterprises are facing a very embarrassing situation, which is the problem of profit and loss.

Of course, there are some objective reasons. After the economy recovers, the tertiary industry represented by the financial and service industries has increasingly become the backbone of the national economy.

Factories, led by heavy industry, are collectively in trouble due to shrinking demand.

In particular, the outbreak of the oil crisis in the 1970s further exacerbated the plight of traditional industries.

At the same time, British state-owned enterprises, like state-owned enterprises in other countries, inevitably suffer from shortcomings such as bloated institutions and bureaucracy.

The big pot lacks an incentive mechanism, so workers are demotivated and lack competitiveness and innovation.

If an enterprise does not have innovation and competitiveness, it will eventually perish. In the 1980s, the world economy was in a stage of vigorous development, and the third industrial wave had already begun. Faced with the rapid development of emerging economies, Margaret Thatcher

The Conservative Party led by it all knows that if the UK does not change, it will really become a second-rate country.

The former hegemonic position was robbed by the United States. If it loses its status as a first-class country, Britain's life in the future will probably be even more difficult.

State-owned & enterprises have suffered losses year after year, which has put huge financial pressure on the British government, the deficit has increased significantly, and the economy has also fallen into inflation.

Selling state-owned enterprises to private individuals is currently the most urgent matter for the British government. Yuan Tianfan had received instructions from Yang Chen a long time ago to collect first-hand information.

"Boss, I think we should not enter the coal mining industry for the time being. The unions and the British government are currently at odds. If we get involved, it will easily lead to boycotts."

Yang Chen said with great interest: "Why, do you think the British government will close all domestic coal mining companies in a short time?"

Yuan Tianfan said: "It's hard to say, but with the widespread use of new energy sources such as natural gas and oil, coal is hard to say in other places, but it will definitely be gradually replaced in Europe."

Yuan Tianfan's words can be said to be the cruelest reality faced by British coal miners today.

Once upon a time, coal was the blood that drove the British Industrial Revolution and was closely linked to the national destiny of the British Empire.

As one of the countries with the highest coal reserves, the UK has a large number of coal mines in the British Isles, and the main coal-producing areas are located near rivers or close to the sea. This saves a lot of effort in transportation, because it allows the UK to transport coal

Will be sent to various places more conveniently.

In the long history, coal, along with steel and steam engines, has been a symbol of the first industrial revolution that originated in Britain. The rise and fall of the coal industry is closely related to the national destiny of Britain, and has achieved Britain's leading position in the industrial revolution.

For a long time, British anthracite has high combustion value and low residue, so it has become the best fuel for naval ships of various countries.

Since the industrial revolution in Britain in the 1760s, coal has become the core of British economic growth and the driving force behind the industrialization of European and American countries.

At its peak, Britain had more than one million employees and more than 3,000 coal mines.

Banning coal mines will undoubtedly destroy the jobs of countless people in the UK.

Of course, the closure of coal mines in the UK does not mean that coal mines do not make money. On the contrary, British coal mining factories are the most profitable among all state-owned enterprises.

The main reason why the British government wants to close coal mining enterprises is that coal pollutes the air. The successive outbreaks of toxic smog incidents have made the British government intend to completely close coal mines.

Since the 1950s, serious smog has often occurred in London and other big cities, especially the famous "toxic smog incident". Under heavy air pollution, London residents have suffered from widespread breathing difficulties and caused more than 4,000 deaths.

The main culprit in all this is coal burning.

Yang Chen knew that several important strikes in the UK were related to coal miners, but in the face of coal miners' strikes, the British government did not stop closing coal mines.

British coal companies are very profitable. Under Thatcher's promotion of privatization reforms, anyone who controls a coal company can enjoy the profits.

However, this kind of good thing of sitting back and reaping the benefits will not last long. If you invest in coal, you may be able to see short-term benefits, but you will not see long-term benefits.

In particular, under the strong suppression of coal miners by the government, it will be difficult for British coal companies to develop beneficially.

However, what Yang Chen is interested in is not the coal itself, but the power plant behind the coal. The energy used for power generation in the UK has always come from coal.

The power generation business of those large coal mining enterprises is very extensive. People's livelihood enterprises such as electric power are rare. If you miss it, you will lose an opportunity.
Chapter completed!