Should we stay or should we go? (Page 2 of 18)

Not sure how accurate the figures are but I do know the person behind it has an agenda - not too difficult to see

My point of view is that it's the EU that's broken and everyone should be looking at how to fix it first rather than simply pulling out and running.  I do believe the EU is the right place to and the right thing to have provided it's a mutually beneficial thing for everyone within it. 

Unfortunately it's a behemoth that no one seems able to shape into something that works for the greater Europe - it's too PC in some ways,  the have-nots taking preference to the haves with bountiful parasites dressed up as MEPs seeking their own piece of the pie

I favour a bit of brinkmanship - "change or we're fucking off" type thing.  I really don't believe we'd be worse off outside it but I do believe we could be much better off within an effective EU

RHS speaks most sense here. Pulling out will fuck the UK up for long time if not for good. Its ok believing the hysteric Trumpisms of the brexit crowd, but please look at the facts and the agendas behind the brexits. Farage? Gove? And our very own Trump, Boris (the similarities are uncanny - perchance they are related?).

Think back to how the brexit hysteria has arisen - a series of Daily Mail headlines screaming blue murder about immigration, ridiculous hysterical headlines about european laws, loss of sovereignty etc and some misguided and misinformed bollocks that Britain is still great. And now they're accusing the business community and pro europeans of scaremongering. Hypocracy at best.

Think about your holidays, your medical care there when you have a heart attack over the prices, your potential retirement or investments in europe, your booze cruises to calais. Everything will be more difficult, complicated and expensive. Be careful what you wish for.

Not me. Only thing I don't have is a spanish passport and I might do that. Failing that I'll move to St Vincent or somewhere nice.

The UK has had their fair share of money for infrastructure projects - look at the roads and bridges in the north of scotland and in NI - all EU money - they even used to have signs up to say so. Regenerations in smogland and merseyside and other disadvantaged areas. To say its been a one way thing is ridiculous in the extreme. Spain's infrastructure largely rebuilt by EU money. Now they are a net contributor and the money goes to poorer nations to help improve their lot.

Chippy charges are just free market. What the tories and business want. Over time it'll balance its self out as living standards in Poland improve and cosets increase.  Think about auf wiedersein pet - british chippys working in germany and sending money home - what goes around comes around.

And this is the crux of the matter - while the UK think they are getting something for nothing they're happy. When it starts balancing itself out is when the tabloid hysteria kicks in.

Road fund licence has always gone into the treasury's general pot, along with fines, VAT, Fuel Tax etc, which is then redistributed according to how they think fit. Some of it filters back to road maintenance via local council subsidies, but by the time everyone has had their cut and funded their pet projects and overpaid private contractor crony mates of highways agency officials there's fuck all left which is why there are so many holes in the roads. Osborne has actually promised by the end of the decade all Car Tx monies will be ploughed back into road maintenance and building. It remains to be seen how much there is of that given that are so many exemptions these days.

Fucked them over?  They run our construction industry.

They do now perhaps

Speak to my father-in-law who came across to London from Kilkenny in the late fifties and what he found and how he was treated

Handed over?  On a silver spoon?  A couple of generations worked their nuts off for the privilege of seeing their offspring being treated with equality

I don't have a drip of Irish in me but i can see why some of them might be a tad bitter about it all

I guess we are going to have to disagree because "treated with equality" is not the same as "running the industry".

Plus I think I should add that at no point did I say I had any preference for anyone else running the building trade.  Fair play to them.  Also we would have never had that Faulty Towers episode with O'Riley without it.

Last edited by Reggie Perrin (Wed 02 Mar 2016 9:02 am)

True.  What was i thinking

Ordinarily I would agree with you, but we are by no means in ordinary markets, or anything close. Europe and Japan in a negative interest rate death spiral, global interest rates are pulling themselves down due to low growth. No inflation, I honestly cannot see where the growth is going to come from in these times. If no growth, commodity prices are not going to rapidly appreciate any time soon, although I do think they have been oversold at these prices, but not greatly.

Japan has been in the funk for nearly 30 years after their own asset bubble, I can easily see the same happening on a global basis, bear in mind we have been in this now for nearly 9 years (top of the market was Sept/Oct 2007). Easily, this could go on for another 10 years.

So my original point is essentially this, Europe’s companies need British buyers  far more than we need them and so this notion of new trade agreements (following a Brexit) taking 10 years to formulate is highly unlikely. The UK goods deficit is over GBP10 billion with Europe (not to be confused with trade deficit).

Those Italian shoe companies, French wine producers and German car companies sure as shit won’t be waiting 10 years of stunted UK sales to get agrreements in place.

And IF Cameron is right, and these do take 10 years to sort out, then UK manufacturing will be given its biggest ever open goal, but that assumes Sterling is very weak (highly likely) and commodity prices remain low (the big unknown). These two things need to happen for this to be correct.

Only my opinion of course.

Dow Jones currently about 20% higher. FTSE 1000 points below 2007 value, although 6 months ago it was higher. Been a severe drop off in last 6 months or so. Which says to me the UK is very vulnerable. It won't take much to knock it back in a big way. Brexit is one of a number of factors causing the instability.