Alas cut and paste eluded me as I was busy doing life things. Apologies for not spoon feeding anyone. Curl-f is a useful function I find, if you can excuse the pun.
I posted a brief, very brief note in an interlude between working and going home. Since then I have also been busy with other stuff. The single question I posted, "why stay?" In a nutshell, hasn't really been answered. Saying we should stay because we don't have a plan for leaving is interesting and I can see why you might say that but it doesn't answer why you are comfortable with ceding sovereignty as much as we have and more. "Just because leaving is scary" means you are not even addressing the issues that cause the leave voter to think differently. No wonder it's a dialogue of the deaf.
As for my comment about taking the bait, it isn't goading a response but a harmless expression to indicate that I had hoped to start a more detailed debate on the issue with some baited points to lead onwards. It certainly didn't require an abusive response. But hey....
Right then. I hope we get a free trade focussed country with responsible government and politicians who realise that we have to earn our way in the world. I hope we get to see that importing labour with no increase in per capita GDP for years is a terrible direction to go in as it socialises the costs of the increased population whilst the benefits of migration accrue to the migrants and shareholders. Now given I am a shareholder in many businesses myself I am torn but the quality of life (read housing costs, commuting time, school issues, language and cultural problems) damage is now palpable.
Trade, even in the EU, isn't free. Let's not forget that most economic activity occurs inside a country. Common regulatory standards apply to the entire country's economy not just the trading but and this has a cost. On my patch, which will remain unstated you will just have to trust me, the cost benefit analysis was clearly fudged for the lastest EU directive. Very very clearly fudged. There was no way it was a net positive for the U.K. As the prior local regime was good for the industry, for the consumer and for the country as a whole. EU regs have vastly increased the cost to industry and consumer for no apparent benefits in terms of protection. Those improvements that have been achieved could of occurred anyway under the prior U.K. Regulators powers.
Leaving enables those powers to be brought back in house, for regulation to be more responsive to the rather tricky position we are in. And don't give me the chlorine washed chicken crap argument. Please read more before regurgitating stuff. I do think US food is dire but it isn't as if people are dying from chlorine poisoning or salmonella in vast numbers there is it?
A kick, as m4dad puts it is an interesting analogy. I see it more as rolling the dice. It might work out very well indeed if we can wean the country of the cheap labour, low investment business culture that has developed and move up the skills curve. It is necessary but we, as a country, have had politicians who took a different path: Low skilled labour, low training budgets for local high skilled workers, wholesale importation of labour to feed a Ponzi scheme so we can have a large, absolute size, economy for minimal cost. That way leads to an awful end which we are just accelerating if Brexit is too much for our political class.
Exiting isn't simple but surely if you think we should leave then better to leave now, at the first chance we had since the original entry, than later when it gets harder still. Don't forget that the EEC has transformed out to all recognition into something that we clearly didn't want to be in. The might of project fear, with the awfully weak analysis pumped out by the treasury and many others, plus the murder of Jo Cox and still the country voted out.
On here many post about poor relationships and the default response to trouble with a partner isn't to stay and work it out but to leave, to build an alternative life, to exit. Yet the mood music here on Brexit is something completely different. No desire to leave at all. Better to stay in a broken marriage, no one has come back on any Leave point about EU misfunction so I must assume agreement, than leave. Why is it so easy to advise others from a distance to break up when there is no personal risk? Where Brexit is concerned is the personal risk judged too great for what I assume are the same sorts of people? I find this puzzling.
This is written on a Taiwanese made, US designed iPad. This reminds me that people traded governments and countries don't trade. The job of the government is to create an environment where value creation is easy. Note I didn't say wealth there as we as a nation can decide to value something other than financial assets. We picked housing but perhaps, just perhaps Brexit will force us to look away from the old failing model to something new.
The Singapore analogy might be a poor one as Singapore is tiny but their mind set is different. They have tax rebates for self funded training courses to boost skills. They have explicit differences between the status of citizens and PRs and resident workers who are there to add value to the country. Singapore explicitly trains enough people for high skill roles like doctors and so on rather than relying on imports. Singapore recognises that it needs to earn its keep in a global competitive market place. If the UK made best use of its wonderful legacy instead of appearing ashamed then we wouldn't be here. Brexit is a final chance to avoid a complete decline. It looks like it might be blown but we were on a downwards trajectory anyway.... Hinckley Point.... need I say more?
Not proofread by the way. Sorry for typos and rambling. It's late. I have stuff to do and sleep to catch up on.