[Closed] EU Referendum - are you in or out?

Deutsche Bank published a piece a while ago saying Germany may leave first to get away from providing the RoEU with artifically low interest rates, funding their consumption and housing booms, and expanding their current account surplus without affecting relative exchange rates!

They want to see only bad news

No, I really want to see good news. I don't like feeling this depressend and anxious.

Fully accept that the Euro is a potentially dodgy idea. No need to convince me there.

Why why why? Don't any of you read anything?

Yes, but I haven't you explain why you think there'll be a manufacturing led recovery.

As for the € the currency isn't going to exist in its current form within a few years, it cannot survive.

So the Euro will be dead and gone by 2018? Are you prepared to put some money on that bet? As I will take it.

jambalaya - Member
... So far all the data is good and ...

and it really isn't.

No Graham, you need to think about net exports (ie. exports minus imports)

I thought I had?

Figures for August 2016:

Goods Export: £25.8 billion
Goods Import: £37.9 billion
==============================
[b]Net Goods: -£12.1 billion[/b]

Services Export: £19.3 billion
Services Import: £11.9 billion
==============================
[b]Net Services: +£7.4 billion[/b]

Net Goods:   -£12.1 billion
Net Services: £7.4 billion
==============================
[b]Overall Net: -£4.7 billion for August[/b]

Is that not right?

I'm using this as source:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/uktrade/aug2016

Yes and No. You need to examine trends in X-M ie net Xs over time

We run trade deficits consistently - that it not the issue. The issue is the extent to which a fall in the £ affects the level of net exports. After the J-curve effect, it will have a positive impact on this and therefore on UK National Income (all other things being equal)

all other things being equal

Maybe it's all just a wheeze to devalue the pound and get interest rates back up. Not sure they are they clever though.

They're not. But the first bit (deliberately devalue £) is true, but its a zero-sum game because lots of economies are doing the same thing

GrahamS - Member

I'm still struggling to understand how a low pound helps UK business?

We pay more for imports, receive more for exports, correct?
But we import way more than we export (by about £4.7 billion a month at the moment) so isn't that a negative effect overall?

Plus the low pound means we all pay more for fuel which increases costs further.

The theory is that by devaluing the £ either on purpose, or by doing something really stupid for the sake of Blue Passports. We make British made goods cheaper on the global market.

So maybe someone like Hope can undercut Raceface in the EU or US and sell a few more cranks and brakes, but like you say it won't work because economies don't work like that - you can't just change one thing to make one industry better without everything else being affected.

To make the UK a manufacturing, exporting powerhouse again we'd either have to build a HUGE high-end manufacturing base - I know we make a lot of great, high-end things in the UK for export, but to base an economy on it we would have to compete with Germany, and it's too late - we lost that fight. The world wants Siemens, not Amstrad, Audi, Mercedes, BWM, not Rover and Austin.

Or we mass produce more low-end stuff, and try to compete with China and the rest of the Far East, undo 40+ years of manufacturing decline - build new factories, I would actually probably like that, not that I want to work in a factory - but full employment and a proper employed, proud, working class - but the pain and suffering we'd face - our economy would have to tank for years, and years and years for the £ to be so worthless that you could build plastic crap in the UK cheaply and even then - the Chinese would undercut us.

The 'new world order' has been agreed, in the Global Economy the East makes stuff, the West buys stuff - we pay our way by doing stuff for each other and inflating our debt away which makes the stuff we buy from the east cheaper. Like it or not, that's the way of things and no amount of rose tinted views of a past that didn't exist is going to change that - there is nothing to be earned from being a small player in the global economy.

Like this showing X-M as % of GDP over time?

[img] [/img]

After the J-curve effect, it will have a positive impact on this and therefore on UK National Income (all other things being equal)

The snag being that trade and tariff changes will mean that all other things are not equal?

And if the Euro crashes as Jamba predicts then our lower prices may not increase demand as our biggest importer will be hurting too.

[quote=rosscore ]

mortagage companies can't make a margin over the base rate so they apply what the hell they like and the market will take.

Eh? the banks are under no obligation to give you the BOE base rate. Tracker deals are generally short term then reverting to a higher rate.

Even a quick play with the Barclays site tells me that a 25 year mortgage for £180,000 with a 2 year tracker period, you would repay £272,097. That's a massive profit of £92,097 which is 52% of the original loan.

In fact even if they gave you their tracker rate for the full 25 year term, they'd still make £62k/35% profit.

Indeed

And a disorderly collapse of the euro would hurt us all.

Rosscore - cheer up. You're coming over like a bitter old man. It's us remainers who are meant to be bitter about the damage you've done to the country we love. Be more like chewkw - spaced out and happy - or Jamba - black knight-esque optimism.

Do cheer up, you won. Maybe.

PS - took me ages to work out who Jamba's pronouncements reminded me of. '''Tis but a flesh wound to the economy.
Jamba- that's you're pronouncements on here - other threads would show you to be a decent individual.

IT'LL BE FINE

GrahamS - Member

I never voted for the Federal Republic of Europe and I don't want to be part of it

As pointed out before the "United States of Europe" was very much part of Churchill's original vision in 1946.

igm - Member
Rosscore - cheer up. You're coming over like a bitter old man

Yes I was a couple of times back there, my apologies for that, I do try not to be bitter despite having lost everything simply because we are part of that monstrosity. Won? I've won nothing, none of us have won anything, the world goes on and only the masters of the city boy universe win. They win whatever happens, if they lose we bale them out, if the £ tanks they win on the short.

Incidentally, how's the price of steel? I heard the price of scrap metal has recovered recently (another pub conversation where these things are always more cheerful and the irony shines through)Maybe there's a spark of hope for the steel Industry here.

Try not to think of me as bitter, I have been trying to offer the suggestion that it's not as bad as the remoaners would have you think and it'll work out, as I said back there traders will trade on regardless even though we've put up the trade barrier of devalued sterling, traders will still find a way.

On a lighter note, anyone seen the front cover of the mail today. They're trolling their own readers. Article lead is how the refugee/migrant children don't look like children, picture lead is Cindy Crawford (50) and her teenage daughter stating how you can't tell them apart. 🙄

[img] [/img]

So it went down, did any of your mortgages, I have a two year fixed, its ending as I write this, my new mortgage is more expensive

Ummm.. yes?

We remortgaged 6 months ago at 2.49% fixed for 5 years 4 months.

Prior to that we'd been stuck on a 4.99% standard rate, so the change means we are paying about £200 less a month.

If we'd waited till today we could get a fixed rate between 1.94% to 2.03% on the same terms.

Incidentally, how's the price of steel? .. the irony shines through)

[img] [/img]

I do try not to be bitter despite having lost everything simply because we are part of that monstrosity

So what exactly happened? You were outbid by an EU competitor that had been given some advantage by the EU or something?

and when the UK is shot of the EU how will life be better?
In other news I have a new headache & migraine cure
[img] [/img]
Some minor side effects but we are working on those

Tariffs are up on steel.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/07/eu-slaps-steep-tariffs-on-cheap-chinese-steel/

The irony.

I'm not sure how leaving the EU will help the UK steel industry, because if we default to the WTO we won't be able to implement any tariffs so we will be flooded with cheap steel subsided by the Chinese government.

Unless we are planning on reforming not only EU rules but WTO in 2 years as well?

Rosscore - given what I do and who I do it for (not hard to work out off the web I suspect) it'll work out for me regardless I suspect, but for those lower down the employment scale I suspect it's going to be really tough.
It has also got the potential to hurt what my cousin does (road manager for medium sized bands) - he works all over but getting visas and permits is the bane of his life - the logistics of getting the visas and trying to work simultaneously is fun. He was looking forward to just doing Europe and not needing as much paperwork - that's going to get very difficult so we may see fewer touring bands.
My son from age 8 has wanted to do a ski season in the Alps - it'll probably still be possible but it will be harder (we'll see if the eurotypes want to hand seasonal visas for jobs their own kids could do).

As for the economy, well I'm sure the Brexit fantasy team predictions will come true. Or not. Doesn't look good for a decade or two though does it?

Not given the government forecast is for a 4.5% drop in GDP as a result - thats a massive recession coming. Remember we have not left yet so the bad effects we see so far are only the tip of the iceberg.

what my cousin does (road manager for medium sized bands)

your cousin is clearly a masochist. he's gonna love it.

Not given the government forecast is for a 4.5% drop in GDP as a result - thats a massive recession coming.

Blimey, I missed that. If true 😉 that's very bad news

Doris5000 - you may have a point. But he is getting married to a French lass and was thinking of a slightly less masochist lifestyle. Slightly.

As for the economy, well I'm sure the Brexit fantasy team predictions will come true. Or not. Doesn't look good for a decade or two though does it?

No, as the economy deleverages we will have a sustained period of sub-trend growth. This will be compounded by Brexshit. With the fall in the pound, inflationary pressures will re-emerge and this may bring an end to the period of extraordinary monetary policy which (together with [s]austerity[/s] loose fiscal policy) has kept us going artificially.

The end of QE is unlikely to be an orderly process. Forget Brexshit at that point, we will have own issues to deal with then and it wont be pretty.

The last thing we needed was Brexshit adding to the challenges. Self harm

4.5% must be from here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-theresa-may-britain-lose-45-gdp-eu-customs-union-a7369181.html

I'm this will be disputed as Remoaner Project Fear by the Bretards however.

I thought that 4.5% was 4.5% less growth, not a 4.5% fall.

Manufacturing led recovery... right here we go
1. The venture capitalists (landlords) only investment in fixed assets - so they could build a factory and rent it to you (industrial buy to let?) Unlikley they would as there is a surplus of unoccupied industrial buildings and no demand
2. The venture capitalists want nothing to do with anything that has more than a 3 to 5 years exit strategy (fast buck syndrome)
3. No need for them to improve the lot of the working poor (No profit just drives up labour costs)
There is no mechanism or will in the UK to invest in industrial capacity. Just ask Dyson

Phew! 😉

Why focus on venture capital? They only play a very specific role.

We invest in industrial capacity all the time. I spent all of Monday morning with people who do exactly that.

I'm not speaking to Dyson at the moment - not apologises over his Brexit stance.

I see so the LSE estimates

“Leaving the EU customs union would hurt the British economy and a fall in GDP per capita of 4.5% by 2030 is a sensible estimate of the potential impact. We cannot know for certain how large the costs will be,”

as I said, phew 😉

Based on all of the above, surely any vaguely responsible Government would spell out the pros and cons of leaving and say "look, we massively ****ed up in even calling a referendum, it was completely mis-sold (and unlike PPI, we can't get compensation for being mis-sold Brexit!), you can all see what a complete catastrophe this has been in even a few short months and we've not even formally started the leaving process yet so in the interest of, well, everyone, we're going to ignore what was a non-binding referendum and do what's best for the country. We're not leaving".

And then (after several months of dealing with the political fallout and possibly even a snap election), they could get back to running the country.

Just a thought...

That was done before - albeit very imperfectly - and we had a vote. We have to get on with it now. Its crap but you cant just pretend it didnt happen

(having said that I have no doubt that the real deals are being neogtiated miles away from the formal process and that a fudge will appear - we already have it with the payments for bankers and industry, but the big bazooka will be next year)

Churchill believed in a United States of Europe in order to remove the Sovereignty of France and Germany so they would stop attacking each ofher. His clear intention was to leave them to it and to focus the UK Westwards towards the USA.

I'll leave this here (again).

[img] [/img]

I'm probably being a bit slow here but one of things I think I've read many times are statements to the effect of "the UK can't possibly have free trade without free movement of people"..

In light of the map below, can anyone explain why the EU appears to not only be negotiating towards this with a number of countries, but it's already formalised agreements to this effect with Vietnam and Singapore?

Why would the EU want a free trade partnership with Australia, 10,000 miles away but not entertain one with a country 26 miles away?

source for map: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/

[img] [/img]

Hope you boys have very deep pockets teamhurtnomore and lots of (blind)faith in the post Brexit market opportunities.... we are all depending on you (oliver Twist moment)

Hope you boys have very deep pockets teamhurtnomore and lots of (blind)faith in the post Brexit market opportunities.... we are all depending on you (oliver Twist moment)

😯 I am not optimistic. We had a difficult future made harder - and all self-inflicted. We will all have to work a lot harder to make any opportunities work.

[i]“Leaving the EU customs union would hurt the British economy and a fall in GDP per capita of 4.5% by 2030 is a sensible estimate of the potential impact. We cannot know for certain how large the costs will be,”[/i]

Erm. If the GDP falls by 4.5% between now and 2030 that would be a monster recession as even at 1% growth pa the GDP would have grown by +15% in that time - so it'd make it a [b]20% fall![/b]

just5minutes - no not slow - people are just misusing terms that's all.

Oh look, a convenient way to back out of having to meet EU air quality standards that we're currently a very long way from meeting!

(@ 3:20)

We still [i]want[/i] better air quality, they say, but we'll say nothing about how our funky new patriotic standards compare with the EU ones.

Those pesky Europeans, trying to stop the air we breathe from killing us. That's not the British way!

BR - I think it means, say, 15.5% instead of 20% not -4.5% instead of 20%. It's the in-out fall not the absolute fall.

.

In light of the map below, can anyone explain why the EU appears to not only be negotiating towards this with a number of countries, but it's already formalised agreements to this effect with Vietnam and Singapore?

Why would the EU want a free trade partnership with Australia, 10,000 miles away but not entertain one with a country 26 miles away?

What is this dead easy questions on the EU?

[i]BR - I think it means, say, 15.5% instead of 20% not -4.5% instead of 20%. It's the in-out fall not the absolute fall. [/i]

Ok, but predicting that we will be worse off in 2030 than we are now, whether it's 4.5%, 15.5%, 20% or even just 1% means a severe recession.

Have we any clarification of these numbers?

Oh God - who mis-used 4.5%? 😉

Dont worry its not that bad. Bad, yes, but not in the sense .

Here's the EU deal..

OK, so we're off, we'll take a free trade agreement and zero tariffs, we might even match yours on inbound stuff if your good, sorry no free movement and you probably need to do something about that for your own internal political situation.
We won't be helping out with your European Army but you can still rely on Nato.
We'll have our 55 mill back from the ECB but we'll honour our share of the pensions.
No we won't be contributing going forward sorry about that.
Please observe the No fishing signs up the Channel on our side and in the North Sea.
Oh and that 1st payment of the 50% of our Trident project is due, when can we expect the cheque?
Was there anything else?

Was there anything else?

A complete detachment from reality perhaps?

I think he's just cut and paste the Brexit negotiating plan from Theresa's computer

I think he's just cut and paste the [s]Brexit negotiating plan from Theresa's computer[/s] daily express letters page

Was there anything else?

Residential status of about 4 million individuals ring any bells?

a smiley?

OK, so we're off, we'll take a free trade agreement and zero tariffs

What? How? Is that on offer?

Can someone explain how Delphi are going to get their injectors heat treated and still stay competitive with cost?

why Brexiters keep saying that the Eu will allow free trade without free movement of people ?????

They dont understand how it works?

Because if they admitted that wasn't going to happen, they'd have to accept what a **** up they've caused.

Here's the EU deal..
OK, so we're off, we'll take a free trade agreement and zero tariffs, we might even match yours on inbound stuff if your good, sorry no free movement

Can I just check - have all your comments on this thread been on the assumption that's the deal we're going to get? If we can't actually get anywhere close to that would you revise your opinion?

His clear intention was to leave them to it and to focus the UK Westwards towards the USA.

Got a direct quote for that Jambas or is that just your opinion?....

There is absolutely zero chance of tariff free access to the single market without free movement of people. Also zero chance of tariff free access to the single market without making contributions.

There are absolute red lines for the EU and this is a basic underlying principle of the EU

Free movement of people works both ways FFS.
All I want to do is retire to the sunshine.
If we stop young people coming to work here they will stop old gits going out there to do nothing but use their hospitals.
What we do they will do.So it's best to be NICE.

I have the same espresso cups as Jambaliar… anyone want to buy them off me?

Sorry.

I'm probably being a bit slow here but one of things I think I've read many times are statements to the effect of "the UK can't possibly have free trade without free movement of people"..

Well, the right for workers to move about is a major block on many of those trade deals being completed. Take the India one for example, they want to be able to use some of their experts on site in their EU offshoots without having to beg to nations states each time… but, the U.K. blocked it. Perhaps that'll all get sorted in 2.5 years time… anyway, the movement of workers is often the sticking point when it comes to trade deals.

We won't be helping out with your European Army but you can still rely on Nato.

We'll still share aircraft carriers with the French though, yes?

Please observe the No fishing signs up the Channel on our side and in the North Sea.

Will we be buying back the (privatised) fishing quotas we've sold to companies in other EU countries? Or just tearing up international treaties and putting gun boats in place to enforce our illegal embargo?

tjagain - Member
There is absolutely zero chance of tariff free access to the single market without free movement of people. Also zero chance of tariff free access to the single market without making contributions.

There are absolute red lines for the EU and this is a basic underlying principle of the EU

We should have a little bet.

There will probably have to be some contribution, we're going to have to simply because of historic liabilities, but freedom of movement, nope sorry, not going to happen and tariffs? I very much doubt it.

kelvin - Member

Will we be buying back the (privatised) fishing quotas we've sold to companies in other EU countries? Or just tearing up international treaties and putting gun boats in place to enforce our illegal embargo?

Ha coming soon, Cod Wars part deux! 😆

Ha coming soon, Cod Wars part deux!

I don't reckon our Navy is up to the job..

I have still not read or heard any good reasons for us to leave the EU.

I fail to understand how so many people were convinced to believe that the EU is such a terrible thing for the UK.

I also fail to understand how the government can keep up the pretence that a large proportion of the population voted to leave, when there was only a small majority, leaving a very divided nation on the verge of doing something totally ridiculous.

Let us never again have a referendum for the masses, on a permanent decision, with a threshold of only 50%

Watching news and odd that someone with May's experience looks so desperately uncomfortable on a leaders' stage.

37% of eligible voters chose leave, not a majority. Something that I think deserves a bit more attention.

Don't worry Aristolte, there weren't any

rosscore, I'll bet £10,000 that we won't get tarriff-free trade without freedom of movement. Are you interested?

rosscore - Member

There will probably have to be some contribution, we're going to have to simply because of historic liabilities, but freedom of movement, nope sorry, not going to happen and tariffs? I very much doubt it.

Haven't we already pretty much decided we're going to have to pay to let the banking industry have access to the EU. And this Danegeld surely won't come cheap.

Sounds like the current government thinking is freedom of movement for professional middle class types while the working class can know their place and stay in it.

While I kind of feel that reflects the vote (in general at least), it does sound a little divisive.

Good call igm. I Hadn't been attuned to that possibility. Sounds horrible.

I suppose you could extend that to free movement of the elderly, due to work prospects

There is absolutely zero chance of tariff free access to the single market without free movement of people. Also zero chance of tariff free access to the single market without making contributions.
There are absolute red lines for the EU and this is a basic underlying principle of the EU

The odd thing is that the Germans are in the process of approving a law meaning no unemployment benefits for 5 years for EU citizens. I thought when Cameron asked for the same he was tood it was a core EU principal of equal treatment. Freedom of movement the EU's stance is its an integral part of free trade, however if the project stands at the point of collpase I'd wager they'll be a change of heart. There is no hard business or economic reason for it to be linked.

Now I don't disagree with you that the EU will probably stick to that position (not least as 27 will never agree) which is why just getting on with quick clean hard Brexit is best way forward. Spend the time, effort and recourses outside the EU as its just not worth the bother

Finally I watched sone of Commons Committe on Brexit/EU rights - Romanian and Polish Ambassadors. They seemed to want a lot of answers about their citizens rights in the UK but didn't have much in the eay of guarantees for Brits in their countries (despite their being 1 million Poles in UK amd just 5,000 registered Brits in Poland)

Could be a fun QT tonight

Ken Clarke apparently arguing point about advisory nature of referendum

Varoufakis who is always interesting if not correct but a good foil to the myopic Germans and their apologists

Er, yeah, that would be expected. Because they get to say/negotiate how many Brits can stay. They will have control over that bit.
What they might not be able to control is poles rights in the UK, hence their well thought out question.

So much wrong with your last post Jamba, that I don"t know where to start. Full of errors. Delibrate, or not?

And, I say "errors" out of charity.