The Guardian view on a Brexit

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by LafayetteBis, Feb 18, 2020.

  1. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    From here: The Guardian view on a Brexit trade deal: tricky but not impossible

    It's not all the ministers who are kidding themselves, just one. The Prime Minister.

    The man, elected on a ruse, thinks he has the remainder-EU by the curlies? Think again, blondie!

    The British Right-wing must apparently learn the hard way, that is, with an increasing unemployment rate that will upturn the gradual reduction in the rate seen over the past five years or so. When you cut-off a major trading-partner, there are consequences to be had.

    From here: Statistics on UK-EU trade - Commons Library briefing - UK , excerpt (Dec., 2019):
    When one obtusely refuses to understand the trade-situation in which GB finds itself, and then shows the index-finger to EU-Brussels, there is something strangely stinking in GB politics. And that fetid smell of obstinate polity comes nowadays from Number 10 ...

    PS: Moreover Number 10 seems utterly devoid of the actual political outlook for the EU. For the EU as a whole, growth is forecast to ease marginally to 1.4% in 2020 and 2021, down from 1.5% in 2019. That turn-down cannot be altered by the present UK antics with the EU. Not at all, given that the negotiations this year will be upon increasing trade-taxation between the two-economies. (Which is contrary to everything the EU has learned and enjoyed since it first organized its unified trading-bloc in 1968.)
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2020
  2. Boosewell

    Boosewell Active Member

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    The Guardian's view is that the common folk are of course the salt of the earth, but should they really be allowed to vote?
     
  3. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    my dear chap...its all a game....don't get so up tight so soon....there's a long way to go yet....sit back, watch the show....chill.... don't start with the grauniad hype-ometer so soon.
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2020
  4. Boosewell

    Boosewell Active Member

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    Not to Lottie it ain't. He is a Yank who wants to be a Frog and is terrified that Trump will make a success of things.

    Poor little sod.
     
  5. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Two-liner sarcasm. That's all you got in a DEBATE forum?

    Go away ...
     
  6. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    what's to debate?
    is it? why?
    ...and my favourite colour is blue...

    You see the issue is that there is more to this than just soundbites which I'm sure is not really what you are want to debate. The prelude to any lengthy set of complicated and delicate negotiation period is laying out ones store; they want this we want that. Which is fine but inviting "debate" as you call it on the back of mere soundbites does not really encompass the sheer scope of the task ahead. So debating soundbites is not really of interest (I can't speak for @Boosewell but expect him to be of the same thought?). Basically we in the UK understand that at this stage we do not really expect any such sectoral agreements to be comprehensive or permanent. In all probability, they would require the U.K. to conform with current EU regulatory and legislative requirements. The all important financial services sector, which constitutes about 7% of the U.K. economy, is unlikely to be covered under such arrangements. Instead, market access will depend on EU regulators' determination of legal equivalence. This seems to the stage that we're at at the moment.

    Don't forget that any such negotiations could also be predicated upon U.K.'s policies in matters such as tax, regulation, and state aid which are likely to influence the deal it eventually reaches with the EU. The EU is keen to establish a level playing field to prevent the U.K. from enjoying an undue advantage over its member states. There is also the issues of the other bi-lateral agreements that the UK will have to enter into and as we all know the un-predictability of trade and political risk at the moment could also factor into the discussion process.

    Basically what I'm trying to get to is that whilst soundbites are easy to throw out, the real issues go un-debated as they are subsumed in a morass of unintelligent fluff. So my favourite colour is blue...debate
     
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  7. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Brexit was about leaving the EU.
    I'm sorry to state the obvious, but it's not like the UK's in the EU any more, after this transitional period is over, EU migrants won't be favoured in the UK and would have to be treated like everybody else unless they're given preference by being an overseas British citizen like Hong Kong.
     
  8. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    @LafayetteBis perhaps a point of interest in the on-going trade discussions. Much has been made on this site and indeed within the mainstream media about the UK and its relationship with the auto industry and how this could have a negative impact on, for example investment and employment. Taking a pan-European view, trends are evolving at the moment due to uncertainty within the global auto industry and various trade disputes, one could perhaps look at the situation arising within the European auto manufacturers and their component suppliers. There is an increasing trend emerging which potentially could be of interest to you and your thoughts on how the sectoral negotiations unfold being that as of January 2020, the auto sector is experiencing the highest negative (credit rating) bias in Europe at 45%--much higher than the region's overall negative bias of 16.8%. This seems in part due to the industry's decline in profitability and cash flow generation linked to the transition to cleaner mobility. Coupled with this, trade tensions have emerged that have further weighed on the industry's tight margins.
    My thoughts are that whilst there has been a certain amount of testosterone poured out at these initial stages of the political narrative, one hopes or assumes that a pragmatic approach will be taken in respect of the practical approach to trade discussion. My assumption is that it's within everyone's interest to maintain a level of cross-boarder co-operation so as to alleviate as much as possible the continuation of a negative slide for all the European auto/component sector.
     
  9. gnoib

    gnoib Well-Known Member

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    The biggest problem for the UK auto industry will be the supply chain. The parts for the vehicles come from all over Europe and are warehoused on wheels, not on site.
    Any form of custom, will disrupted or slow down, the constant flow of parts and that causes problems with production.
    Nobody knows jet, what deal will be made, or if there is no deal by the end of the year, extension or WTO.
    WTO means old fashion border control. Considering the amount of traffic going in both direction, the on the wheel warehousing supply chain will just collapse. Even with a deal a certain amount of customs control will be established. It will not be free flow, as it is right now.

    The biggest problem I see, for 40 some years, the UK industries have had free, barrier free excess to the European market and all their business plans are built on it, including the over 70 trade agreements the EU provides for its members.
    Those 70 are a huge chunk of any members economy. WTO all of that is lost, deal part of it will be lost, the 70 will be gone, no matter what.
    Can the UK economy, industry, adjust their business plans.
    How many businesses are strictly EU orientated ? Can they adjust, questionable.
    Will the EU automobile industry invest in the UK, with those huge changes coming along, 10s of billions of Euro needed in investment.
    I doubt that.
    I have jet to hear, that any of them is spending billions in the UK concerning e-mobility. It will even get worse, because the UK will be cut of from the billions the EU plans to invest, the subsidies.
    The only company I know of that will produce Es in the UK is BMW/Mini. But I assume that this is a matter of prudence. Mini are produced in the UK only and it is cheaper at the present to leave in the UK.
     
  10. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    LONG AND DEEP

    From here: A survey of 1,200 company directors by the Institute of Directors (IoD) has found that 29% feel that they may have no choice but to shift operations abroad as a result of Brexit.
    - excerpt:
    Read ther report and weep, GB, the Brexit economic abyss is long and deep. Not even London's fabulous banking-business escapes the madness that has overcome you (plural) ...
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
  11. Boosewell

    Boosewell Active Member

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    Why?

    It is and always has been the Guardianistas who have been squealing that life after Brexit won't be worth living because the price of a skinny latte will go up a euro and their East European slaves will be demanding three meals a day. By and large the Brexiters just wanted out of the EU and were more or less reconciled to the idea that the UK would go back to being hunters and gatherers.
     
  12. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    BREXIT - A GREAT BOTHER

    Your comment is devoid of any factual evidence whatsoever. The Brits cannot make a car in the UK that will sell in Europe, unless they move manufacturing to Spain. Which two non-Brit but European motor-car companies have done. (And that is just one example of record.)

    Moreover this example is just one of the more evident. Such as Financial Services that British banks are scrambling to pursue by opening offices in the EU. But these "offices" are just "show"; whilst the European banks will continue to offer financial services to British customers in Britain by means of existing offices in the UK.

    All of which is highly expensive to undertake and manage in a competitive financial market. Some Brit financial concerns of European origin are likely to fail.

    Whether Finance or Manufacturing, nothing good can come from the shifting of production-services to the EU-mainland. Nothing.

    The jobs being lost will not be replaced (in GB), unless the UK finds some magic "new-market" ploy where they are needed. I, for one, do not see where that can happen.

    Some countries must learn the hard-way. Britain's "Brexit" will be a good-lesson to learn for the remaining European countries* ...

    *Which have their own problems to attend to, namely the object of an interesting article in the Economist here: Aging Europe: Old, Rich and Divided
    - excerpt:

     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
  13. Boosewell

    Boosewell Active Member

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    I know. We Brexiters are just so bloody ignorant. :banana:
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
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  14. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Know thyself before purporting to know others. In terms of trade the UK has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to crow about.

    You've just shot yourself in the one foot left standing as a major trading-partner, EU trade*. (The UK exports more than twice as much to the EU as it does to the US.)

    Some people must learn the hard way. You-plural are very much such individuals ...

    *GB Volume of Trading Partners world wide. (Read it and weep.)
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
  15. Boosewell

    Boosewell Active Member

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    Well there you are. If only we had taken your advice Becky, we would not currently be starving to death and eating our young.
     
  16. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    I imagine a logistics manager sitting at his desk in charge of maintaining lines of supply and quantity management. Let's assume that we are dealing with people that are well aware of what is going on at the port/airport facilities where his trucks/trains/aircraft are going to pass through...lets assume he's a professional and has knowledge of the logistics business having been involved in it for a number of years. His software identifies the parts which are required for which lines of production and at what time they are needed. Data transfers between plant and supplier order the parts in the quantities required and identifies when they will be shipped and via which routing. Lets assume that the average delay at "a port" is 48 hours with a maximum delay of 60 hours....I would imagine that being a professional logistics manager he would have some idea of how to deal with a slight delay....or are we just assuming that the logistics/supply train business is manned by a bunch of utter friggin numpties without any idea of what is going on in the world?
    exactly...so at the moment its all just people masturbating over their keyboards hoping that the UK will fail.....It won't because economies are dynamic and adaptable. Do you really think that professionals are just sitting in their offices scratching their nuts wondering what to do? I mean can you comprehend the amount of money that has been spent in the City for banks/insurance companies to become EU passport compliant!
    what do you think? Do you subscribe to this narrative that people in positions of management don't know what is going on? Can you imagine the Board of BAe sitting there wondering what to do....I mean....seriously.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
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  17. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    I did. Its written by morons who are simply churning old moronic ***** because they haven't the intelligence to understand what's happening; who are merely pissed off because of brexit....please post something of substance instead of childish drivel...better still....go back to the brexit bus at least that was funny.
     
  18. gnoib

    gnoib Well-Known Member

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    But Yes, the UK better hope that everybody has done his homework. But all they can do is dry runs and hope for the best and hope that the UK government has planed for what ever the negotiations produce.
    From the worst case to the best case.
    How does it look at Dover, are there all the constructions going on for the worst case, Hard Brexit, or any other port, or at the Chunnel.
    The managers can not influence that, they can plan, but the infrastructure is government business and they have no control over it.
    What about the European countries, from which the trade to the UK happens. Have they made any special arrangement and invested millions into the new, possible hard boarder ?
    I don't think so. Calais how long do you think the lines will be, or at the Chunnel.

    I have a friend who lives in South England. The UK had its Hard Brexit exercises.
    20 miles from Dover the trucks were piled up, all the way into his neighborhood, peaceful residential.

    What you do not get. The EU countries just moved on, without the UK. They do not have the need to rush. Its the UK that has to provide the infrastructure, if it wants its goods flow to the EU and from the EU and it still does not have it, after 3 years.
    Its not the managers, its the infrastructure provide by the governments.
    Do you actually understand the fact that the UK is an Island ? and has been a member of the EU for over 40 years and has no trade agreements at all, besides the former Colonies, maybe.
    Do you get that fact ?
     
  19. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The countries themselves have nothing whatsoever to do regarding WHERE manufacturing operations are decided. Companies do that by seeking the best deal. (And typically, in terms of cost, it is the Eastern European countries that have the best deal to offer within the EU.)

    Now that Brexit is done, and given that the market is meek, nobody in the UK is rushing to put production into Europe. But, that will indeed happen when the EU economy begins to strengthen.

    Be patient. Maybe another year ...
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
  20. philosophical

    philosophical Well-Known Member

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    Brexit is about the UK (and Gibraltar) that means England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland all achieving 'brexit' equally.
    So far that has not happened, brexit is absolutely not 'done' despite what anybody may think or say.
    It might eventually get done at the cost of the peace process in Ireland.
     
  21. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    .....I'm struggling with it...its not easy...it gets in the way of Paws Patrol....
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2020
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  22. Boosewell

    Boosewell Active Member

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    That sort of comment always reminds me of an episode of Brass. A union activist (played by the splendid Barbara Ewing) has explained that capitalism is bound to fail as a result of its inherent contradictions and brought her members out on strike. Finally, after weeks of unspeakable deprivation and with no end in sight, a striker whimpers that he hasn't eaten in three days whereupon, with heroic stupidity, Barbara's character answers, that is right lad, we will starve them out.

    :)
     
  23. The Scotsman

    The Scotsman Well-Known Member

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    Who knows...but the EU auto industry is in a bit of a mess at the moment and the narrative here in the UK is being put onto the UK and Brexit, however, there are systemic issues within the board rooms that have nothing to do with Brext more to do with the structural issues surrounding the current business models. For example look at Renault, Renault's updated figures point to flat sales and an operating margin between 3% and 4% for 2020 versus 4.8% in 2019. Look at its EBIDA, it dropped to about 6.3% in 2019 from 7.8% in 2018 because of lower volumes sales, increased regulatory costs and higher marketing expenses related to the launch of new car models. Look at their free operating cash flow it went to around minus €100 million despite a release of working capital of about €1,500 million! - the reduction stemmed largely from lower earnings, but a moderate €330 million increase in capital expenditure to about €3 billion (excluding capitalized development costs) also had an impact. Their rating level is now a rather sad BBB-.
    Renault is not yet a typical example but the risk of intensifying competitive pressures in the European market may well cause a similar erosion with all car manufacturers in their IBIDA as they aggressively compete to steer their powertrain mix toward cleaner vehicles to meet their C02 targets - this could be an issue especially for Renault. The problem remains that all European makers are entrenching and Brexit is but a minor factor underlying a more fundemental problem. It is not just the UK that is seeing the effect of this (for at least the last 5 years a long time before Brexit was even heard of) but saying that it is just because of Brexit misses the wider issues.
    An interesting take away whilst talking to some bankers was the future business models with regard to electric vehicles and their financing structures - this was the risk of residual values based on their leasing and financial services through their captive finance entities especially based on the very high R&D costs.
    upload_2020-2-24_14-34-43.png

    But as you say
    ...but guess what....so will we....and it will be with the EU and not without it because economies and markets don't work like that.
     
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  24. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Capitalism being "bound to fail" is about as old as is the concept of Socialism. And, yet, it is Socialism that has actually failed. Howzat?

    Socialism calls for the government ownership of all the means of production. There is only one country left where such a patent idiocy persists. North Korea. (And China, if it ever really wanted to get back economically to where it was before 1990. Which I doubt seriously will ever happen.)

    Socialism "starved itself out" and is gone as a major political movement. It just did not "meet requirements". And it was not the US that made that point to the Communist Block, but the European Union. Which showed that a moderate "Social Democracy" could obtain the same personal merits as Communism and yet work within a capitalist economic-system.

    The case before us today thusly is not one of "which political theory" works best because frankly that question has been answered. And it is NOT BY A LONG-SHOT AMERICAN CAPITALISM. Donald Dork's reduction of Upper-income Taxation a year ago in the face of a Burgeoning US debt is typical of his sort of political-inanity. He thinks he's the annointed representative of the Rich Class that DESERVES to rule America. (His father told him that?)

    Today, the National Discretionary Spending graphical chart looks like this here. The great preponderance of DoD-expenditure is patently obvious. And for what? Which war requires that amount of expenditure percentage of the Total National Discretionary Budget?

    That Budget is the opinion of one man, and one man only. Multi-billionaire Donald Dork who is avidly looking forward to his reelection! The DoD-boost in the 2020-budget is an intent to stimulate his reelection-funding ....
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2020
  25. gnoib

    gnoib Well-Known Member

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    This is all nice stuff. But again, the UK has not built as of jet any infrastructure to accommodate any backlog of future customs inspection, which will occur on the main land. Are their Parking lots for, lets say 1000 trucks at Dover ?
    How about the customs infrastructure in NI, or across the water in the UK.
    Managers can plan as much as they want.
    But the major problem will be infrastructure and naturally the folks that do the inspection, in all main land ports and vice versa in the UK.

    I still remember those hard borders and the endless miles of trucks waiting for their turn.

    The EU has a very clear stand, its standards or the highway.
    Lets not forget there has to be a deal by October, because of the need to ratify it in the EU and in the EU countries.
    A mad dash, don't you think so ?
     

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