Disqus - Latest Comments for chairmanbill

Re: "Brexit Britain Wins $35 Billion Contract to Build Aussie Warships"

chairmanbill — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 08:48:13 -0000

Troll? Just pointing out the bleeding obvious to those who can't read beyond a headline. Jesus - you're so snowflakey

Re: "Brexit Britain Wins $35 Billion Contract to Build Aussie Warships"

chairmanbill — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 07:54:00 -0000

And they're being built in Australia with Australian labour. Fantastic.

Re: "Brexit Britain Wins $35 Billion Contract to Build Aussie Warships"

chairmanbill — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 07:51:34 -0000

And we're still in the EU! Brilliant.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 03:41:00 -0000

We do have control over our own borders, but successive governments have elected not to exercise that control. Half of UK immigrants enter from non-EU countries, over which we have full control. EU citizens who come to the UK to find work cannot claim Jobseeker's allowance during their first three months in the country. After that they can claim for a total of 91 days, which can be split across several periods of job seeking. They can continue claiming beyond that period if they can demonstrate that they are actively looking for a job and are likely to get it. After a total of six months they can be removed if they still have not found a job, have no realistic possibility of finding one and require support from the welfare system. This is entirely within EU rules. The government failed to bring into practice the EU rules about 3 months' work and health insurance, it never adopted any Digi-id or registration system which would help the natural process of getting immigrants to places they need to be (and which incidentally means our net in/out number is probably inaccurate), it never bothered with any language learning, integration and testing processes and it's never publicly stated that immigration is a good thing for Britain. Immigration is more of a systemic problem for countries bordering civil wars and the Schengen Area. Conclusion: scapegoating for a failure of successive UK governments to implement rules as they stand.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 03:38:56 -0000

Good luck with that. Ferguson tractors, ships, cloth from Indian cotton?

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 03:37:34 -0000

What - £4k?

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 03:14:56 -0000

Unfortunately, it would seem they will be more expensive too, what with parts coming from Europe.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 02:27:22 -0000

And then there's the question of why we're even doing it when all the reasons given thus far have been shown to be so much rubbish.

As I said previously; when the UK was outvoted in only 2% of cases; when the government encouraged fishermen to sell their quotas abroad; when we’re already selling to the rest of the world; when the cost of membership of the EU is between 1/12th and 1/29th of what we stand to lose in GDP by leaving; when EU accounts have indeed been signed off by auditors; when we don’t send £350m a week to Brussels; when the UK government has as many unelected roles as the EU (if not more); when the UK won’t be made to pay for future bail-outs; when Turkey stands no chance of joining the EU; when the UK would have a veto on an EU Army; when countries aren’t queueing up for FTAs with the UK; when we very obviously don’t have the upper hand in negotiations; when it plainly isn’t ‘the quickest deal ever’; when we do actually have control of our borders, but successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, failed to implement the rules already available to them.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 02:24:53 -0000

I only ever buy 2nd hand. I've never bought a new car in my life. 2nd hand VWs will see me out.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 02:05:38 -0000

So you're saying that a loss in confidence needs to be maintained, as it's that which has produced the fall in sterling. If, as Brexiteers claim, we're headed for a Utopian upland, you will have sterling climbing again. Your only hope it for sterling to crash to continue to export.

However, we we're a net importer, what happens to all our imports? They become more expensive, putting pressure on purses and hence wages. That results in inflation and higher borrowing costs.

Whichever way you look at it, it's a crock.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sun, 13 May 2018 02:02:13 -0000

How can the British feel they are being punished when it's their own act that results in imports costing more? That seems reverse logic.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Sat, 12 May 2018 02:21:33 -0000

I'd hardly call a VW Golf a prestige car. Best car I ever had - much better than the Jag X-Type estate. Also got a Mercedes 500SL from 1996 - still going strong and built like a tank. Highly over-engineered. That said, the mem-sahib has a 2001 SLK - lovely mechanics but a bit of a rot-box now around the seams.

Remember BL cars? Hideous. They've improved since then, but we just don't seem to be as good as the Germans.

Wouldn't have a Japanese car, except perhaps an old Honda NSX, but they're getting rarer than hen's teeth and rather expensive.

French? Not this side of the 2nd coming.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Fri, 11 May 2018 21:32:55 -0000

It's a fact that there are very few Brits working in the catering industry, which entails very long hours and hard work. It's also a fact that the unions are ideologically opposed to productivity increases.

Of course I'm not saying every Brit is workshy. but we're renowned the world over as not being exactly the hardest working nation.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Fri, 11 May 2018 11:43:31 -0000

Couldn't agree more.

The referendum was won, not with talk of the benefits of the single market, but with lies plastered onto buses about the costs of EU membership; with leaflets erroneously claiming that Turkey was about to join the EU, giving it an open land border with Syria and Iraq; and with Nigel Farage standing grinning in front of posters featuring anonymous hordes of sinister-looking brown people. Fear won the referendum – fear based on palpable and demonstrable lies.

When the UK was outvoted in only 2% of cases; when the government encouraged fishermen to sell their quotas abroad; when we’re already selling to the rest of the world; when the cost of membership of the EU is between 1/12th and 1/29th of what we stand to lose in GDP by leaving; when EU accounts have indeed been signed off by auditors; when we don’t send £350m a week to Brussels; when the UK government has as many unelected roles as the EU (if not more); when the UK won’t be made to pay for future bail-outs; when Turkey stands no chance of joining the EU; when the UK would have a veto on an EU Army; when countries aren’t queueing up for FTAs with the UK; when we very obviously don’t have the upper hand in negotiations; when it plainly isn’t ‘the quickest deal ever’, for the average Brexiteer, no matter how much they protest otherwise, the issue was only ever about immigration. While this is a legitimate concern, it's ironic when fully 50% of immigrants are not even from the EU and demonstrates that any problem is a direct result of a failure of successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, to implement the rules already available to them.

So, as the last and most important cause (to Brexiteers) to blame on the EU falls, patriotism becomes the rallying call in the face of imagined bullying by the EU.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Fri, 11 May 2018 11:40:22 -0000

And the catering industry is going to the wall as foreigners leave. Brits just don't want to do catering or hospitality work - indeed anything that involves long hours and / or hard work.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Fri, 11 May 2018 11:36:57 -0000

The British people do - best selling cars in the UK. Most reliable too. My old Volvo from decades back came very close, but German cars beat others, hands down.

Currently got a Jag and it's the worst car I've ever had for faults. It will be changed for a VW before much longer.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Thu, 10 May 2018 03:47:25 -0000

Agreed, we will pay heavily for European products, but where else are we to get German cars?

To date, not a single country is queuing up to offer unconditional FTAs - any that are being mooted are conditional on an increase in visas. The recent Dubai deal is a smokescreen.

1. All materials will be sourced in Dubai or China / India - virtually nothing will be coming from the UK.
2. All profits earned by Atkins Middle East will stay in Dubai to buy, oh sorry bid, for future contracts.
3. All staff working on this project, except for maybe 6 or 8 people, will be from the Indian sub continent or Middle East.
4. All sub contracting will be done by Indian owned and run companies, not British.
5. All companies are 51% owned by Emeratis, so therefore, again, profits go back into the UAE.

In effect, the UK government is buying the business.

We should be complaining about this not crowing over it. The money would be better spent on putting some police on the streets.

There is still the matter of our productivity falling from highest to lowest in the G7.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Swan, writing in Skin In The Game; “One should not mess with a system if the results are fraught with uncertainty, or, more generally, should avoid engaging in an action with a big downside if one has no idea of the outcomes.” Sounds an awful lot like Brexit to me. Massive change in a short timeframe, even when you think you know the consequences is problematic, as TSB found out to their cost lately.

Taleb’s postulate is another version of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it’ and, as the issues raised as such by Brexiteers are either failures in domestic policy (immigration, fishing) or outright lies (cost too high, EU encouraging companies to relocate outside of the UK, unelected bureaucrats), leaving the EU is a medicine that’s worse than the disease. If Brexit is anything, it’s an action on a very complex system, lacking any certainty whatsoever about the outcome and with a massive potential downside.

The wide disparity in economic forecasts proves that economies are extremely complex systems. Forecasts, however imperfect though, are a better guide to action than pure hope. While an economic forecast may be legitimately doubted, the link between price and demand is as close to a fact as you can get and a tariff on something that was tariff-free is a price rise – this is an indisputable fact. That said, a forecast predicated on trading relationships that do not yet exist (and may never exist) has no more validity than an astrological prediction.

Taking the spark plugs out of a complex system like a car will not produce a faster car, or even a car that behaves like a car. The sensible approach is to secure another set of spark plugs before you remove the originals.

Re: YouGov | John Humphrys - Brexit: Who Should Take the Final Decision?

chairmanbill — Thu, 10 May 2018 03:24:26 -0000

Exports to the EU will attract tariffs, making them less competitive – that’s not a speculative forecast but a simple fact; increase the price of anything and demand suffers.

Sales to ‘the rest of the world’ under WTO will be unchanged – we’re already selling to ‘the rest of the world’ under WTO.

New FTAs to replace EU FTAs are, on the balance of probabilities, unlikely to be more advantageous than those already in place, by the simple fact we are a much smaller market and we will be over a barrel as supplicants.

Totally new FTAs (outside of those we currently enjoy within the EU) will be positive, but probably still less advantageous than those that could be negotiated in the future for a market as large as the EU.

Any upside is entirely dependent on new FTAs and, even then, whether they merely maintain the status quo on GDP and jobs or lead to a Golden Age is highly debatable; however, to-date, not a single country is queueing up to offer unconditional FTAs, let alone FTAs that outweigh the downside of leaving the EU. Remember, and FTA is merely a framework and it's up to business to get the sales.

The only hope for the UK is either a very long transition period to facilitate the necessary changes to our economy, or Patrick Minford’s Cayman Islands MkII, which even he admits will have a very bad effect on jobs, but eventually (and he is very vague about the timescale) produce a neoliberal tax haven, with the effect of increasing overall GDP, but putting it in the hands of the rich and increasing wealth inequality as a consequence. Scaling a small tax-haven up is non-linear when you get to a large country – the wealth is concentrated in a few hands, invariably domiciled elsewhere.

Overall, there’s likely to be a substantial drop in competitiveness, GDP and consequently jobs. A lack of FTAs, which currently seems very likely, will result in sterling being devalued, which in itself will make British companies ripe for foreign, hostile bids. How anyone cannot see this is unbelievable. Brexit is driven not by pragmatism, but naked, dogmatic ideology, which history has taught is does not make good policy.

When the UK was outvoted in only 2% of cases, when the government encouraged fishermen to sell their quotas abroad, when we’re already selling to the rest of the world, when the cost of membership of the EU is between 1/12th and 1/29th of what we stand to lose in GDP by leaving, when EU accounts have indeed been signed off by auditors, when we don’t send £350m a week to Brussels, when the UK government has as many unelected roles as the EU, when the UK won’t be made to pay for future bail-outs, when Turkey stands no chance of joining the EU, when the UK would have a veto on an EU Army, when countries aren’t queueing up for FTAs with the UK, when we very obviously don’t have the upper hand in negotiations; when it plainly isn’t ‘the quickest deal ever’, for the average Brexiteer, no matter how much they protest otherwise, the issue was only ever about immigration. While this is a legitimate concern, it's ironic when fully 50% of immigrants are not even from the EU and demonstrates that any problem is a direct result of a failure of successive governments to implement the rules already available to them.

So, as the last and most important (to Brexiteers) cause to blame on the EU falls, patriotism becomes the rallying call in the face of imagined bullying by the EU.

Either have another referendum, or drop the entire thing as not being in the interested of the country. In probability theory there is a certain validity in the wisdom of crowds - the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. Using the result of the referendum, the chances of Brexit therefore being a success are 52% for and 48% against. Given that most of the reasons given in support of Brexit are based on misinformation and even outright lies (emotional reasons, not rational ones), even the best estimate of success can be no more than 50/50. That means there’s an equal chance of it being an abject failure. The question is, on the basis of a 50/50 chance of winning a bet, would you risk your house on those odds? I’d need something more like 80/20 or higher to risk all.

Re: The NHS? It’s what Christ would do

chairmanbill — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:47:48 -0000

This Youtube video is quite amusing:

http://folksopinions.blogsp...

Re: The NHS? It’s what Christ would do

chairmanbill — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:40:38 -0000

Well said!