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Remoaner,losers . 23:28 - Nov 10 with 2301627 viewspikeypaul

OUT WITH A DEAL EATING OUR CAKE AND LOVING IT suck it up remoaners



And like a typical anti democracy remoaner he decided the will of the people should be ignored the minute the democratic result was in total fecking hypocrite 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Despite it being voted in to law by the commons the spineless two faced remoaner MPs have totally abandoned any morals and decided to ignore the will of the British people.

It will be remembered and no election or referendum will ever be the same again in this country.

The one thing that will come is a massive surge in the popularity of UKIP or a similar party in the future who stand for the 52%.

Happy Days.

[Post edited 1 Jan 2021 14:13]

OUT AFLI SUCK IT UP REMOANER LOSERS 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧
Poll: Where wil Judas be sitting when we play Millwall?

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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 12:38 - Oct 6 with 2264 viewsJango

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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 12:39 - Oct 6 with 2262 viewsbluey_the_blue

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 12:38 - Oct 6 by Jango



And those Remoaner MPs dislike being called traitors...
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 12:58 - Oct 6 with 2243 viewsHighjack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 12:38 - Oct 6 by Jango



Tinfoil hattery I was told. It’s definitely a conspiracy theory to point out the bleeding obvious.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Poll: Should Dippy Drakeford do us all a massive favour and just bog off?

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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 13:47 - Oct 6 with 2231 viewsExiledJack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 00:50 - Oct 5 by Kerouac



Thanks for posting, great insight on financial markets from 14:45 onwards
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 14:25 - Oct 6 with 2203 viewslondonlisa2001

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 13:47 - Oct 6 by ExiledJack

Thanks for posting, great insight on financial markets from 14:45 onwards


The issue with Connolly as with some others like him, is they forget the human element of economics.

To them, a shift in an economy from one increasingly dominated by large multi nationals to a dynamic, reactive economy driven by small, entrepreneurial companies (one of his arguments for brexit) that takes a decade or two to achieve is hugely beneficial. And they may well be right. What he doesn’t much care about is what the hell the people employed by those companies do in the meantime.

His insight on financial markets is interesting, as you highlight, but his predictions of a global crash within 24 months is rather undermined by the fact that the interview linked was recorded three and a half years ago.

As an aside, Merryn Somerset Webb’s advice for everyone is not to worry about the personal financial impact of Brexit and instead to take the opportunity to invest in UK equities suffering as a result of Brexit. In her words, “Stick some under the tree for your kids – this is as good as a long-term present gets – and then sit back and join me in enjoying watching our MPs and fund managers endure their Christmas crash course in accountability.”

Which is thoughtful, I think.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:19 - Oct 6 with 2173 viewsexiledclaseboy

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 12:58 - Oct 6 by Highjack

Tinfoil hattery I was told. It’s definitely a conspiracy theory to point out the bleeding obvious.


No. Tinfoil hattery is your assertion that the government deliberately negotiated a crap deal because it was working to keep us in the EU all along. Despite invoking the process of leaving, repealing the UK law that binds us to the EU and negotiating a withdrawal agreement that would have ended the jurisdiction of all EU institutions in the UK at the end of the transition period. If you still can’t see how stupid that it then I can’t help.

Poll: Tory leader

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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:40 - Oct 6 with 2164 viewsExiledJack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 14:25 - Oct 6 by londonlisa2001

The issue with Connolly as with some others like him, is they forget the human element of economics.

To them, a shift in an economy from one increasingly dominated by large multi nationals to a dynamic, reactive economy driven by small, entrepreneurial companies (one of his arguments for brexit) that takes a decade or two to achieve is hugely beneficial. And they may well be right. What he doesn’t much care about is what the hell the people employed by those companies do in the meantime.

His insight on financial markets is interesting, as you highlight, but his predictions of a global crash within 24 months is rather undermined by the fact that the interview linked was recorded three and a half years ago.

As an aside, Merryn Somerset Webb’s advice for everyone is not to worry about the personal financial impact of Brexit and instead to take the opportunity to invest in UK equities suffering as a result of Brexit. In her words, “Stick some under the tree for your kids – this is as good as a long-term present gets – and then sit back and join me in enjoying watching our MPs and fund managers endure their Christmas crash course in accountability.”

Which is thoughtful, I think.


The human impact can never be discounted, and indeed should be at the forefront of sound economic governance. But, leaving Brexit aside for the moment, is it not sometimes better to be “cruel” in the short term to be kinder in the longer term? I am specifically alluding to the accommodative monetary policy artificially propping up businesses that otherwise would have failed. In the short term this seems the best solution, but I fear it is setting up the crash to be far worse when it arrives.

Connolly and many others of his ilk have indeed got the timing wrong, but the direction of travel is bang on. Interest rates seem to be going lower, with QE also ramping up again, until such time that it goes pop. Trying to time this precisely is extremely risky.

Brexit would give the UK more flexibility to adjust to changing global economic conditions, but I would argue that it should be a political decision first and foremost and not an economic one. And in any case, economically Brexit is the proverbial storm in the tea cup whilst a hurricane rages in the background. Some of course will be directly affected more than others, and they should very much take action to protect their livelihoods for each outcome.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 16:09 - Oct 6 with 2142 viewslondonlisa2001

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:40 - Oct 6 by ExiledJack

The human impact can never be discounted, and indeed should be at the forefront of sound economic governance. But, leaving Brexit aside for the moment, is it not sometimes better to be “cruel” in the short term to be kinder in the longer term? I am specifically alluding to the accommodative monetary policy artificially propping up businesses that otherwise would have failed. In the short term this seems the best solution, but I fear it is setting up the crash to be far worse when it arrives.

Connolly and many others of his ilk have indeed got the timing wrong, but the direction of travel is bang on. Interest rates seem to be going lower, with QE also ramping up again, until such time that it goes pop. Trying to time this precisely is extremely risky.

Brexit would give the UK more flexibility to adjust to changing global economic conditions, but I would argue that it should be a political decision first and foremost and not an economic one. And in any case, economically Brexit is the proverbial storm in the tea cup whilst a hurricane rages in the background. Some of course will be directly affected more than others, and they should very much take action to protect their livelihoods for each outcome.


“is it not sometimes better to be “cruel” in the short term to be kinder in the longer term? I am specifically alluding to the accommodative monetary policy artificially propping up businesses that otherwise would have failed. In the short term this seems the best solution, but I fear it is setting up the crash to be far worse when it arrives.”

The issue with this though, which from an economic perspective is probably true, is the disconnect between the people most directly impacted and those making that decision. I’ve long argued on here that in the longer term brexit will, as an example, be fine. In many ways, it could be economically beneficial for the reasons you mention. But, and this for me is the killer, the short term impact could destroy the country and lead to consequences that will ensure the fall out takes decades to resolve.
Even if the damage is ‘only’ 5 years or so (and most if not all projections say it could be multiples of that), what on Earth are people supposed to do for those 5 years? The majority of working people in this country simply do not have the flexibility or the power to ‘take action to protect their livelihoods’. Many people are living from hand to mouth with no means of providing for themselves and their families for any length of time. I suspect that most people simply do not have the ability to go without their wages for any more than 2 or 3 months at the most. Many couldn’t do so for more than 2 or 3 weeks. That’s through no fault of their own, it’s the function of a society where wages are not high enough to support any type of provision for the future. Often, they’re not high enough to support much provision for the present.

There’s a reason Johnson is so keen on an election either before brexit or as soon as possible after brexit. It’s so that the impact on people won’t have been felt. My concern is that Brexit fall out will be such that the people most affected will turn to Corbyn (one of the reasons he’s so keen on it all is tha5 he thinks the same, I suspect). So we will be left in the worst of all possible worlds. A hard brexit and a Corbyn government. If that happens, the money flight from the UK will be massive, and the jobs will go at the same rate. What then? If he attempts to prop up the country with government injection, the impact on sterling, interest rates and inflation will be such that almost every pound he raises will be sucked up with an increase in our cost of borrowing.

And although you’re correct in saying that these decisions should be political rather than economically based, in a system where so many rely on public spending for everything from schooling to healthcare to supplementing or providing income, I’m not sure where we turn. He can’t raise taxes to any great degree as we are close to the point where a tax rate increase would lead to a decrease in tax take, tax take will be down anyway if companies bugger off, the rich will be exempt from the EU anti avoidance crackdown and will off shore everything and the squeezed middle (who largely want to remain) will say - enough.

On the Connolly point, I agree with some of what he says, but not all. I always think he slightly misses the point that consumption is not as finite as it once was, given tech changes create new ‘essentials’ so quickly. And his point on low interest rates leading to unproductive manufacturing as returns are generated anyway is slightly missing the point that there are other corrections in place for that as production will simply move to places with a more productive workforce. And global consumption certainly isn’t anywhere near its peak given the ever increasing demands of China and India amongst others.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 16:54 - Oct 6 with 2113 viewsladyjack

Connolly is a little Englander who apparently used to work for the EU as well as a casino bank type outfit, he seems to realise that banks will have to be nationalised and he doesn't seem to like it.
He doesn't seem to like the fact that the empire of Europe as he sees it, is bigger and more powerful than the English version.
[Post edited 6 Oct 2019 17:21]
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 18:37 - Oct 6 with 2068 viewsExiledJack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 16:09 - Oct 6 by londonlisa2001

“is it not sometimes better to be “cruel” in the short term to be kinder in the longer term? I am specifically alluding to the accommodative monetary policy artificially propping up businesses that otherwise would have failed. In the short term this seems the best solution, but I fear it is setting up the crash to be far worse when it arrives.”

The issue with this though, which from an economic perspective is probably true, is the disconnect between the people most directly impacted and those making that decision. I’ve long argued on here that in the longer term brexit will, as an example, be fine. In many ways, it could be economically beneficial for the reasons you mention. But, and this for me is the killer, the short term impact could destroy the country and lead to consequences that will ensure the fall out takes decades to resolve.
Even if the damage is ‘only’ 5 years or so (and most if not all projections say it could be multiples of that), what on Earth are people supposed to do for those 5 years? The majority of working people in this country simply do not have the flexibility or the power to ‘take action to protect their livelihoods’. Many people are living from hand to mouth with no means of providing for themselves and their families for any length of time. I suspect that most people simply do not have the ability to go without their wages for any more than 2 or 3 months at the most. Many couldn’t do so for more than 2 or 3 weeks. That’s through no fault of their own, it’s the function of a society where wages are not high enough to support any type of provision for the future. Often, they’re not high enough to support much provision for the present.

There’s a reason Johnson is so keen on an election either before brexit or as soon as possible after brexit. It’s so that the impact on people won’t have been felt. My concern is that Brexit fall out will be such that the people most affected will turn to Corbyn (one of the reasons he’s so keen on it all is tha5 he thinks the same, I suspect). So we will be left in the worst of all possible worlds. A hard brexit and a Corbyn government. If that happens, the money flight from the UK will be massive, and the jobs will go at the same rate. What then? If he attempts to prop up the country with government injection, the impact on sterling, interest rates and inflation will be such that almost every pound he raises will be sucked up with an increase in our cost of borrowing.

And although you’re correct in saying that these decisions should be political rather than economically based, in a system where so many rely on public spending for everything from schooling to healthcare to supplementing or providing income, I’m not sure where we turn. He can’t raise taxes to any great degree as we are close to the point where a tax rate increase would lead to a decrease in tax take, tax take will be down anyway if companies bugger off, the rich will be exempt from the EU anti avoidance crackdown and will off shore everything and the squeezed middle (who largely want to remain) will say - enough.

On the Connolly point, I agree with some of what he says, but not all. I always think he slightly misses the point that consumption is not as finite as it once was, given tech changes create new ‘essentials’ so quickly. And his point on low interest rates leading to unproductive manufacturing as returns are generated anyway is slightly missing the point that there are other corrections in place for that as production will simply move to places with a more productive workforce. And global consumption certainly isn’t anywhere near its peak given the ever increasing demands of China and India amongst others.


Thanks for a very balanced and informative response Lisa. I share your concerns, and am particularly worried about dangerous political trends arising from economic suffering. You are absolutely right that wages are too low, and I agree that the second order effects of a Corbyn-esque response would likely extinguish any intended improvements.

I think we’re in trouble whichever side of the fence Brexit lands, for reasons of “no provision for the future” which I agree is not the fault of individuals struggling to make ends meet. Connolly seems to be laying that at the feet of the central banks, by consequence of front-loading consumption and preventing investment corrections (largely to the benefit of those who are currently well off).
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 18:45 - Oct 6 with 2058 viewsladyjack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 18:37 - Oct 6 by ExiledJack

Thanks for a very balanced and informative response Lisa. I share your concerns, and am particularly worried about dangerous political trends arising from economic suffering. You are absolutely right that wages are too low, and I agree that the second order effects of a Corbyn-esque response would likely extinguish any intended improvements.

I think we’re in trouble whichever side of the fence Brexit lands, for reasons of “no provision for the future” which I agree is not the fault of individuals struggling to make ends meet. Connolly seems to be laying that at the feet of the central banks, by consequence of front-loading consumption and preventing investment corrections (largely to the benefit of those who are currently well off).


Not so much that wages are too low but more a case of wages are too low for a large bulk of the population but way to high for the high earners, wealth needs to be spread around more equally than it currently is.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 19:54 - Oct 6 with 2019 viewsLeonWasGod

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 12:38 - Oct 6 by Jango



They’re pretty crap at “sabotage” given they’ve agreed a deal and also put in place the legal framework to allow us to leave on 31st October.

Pure nonsense to keep the faithful baying for foreign scapegoats.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 20:43 - Oct 6 with 1983 viewsJango

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 19:54 - Oct 6 by LeonWasGod

They’re pretty crap at “sabotage” given they’ve agreed a deal and also put in place the legal framework to allow us to leave on 31st October.

Pure nonsense to keep the faithful baying for foreign scapegoats.


They’ve done a pretty good job on you.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 20:46 - Oct 6 with 1972 viewsLeonWasGod

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 20:43 - Oct 6 by Jango

They’ve done a pretty good job on you.


They have done any job on me. I’m just watching with some amusement as project Brexit and the people behind it gets more ridiculous every day. It’s a weird movement of very strange bedfellows.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 20:54 - Oct 6 with 1955 viewsExiledJack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 18:45 - Oct 6 by ladyjack

Not so much that wages are too low but more a case of wages are too low for a large bulk of the population but way to high for the high earners, wealth needs to be spread around more equally than it currently is.


Wages are too low from a cost of living perspective, but not from a business perspective. Unpleasant as it sounds, people are an abundant commodity and the barriers for substitution have been eroded by globalism. With advances in automation on the horizon this will only get worse.

I have no issue with productive members of society earning greater sums and believe it to be good for the wider economy as well as for social mobility. However, unproductive behaviour being rewarded is a serious problem, there’s simply been too much of it and it lowers living standards for everyone else. Stock market and real estate returns since the financial crisis are one scandalous example of this, largely brought about by unprecedented accommodative monetary policy. Those unearned rewards have not been shared equally.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 21:00 - Oct 6 with 1948 viewsladyjack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 20:54 - Oct 6 by ExiledJack

Wages are too low from a cost of living perspective, but not from a business perspective. Unpleasant as it sounds, people are an abundant commodity and the barriers for substitution have been eroded by globalism. With advances in automation on the horizon this will only get worse.

I have no issue with productive members of society earning greater sums and believe it to be good for the wider economy as well as for social mobility. However, unproductive behaviour being rewarded is a serious problem, there’s simply been too much of it and it lowers living standards for everyone else. Stock market and real estate returns since the financial crisis are one scandalous example of this, largely brought about by unprecedented accommodative monetary policy. Those unearned rewards have not been shared equally.


We will have to look at a form of universal basic income as there is not going to be enough work to go round.
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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 13:21 - Oct 7 with 1799 viewsKerouac

...a prescient article from 1992.

MAASTRICHT AND ALL THAT
by Wynne Godley.

'A lot of people throughout Europe have suddenly realised that they know hardly anything about the Maastricht Treaty while rightly sensing that it could make a huge difference to their lives. Their legitimate anxiety has provoked Jacques Delors to make a statement to the effect that the views of ordinary people should in future be more sensitively consulted. He might have thought of that before.

Although I support the move towards political integration in Europe, I think that the Maastricht proposals as they stand are seriously defective, and also that public discussion of them has been curiously impoverished. With a Danish rejection, a near-miss in France, and the very existence of the ERM in question after the depredations by currency markets, it is a good moment to take stock.

The central idea of the Maastricht Treaty is that the EC countries should move towards an economic and monetary union, with a single currency managed by an independent central bank. But how is the rest of economic policy to be run? As the treaty proposes no new institutions other than a European bank, its sponsors must suppose that nothing more is needed. But this could only be correct if modern economies were self-adjusting systems that didn’t need any management at all.

I am driven to the conclusion that such a view — that economies are self-righting organisms which never under any circumstances need management at all — did indeed determine the way in which the Maastricht Treaty was framed. It is a crude and extreme version of the view which for some time now has constituted Europe’s conventional wisdom (though not that of the US or Japan) that governments are unable, and therefore should not try, to achieve any of the traditional goals of economic policy, such as growth and full employment. All that can legitimately be done, according to this view, is to control the money supply and balance the budget. It took a group largely composed of bankers (the Delors Committee) to reach the conclusion that an independent central bank was the only supra-national institution necessary to run an integrated, supra-national Europe.

But there is much more to it all. It needs to be emphasised at the start that the establishment of a single currency in the EC would indeed bring to an end the sovereignty of its component nations and their power to take independent action on major issues. As Mr Tim Congdon has argued very cogently, the power to issue its own money, to make drafts on its own central bank, is the main thing which defines national independence. If a country gives up or loses this power, it acquires the status of a local authority or colony. Local authorities and regions obviously cannot devalue. But they also lose the power to finance deficits through money creation while other methods of raising finance are subject to central regulation. Nor can they change interest rates. As local authorities possess none of the instruments of macro-economic policy, their political choice is confined to relatively minor matters of emphasis — a bit more education here, a bit less infrastructure there. I think that when Jacques Delors lays new emphasis on the principle of ‘subsidiarity’, he is really only telling us we will be allowed to make decisions about a larger number of relatively unimportant matters than we might previously have supposed. Perhaps he will let us have curly cucumbers after all. Big deal!

Let me express a different view. I think that the central government of any sovereign state ought to be striving all the time to determine the optimum overall level of public provision, the correct overall burden of taxation, the correct allocation of total expenditures between competing requirements and the just distribution of the tax burden. It must also determine the extent to which any gap between expenditure and taxation is financed by making a draft on the central bank and how much it is financed by borrowing and on what terms. The way in which governments decide all these (and some other) issues, and the quality of leadership which they can deploy, will, in interaction with the decisions of individuals, corporations and foreigners, determine such things as interest rates, the exchange rate, the inflation rate, the growth rate and the unemployment rate. It will also profoundly influence the distribution of income and wealth not only between individuals but between whole regions, assisting, one hopes, those adversely affected by structural change.

Almost nothing simple can be said about the use of these instruments, with all their inter-dependencies, to promote the well-being of a nation and protect it as well as may be from the shocks of various kinds to which it will inevitably be subjected. It only has limited meaning, for instance, to say that budgets should always be balanced when a balanced budget with expenditure and taxation both running at 40 per cent of GDP would have an entirely different (and much more expansionary) impact than a balanced budget at 10 per cent. To imagine the complexity and importance of a government’s macro-economic decisions, one has only to ask what would be the appropriate response, in terms of fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy, for a country about to produce large quantities of oil, of a fourfold increase in the price of oil. Would it have been right to do nothing at all? And it should never be forgotten that in periods of very great crisis, it may even be appropriate for a central government to sin against the Holy Ghost of all central banks and invoke the ‘inflation tax’ — deliberately appropriating resources by reducing, through inflation, the real value of a nation’s paper wealth. It was, after all, by means of the inflation tax that Keynes proposed that we should pay for the war.

I recite all this to suggest, not that sovereignty should not be given up in the noble cause of European integration, but that if all these functions are renounced by individual governments they simply have to be taken on by some other authority. The incredible lacuna in the Maastricht programme is that, while it contains a blueprint for the establishment and modus operandi of an independent central bank, there is no blueprint whatever of the analogue, in Community terms, of a central government. Yet there would simply have to be a system of institutions which fulfils all those functions at a Community level which are at present exercised by the central governments of individual member countries.

The counterpart of giving up sovereignty should be that the component nations are constituted into a federation to whom their sovereignty is entrusted. And the federal system, or government, as it had better be called, would have to exercise all those functions in relation to its members and to the outside world which I have briefly outlined above.
Consider two important examples of what a federal government, in charge of a federal budget, should be doing.

European countries are at present locked into a severe recession. As things stand, particularly as the economies of the USA and Japan are also faltering, it is very unclear when any significant recovery will take place. The political implications of this are becoming frightening. Yet the interdependence of the European economies is already so great that no individual country, with the theoretical exception of Germany, feels able to pursue expansionary policies on its own, because any country that did try to expand on its own would soon encounter a balance-of-payments constraint. The present situation is screaming aloud for co-ordinated reflation, but there exist neither the institutions nor an agreed framework of thought which will bring about this obviously desirable result. It should be frankly recognised that if the depression really were to take a serious turn for the worse — for instance, if the unemployment rate went back permanently to the 20-25 per cent characteristic of the Thirties — individual countries would sooner or later exercise their sovereign right to declare the entire movement towards integration a disaster and resort to exchange controls and protection — a siege economy if you will. This would amount to a re-run of the inter-war period.

If there were an economic and monetary union, in which the power to act independently had actually been abolished, ‘co-ordinated’ reflation of the kind which is so urgently needed now could only be undertaken by a federal European government. Without such an institution, EMU would prevent effective action by individual countries and put nothing in its place.

Another important role which any central government must perform is to put a safety net under the livelihood of component regions which are in distress for structural reasons — because of the decline of some industry, say, or because of some economically-adverse demographic change. At present this happens in the natural course of events, without anyone really noticing, because common standards of public provision (for instance, health, education, pensions and rates of unemployment benefit) and a common (it is to be hoped, progressive) burden of taxation are both generally instituted throughout individual realms. As a consequence, if one region suffers an unusual degree of structural decline, the fiscal system automatically generates net transfers in favour of it. In extremis, a region which could produce nothing at all would not starve because it would be in receipt of pensions, unemployment benefit and the incomes of public servants.

What happens if a whole country — a potential ‘region’ in a fully integrated community — suffers a structural setback? So long as it is a sovereign state, it can devalue its currency. It can then trade successfully at full employment provided its people accept the necessary cut in their real incomes. With an economic and monetary union, this recourse is obviously barred, and its prospect is grave indeed unless federal budgeting arrangements are made which fulfil a redistributive role. As was clearly recognised in the MacDougall Report which was published in 1977, there has to be a quid pro quo for giving up the devaluation option in the form of fiscal redistribution. Some writers (such as Samuel Brittan and Sir Douglas Hague) have seriously suggested that EMU, by abolishing the balance of payments problem in its present form, would indeed abolish the problem, where it exists, of persistent failure to compete successfully in world markets. But as Professor Martin Feldstein pointed out in a major article in the Economist (13 June), this argument is very dangerously mistaken. If a country or region has no power to devalue, and if it is not the beneficiary of a system of fiscal equalisation, then there is nothing to stop it suffering a process of cumulative and terminal decline leading, in the end, to emigration as the only alternative to poverty or starvation. I sympathise with the position of those (like Margaret Thatcher) who, faced with the loss of sovereignty, wish to get off the EMU train altogether. I also sympathise with those who seek integration under the jurisdiction of some kind of federal constitution with a federal budget very much larger than that of the Community budget. What I find totally baffling is the position of those who are aiming for economic and monetary union without the creation of new political institutions (apart from a new central bank), and who raise their hands in horror at the words ‘federal’ or ‘federalism’. This is the position currently adopted by the Government and by most of those who take part in the public discussion.'



(Wynne Godley was a professional oboe player for some years in his twenties; in his thirties he joined the Treasury, where he reached the rank of Under-Secretary; in 1970 he became a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge and, later, was appointed director of the Department of Applied Economics. He died in May 2010.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss9VZ1FHxy0
Poll: Which manager should replace Russell Martin (2) ?

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Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 14:31 - Oct 7 with 1755 viewsDdraigGoch

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 13:21 - Oct 7 by Kerouac

...a prescient article from 1992.

MAASTRICHT AND ALL THAT
by Wynne Godley.

'A lot of people throughout Europe have suddenly realised that they know hardly anything about the Maastricht Treaty while rightly sensing that it could make a huge difference to their lives. Their legitimate anxiety has provoked Jacques Delors to make a statement to the effect that the views of ordinary people should in future be more sensitively consulted. He might have thought of that before.

Although I support the move towards political integration in Europe, I think that the Maastricht proposals as they stand are seriously defective, and also that public discussion of them has been curiously impoverished. With a Danish rejection, a near-miss in France, and the very existence of the ERM in question after the depredations by currency markets, it is a good moment to take stock.

The central idea of the Maastricht Treaty is that the EC countries should move towards an economic and monetary union, with a single currency managed by an independent central bank. But how is the rest of economic policy to be run? As the treaty proposes no new institutions other than a European bank, its sponsors must suppose that nothing more is needed. But this could only be correct if modern economies were self-adjusting systems that didn’t need any management at all.

I am driven to the conclusion that such a view — that economies are self-righting organisms which never under any circumstances need management at all — did indeed determine the way in which the Maastricht Treaty was framed. It is a crude and extreme version of the view which for some time now has constituted Europe’s conventional wisdom (though not that of the US or Japan) that governments are unable, and therefore should not try, to achieve any of the traditional goals of economic policy, such as growth and full employment. All that can legitimately be done, according to this view, is to control the money supply and balance the budget. It took a group largely composed of bankers (the Delors Committee) to reach the conclusion that an independent central bank was the only supra-national institution necessary to run an integrated, supra-national Europe.

But there is much more to it all. It needs to be emphasised at the start that the establishment of a single currency in the EC would indeed bring to an end the sovereignty of its component nations and their power to take independent action on major issues. As Mr Tim Congdon has argued very cogently, the power to issue its own money, to make drafts on its own central bank, is the main thing which defines national independence. If a country gives up or loses this power, it acquires the status of a local authority or colony. Local authorities and regions obviously cannot devalue. But they also lose the power to finance deficits through money creation while other methods of raising finance are subject to central regulation. Nor can they change interest rates. As local authorities possess none of the instruments of macro-economic policy, their political choice is confined to relatively minor matters of emphasis — a bit more education here, a bit less infrastructure there. I think that when Jacques Delors lays new emphasis on the principle of ‘subsidiarity’, he is really only telling us we will be allowed to make decisions about a larger number of relatively unimportant matters than we might previously have supposed. Perhaps he will let us have curly cucumbers after all. Big deal!

Let me express a different view. I think that the central government of any sovereign state ought to be striving all the time to determine the optimum overall level of public provision, the correct overall burden of taxation, the correct allocation of total expenditures between competing requirements and the just distribution of the tax burden. It must also determine the extent to which any gap between expenditure and taxation is financed by making a draft on the central bank and how much it is financed by borrowing and on what terms. The way in which governments decide all these (and some other) issues, and the quality of leadership which they can deploy, will, in interaction with the decisions of individuals, corporations and foreigners, determine such things as interest rates, the exchange rate, the inflation rate, the growth rate and the unemployment rate. It will also profoundly influence the distribution of income and wealth not only between individuals but between whole regions, assisting, one hopes, those adversely affected by structural change.

Almost nothing simple can be said about the use of these instruments, with all their inter-dependencies, to promote the well-being of a nation and protect it as well as may be from the shocks of various kinds to which it will inevitably be subjected. It only has limited meaning, for instance, to say that budgets should always be balanced when a balanced budget with expenditure and taxation both running at 40 per cent of GDP would have an entirely different (and much more expansionary) impact than a balanced budget at 10 per cent. To imagine the complexity and importance of a government’s macro-economic decisions, one has only to ask what would be the appropriate response, in terms of fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy, for a country about to produce large quantities of oil, of a fourfold increase in the price of oil. Would it have been right to do nothing at all? And it should never be forgotten that in periods of very great crisis, it may even be appropriate for a central government to sin against the Holy Ghost of all central banks and invoke the ‘inflation tax’ — deliberately appropriating resources by reducing, through inflation, the real value of a nation’s paper wealth. It was, after all, by means of the inflation tax that Keynes proposed that we should pay for the war.

I recite all this to suggest, not that sovereignty should not be given up in the noble cause of European integration, but that if all these functions are renounced by individual governments they simply have to be taken on by some other authority. The incredible lacuna in the Maastricht programme is that, while it contains a blueprint for the establishment and modus operandi of an independent central bank, there is no blueprint whatever of the analogue, in Community terms, of a central government. Yet there would simply have to be a system of institutions which fulfils all those functions at a Community level which are at present exercised by the central governments of individual member countries.

The counterpart of giving up sovereignty should be that the component nations are constituted into a federation to whom their sovereignty is entrusted. And the federal system, or government, as it had better be called, would have to exercise all those functions in relation to its members and to the outside world which I have briefly outlined above.
Consider two important examples of what a federal government, in charge of a federal budget, should be doing.

European countries are at present locked into a severe recession. As things stand, particularly as the economies of the USA and Japan are also faltering, it is very unclear when any significant recovery will take place. The political implications of this are becoming frightening. Yet the interdependence of the European economies is already so great that no individual country, with the theoretical exception of Germany, feels able to pursue expansionary policies on its own, because any country that did try to expand on its own would soon encounter a balance-of-payments constraint. The present situation is screaming aloud for co-ordinated reflation, but there exist neither the institutions nor an agreed framework of thought which will bring about this obviously desirable result. It should be frankly recognised that if the depression really were to take a serious turn for the worse — for instance, if the unemployment rate went back permanently to the 20-25 per cent characteristic of the Thirties — individual countries would sooner or later exercise their sovereign right to declare the entire movement towards integration a disaster and resort to exchange controls and protection — a siege economy if you will. This would amount to a re-run of the inter-war period.

If there were an economic and monetary union, in which the power to act independently had actually been abolished, ‘co-ordinated’ reflation of the kind which is so urgently needed now could only be undertaken by a federal European government. Without such an institution, EMU would prevent effective action by individual countries and put nothing in its place.

Another important role which any central government must perform is to put a safety net under the livelihood of component regions which are in distress for structural reasons — because of the decline of some industry, say, or because of some economically-adverse demographic change. At present this happens in the natural course of events, without anyone really noticing, because common standards of public provision (for instance, health, education, pensions and rates of unemployment benefit) and a common (it is to be hoped, progressive) burden of taxation are both generally instituted throughout individual realms. As a consequence, if one region suffers an unusual degree of structural decline, the fiscal system automatically generates net transfers in favour of it. In extremis, a region which could produce nothing at all would not starve because it would be in receipt of pensions, unemployment benefit and the incomes of public servants.

What happens if a whole country — a potential ‘region’ in a fully integrated community — suffers a structural setback? So long as it is a sovereign state, it can devalue its currency. It can then trade successfully at full employment provided its people accept the necessary cut in their real incomes. With an economic and monetary union, this recourse is obviously barred, and its prospect is grave indeed unless federal budgeting arrangements are made which fulfil a redistributive role. As was clearly recognised in the MacDougall Report which was published in 1977, there has to be a quid pro quo for giving up the devaluation option in the form of fiscal redistribution. Some writers (such as Samuel Brittan and Sir Douglas Hague) have seriously suggested that EMU, by abolishing the balance of payments problem in its present form, would indeed abolish the problem, where it exists, of persistent failure to compete successfully in world markets. But as Professor Martin Feldstein pointed out in a major article in the Economist (13 June), this argument is very dangerously mistaken. If a country or region has no power to devalue, and if it is not the beneficiary of a system of fiscal equalisation, then there is nothing to stop it suffering a process of cumulative and terminal decline leading, in the end, to emigration as the only alternative to poverty or starvation. I sympathise with the position of those (like Margaret Thatcher) who, faced with the loss of sovereignty, wish to get off the EMU train altogether. I also sympathise with those who seek integration under the jurisdiction of some kind of federal constitution with a federal budget very much larger than that of the Community budget. What I find totally baffling is the position of those who are aiming for economic and monetary union without the creation of new political institutions (apart from a new central bank), and who raise their hands in horror at the words ‘federal’ or ‘federalism’. This is the position currently adopted by the Government and by most of those who take part in the public discussion.'



(Wynne Godley was a professional oboe player for some years in his twenties; in his thirties he joined the Treasury, where he reached the rank of Under-Secretary; in 1970 he became a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge and, later, was appointed director of the Department of Applied Economics. He died in May 2010.)


Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.
I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,
1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.
2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.
3/ You don't think it matters.

OUT OF EUROPE we need to be out of it
2
Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:01 - Oct 7 with 1732 viewsHighjack

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 14:31 - Oct 7 by DdraigGoch

Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.
I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,
1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.
2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.
3/ You don't think it matters.

OUT OF EUROPE we need to be out of it


This Grant fella needs to be stopped.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Poll: Should Dippy Drakeford do us all a massive favour and just bog off?

1
Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:05 - Oct 7 with 1730 viewsLohengrin

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 14:31 - Oct 7 by DdraigGoch

Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.
I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,
1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.
2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.
3/ You don't think it matters.

OUT OF EUROPE we need to be out of it



An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it.

0
Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:07 - Oct 7 with 1727 viewsEbo

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:40 - Oct 6 by ExiledJack

The human impact can never be discounted, and indeed should be at the forefront of sound economic governance. But, leaving Brexit aside for the moment, is it not sometimes better to be “cruel” in the short term to be kinder in the longer term? I am specifically alluding to the accommodative monetary policy artificially propping up businesses that otherwise would have failed. In the short term this seems the best solution, but I fear it is setting up the crash to be far worse when it arrives.

Connolly and many others of his ilk have indeed got the timing wrong, but the direction of travel is bang on. Interest rates seem to be going lower, with QE also ramping up again, until such time that it goes pop. Trying to time this precisely is extremely risky.

Brexit would give the UK more flexibility to adjust to changing global economic conditions, but I would argue that it should be a political decision first and foremost and not an economic one. And in any case, economically Brexit is the proverbial storm in the tea cup whilst a hurricane rages in the background. Some of course will be directly affected more than others, and they should very much take action to protect their livelihoods for each outcome.


Brexit is the proverbial storm in the tea cup whilst a hurricane rages in the background.

Stark.Raving.Bonkers.

Thank you, goodnight and bollocks
Poll: What couldn't you live without?

0
Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:08 - Oct 7 with 1722 viewsLeonWasGod

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:01 - Oct 7 by Highjack

This Grant fella needs to be stopped.


They got him once

1
Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:20 - Oct 7 with 1712 viewsLohengrin

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:01 - Oct 7 by Highjack

This Grant fella needs to be stopped.


I should smile. Bloody awful racket!


An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it.

0
Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:48 - Oct 7 with 1678 viewsLeonWasGod

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 14:31 - Oct 7 by DdraigGoch

Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

I haven't detailed our non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don't even go there.
I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't. If you think the EU is a good idea,
1/ You haven't read the party manifesto of The European Peoples' Party.
2/ You haven't had to deal with EU petty bureaucracy tearing your business down.
3/ You don't think it matters.

OUT OF EUROPE we need to be out of it


Well the first one appears to be complete bollocks, so I expect the rest to be too.

Cadbury seemingly temporarily moved some production to Poland while they upgraded their production line at Bournville. And then resumed production here in the UK for the one particular chocolate bar. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/anger-cadbury-makes-dairy-mi

(As an aside, I'd suggest the issues around the USA owners of Cadbury historically avoiding their tax liabilities is more deserving of criticism than a widely shared and easily disproved lie about where they make the chocolate. No idea whether they pay these days or not. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/business/cadbury-owner-makes-177m-profit-1

There's a lot of these unverified lists flying around on social media; doesn't mean they're right and they just undermine any sensible discussion if there are genuine cases.

If you want to see if anything's coming the other way the EU publish details of all the recipients of EU budget here https://ec.europa.eu/budget/fts/index_en.htm.

Last year the EU signed up to support 3,758 companies and organisations in the UK taking part in 2,752 projects/programmes. So it doesn't take a lot of searching to see what comes back the other way. Second on your list, Ford, received EU funding themselves of course for Bridgend in the 90s (it's what helped launch the last 20 years of work there that's just come to an end).
2
Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 19:10 - Oct 7 with 1618 viewsA_Fans_Dad

Countdown to the end of Democracy in the UK on 15:48 - Oct 7 by LeonWasGod

Well the first one appears to be complete bollocks, so I expect the rest to be too.

Cadbury seemingly temporarily moved some production to Poland while they upgraded their production line at Bournville. And then resumed production here in the UK for the one particular chocolate bar. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/anger-cadbury-makes-dairy-mi

(As an aside, I'd suggest the issues around the USA owners of Cadbury historically avoiding their tax liabilities is more deserving of criticism than a widely shared and easily disproved lie about where they make the chocolate. No idea whether they pay these days or not. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/business/cadbury-owner-makes-177m-profit-1

There's a lot of these unverified lists flying around on social media; doesn't mean they're right and they just undermine any sensible discussion if there are genuine cases.

If you want to see if anything's coming the other way the EU publish details of all the recipients of EU budget here https://ec.europa.eu/budget/fts/index_en.htm.

Last year the EU signed up to support 3,758 companies and organisations in the UK taking part in 2,752 projects/programmes. So it doesn't take a lot of searching to see what comes back the other way. Second on your list, Ford, received EU funding themselves of course for Bridgend in the 90s (it's what helped launch the last 20 years of work there that's just come to an end).


Ever noticed how when anyone posts anything anti EU it must be rubbish because (fill in something here).
The UK has been asset stripped with the full involvement of our useless governments over the last 3 decades.
And the EU supports sod all, it is UK TAX PAYERS CASH.
-1
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