This is the way the empire ends

Not with a bang, but with a flick: Ford to sell Jaguar Land Rover to India's Tata for $2.3 billion.

Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday finally came to grips with what legions of Ford truck men and upper-crust British luxury-car fans knew from the outset: A marriage of the two sides was destined for failure.

After decades of losses at Jaguar and a history of reliability issues at Land Rover, Ford announced that it will sell the two brands operations to India's Tata Motors Ltd. for $2.3 billion and will contribute as much as $600 million to the unit's pension plan.

It was a shock to the system, and a clear swallow of an Asian summer when the 7-11 venture in Japan resulted in the Japanese arm of the company buying out its parent back in the 90's when the company ran into financial difficulties and was rescued from bankruptcy by Ito-Yokado, its largest franchisee.

The colonists were being colonised by the colonees even then, but almost nobody (as usual) took it as a warning of the end of empire. The US former colony was still buying out its previous owner's assets.

But then IBM sold its PC business to China, Whirlpool and a bunch of other brands did the same and it became obvious that the centre of economic power was shifting. Some of it, like aircraft manufacture, was moving to Europe with Boeing playing "me too" but not really taking the leading edge risk, and in the last few weeks the entire US financial system has been effectively colonised by Sovereign funds from the Middle east and Asia as they have bought up the results of the silly games of the late empire wastrels on wall Street.

But Jaguar? And Land Rover? Picked up in a fire sale by an Indian company? After what the British did to India (OK apart from the railways) that is both a delicious irony and a whole flock of swallows darkening the empire sun.

Those of us whose lives have been invisibly advantaged by being part of that empire need to be aware that the rules, and the rulers, have changed.

Comments

[Saltation]

ooo more devil's advocate, i'm afraid.

britain mostly benefitted india. granted they ripped off the aristocracy. but (a) that aristocracy had acquired said wealth by ripping off the people, not by creating it, and (b) everyone else benefitted -- all those people who happened not to live in rooms of ivory etc. apart from the muslim areas around rajasthan, the brits are generally held by the locals to have led to a higher quality of life for most.

for a more startling example of "the colonised" becoming "coriolanus", check out lakshmi mittal (IIRC) -- the steel magnate who's now britain's richest man, having latterly moved there from india.

but it's less about empire and colony than it is about a standard human pattern of an aggressor altering local behaviour then locals playing that same game harder than the originators. ignoring the australian cricket team vs UK ;), note that bankers trust (USA) moved into oz and years later was then reverse-taken over by bankers trust australia: same (learned) attitude and skills, but more dynamic, more driven, and more skillful.

and but yeah: there's a few fundamental shifts in economic/cultural weight happening. india's a slow-burn due to its self-crippling proclivity, but china's the not-so-dark horse. not just the obvious sovereignfund abuses-of-power happening now throughout the thirdworld, but look at teh underlying fundamental demand-drivers at the "simple" commodity level. if your hair isn't stood on end after researching the problems with grains and rare metals, you have a drug problem.

altho, i wonder what would happen if the climate treaties actually addressed the real carbon asymmetries? granted, carbon is a red herring. but that's what the bandwagon has leapt aboard.
far and away the human world's biggest impact on carbon output?
rice.

[Earl Mardle]

Hi Sal. More like devil's ponder than actual advocate, but thanks for the dip in the stream of consciousness. I must track you down and buy you a beer in London in late May early June.

And I'd still say the Raj is a definite maybe. In the end, it may be difficult to tell the difference between the old aristocracy and Tata, in fact a reasonable chunk of the new aristocracy IS the old aristocracy.

The carbon thing is right on the nail though, and the energy budget is being constrained by the minute. As that crunch comes home to bite, the newly (auto)mobile middle class of many millions is going to find itself heading back to the sweatshop and its NOT going to like it. Same in China.

[Saltation]

beer? you're ON!