Honda Supports Re-Localisation

Honda UK has been running a very interesting ad campaign at the moment. It captures the new mood of re-localisation that is emerging, and which is supported by this website, very well. Here's the text:
 

'Buying Local. You might not think it's that important. But then you may not have thought about how it helps everyone in the area. And that you happen to be one of them.'
 

It also captions a picture of a CR-V:
 

'Built in Britain: All CR-V, Jazz and Civic (UK) models are built in Swindon, which helps to support the UK economy.'
 

It's a fascinating example of the growing awareness that globalisation was never intended to support local economies or particular national economies. But if you're running a trade deficit on the scale of the UK and US, especially with China, sooner or later that realisation is going to become more general. Because without more localised manufacturing, there's simply no way to pay off national debts.
 

For several decades, leading Western economies have praised globalisation as the solution to their problems. Now, with those deficits threatening to reach unsustainable levels, it's becoming all too clear that a naive pro-globalisation policy that ignored the significance of national debts was a huge mistake. As Eamonn Fingleton, James Goldsmith and many others had repeatedly warned. Globalisation wasn't a solution. It was part of the problem.