Iona Napier
SPAIN would be richer than Italy if its companies were bigger.
A study from Madrid’s Complutense University has revealed that Spanish productivity and GDP would be 10-15% higher if its average business size matched that of its neighbours.
While an average Spanish company employs 4.6 workers, Italian companies have 5.8 and the UK and Germany lead the way, with 10.4 and 12 respectively.
“The size of a company has a strong relationship with Spanish productivity problems,” revealed researchers.
In general, larger companies have easier access to capital, are more intensive in their use of labour and technology and more likely to export.
‘Spain would be richer if its businesses were larger’
Olive Press, are you taking the proverbial??
Newsflash : Houses would be larger if they had more bricks in them.
Spain would be richer if it was less corrupt lol.
The worst thing that ever happened to the world was Globalisation. The accountancy firm I used to work for merged and merged and got bigger and bigger. It lost its’ identity and soul. We were all just an asset valued the same. There was no reward for individualism and manuals were rigid. Clients became dissatisfied as fees went up but response and customer service were seriously reduced. In the end we got so big the regulators made us split into constituent parts but by then the beast had killed any relationships we had with ordinary businesses and dealt merely with large corporations such as banks, insurance companies and large retailers who didn’t care about service just profits.
Big companies can dominate business sectors and DO influence elected members of parliament , the judiciary, police and others through their super powerful status and influence.
Bluemoon,
the only thing you could have mentioned is that globalisation is essentially American commercial domination and it is culminating in the horrendous TTIP.
The USA was until after WW1 a totally closed market to the rest of the world, as was Germany. The vast profits it made selling to the French and British during this war was the launchpad for all it’s success that and the huge profits it made from the British during WW11 – leaselend – don’t make me laugh.
Globalisation is about screwing first the American working man and woman and then across the rest of the western world. The obscenity of tax evasion in Europe and elsewhere has led to obscene profits for these globalised American companies which of course so many British companies have copied. When there’s loads of money floating around of course those who can be corrupted will be, first commerce and now sport – it is’nt anymore it’s another form of business. Everything has a price and everything is a commodity – so it goes.
Bluemoon: Globalisation is just another word for unfettered Capitalism. You named it well; “The Beast”.
When Reagan, Thatcher et al let the beast out of the cage with their “bonfire of regulations” the way was clear for the pigs to monopolise the trough and boy, did they ever!
Capitalism is a fine servant, but an evil, uncaring master. The sooner Governments decide to actually GOVERN in our name, the sooner we regain the world for people in general.
Capitalism is indeed a beast, but no one can come up with a better system. Man is competitive and greedy, and capitalism is a perfect fit for that behaviour. Capitalism mirrors mankind. Get used to it, we’re all part of it and we live it everyday. Depressing, but true.
There’s no need to change the system, it just needs to be curbed and brought to heel. The damn thing is out of control, it’s not the master, we are. Humanity has less baser impulses than greed, they need to be brought to bear.
Let’s not ignore kindness, altruism and cooperation for the common good.
Unfortunately we are not the master in this system any longer. Our system is based on greed and fear. Lose your job lose your house, lose your house lose your job etc. Of course people have good traits, but those things are separate from the system and they are largely incompatible with it (and if the system makes out it is being nice, it actually isn’t). The system has made us reliant upon it. I have friends who have escaped the system to live isolated wilderness-style lives who are not reliant on the system, but with land ownership and a myriad of other laws, it is almost impossible to achieve unless it is being done “illegally” in the eyes of the system.