Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:44 pm  

Reading your post there gives more an indication of the financial games our nice people ' in the city ' play to make their millions , you wonder if they give a stuff about any potential damage they do

Similarily you wonder if your estate agent friends aren't just ' declaring ' difficulties to stimulate selling , as lets face it , that's how they make money

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:01 pm  

Question to all Remainer's

1. Do you genuinely believe the EU is democratic?

If yes, how so?

If no, why the hell do you support it?

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:08 pm  

GUBRATS wrote:

Reading your post there gives more an indication of the financial games our nice people ' in the city ' play to make their millions , you wonder if they give a stuff about any potential damage they do

Similarily you wonder if your estate agent friends aren't just ' declaring ' difficulties to stimulate selling , as lets face it , that's how they make money

No, they don't give a stuff at all. Financial services is turbocharged capitalism. They exist solely to make as much money as possible, and as they showed in the run-up to 2008, they're quite happy to cheat and lie in order to get that cash. However, at the moment, they're making that cash in this country, and paying a fairly large amount of tax on it while the workers in the system spend their silly salaries on stuff which the rest of us provide. The firms will happily move to another country if there's an advantage, and will either take those workers with them, or simply recruit another bunch in their new home.

Capitalism doesn't give a stuff about nationalism. The only way to try and put limits on that sort of behaviour is to work across national boundaries - essentially sign up to an agreement not to beggar-thy-neighbour. You might call such a club the European Union. Which we just left.

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:21 pm  

Roy Haggerty wrote:

No, they don't give a stuff at all. Financial services is turbocharged capitalism. They exist solely to make as much money as possible, and as they showed in the run-up to 2008, they're quite happy to cheat and lie in order to get that cash. However, at the moment, they're making that cash in this country, and paying a fairly large amount of tax on it while the workers in the system spend their silly salaries on stuff which the rest of us provide. The firms will happily move to another country if there's an advantage, and will either take those workers with them, or simply recruit another bunch in their new home.

Capitalism doesn't give a stuff about nationalism. The only way to try and put limits on that sort of behaviour is to work across national boundaries - essentially sign up to an agreement not to beggar-thy-neighbour. You might call such a club the European Union. Which we just left.

I assume they make money from in simple terms ' ups and downs ' so why move to boring Germany with stability ?

But still you accept that they use and in fact create their own instability to make cash , and much of that instability was a result of outlandish claims of doom ( pre referendum but not 12 months ago or now ) by mr,s Cameron and Osbourne ?

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:24 pm  

Wire Yed wrote:

Question to all Remainer's

1. Do you genuinely believe the EU is democratic?

If yes, how so?

If no, why the hell do you support it?

It's not comparable. For example, elements of the UK government are far more undemocratic than anything in the EU. There are no hereditary positions of power in the EU, whereas we have a head of state who has to be born between the right legs, and a House of Lords which still contains 100 guys who are there solely because their distant ancestor was handy with a sword.

Yes there are appointed officials in the EU, but there are appointed officials in all administrations (eg the entire US Cabinet is appointed, not elected), including ours - the rest of the House of Lords is appointed, as are all judges, all ambassadors, all bosses of quangos and agencies. We don't get to elect any of the men and women who run our government. We vote for MPs, and if those MPs form a majority their leader (who only 1/600th of us get to vote for) appoints the rest. In doing so, he has total authority, as in this country, the executive is all powerful and the legislature has very little checking power. So you could argue that the EU is actually rather more accountable because the process of appointing its officials is a matter of endless horse-trading between different Governments, providing a certain degree of check and balance.

Similarly, the EU electoral system is certainly more democratic than ours, because it's proportional. Which is why, ironically, UKIP have just 1 MP in this country despite 4m votes in 2015, whereas they have lots of MEPs.

Finally, it's not a government. I know the right-wing press have banged on about federalism and supranational states, bu the bottom line is that that was always just silly propaganda. The EU is a collection of nation states who choose to abide by decisions which they make collectively, because they believe that the benefits of the decisions which work for them outweigh the negatives of the decisions which work against them. It's not a government, it's a club. On any issues of great importance (eg expansion), each state retains a veto. On lesser issues (eg minimum product specifications), they accept majority decision-making. They don't lose sovereignty, they loan it willingly. And if in any doubt about that, note that when 52% of us decided to pull out, nobody in the EU said "you can't". We always had sovereignty. Our government was always in ultimate charge. We were choosing to co-operate, not being ordered to do so.

So you're asking whether I thought what was essentially a voluntary economic club is more democratic than a nation-state. Two very different things, but even then, the economic club was almost certainly more democratic, institutionally.

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:29 pm  

GUBRATS wrote:

I assume they make money from in simple terms ' ups and downs ' so why move to boring Germany with stability ?

But still you accept that they use and in fact create their own instability to make cash , and much of that instability was a result of outlandish claims of doom ( pre referendum but not 12 months ago or now ) by mr,s Cameron and Osbourne ?

It depends. Some light-fingered institutions like a little instability (within reason), because they make their skim on the ups and downs. But there are other institutions who like stability more than anything else. Which is why at tims of great crisis, like now, you find that money floods into government bonds which actually pay negative returns, because those institutions would rather know they're going to lose 1% a year on their capital, than risk losing much more.

So generally the market likes a little up and down within certain boundaries. This is way outside that.

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:34 pm  

Wire Yed wrote:

Question to all Remainer's

1. Do you genuinely believe the EU is democratic?

If yes, how so?

If no, why the hell do you support it?

I have no idea how democratic the E.U. is, all I know is as a nation we've never had it so good.

Then to see Farage today gloating in the chamber made me feel more embarrassed to be English than I already do.

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:42 pm  

The Devil's Advocate wrote:

I have no idea how democratic the E.U. is, all I know is as a nation we've never had it so good.

Then to see Farage today gloating in the chamber made me feel more embarrassed to be English than I already do.

Funny though

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:48 pm  

Roy Haggerty wrote:

It depends. Some light-fingered institutions like a little instability (within reason), because they make their skim on the ups and downs. But there are other institutions who like stability more than anything else. Which is why at tims of great crisis, like now, you find that money floods into government bonds which actually pay negative returns, because those institutions would rather know they're going to lose 1% a year on their capital, than risk losing much more.

So generally the market likes a little up and down within certain boundaries. This is way outside that.

All interesting stuff , looking forward to seeing how things pan out , generally it lands somewhere in the middle of both extremes

Hopefully future debates can be done in the nature of recent ones without the vitriol and insults seen pre vote

Time to walk the dog , one things for certain , be interesting to see how they pick the guests on question time this week

Re: Brexit Anyone? : Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:49 pm  

GUBRATS wrote:

Funny though

No, not funny. Humiliating. It was like having a petulant child "you're not laughing now" in a room full of adults. Like it or not, Farage is now seen as representative of the majority of Britons. That's shameful.