Under construction

How sad that ARM Holdings has been taken over by a foreign company, I assume on the basis of debt which will then be loaded onto ARM.  I can't think anything good will come of it. As far as I can see the new owner could move it abroad or close it down at the drop of a hat in the future. This has been welcomed by Mrs May as evidence that the UK is attractive for investors (or asset strippers) despite the uncertainty over Brexit. The truth is, probably, the purchasers took advantage of the weak Pound.

How sad that the shareholders are more interested in making a quick buck than developing the wealth of the nation. Or if investment in the company was required, that this was not forthcoming from a UK source. Political pressure prevented the loss of AstraZeneca a couple of years ago. What a pity political expediency has prevented the government making a fuss about ARM (or perhaps politicians still don't get digital).

ARM was our last big player in the digital economy and I have followed its progress from its origin as Acorn Computers in the early 1980s. Acorn made the BBC 'B' computer and the Electron and later the Archimedes which used a revolutionary form of microprocessor. Acorn started ARM to develop this sort of processor and has gone on to be the world leader in chip design.

On the 18th July 2016, I was sad about the takeover of ARM Holdings.

I guess the Brexit and Trump disasters are all part of the trajectory we set out on following the breakdown of the settlement which was forced on establishments by an understanding that ordinary people would not take further exploitation by self-seeking (and incompetent) establishments following the second world war. (Bretton Woods etc.)

In the UK this led to a Labour government, the NHS, social security etc. However, right from the start right wing economists and philosophers were plotting to return the world to the nineteenth century. Finally in Thatcher and Reagan they found powerful fellow travellers and Neo-liberalism gradually took an icy grip on the world. Fuelled by lies from the press by the likes of the Barclay brothers, Murdoch and Rothermere through his vicar on earth, Dacre the people have been fooled into supporting a system designed to impoverish them to the benefit of the 1%. Now their pips are squeaking they are turning to demagogues like Trump, Le Pen and Farage. People need to learn more history (but as Bart says “No one teaches me history!”)

9.11.16 We get the news about The DONALD

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