Brexit negotiations
- Thread starter Scott-Copywriter
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Very revealing of the situation that the UK currently finds itself. The Randle McMurphy of the world...
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T
The Byre
The first sensible post in this thread!
A tsunami of debt is about to envelop the financial world and the UK is arguing about paperwork for shellfish. Enormous changes are happening at breakneck speed all across Planet Earth. China is about to replace the US as the dominant power on Earth and that will change the very way we live - and in the UK, people are discussing some bint called Meghan and her beaux Harry-Nice-but-Dim.
As Mr @DoubleFlaf states, the UK today has the most peculiar image of its position in the world today!
Except that in this case, Randle McMurphy is busily lobotomizing himself!
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Should a testing regime (whatever that is) be intuitive?
Considering all the money chucked around last year that hundred billion you mention appears small. Perhaps used for just one thing not multiple things?
British business has failed itself? Speak for your own business.
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So who is leading the world then in your eye's you obviously know who you think is doing it right and would like the UK to follow there lead
Or are you like Byre just a anti Brit but nowhere better to live so does not emigrate, but just moans about everything
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I presume you are talking of our track and trace? Can I ask who is taking pride in that? (Citing some evidence would be helpful)
We (the U.K.) are a massively divided nation (or, perhaps more presciently, nations) but I think that there are currently two things that we all - Rich, poor, leave, remain, north, south, old, young - agree on:
1. Our track and trace system is a shambolic (and possibly criminal) expensive failure.
2. Our vaccine roll out is going well.
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Perhaps spending £100 billion of its £22 billion test and trace budget caused some of the problems.
Perhaps people answering the phone caused problems too. They rang me on personal phone while I'm at work - on another call so refused their call.
They tried multiple times when unable to take their call.
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T
The Byre
I am far from being anti-Brit. In fact, Britain is a fantastic place to live if you live far enough away from London and you are just a bit wealthy.
You do not have to have a great deal of wealth, but you do have to have a seven-figure net value and an independent and reliable income that is far from the sticky tentacles of HMRC. Now that the UK is out of the EU, that means that all the connections and information sources of the EU are denied it. It is in effect blind. Not only that, but the current government is obviously not going to make the various tax-havens dotted around the world accountable. The present situation is jam for the wealthy!
But then of course, as a Brit, you do not have to hide your wealth or your income. The tax system is carefully designed to be applicable to the middle-classes only. You do not have to pay VAT on big-ticket items. You do not pay stamp duty on that manor house. You do not get troubled by pesky things like inheritance tax. You obviously do not pay income tax - but Papa State is still kind enough to give you a full state pension at other tax-payers' expense.
And if the middle-classes get upperty and above their station and begin to imagine that they too ought to be wealthy and not pay taxes by using such things as forgivable loans and trying to off-shore their incomes and pretend that they are making films that never get made, HMRC slaps them down, assumes that they have been doing that for at least 20 years and takes their house away.
"You're middle-class and you're supposed to pay taxes!" says HMRC. "Not paying taxes is for plebs and nibs only! Where the hell do you think you are? Russia?"
But then, ever since the 70s, there was a secret pathway for the lower orders to become upwardly mobile and (heavens forbid!) become wealthy. They could leave the UK and work in Europe, the States, or the Far East. The States is now picky and only wants useful people. The Far East is far less accommodating and we've stopped all that nonsense about kids (whose parents had to buy their plastic furniture on the never-never) building businesses in mainland Europe.
Oh, but it gets better! Try buying a decent house for £200k. You'll get a not very nice flat somewhere. Now up that to two million - do you get ten times as much? Hell no! You can have a luxurious manor house with 17 acres for that kind of dough! And the house is owned by an Ltd. and that belongs to a holding company in the Bahamas. The Ltd. is VAT registered, so tractors, diggers and any other toys are VAT-free and you buy the holding, so no stamp duty.
For sale now for £2m -
Then there's this one for half the price, 12 bedrooms and 8 acres -
You have to go to bonkers places like Rumania or Hungary to get properties like that! You used to get them in France and Italy until Brits snapped them all up and wondered why the locals don't speak English.
So if you can afford a decent place to live and you can't be arsed to learn Rumanian and you want low crime rates, rule of law and relatively cheap labour, and you don't mind the weather and you hate paying taxes - well, the UK it is!
It's a bit like American trust-fund and hedge-fund managers and Peurto Rico!
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Everyone has an opinion, I am a lot more optimistic about the future, the UK is a fantastic place to live, and is a great trading nation. Whilst we are going through a lot of changes, so will the EU in the future.
Who knows, yet more countries might leave the EU in the next decade once they see the UK prospering.
Who knows, yet more countries might leave the EU in the next decade once they see the UK prospering.
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I am far from being anti-Brit. In fact, Britain is a fantastic place to live if you live far enough away from London and you are just a bit wealthy.
You do not have to have a great deal of wealth, but you do have to have a seven-figure net value and an independent and reliable income that is far from the sticky tentacles of HMRC. Now that the UK is out of the EU, that means that all the connections and information sources of the EU are denied it. It is in effect blind. Not only that, but the current government is obviously not going to make the various tax-havens dotted around the world accountable. The present situation is jam for the wealthy!
But then of course, as a Brit, you do not have to hide your wealth or your income. The tax system is carefully designed to be applicable to the middle-classes only. You do not have to pay VAT on big-ticket items. You do not pay stamp duty on that manor house. You do not get troubled by pesky things like inheritance tax. You obviously do not pay income tax - but Papa State is still kind enough to give you a full state pension at other tax-payers' expense.
And if the middle-classes get upperty and above their station and begin to imagine that they too ought to be wealthy and not pay taxes by using such things as forgivable loans and trying to off-shore their incomes and pretend that they are making films that never get made, HMRC slaps them down, assumes that they have been doing that for at least 20 years and takes their house away.
"You're middle-class and you're supposed to pay taxes!" says HMRC. "Not paying taxes is for plebs and nibs only! Where the hell do you think you are? Russia?"
But then, ever since the 70s, there was a secret pathway for the lower orders to become upwardly mobile and (heavens forbid!) become wealthy. They could leave the UK and work in Europe, the States, or the Far East. The States is now picky and only wants useful people. The Far East is far less accommodating and we've stopped all that nonsense about kids (whose parents had to buy their plastic furniture on the never-never) building businesses in mainland Europe.
Oh, but it gets better! Try buying a decent house for £200k. You'll get a not very nice flat somewhere. Now up that to two million - do you get ten times as much? Hell no! You can have a luxurious manor house with 17 acres for that kind of dough! And the house is owned by an Ltd. and that belongs to a holding company in the Bahamas. The Ltd. is VAT registered, so tractors, diggers and any other toys are VAT-free and you buy the holding, so no stamp duty.
For sale now for £2m -
Then there's this one for half the price, 12 bedrooms and 8 acres -
You have to go to bonkers places like Rumania or Hungary to get properties like that! You used to get them in France and Italy until Brits snapped them all up and wondered why the locals don't speak English.
So if you can afford a decent place to live and you can't be arsed to learn Rumanian and you want low crime rates, rule of law and relatively cheap labour, and you don't mind the weather and you hate paying taxes - well, the UK it is!
It's a bit like American trust-fund and hedge-fund managers and Peurto Rico!
All the connections and information sources of the EU are denied us?
Darn, that is going to be a problem.
Reality isn't quite as you make it out to be. There's still connections, still information being passed along.
Had an email just last week from my account manager in an EU country giving some details of a sales problem that looks to be resolved soon. Information coming from the EU.
I hear even flights from Germany are having details passed to the UK before the flight arrives. More info from the EU.
Perhaps there is quite a lot of info still coming (and being sent) to the EU.
So if I order a parcel today that gets sent out by a French supplier next week - they going to pass the information on to UK regarding what is being sent in any way?
Or we going to get exactly the same information type we were getting in say December or January?
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I was referring to the "Moonshot testing" plan. I suppose the price is more about optics, nothing to do with reality. Fact is that testing is not really reliable enough to measure large number of cases. The greater the tests, the greater the false positive/negatives. You cannot decide covid policy on it.
China and most of Asian pacific... No I am not some neocon hawk. I cringe when I see media criticising western response given success of China and Russia vaccines being rolled out across developing world. Partly down to their shadowy science, they were always getting in first. One things for sure, the selfishness in the western world has really excelled itself. I'm not sure we can recover. I pray that we can keep ahead of the convergent evolution. We all should be. It's far too late to follow other countries lead now...
Let me be clear on this, if it hadn't been for Trump, this would NOT have happened on this scale. TL
R - He was too frightened of negatively affecting the economy in an election year. Even he would have closed borders if it had happened earlier in his term.If only! I wish I knew what Britain stood for now. I have no problem with ideology, but I struggle to see any sincerity in any UK party... The Conservatives and Unionists seem to be neither, I liked that their Minster for Unionism lasted two weeks! They seem to be interested in power for powers sake. I'm just amazed business has rolled over. The liberal democrats are the same. Neither Liberal or Democratic. Who knows what Labour really stand for? The SNP and Greens are the only ones with any sincerity. Doesn't bode well in FPTP two party state with more unelected lawmakers than the EU! (Though the MEP's actually have to win a vote.) There's an argument to say China is doing a better job of democracy considering they outnumber you 20 to 1! I am being facetious, but I see the stories of the poor souls who have been shafted on flammable cladding and I wonder...
A great trading nation? As a nation you've managed to put border/custom controls within your own country and overseas territories. Obviously the media / government are very good at pulling the wool over the eyes of the populous.
Your amazing artists/musicians/architects/audio+visual people are going to be seriously hindered in being able to work on the continent... That's before you fisherman and farmers get royally stuffed. I see a deal with Brazil looking likely.
The way your government speaks regarding state subsidy of business is crazy. You have deals with third nations (JPN/CA) that already bind you, yet any agreement with the EU on the subject is considered sacrilege.
I suspect the media has a lot to answer for, and many suggest that business was very fearful of government. 9 times out of 10 when democracies find themselves in this situation they do not recover. I fully expect the Conservatives, quite possibly with Johnson still at the helm, to be in power a decade from now.
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Sorry, just to pick out this again. It isn't about being world beating or exceptionalism. The Randle McMurphy comparison is apt in that you basket-cased yourselves unintentionally, hoping for an easier ride.
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I was referring to the "Moonshot testing" plan. I suppose the price is more about optics, nothing to do with reality. Fact is that testing is not really reliable enough to measure large number of cases. The greater the tests, the greater the false positive/negatives. You cannot decide covid policy on it.
China and most of Asian pacific... No I am not some neocon hawk. I cringe when I see media criticising western response given success of China and Russia vaccines being rolled out across developing world. Partly down to their shadowy science, they were always getting in first. One things for sure, the selfishness in the western world has really excelled itself. I'm not sure we can recover. I pray that we can keep ahead of the convergent evolution. We all should be. It's far too late to follow other countries lead now...
Let me be clear on this, if it hadn't been for Trump, this would NOT have happened on this scale. TL
If only! I wish I knew what Britain stood for now. I have no problem with ideology, but I struggle to see any sincerity in any UK party... The Conservatives and Unionists seem to be neither, I liked that their Minster for Unionism lasted two weeks! They seem to be interested in power for powers sake. I'm just amazed business has rolled over. The liberal democrats are the same. Neither Liberal or Democratic. Who knows what Labour really stand for? The SNP and Greens are the only ones with any sincerity. Doesn't bode well in FPTP two party state with more unelected lawmakers than the EU! (Though the MEP's actually have to win a vote.) There's an argument to say China is doing a better job of democracy considering they outnumber you 20 to 1! I am being facetious, but I see the stories of the poor souls who have been shafted on flammable cladding and I wonder...
A great trading nation? As a nation you've managed to put border/custom controls within your own country and overseas territories. Obviously the media / government are very good at pulling the wool over the eyes of the populous.
Your amazing artists/musicians/architects/audio+visual people are going to be seriously hindered in being able to work on the continent... That's before you fisherman and farmers get royally stuffed. I see a deal with Brazil looking likely.
The way your government speaks regarding state subsidy of business is crazy. You have deals with third nations (JPN/CA) that already bind you, yet any agreement with the EU on the subject is considered sacrilege.
I suspect the media has a lot to answer for, and many suggest that business was very fearful of government. 9 times out of 10 when democracies find themselves in this situation they do not recover. I fully expect the Conservatives, quite possibly with Johnson still at the helm, to be in power a decade from now.
Unfortunately the testing methods are all that is available.
The way to cope with a transmissable virus is to reduce transmission. That means finding out who has the virus and getting them to quarantine. And who they have been in contact with and getting them to quarantine.
Done right the virus spread is much reduced and in some countries appears to have been stopped.
But needs testing or else you simply force everyone who may have the virus and everyone they were in contact with to quarantine.
And to make sure they do quarantine you round them up and stick them in rooms in hotels.
Which is far more disruptive and far higher financial cost than simply testing hundreds of thousands of people a day.
Eventually we will have reliable tests that can be done quickly. 2 months into a pandemic is a bit soon to get that, 2 years maybe.
No clue what a neocon hawk is. Some local term in your area? Convergent evolution? Another local term?
Conservative and unionist party is one party. Usually referred to as the Conservatives or tories.
Wasn't aware we had a minister for unionism. Downing Street had an adviser who quit after 2 weeks, not a minister. Lots of people can be advisors without being ministers.
Lib Dems are a joining of the liberal party and the social democrats many years ago. Hence the name - they don't try to be either, they just are as they are. Be pretty pointless to join together then become all one half of the group!
What unelected lawmakers? Last I looked parliament was entirely elected lawmakers.
Artists, fishermen, farmers - they'd have got a better deal with a WTO trade deal instead? That was the other option on the table. The UK voted to leave so we were leaving - the trade we were going to do afterwards and what was needed by each side made up the 1300 page trade deal released at Christmas.
Which one was better for any of those groups in terms of markets, shipping of goods etc? Current trade deal or WTO trade deal?
Which democracies do not recover? You mention 9 times out of 10, which ones do not recover and which ones do? Presumably you know of at least 10 that have had this problem in the past.
Yes, quite possible the tories will still be in power. Could be Boris, could be one of the current cabinet ministers now in place ending up as PM. That's for the party to decide, not the rest of us.
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The Brexit deal is a poor one, but everyone seems to think that it is final, it will get changed and amended, partly down to the EU losing a lot of trade, seeing new countries replacing them in buyers minds etc.
Our artists managed working on the continent before the EU, they will manage again. The main problem regarding any binding agreements with the EU comes down to conditions the EU are trying to impose, offering US our fish stocks partly back, when they are not theirs to give, in OUR territorial waters they have no jurisdiction over. No independent country could agree to such demands, the EU is beginning to realise we have left, things will change.
Oh, yes, btw, we are a great trading nation, one of the major economies in the world, the international language of business worldwide, not bad for a small island.
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France gains the record for the highest deficit for an EU nation in 2020, 82.5 billion euros.
I think a lot of French people will be starting to look at Brexit, wondering how their economy might change if they had the franc again. A recent survey was predicting the UK to outstrip France by 25% in a few years time, once they were a larger economy, then equals, now ......
I think a lot of French people will be starting to look at Brexit, wondering how their economy might change if they had the franc again. A recent survey was predicting the UK to outstrip France by 25% in a few years time, once they were a larger economy, then equals, now ......
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Not only France. Many eyes all over the EU are watching to see what happens to us, though it will be hard in the next year or so to separate what is a pandemic effect from a Brexit effect.
But that does mean that the next country to leave will have hard economic data to consider. We didn't have that, only guesses one way or the other.
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A
Ally Maxwell
U.K. government borrowing soared to 173.7 billion pounds ($222 billion) in the first five months of the fiscal year (2020)
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D
Deleted member 59730
And just what was it before the referendum? The best comparison is the day before Cameron announced the referendum. Things have continued to go downhill since.
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I don't recall the exact date the referendum was announced, but the draft bill was published in May 2013. According to this chart, the exchange rate as of April 30th 2013 was 1.18.
https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/bank-of-england-spot/historical-spot-exchange-rates/gbp/GBP-to-EUR
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Deleted member 59730
We were both wrong.
The ref was announced on the 16th Feb 2016. The day before the exchange rate was 1.29
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T
The Byre
Both Brexit in the UK and the C19 failures within most of the EU show the limits to political ability when governmental bodies are forced to act - are forced to actually do something and do it properly and quickly!
There was no good reason for Brexit to go off the rails the way it has been (and no doubt will get much worse). There was no good reason for the European Commission to make a dog's breakfast out of C19 vaccinations.
Things go pear-shaped when one single body tries to take on a huge and multi-layered and multifaceted task.
There was no good reason for Brexit to go off the rails the way it has been (and no doubt will get much worse). There was no good reason for the European Commission to make a dog's breakfast out of C19 vaccinations.
Things go pear-shaped when one single body tries to take on a huge and multi-layered and multifaceted task.
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T
The Byre
For any central banker to claim that the future is rosy is bizarre! I am reminded of Ben Bernanke telling us in 2007 that CDOs were solvent.
I suppose if the BoE continues to create money hand-over-fist, they might be able to make some sort of bogus claim for a nominal rebound - in the same way that the ONS claimed that the economy only shrank by 10% last year (but only if you include all the loans, grants and furlough payments!!!)
The elephant outside the front door is the giant US economy - the US government spent $8tn last year and received just $3.5tn in taxes - but the economy grew by 3.5% - yer, right! You can't borrow your way out of debt - that is just a multi-trillion dollar Ponzi scheme!
The NY stock exchange is going great guns! But the Venezuelan stock market went even better! So how's the Venezuelan economy? Not so good!
According to the OECD, the US government spending deficit accounts for 15.5% of their GDP.
BUT
The UK government's spending deficit is an eye-watering 17% of GDP.
The OECD went on to state that the US economy can take just 5% of GDP as a gov. spending deficit - but the UK can only take 1%, as (1) the pound is not a world reserve currency, (2) the after-shocks of Brexit have yet to be fully felt, (3) UK industry is suffering consistently falling productivity.
Stated simply, the UK public spending deficit is 17-times above sustainability.
Now, either the OECD has joined the ranks of mad conspiracy theorists and their economists are all staggering about with tin-foil hats on - or yet another central banker is lying through his teeth!
You decide!
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