The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[tonyh29]

U.K first in line for trade deals with the U.S according to Boris

so that's us 47th behind Latvia then ...

[Enda]

17 minutes ago, peterms said:

There are some interesting points made by Steve Keen and others, that many fields including climate science and others have drawn on chaos theory, network effects and other things, while economics hasn't, and that this partly explains why the models are so weak. So maybe weather forecasts would be an improvement.

Off-topic, but please consider Steve Keen an absolute charlatan. (And I've written more than one paper on network theory.)

[peterms]

11 minutes ago, Enda said:

Off-topic, but please consider Steve Keen an absolute charlatan. (And I've written more than one paper on network theory.)

On the modelling point,  the Cambridge paper discussing the weaknesses of the mainstream models is interesting, and reflects the criticisms a lot of heterodox economists have been making.  Have you seen it?  The Cambridge people are trying to base their own approach on a more Keynesian way of looking at things, also using Wynne Godley's thinking.  It's a Keen-free critique of the models which have so signally failed.

[tonyh29]

Snapchat making the UK it's base of operations outside the U.S ... apparently it's a great place to build a global business , which probably comes as a surprise to people ...

 

 

 

[Chindie]

I daresay Snapchat has very different requirements/regulations to adhere to, to the much larger number of small (and not so small) businesses flogging physical items or services, particularly to Europe.

But great for them. I trust all of the US digital media empire will flock here now.

[tonyh29]

21 minutes ago, Chindie said:

to the much larger number of small (and not so small) businesses flogging physical items or services, particularly to Europe.

I read somewhere that only 6% of UK businesses actually trade within the EU , ( which is amusing as the figure came from Remain and whilst looking quite low is actually higher than the 200,000 businesses that Britain stronger in Europe were using as their figure during the campaign ) 

but whilst Snapchat clearly are global and will want to trade with Europe and the world .... are we putting too much emphasis on the number of companies flogging stuff to Europe ?   

[peterms]

15 hours ago, Awol said:

The alleged spike in reported hate crimes? According to the PDF linked below that's largely untrue and based on some highly questionable reporting. 

Hate crimes: the facts behind the headlines

 

Civitas is an explicitly right wing group, spun off from the IEA, which was set up after the war by an Old Etonian whose business was based on animal cruelty, with the aim of promoting the agenda of Hayek and others.

Civitas claimed a few years ago that hate crime laws were being unfairly used against white Christian Britons.

I really wouldn't see them as an independent or authoritative source on anything, especially this.

[PieFacE]

I have a couple of thousand Euros to exchange into GBP. Looking at the exchange rate today, it's pretty good comparing it to last week. 

 

If you were in my position would you exchange now, or wait til Article 50 gets invoked and exchange whilst the market wobbles? 

[Chindie]

35 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I read somewhere that only 6% of UK businesses actually trade within the EU , ( which is amusing as the figure came from Remain and whilst looking quite low is actually higher than the 200,000 businesses that Britain stronger in Europe were using as their figure during the campaign ) 

but whilst Snapchat clearly are global and will want to trade with Europe and the world .... are we putting too much emphasis on the number of companies flogging stuff to Europe ?   

6% looks low. I've just been digging through various reports and can't find any reference to overall UK exports. But assuming it's correct, I doubt 94% of UK businesses don't have any exposure to Europe - those 6%, for arguments sake, will have businesses supply them, that ultimately means there's an exposure to the EU that's bigger than first appears. And that's not accounting for the reciprocal side of things, where businesses are getting stuff from Europe to process and sell back. I understand the chemical, machinery automotive industry are expected to particularly feel a hard Brexit pinch.

[Awol]

12 minutes ago, Chindie said:

 I understand the chemical, machinery automotive industry are expected to particularly feel a hard Brexit pinch.

Assuming we end up with tariff barriers that may be true, in the short term. 

Looking out 10-15 years (if that) the combination of Artificial Intelligence, automation and 3D manufacturing are expected to radically diminish the importance  of global supply chains. 

[LondonLax]

Now that Corbyn has come out in support of Brexit where do 48% of the electorate now park their vote? Could the Lib Dems make an unlikely comeback from the death? 

[villaglint]

Oh my, I hope your not pinning to much of the grand plan on that people have had these kind of "expectations" for a long long time and I'm still waiting for my hover car. 

This thread, well what to say, some very insightful posts, a lot of look here's an individual piece of evidence which I will bend to my line of thinking.

I've largely kept out of it because even though I have very grave concerns ultimately there are so many moving parts to this that I don't see how any rational person can have an ounce of faith as to which direction things will go for us. 

 

[peterms]

1 minute ago, Awol said:

Looking out 10-15 years (if that) the combination of Artificial Intelligence, automation and 3D manufacturing are expected to radically diminish the importance  of global supply chains. 

Those things are also expected to remove the need for vast numbers of jobs, far beyond the sphere of manufacturing.  Unless we force governments to take radical action to protect the position of very large numbers of people, we will see that change result in ever widening income and wealth disparity.

It's a point that goes well beyond the Brexit debate, but both regarding Brexit and otherwise, the point is that expecting market-driven change to benefit us is deluded.

The idea of putting up trade barriers and repatriating car factories from Mexico to Trumpton, and mimicking that in other countries, is not the answer.  There's currently not enough discussion about what kind of answer we should be looking for, whether we have any kind of Brexit or not.

[Chindie]

I've seen £30bn as a possible impact if a hard Brexit, and it's likely for those advancements to take longer to actually filter into industry fully (and arguably they would have their own negative impacts). Incidentally other industries expected to particularly hurt in a hard Brexit are agriculture, textiles and the wider food industry.

We also have a massive trade balance deficit with over 50% with the EU.

And I think Tony's 6% is wrong.

The impact is going to be huge.

[tonyh29]

53 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Now that Corbyn has come out in support of Brexit where do 48% of the electorate now park their vote? Could the Lib Dems make an unlikely comeback from the death? 

tbf he was always in support of Brexit so I'm not sure he's come out

[tonyh29]

53 minutes ago, villaglint said:

Oh my, I hope your not pinning to much of the grand plan on that people have had these kind of "expectations" for a long long time and I'm still waiting for my hover car. 

This thread, well what to say, some very insightful posts, a lot of look here's an individual piece of evidence which I will bend to my line of thinking.

I've largely kept out of it because even though I have very grave concerns ultimately there are so many moving parts to this that I don't see how any rational person can have an ounce of faith as to which direction things will go for us. 

 

luckily there is formula to help you with this

Information you like (a) - Information you don't like (r) = argument you present as your evidence (s)

 

[tonyh29]

45 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I've seen £30bn as a possible impact if a hard Brexit, and it's likely for those advancements to take longer to actually filter into industry fully (and arguably they would have their own negative impacts). Incidentally other industries expected to particularly hurt in a hard Brexit are agriculture, textiles and the wider food industry.

We also have a massive trade balance deficit with over 50% with the EU.

And I think Tony's 6% is wrong.

The impact is going to be huge.

tbf it's not my 6%    I just quoted something I'd read

but the BBC did fact check it in April 2016

Vote Leave's 6% figure comes from a report by Business for Britain, which looked at the proportion of VAT-registered companies that submitted what are called EC sales lists to the government.

In 2012 it was just over 4%, but they've allowed an extra margin for any increase since then.

[Chindie]

I've seen a report quoting Chelem, who do economic analyses, which seems to have our 2014 export to Germany alone as 10% of our total.

Not my strong point though.

[tonyh29]

59 minutes ago, peterms said:

The idea of putting up trade barriers and repatriating car factories from Mexico to Trumpton, and mimicking that in other countries, is not the answer.  There's currently not enough discussion about what kind of answer we should be looking for, whether we have any kind of Brexit or not.

Have we proposed building a wall between Watford and the North and then repatriating Nissan from Sunderland  ?

you may be right and there isn't enough discussion but without wishing to be endorsing Trump , cancelling a 1.6bn Ford car plant being built in Mexico and instead building it in America , doesn't strike me as a bad idea for an American company  ... fairly sure you were very vocal about how Thatcher closed the pits and imported cheaper coal from Russia and thus destroyed a UK industry ..not to mention the on cost of  paying benefits , retraining and of course the drop in tax revenues paid by workers   ..

isn't Trump in effect doing exactly the sort of thing you argued Thatcher should have done ( loosely speaking)

[Awol]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

Those things are also expected to remove the need for vast numbers of jobs, far beyond the sphere of manufacturing.  Unless we force governments to take radical action to protect the position of very large numbers of people, we will see that change result in ever widening income and wealth disparity.

It's a point that goes well beyond the Brexit debate, but both regarding Brexit and otherwise, the point is that expecting market-driven change to benefit us is deluded.

The idea of putting up trade barriers and repatriating car factories from Mexico to Trumpton, and mimicking that in other countries, is not the answer.  There's currently not enough discussion about what kind of answer we should be looking for, whether we have any kind of Brexit or not.

Peter, please sit down.

 

Ready?

 

We agree. 

From the little I understand on the subject once AI can pass the Turing Test there will be an employment apocalypse, first of blue collar and then increasingly white collar jobs.

Basic income? I don't know but when 10% of the population has the productive capacity to meet 100% of global need we'll have to fundamentally change the way society is structured or its welcome to dystopia.

Will capital give up its privileged position willingly? No, but then mass has a quality all of its own and Surrey is not a defensible position - with apologies to Mark Blythe.