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My Thai Life
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Posts posted by My Thai Life
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3 hours ago, bristolboy said:
Please, spare us the alleged curriculum vitae. Like all other posters here, your comments should be judged on the basis of their quality.
As for you not being a supporter of Leave...this is like those Americans who say I-don't-support-Trump-but...It's very clear you support leave. So spare us the pretense of impartiality.
If the Brexit referendum were to be reversed on the basis of a putsch you would have an excellent point. On the basis that Parliament ignored the referendum, you'd have a good one too. But since a 2nd referendum would be voted on the by mostly same electorate that voted on the first I just don't understand how that is undemocratic.
My cv is true - worked in over 25 countries, citizenship of 2 EU countries, PR (Permanent Residence) in 2 further countries, quaternary education. I probably pay more in tax than you earn as a salary.
Your cv so far is that you holidayed with a British working class mining family during the coal strike. But you still hate the working class, and you still don't understand us.
Brexit has been coming for 30-40 years - it has nothing to do specifically with Trump.
Sir Ivan Rogers, possibly the most knowledgeable Brit about EU bureaucracy, and a devout remainer, believes that a 2nd ref is out of the question. I've posted about this this twice in the last few weeks, so I won't repeat the link, as I assume you actually read this forum and can use google if you don't.
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29 minutes ago, bristolboy said:o on the one hand the UK is laboring under a huge regulatory burden because of the EU. On the other hand, despite that, it's #1 in competitivenss even beating countries like the US and Canada that don't suffer from that regulatory burden. No wonder you support Brexit. You must believe that without the regulatory apparatus of the EU the UK will be number 1 in the world by a huge margin. Sounds realistic. I mean, British businesses are basically far in advance of any other nation in the world apart from regulations. It's just a well kept secret.
I'll say this for the umpteenth time: I am not a Leaver or Remainer. I can see the benefits of both both positions. I am however a qualified economist who has worked in over 25 countries, a citizen of 2 EU countries, with Permanent Resident status in 2 further countries. I have a huge relevant international business experience and a quaternary educationary to support it.
The reasons that I tend to take the Leave position on this forum are that (1) Leave won the vote (2) the abuse and nastiness of many Remain posters here (3) so much of the Remain propaganda, paid for by UK tax-payers, is simply wrong - as was the BoE's and Treasury's pre-referendum "forecasts" (4) the attempt to overthrow the democratic outcome of the UK referendum is absolutely appalling in my view - I can understand that a few crypto-fascist Neo-liberals would want to do this, but people who consider themselves to be "progressive" - no way.
People who try to overthrow democratic process are neither liberal nor progressive.
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1 hour ago, Grouse said:Parliament are under no obligation to act on an advisory referendum. How many times do I need to tell you?
The constitution 101 argument for the 10,000 time. No-one of any significance in government seems to agree with you about this.
Given your expressed wish to disenfranchise (ie remove the vote from) the working class, where are you planning to stop? Women? "Minorities" (let's not forget the British South Asian voters were one of the many groups who tipped the balance in favour of Leave)? People on a salary less than nnnnnnnn? People without quaternay education? People who pay less tax than nnnnnn?
Perhaps you would feel happier in a more authoritarian state? By the way, are you planning to return to your native country after March 29th?
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1 hour ago, melvinmelvin said:
ahoy,
hold on a sec krap, you don't need no A50 in order to negotiate a withdrawal deal EU-UK
I am not comfortable with the way you approach this,
you are talking in capitals with absolutes
this is not mathematics with one correct answer
this is all about what the two parties agree on
there is nothing between heaven and earth that is not possible in a customs union
its a question of finding a common path
1. No A50 needed? Really? Ok. Actually I agree in principle. But we need to advise the EU bureaucrats and the HoC/L.
2. "Capitals with absolutes"? I have used bold to highlight a key point.
3. "Mathematics"? I agree. Economics is not a zero sum game. But try telling that to the Project Fear "forecasters". I seem to be the only person on TVF who has read the forecasts at source - certainly there is no evidence that anyone else has.
4. "this is all about what the two parties agree on". Really? I thought you'd been telling us for months that it's all about simply following EU rules for departure.
5. "there is nothing between heaven and earth that is not possible in a customs union". There are many things that are possible inside a CU. But the limitations on members of a CU are as I described. Where are you getting the info to support your assertion from? Can you name any other CUs?
You are one of the more articulate and polite "remainers", though I suppose that that term should really be reserved for people who are actually entitled to vote. Your posts have suggested that you have a long personal history with the EC. Would you mind if I asked you to elaborate?
By the way, your recent posts have suggested you reside in Yorkshire. Really? I lived in York for a couple of years a long while back. How's it going now?
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1 hour ago, bristolboy said:
I don't see how that's possible given the huge regulatory burden that you claim the EU imposes on British business. And how do Sweden at Number 2 and the Netherlands at number 4 manage it?
I don't claim a huge regulatory burden, it's a fact which is available to anyone who can use google. But I'll give you a general hint. A custom union is the most advanced kind of Trade Agreement yet devised by capitalism. I'll assume that the benefits are reasonably well known. But the disbenefits are not so well known: (1) a huge regulatory burden for member nations (how else can diverse national standards be harmonised) (2) a loss of sovereignty for member nations (3) the enforcement of external (3rd country) tariffs which (i) do not suit all members (ii) support inefficient practices (CAP) (Iii) destroy or seriously undermine some developing nations (I'm sure that you as a "progressive" wouldn't approve of that if you knew more about it) (4) the inability to sign independent FTAs. These disbenefits do not include the disbenefits that many people see in the Single Market, which is a separate topic that I won't go into in detail.
I don't understand what you're trying to say in your 2nd sentence. I have no business or personal experience of the Nordics (apart from a girlfriend or two), but I do know that Sweden's population is less than London's. As for the Netherlands, I have visited many times, even set up offices and businesses there. It's an extremely easy place to do business: the Dutch combine the creativity of the British with the process orientation of the Germans and the liberalism of London (my home town): the Netherlands is a truly great place in my experience.
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16 hours ago, dunroaming said:If the government had negotiated the withdrawal agreement first and people knew what they were getting then the result would have been very different!
Except that A50 does not and cannot work like that.
Anyway, the withdrawal agreement is not an end deal, it's just an interim phase to a trade agreement with the EU. But May's WA is so stacked against UK interests that the WA will not be passed.
The end goal, as far as trade is concerned, is for the UK to be able to sign its own trade agreements. This is not possible if we are in a customs union. I'm sure you know this, but Jeremy Corbyn seems not to!
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1 hour ago, oilinki said:
Generally it makes sense to be prepared to invest when the prices of companies, technologies and patents are dropping towards the bottom. Preparing to buy cheap stocks, which one day will hopefully rise back up again.
Of course, everyone knows this, even non-investors.
But I think Forbes' recent assessment of the UK as the number 1 country for business provides a more complete and well reasoned explanation.
Also a few weeks ago I posted figures for recent inward investment for the major EU economies. I can't recall the exact figures offhand, but the UK was way ahead in the number 1 spot.
By the way, the FTSE midcap has less exposure to the EU than the FTSE 100. That's one reason why business execs from 200 medium size enterprises recently wrote to May advising her to take a WTO exit. I've posted this twice already in the last few weeks.
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But bad news for the eurozone
Professor Otmar Issing, the founding chief economist of the European Central Bank and the chastened prophet of the euro project: “One day, the house of cards will collapse.”
And from the London School of Economics:
"The calamitous EMU saga has led to the “most serious economic crisis in the history of the European Union”. It has done “more lasting damage” to swaths of Europe than the Great Depression of the 1930s, and pitted eurozone states against each other in a bitter struggle for control over the levers of policy."
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Private equity firm Bowmark Capital has just raised its largest ever fund of £600m in a mere 10 weeks to invest in UK mid-market companies. In the word of one of the managing partners:
“The success of the fund-raising demonstrates that the UK remains an attractive market for private equity, notwithstanding current Brexit uncertainties."
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4 hours ago, talahtnut said:So what is the point of remain? An open and shut case.
It's a good question. The remain argument lost 2 years ago, and it still has lost. All that the continuing remain propaganda has done is to weaken the UK's negotiating position. Even the arch remainer Ivan Rogers recognises that a 2nd referendum is out of the question.
I guess Blair is one of the most recognisable leaders of remain now. A man who started out with such high promise, degenerating into corruption in government, war-mongering, corruption in business, and now anti-democracy. His very presence in the remain camp has driven many into leave, but he's far too pompous to understand that.
The long-term reasons for leaving are even clearer now than they were a couple of years. The EU's crowning glory, the euro, condemns millions of Europe’s young to unemployment or forced migration. And the EU's trade policies impoverish poor countries and add to the tide of migrants.
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45 minutes ago, sandyf said:
For a truly global Britain, we need the Government to enhance specific support for small exporters to reach new customers and to negotiate ambitious UK-specific trade deals with large and emerging markets.
Agreed 100% Sandy.
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17 minutes ago, sandyf said:And your point is? Job migration is under way and will only escalate with the UK leaving the EU, certainly not going to stop it.
Obviously there will be restructuring. But restructuring is a permanent part of business and economics these days. The pace of change is accelerating, due to technology and globalisation. Nothing new there, I think we all know that.
One thing that in my opinion has been lacking in the UK for a long time is investment in people - education and training. Another thing that has been missing is continuity, the yoyo between Labour and Tory effectively wiping out progress.
Investment in people and continuity are the 2 things that in my opinion the German model has succeeded in providing admirably for the last few decades: and we can all see the benefits. Whether it will continue to do so, who knows?
But your assertion that Brexit will escalate job loss is just that - an assertion. It all depends on post-Brexit policies. I'll remind you again that employment in the UK is at a high, while unemployment in parts of the Eurozone in staggering, especially youth unemployment.
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As reported by me a couple of weeks ago:
John Longworth, the former director general of the British Chamber of Commerce, has organized a letter to Conservative MPs to vote down Theresa May’s Brexit deal, describing it as “the worst of all worlds”.
The letter, signed by the heads of medium-sized businesses who have a combined turnover of over £2 billion a year and employ at least 45,000 people nationwide, says that the deal “offers the EU carte blanche to impose uncompetitive and deliberately punitive policies on the UK, selling British business down the river”.
Their preferred alternative is to leave the European Union without a deal. “At present, 92% of British companies do not trade with the EU at all. And this 92% account for 87% of the UK economy.”
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The UK Office of National Statistics reports that exports in the last year to non-EU countries were £342 billion while exports to EU countries were £274 billion.
In the same period, the growth in exports continued to outstrip the growth in imports, almost halving the UK’s trade deficit from £23.4 billion to £15.8 billion. Most exceptionally, since the referendum, exports have increased by £111 billion to £610 billion. (This demonstrates that the BoE pre-referendum forecast was wrong.)
Add to this the fact that British firms raised by far the most venture capital in the EU this year – over 70pc more than France or Germany.
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Forbes ranks the UK as the best country for doing business for the 2nd year running, and sees a free trade Brexit as a positive outcome.
“The process of exiting the European Union will afford the government opportunities to correct any remaining structural deficiencies that might be holding back an already high-performing economy,” per the report. “The U.K. has one of the world’s most efficient business and investment environments and will soon be open to expanded global trade relationships.”
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18 minutes ago, bristolboy said:
How could it have massive associated costs if doing business is so easy in these EU nations. What you are claiming makes no sense.
I honestly don't understand why you don't understand. But I assume you're being honest in what you say, so I'll try to explain. All figures below are taken from the UK SME CEO news item that I referenced a few weeks ago.
92% of British companies don't have any business with the EU (I think I mis-typed 97% before). But this 92% still has to comply with EU regulations. This compliance costs time, money and resources. It is completely unnecessary for the 92%. (So 100% of companies are facing EU regulatory compliance expense but only 8% trade with the EU.)
Add to this the fact that this 92% represents 87% of the British economy. (So 100% of UK business faces EU regulatory expense even though only 13% of the economy is with the EU.)
Add to that the fact that this is ocurring in all EU countries (obviously the %ages will vary in each country). It really is madness.
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23 minutes ago, bristolboy said:t's you who is ignoring reality. How much encumbrance can there be if Denmark, Norway, and the UK are so much easier to do business in than the rest of the world?
You have completely missed the point for the 3rd time.
The question isn't "what worldwide rank does the UK have in ease of doing business?". We all know the UK is one of the easiest places in the world to do business, because we (the UK) invented free trade and the legal apparatus to support it, along with a few of our historical European friends.
The question is "how much time and money are the 97% of British companies who contribute 87% of the UK economy, but don't do any business with the EU, wasting on EU compliance?" Answer - a lot. So much so that 200 SME CEOs wrote to the British Prime Minister about it.
By the way, I am not a born again free-trader. I can think of numerous controls I would like to see introduced by the UK domestically. But only under our sovereign control.
Forcing EU companies to comply with EU regulations when they have no trans-EU business is one of the many casualties of the Customs Union. It is completely unnecessary and has massive associated costs which have never been assessed.
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6 minutes ago, bristolboy said:
How difficult can it be to comply with those regulations if Denmark is the 3rd easiest country in the world to do business in? And Norway which is an EFTA nation is #7. Both ahead of the USA.
As I said, you are looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope.
It is absurd for the 92% of British companies, who account for the 87% of the UK economy to waste time and money complying with regulations they don't need and don't use. This is surely self-evident.
If you're still not getting the point, then do some research: calculate the number of UK companies in the 92%, multiply by a notional annual cost for unnecessary EU compliance, factor that into the project fear "forecasts" (because none of the project fear forecasters have done so) and send your results to the New York Times. You will be adding to the debate.
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2 minutes ago, bristolboy said:
How encumbered are they? According to the World Bank Ease of Doing Business index, Denmark ranks #3 in the world and the UK #9. Both rank very high. Is the EU somehow making business more difficult for the UK than for Denmark? For reference, the USA ranks #8. Out of the top 20 nations, 8 are in the EU. Not every problem an EU country faces is the fault of the EU.
You're looking at this question through the wrong end of the telescope.
Obviously the UK is one of the easiest places in the world to do business. We invented free trade and the legal apparatus to support that.
The idea that the 92% of British companies who don't do business with the EU should waste time and money complying with EU regulations is clearly farcical. Only someone driven by ideology could fail to see that.
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On 12/21/2018 at 5:24 PM, tebee said:
Firms are pausing or diverting investment
This is a good argument for no-deal.
It gets us to the real negotiation more quickly than any other option. May's WA just postpones the real negotiations for another year or 2 or 3 ....
Everyone seems to understand now that the WA is the weakest position for the UK to negotiate from, as well as being more expensive.
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8 hours ago, sandyf said:I posted some time ago how difficult it would become for SME's, of course ridiculed by the brexiteers.
SME's account for about half the UK working population, approx 16 million. It wouldn't take much of a change to make a significant change in the unemployed, 10% reduction would more than double the figure.
Really?
As I posted a while back, more than 200 British SME chief executives and entrepreneurs have called on Conservative MPs to vote down Theresa May’s Brexit deal, describing it as “the worst of all worlds”.
Their preferred alternative is to leave the European Union without a deal. They say “At present, 92% of British companies do not trade with the EU at all. And this 92% account for 87% of the UK economy.”
This 92% currently have to waste time and money on EU regulations completely unnecessarily. None of the project fear "forecasts" has estimated the cost of this waste of time time and resources.
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26 minutes ago, bristolboy said:The same mentality that led working class Britons to vote for Brexit because their economic travails were the fault of foreigners and not their own government.
This statement demonstrates how little you know about the British working class. It also demonstrates your patronising attitude to the working class in general, born no doubt out of what you consider to be your "progressive" views.
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On 12/17/2018 at 10:46 PM, Naam said:
bus or no bus the £350mm per week (£18.2bb) was a blatant lie. here's the beef from Uk's "Office for National Statistics":
better swallow your beef
£350 million per week is roughly what the UK pays the EU excluding the rebate.
Factoring in the rebate the UK pays around £250 million per week, but it doesn't have control of the 100m difference.
https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/
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1 hour ago, sandyf said:That is a bit rich. If the UK Chamber of Commerce said the same thing all you brexiteers would be shouting Project Fear.
Not really Sandy, Eric Schweitzer, head of the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, is saying something very very specific: "More than 750,000 jobs in Germany depend on exports to Great Britain.”
Project fear is usually based on much more general speculation, which is mis-represented as fact. Read the OP for this thread as a good example: a BoE worst case scenario mis-represented as a forecast.
Something else needs to be said in this context, which I haven't yet seen expressed on this forum (though I may have missed it). When a sovereign nation is faced with economic challenges it can respond quickly. When it is part of a 28 nation trading bloc it is hampered by a slow moving rule-bound bureaucratic juggernaut whose interests are not necessarily aligned with its own.
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Extreme Brexit could be worse than financial crisis for UK: BoE
in World News
Posted
There is no Brexit outcome that will not end well for me personally.
There are some outcomes that will be not well in the short term for democracy, and there are some outcomes that will be not well in the short term for economics.
Medium to long term, democracy and free trade will continue to flourish in the UK. After all we invented both.