BREXIT

[Rewulf]

23 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

No, not really, you mentioned business. I asked which businesses and stated a fact around the industries (which I assume you'd agree relate to a collection of businesses) I am involved in.

What are the businesses you refer to?

You want me to list every single business my friends and family are involved in? 

Ill give you a few. 

Banking, furniture (import+ export) cars, retail repair and sales, one customer deals regularly and exports vintage cars to Ireland, kitchens and bathrooms (sales and fitting) where 90 % of the materials and parts come from abroad, a good friend of mine is area manager for Eurocarparts, many farmers, food retailers, a couple of wine merchants, steel fabrication, engineering.... I could go on. 

The ones who aren't happy about Brexit are usually the ones with second homes in the EU, but generally speaking, I would say 90 - 95 % of my friends, business acquaintances and family are very happy that we are leaving the EU, and their businesses are ready for it. 

[Raja Clavata]

7 hours ago, Rewulf said:

You want me to list every single business my friends and family are involved in? 

Ill give you a few. 

Banking, furniture (import+ export) cars, retail repair and sales, one customer deals regularly and exports vintage cars to Ireland, kitchens and bathrooms (sales and fitting) where 90 % of the materials and parts come from abroad, a good friend of mine is area manager for Eurocarparts, many farmers, food retailers, a couple of wine merchants, steel fabrication, engineering.... I could go on. 

The ones who aren't happy about Brexit are usually the ones with second homes in the EU, but generally speaking, I would say 90 - 95 % of my friends, business acquaintances and family are very happy that we are leaving the EU, and their businesses are ready for it. 

Relatively small businesses then I guess.

[Rewulf]

12 hours ago, Raja Clavata said:

Relatively small businesses then I guess.

Some have 100 or so employee's, some a couple, but it's not really the point, if a large business, with large turnover, and large numbers of employee's are more vulnerable than small ones, then perhaps there's something amiss with their model? 

I understand some TYPES of business are more export/import orientated, you could even say that some are totally dependent on trade with the EU at this point, but then there are plenty of others who are totally dependent on trade with China, the US or many other countries not in the EU, all are vulnerable to differing trade tarrifs and other upheavals. 

That's just business. 

What you were insinuating, was that no one YOU had spoken to, had anything good to say about Brexit, and its possible repercussions, which really can't be true, can it? 

Unless of course, your line of business, its off shoots, feeders and such, are ALL totally dependent on trade with the EU, and have made no contingency for anything else, despite the fact, that they've had several years now to prepare? 

[Raja Clavata]

19 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Some have 100 or so employee's, some a couple, but it's not really the point, if a large business, with large turnover, and large numbers of employee's are more vulnerable than small ones, then perhaps there's something amiss with their model? 

I understand some TYPES of business are more export/import orientated, you could even say that some are totally dependent on trade with the EU at this point, but then there are plenty of others who are totally dependent on trade with China, the US or many other countries not in the EU, all are vulnerable to differing trade tarrifs and other upheavals. 

That's just business. 

What you were insinuating, was that no one YOU had spoken to, had anything good to say about Brexit, and its possible repercussions, which really can't be true, can it? 

Unless of course, your line of business, its off shoots, feeders and such, are ALL totally dependent on trade with the EU, and have made no contingency for anything else, despite the fact, that they've had several years now to prepare? 

It depends on the type of business. I work for an engineering services company which has a global annual revenue of close to €20B through all sectors. Nobody I've interacted with over the past three plus years involved in this business regardless of location believes Brexit is good. The UK engineering and R&D services division is worth about  €70M per year revenue and before Brexit we were aiming for €100M by 2022. As the manufacturing and engineering / R&D moves away from the UK, across all sectors, there is obviously less engineering services work to be had. I've just interviewed for the UK Auto Business Unit Owner role and even if offered, despite the package on offer, I really don't know if I can take the role given the current outlook.

So for people in my line of work, it's not about trade with the EU or anywhere else, it's about fighting over the scraps of what is left of our manufacturing, engineering and R&D as a result of the UK deciding to leave the EU.

[Rewulf]

22 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

the scraps of what is left of our manufacturing, engineering and R&D as a result of the UK deciding to leave the EU

You believe that its all down to Brexit? 

If you stand back and look at it, I think you'll find there are far more factors than just that involved. 

[Raja Clavata]

On 23/11/2019 at 12:00, Rewulf said:

You believe that its all down to Brexit? 

If you stand back and look at it, I think you'll find there are far more factors than just that involved. 

Indeed there are. Are you suggesting Brexit has helped though?

[Rewulf]

23 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Indeed there are. Are you suggesting Brexit has helped though?

You are talking about a different thing though, the UNCERTAINTY caused by a majority of MP's hindering Brexit, certainly hasn't helped. 

Once we have it sorted and the landscape is more clear, I believe Brexit will be good for the UK. 

If the EU didn't think the same, surely they wouldn't be so reluctant to let us go? If as some suggest, its barely going to affect them, and will devastate our economy, why not just let us go.. and wait for us to return with tail firmly between our legs? 

[Retsdon]

 

20 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Once we have it sorted and the landscape is more clear, .......

Most of the commentators on this thread will be dead before that comes about.

https://policyscotland.gla.ac.uk/ghost-of-christmas-yet-to-come-brexit-lecture-full-text/

[Rewulf]

3 hours ago, Retsdon said:

 

Most of the commentators on this thread will be dead before that comes about.

https://policyscotland.gla.ac.uk/ghost-of-christmas-yet-to-come-brexit-lecture-full-text/

Think ive heard that line before somewhere 😂

It's not the most sound of strategies or expectations, 'If you can't beat them, don't join them, just wait for them to die of natural causes' 🤔

[Raja Clavata]

On 25/11/2019 at 08:11, Rewulf said:

You are talking about a different thing though, the UNCERTAINTY caused by a majority of MP's hindering Brexit, certainly hasn't helped. 

I'm not and I'm pretty sure you know that. There is the decision to leave itself, the omni-shambles that has followed and if / when we leave the nature of our departure will deliver another blow.

[Rewulf]

8 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

I'm not and I'm pretty sure you know that. There is the decision to leave itself, the omni-shambles that has followed and if / when we leave the nature of our departure will deliver another blow.

Like I said, WHEN  we leave, you can bring all the doom you want into play. 

Until then, the only thing causing hurt, is the uncertainty of what's happening, the nature of the exit, or the consequences of not exiting. 

Even Mothercare are blaming the uncertainty of Brexit for their downfall, despite the fact they are an expensive dinosaur of a business, that has failed to adapt to modern trading practices. 

But when it comes to making excuses for their own inadequacy and bad management, Brexit is the go to scapegoat, which is frankly, a bit pathetic. 

[Thunderbird]

1 hour ago, Rewulf said:

Brexit is the go to scapegoat, which is frankly, a bit pathetic. 

Very true. I am seeing it a lot at the moment, it's being crowbarred into any unpopular decision, despite nobody really knowing what's really going to happen. Like I think I said earlier in this thread, the argument is un-winnable. Remainers will blame everything that goes wrong on Brexit whether it's related or not, and will say (when things go right) that it's 'despite' Brexit. Bretixeers may well do the reverse. 

Interesting that the FTSE hasn't tanked, though that's possibly another discussion. 

[Retsdon]

4 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Think ive heard that line before somewhere 😂

It's not the most sound of strategies or expectations, 'If you can't beat them, don't join them, just wait for them to die of natural causes' 🤔

You utterly missed my point because you didn't bother to open the link. No, my point was that 'Get Brexit done'  and 'once we've got Brexit done, everything will become clear' are indicative of not having the foggiest idea of what's involved in leaving the EU and then re-establishing a proper working trade relationship. Either that or it's completely disingenuous. But it's hard to know which because there are zealots on the right of the Tory party who almost certainly do know what setting up  new trading arrangements after Brexit  will entail  but they'd rather the public didn't know. So they lie. And they lie. And they lie. 

Brexit will not be 'done' for a very long time indeed. Sir Ivan, in the lecture that's linked to in my post, quite clearly and systematically lays out what's in store for the country on its present path with the likes of Johnson in charge of the proceedings. But of course, you and many others won't listen to anyone like Sir Ivan  because he's not saying what you want to hear. Instead you'll rubbish him as one of Gove's 'experts' who can be safely discounted because they're professionals in their field and know what they're talking about! You hardline Brexiters would rather listen to the likes of Paul Staines and his ilk who know as much about international trade and how it works as I know about horse racing. They wouldn't know an NTB if it came and bit them on the leg. It wouldn't matter but unfortunately  it'll end in tears in the end because reality can't be wished away. 

I find it odd though, this ostrich-like reluctance to face up to what's coming down the pike, and this reliance on the words of charlatans and the ill-informed to shore up a hopeless factual position. But It's the same with climate change, for often enough the same people. As if it's even remotely likely that ninety eight percent of professional scientists around the globe are wrong but the bloke in the pub is right. How's that supposed to work?

Anyway, try the same approach sometime when you get a nasty pain that you worry about, and want diagnosed and treated. Don't go to the hospital - it's full of experts. Instead ask your local builder what he thinks it could be, and your mother in law for a remedy.  Between them they're sure to know better than the consultant radiologists and oncologists down at the infirmary.  

Experts, eh? Who needs 'em!

[Rewulf]

44 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

Experts, eh? Who needs 'em!

 

Never wrong are they 😹

FYI  I opened the link, saw Ivan Rogers name, and went no further. 

I'm UTTERLY sick of' expert' speculation of how bad Brexit will be, they haven't been right yet, we haven't left yet, and frankly, I don't care if its bad. 

We voted for it, and its needs to be done, sooner people stop crying into their portfolios the better. 

Suck it up and see 😂

[DoolinDalton]

1 hour ago, Retsdon said:

 

Anyway, try the same approach sometime when you get a nasty pain that you worry about, and want diagnosed and treated. Don't go to the hospital - it's full of experts. Instead ask your local builder what he thinks it could be, and your mother in law for a remedy.  Between them they're sure to know better than the consultant radiologists and oncologists down at the infirmary.  

Experts, eh? Who needs 'em!

Funnily enough (but not at the time) I came down with a really bad throat.  Went to the docs who proceeded to say it was tonsilitis and gave me the usual antibiotics.  I was due to work a swap shift for my mate  and phoned him to say that I couldn't do it as I has tonsilitis.  He asked me some questions and said it could be a quinzy, which is a peri tonsilar abcess...not good! He told me to call the emergency doctor, which I did, reluctantly.  The doctor insisted it was tonsilitis also, so I asked him if it might be a quinzy.  He said it might be (I don't think he'd seen one before, tbh) and I should go to the ENT hospital in the Boro.  I was attended to quickly and it was indeed a quinzy, which was removed / drained by cutting it with a scalpel, resulting in copious amounts of brown gunge spewing from my mouth.   Experts, eh?  Who needs' em! 

   

[Retsdon]

29 minutes ago, DoolinDalton said:

Funnily enough (but not at the time) I came down with a really bad throat.  Went to the docs who proceeded to say it was tonsilitis and gave me the usual antibiotics.  I was due to work a swap shift for my mate  and phoned him to say that I couldn't do it as I has tonsilitis. 

You were lucky. My 32 year old neighbor in Scotland died of it. What was the timeline between when you saw the GP and your hospital visit?

[DoolinDalton]

40 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

You were lucky. My 32 year old neighbor in Scotland died of it. What was the timeline between when you saw the GP and your hospital visit?

As far as I can honestly remember, it was the same day, possibly 3 or 4 hours.  I managed to force down some chicken soup  and when I got to ENT, the nurse asked if I'd had anything to eat in the last 24 hours.  I f I hadn't, they would have admitted me for observation.  The actual physical relief when the abcess was opened was incredible!

[oowee]

11 hours ago, Retsdon said:

 

Most of the commentators on this thread will be dead before that comes about.

https://policyscotland.gla.ac.uk/ghost-of-christmas-yet-to-come-brexit-lecture-full-text/

A most depressing read indeed. Not least the likely time scales but the lack of leverage available to these Tory half wits.

A very thin, Canada minus minus deal with zero tariffs and quotas, but only with extensive “level playing field” permanent conditionality.

And only provided we do a deal on fish in which it is very hard to see why the 8 fishing member states will be prepared to see any losses as a result of Brexit in what is a pretty zero sum game sector. Or if they did, why the deal would pass their legislatures. Their moment of maximum leverage on fish is next year, and they know it.

And in macro terms: the blessed German car makers and beloved French knicker makers achieve their zero tariff access to the U.K. market – and in goods, the EU, as we keep on hearing, has a huge trade surplus in goods with us.

Whereas the U.K’s access to their market in services, in which we have a huge trade surplus with them, and in which the EU market is as big as our next 8 put together, including the US and China, goes a long way backwards.

Edited November 26, 2019 by oowee

[Retsdon]

Quinsy actually is a complication of normal tonsillitis so your local GP wasn't 100% wrong. And if there was a lot of strep throat going around I suppose it would be an easy mistake to assume that your complaint was just a severe case of what he was seeing a lot of. And abscesses can come up quickly too. Maybe when he looked it was just swollen. But even so, it was a potentially very dangerous oversight on his part. 

The thing is though, although they're qualified for front line duties, general practitioners aren't really experts in their field. So ninety five percent of the time if it's not something simple they'll refer you to the relevant specialist who is an expert in his or her field. 

Now, if the ENT hospital had misdiagnosed you.....

You're lucky your mate picked up on it though. As I say, my neighbour in Scotland basically died of neglect. He had a sore throat and went to the local surgery and was given antibiotics. I think that would have been in the afternoon sometime. By late evening his throat was very bad indeed and they called out the duty doctor. I can't remember if the doctor came round or not, but basically he was told to keep taking the pills and wait till morning. But by morning he was dead - the abscess eventually blocked his airway and he couldn't breathe. My parents were staying with me at the time and my father, who was a consultant radiologist, was horrified by the whole sequence of events. Not just at the GP's off-hand attitude towards a patient who obviously wasn't the kind to make a fuss for no reason, but also he couldn't understand why the family hadn't just driven Les straight into Emergency. But of course, we're going back a few years when lay people  - especially rural farming stock - were a bit in awe of the medical profession and they doubtless felt it wasn't their place to question anything a doctor might say. It was hellish though. The lad was 32 years old with two young children and the family just stood around and watched him die rather than second guess the local quack.

Hopefully those days are  behind us now. Everyone can get it wrong sometimes.

[Retsdon]

44 minutes ago, oowee said:

A most depressing read indeed. 

It is, isn't it? What's so scary is that by the time people eventually wake up to the reality of what the country is sleepwalking into, it'll almost certainly be too late to reverse course. For an awful lot of people there are some very hard and difficult times coming. Although to be honest, I think that now - after the totally mismanaged shambles that's been Brexit for the last 3 years -  a lot of people are finally starting to get an inkling that they've been sold a pup and that Brexit is going to turn out to be not such a good thing after all. That's why the rhetoric has gone from having lots of money to spend on the NHS to invoking the Spirit of the Blitz. Expectations have in fact turned negative across the board.

But of course, nobody will ever admit it.

[oowee]

26 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

It is, isn't it? What's so scary is that by the time people eventually wake up to the reality of what the country is sleepwalking into, it'll almost certainly be too late to reverse course. For an awful lot of people there are some very hard and difficult times coming. Although to be honest, I think that now - after the totally mismanaged shambles that's been Brexit for the last 3 years -  a lot of people are finally starting to get an inkling that they've been sold a pup and that Brexit is going to turn out to be not such a good thing after all. That's why the rhetoric has gone from having lots of money to spend on the NHS to invoking the Spirit of the Blitz. Expectations have in fact turned negative across the board.

But of course, nobody will ever admit it.

I do wonder when and if ever this is settled those that voted for it will admit to having done such harm to our country. No doubt they will put the blame elsewhere if they do. 

[muncher]

23 minutes ago, oowee said:

I do wonder when and if ever this is settled those that voted for it will admit to having done such harm to our country. No doubt they will put the blame elsewhere if they do. 

Some won't, but will you also admit to being wrong if it's a success? The trouble I see is the political class don't seem to understand it wasn't about money.

[ditchman]

can someone tell me what the Boris johnson Brexit deal is ...(simples please)..........cause he hasnt told anyone yet 

 

and what the Teresa may deal was (simples please) cause she never told no-one either

 

i assume the farage deal is all out ....now i can understand that..........

Edited November 26, 2019 by ditchman

[muncher]

Oowee, you come across as very intelligent, I would like to ask you a question as your political leanings seem apparent. Do you believe that the Labour party would make a good government, and not make a complete mess of the economy? 

Edited November 26, 2019 by muncher

[Centrepin]

It's er, er, erm,

Just like that...