Enough is enough

[RBeer]

We are now in the throes of a right wing agenda willing to bring down the country for its own ideological beliefs. Bad things happen when good people do nothing. I for one will stand up so lest my children say I did nothing.

My export argument holds plenty of water thanks. You saying something does not make it so.

I agree me saying something does not make it so but that works both ways.

You've said you've no idea what we'd export so how does your argument hold water?

Importing less prestige branded vehicles because the prestige ones become too expensive does not reduce the value our imports.

Not being able to export financial services will massively reduce our exports.

So where is this increase in exports and decrease in imports going to come from?

I was a reluctant remainer. That is how I voted. However I tire of the extremity of the remainers. Net net we will probably be a bit worse off. We may luck out and be a bit better off. The chances of a disaster are small.

I am thinking of buying some gbp speculatively at this level. It is way overdone.

But how will we be better off larry?

What potential upside is there?

We're not going to get better deals than we have now and I can't see a single thing that will improve as opposed to having voted to Remain.

That's not being extreme, it's realistic.

Unless you're playing a long term game I wouldn't.

Mid next year the GBP will be $1.10

Small fox,

Pm me, we can trade then.

There are two main ways we could be better off from Brexit, neither are palatable.

The first is we tank ourselves so hard we drag the rest of the world down and take the EU out, and reign supreme over the Eurozone members who have to reinstate their own currencies. A scorched earth style policy.

The second is following the path set out by some decently eminent economists, by massively increasing the amount we are a free market. The only way this can be achieved by the figures required though is to jettison off the NHS.

offer major incentives for academics and other skilled people.

What makes you so sure of that? At the moment, we have made EU academics most unwelcome, by threatening EU collaborations. The end result is that other academics have felt unwelcome too. Didn't one of the recent Nobel prize winners, now in America, say that he was thinking of returning to the UK but now he won't?

Yes,

But where is he now? Hardly an ardent fan of EC science, is he? All the main European scientific collaborations have taken place external to the EC and include countries like Israel, Turkey and even Albania. I hardly see us being squeezed out and them allowed to stay.

I studied with many brilliant physicists. Sadly I could not really keep up. They were, however, generally quite monofocused and not that politically aware. If I want to know about phase changes using topology, I will (try to) read the paper by the scientist you refer to. However I would not take his pronouncements on Brexit too seriously.

We'll have loads to offer academics but if they've decided to further their studies in fields outside the UK then we don't care what they think or whether they'd work here under current circumstances. Ok then.

Hardly an ardent fan of EC science, is he?

Speaking as a scientist, and being married to a scientist, I can offer our personal take on this.

We scientists are generally an international-looking collaborative bunch, and our pre-eminent concern in choosing where to work and other academics to collaborate with is: will this be good for the science? That's how we end up working, obtaining funding, and collaborating with people, all over the world.

What we don't think will be good for the science is the funding being - at a minimum - thrown into massive uncertainty, fellow academics feeling equally uncertain and even unwelcome, and a general climate in which "experts", "liberal elites" and "citizens of the world" are explicitly identified as de facto enemies set against "ordinary people".

Having spoken to many colleagues since the referendum, we have heard many examples (yes, anecdotes, sorry) of people planning to move away (including British scientists), people who were planning to move here deciding not to (including British scientists who might have returned), and general difficulty in recruiting scientists not just from the EU but various other countries too (including people pulling out in the middle of recruitment negotiations). Not all of these people will be moving to the EU, so yes you can shout "Hah! So much for EU science!" but since we're all about how important the UK is above all, the main point is that they won't be here.

But anyway - what do scientists know?

Larry, this is a serious question: concretely, what export businesses do you think will grow as a result of sterling devaluation? I know that you worked in the city, but do you have any direct experience of, say, manufacturing?

I think the opportunities for manufacturing exports are vastly overstated, because Britain isn't a big exporter of bulk commodities that sell primarily on price. Many big exporters are high tech companies. Most of my employer's export contracts are decided not on price but on technology shoot-outs: the company with the best technical performance gets the contract. Devaluation simply means that we, temporarily, make better margins (temporarily because a lot of the inputs are imported, so our costs are rising fast in sterling terms). Leaving the single market would likely decrease our exports because we'd probably have to relocate some of our UK production for the EU to one of our existing EU plants - not so much because of tariffs (though that would be a factor) but because of NTBs.

But to get back to the OP ... I'm not sure what the most effective way of having a say is.

I'm in a private group with one of the A50 legal action claimants and after Amber Rudd's speech I also joined the Lib Dems. Former Labour voter but will never vote for them again due to their ambivalence on Europe and failure to lead the way in condemning the anti-immigrant narrative.

Not the only one joining the Lib Dems after Amber Rudd's speech. I met some ex-Tories last week, who had done likewise, and were incandescent about the racist tone. That was not what their vision of Conservatism was - they said if they wanted UKIP they would have voted for it.

I'm in a private group with one of the A50 legal action claimants

Ask them for how it's legal to just remove a whole bunch of rights (fom) from my children and put them in the bin, please. 😉

Misti,

There are so many I cannot name them. I am not an expert on exports but nor do I need to be to accept existing (and logical) economic theory that a devaluation boosts exports,

However, as a small investor in private equity, one of my investments in specialist glass is doing very well, as is another one that exports specialist school management software to the US. There is an article in the Sunday Times today stating Aureum (a watch and jewellery business) is selling 50% more to tourists since the devaluation. There are so many small and large businesses that will benefit. The problem is that this thread is mainly populated by finance people, one business which hugely benefited from EC membership.

Remainers will not be happy until their continual talking down of the UK economy and all its prospects ahead drive the country utterly into the gutter. My opinion is, you think you care about this country, but you can't possibly really care about jobs, and the crappy areas that need investment. You're happy to talk it down, talk it down, talk it down, talk it down despite a clear democratic mandate. That's what's fascist.

Economics 101

Facism
noun
an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.

Mandate
noun
the authority to carry out a policy, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election.

Thought you may want those definitions winchester. You seem confused.

Tourism represents about 9% of U.K. GDP, forecast by Deloitte to go up to 11% by 2025. This will directly and rapidly respond to the devaluation.

The wealthy Chinese and Americans will also do a lot of shopping while they are here. And, positive short term, but maybe less positive long term, central London property will be hugely boosted, contributing a lot in stamp duty since the recent law change.

Each of these threads turns into a fight about who was right and who was wrong.

I understand why emotions are running high, but the topic of this thead is: What can be done at the grassroots level by people who disavow the xenophobic turn of policy and public discourse?

Continue to challenge it ricecrispie Stand actively against it. Go out and join party's who will stand up against the xenophobic rise.

The 'xenophobic rise' (alleged) is not fought by people being patronising and haughty. Or telling people they're being xenophobic for worrying about border controls b.s. mass migration.

B.s. should be and

I'm surprised that the effects of this very sharp and sudden devaluation on ordinary households hasn't been mentioned.

While it will hopefully provide a boost to exports (although you have to factor in the higher price of component parts), the rise in prices over the coming months is going to make life very difficult for a huge swathe of the population. We are all now poorer - at least those of us without overseas/multinational investments.

Did people vote leave to become poorer, and would they be happy for us to leave the single market and end fom if that means becoming poorer still? This suggests not:

Patroneur

N. der Fr.

Twat.

No the Xenophobic rise is about making lists of foreign workers, telling people they are racist against Brits if they don't shut up and put up, by telling people if they aren't fully British they don't count, telling people they're not pro us if they have taken an opportunity to work abroad, etc. etc.