Economy watch

bwfc1874 wrote:

NickFazer wrote:TTIP talks look like failing, 4 or 5 years of negotiating up to now. Both sides will blame each other of course but I believe the US can be particularly difficult negotiators.

Thank god they look like failing, would have been an absolute disaster for democracy to give companies such power over governments.

There is a theory I heard years ago that as corporates continue to diversify and provide more and more services e.g. Tesco doing phones, banking, insurance etc. all they need to do to gain control is to ramp up customer loyalty bonuses across product ranges to the point that not being "economically tied" to a corporate becomes financially prohibitive.
The end vision is that people will end up having everything they need in life provided by a single corporation to which they are tied.
A bit like an extension of the "golden chains" theory of employment in the USA where people get their health insurance and children's dental care etc through their workplace which makes labour less mobile because the cost of changing jobs is prohibitive.
Already Governments are kowtowing to corporates because we are dependent on them providing jobs, inward investment and services so there is no reason not to believe that one day the world will be run by unelected corporates, vying to control market share.
If only Thatcher hadn't sold off our natural resources - we could have had Great Britain PLC running the show.
It's the future.

wanderlust wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote:

NickFazer wrote:TTIP talks look like failing, 4 or 5 years of negotiating up to now. Both sides will blame each other of course but I believe the US can be particularly difficult negotiators.

Thank god they look like failing, would have been an absolute disaster for democracy to give companies such power over governments.

There is a theory I heard years ago that as corporates continue to diversify and provide more and more services e.g. Tesco doing phones, banking, insurance etc. all they need to do to gain control is to ramp up customer loyalty bonuses across product ranges to the point that not being "economically tied" to a corporate becomes financially prohibitive.
The end vision is that people will end up having everything they need in life provided by a single corporation to which they are tied.
A bit like an extension of the "golden chains" theory of employment in the USA where people get their health insurance and children's dental care etc through their workplace which makes labour less mobile because the cost of changing jobs is prohibitive.
Already Governments are kowtowing to corporates because we are dependent on them providing jobs, inward investment and services so there is no reason not to believe that one day the world will be run by unelected corporates, vying to control market share.
If only Thatcher hadn't sold off our natural resources - we could have had Great Britain PLC running the show.
It's the future.

Sadly it doesn't have to be this way. Look at Norway (yes I know they are not in the EU) and how it has used it's natural resources, or the way that Scandinavian countries consistently head all lists of how happy people are bacause they are the least unequal countries in the world. Rampant capitalism is only good for the wealthy - its bad for everybody else.

And yet again,  Mike Judge's superb Idiocracy provides us with a terrifying glimpse of our future as a species:

NickFazer wrote:Yes I agree that blocks of countries can cooperate in  all all manner of things more effectively than one nation by itself, I just don't think that you need to create a superstate with a single currency, a parliament, a commission, a president, several presidents actually and a court of justice to achieve it. Its a difficult road to go down, especially when the member nations are so culturally and  economically diverse.

So the US is a failure? Never mind Canada, China, Australia or even Germany which are countries made up of varying different "states"/countries that have joined together.

NickFazer wrote:TTIP talks look like failing, 4 or 5 years of negotiating up to now. Both sides will blame each other of course but I believe the US can be particularly difficult negotiators.

TTIP talks have been ongoing for almost 9 years!!!

And yes they are failing due to differing political views

On the one hand there is the US ultra capitalist views which doesn't look after the unfortunate, against the EU socialist views where everyone are given an equal opportunity and are helped when down on their luck (which is completely different to Communist Capitalism - which China uses, as it is meant to emphasise every is the same).

Japan has waded in with a warning to Britain suggesting that if we abandon EU laws (I'm guessing business law) Japanese firms would move their UK headquarters to mainland Europe.

This is a serious threat as the Japanese have created 140,000 jobs in the UK, but I'd have thought those decisions would be taken on a company by company basis - although you never know with the Japanese business relationship with their Government.

What I find strange though is the perceived importance of EU business law to them. Obviously they would want their workers rights protected but I can't see the UK would not put something of equal strength in place when we pull out.

Here's the article.

bwfc71 wrote:

NickFazer wrote:Yes I agree that blocks of countries can cooperate in  all all manner of things more effectively than one nation by itself, I just don't think that you need to create a superstate with a single currency, a parliament, a commission, a president, several presidents actually and a court of justice to achieve it. Its a difficult road to go down, especially when the member nations are so culturally and  economically diverse.

So the US is a failure? Never mind Canada, China, Australia or even Germany which are countries made up of varying different "states"/countries that have joined together.

You could add to that the UK, Italy, Spain and Belgium, all of these in the past have been sovereign states or parts of different nations or various empires in the past. The difference is that they have some cultural or economic ties that makes the arrangement sensible and that they are relatively few in number or in size or are under the yoke of a military or (usually unpleasant) political regime. What the EU is trying to achieve is a bloc of nations that don't to any great degree share cultural or economic ties and impose shared values, justice system and economics. When it was 9 members (EEC) that politically and economically were similar and restricted the areas it concerned itself with you could argue that it was successful, I feel that it has overreached in expanding the number of members and in its integrationist ambitions.

Theresa May's language at the G20 in China has come under scrutiny with some observers suggesting that she is changing the meaning of the "Brexit means Brexit" statement. Not that it had a meaning in the first place, because nobody seems to agree on what it means.

Anyhoo, whatever it means, it's not the same as what it meant a couple of months ago according to the BBC's diplomatic correspondent here.

They also threatened something similar when we were were debating joining the Euro, pulling out if we didn't join the single currency. I imagine they feel the need to put some pressure on the UK government to retain access to the single market.

wanderlust wrote:Theresa May's language at the G20 in China has come under scrutiny with some observers suggesting that she is changing the meaning of the "Brexit means Brexit" statement. Not that it had a meaning in the first place, because nobody seems to agree on what it means.

Anyhoo, whatever it means, it's not the same as what it meant a couple of months ago according to the BBC's diplomatic correspondent here.

Nothing new in there really, there are many possibilities to the "Brexit means Brexit", sound bite and until the government has outlined it's position the speculation will continue. We will just have to wait until then.

NickFazer wrote:They also threatened something similar when we were were debating joining the Euro, pulling out if we didn't join the single currency. I imagine they feel the need to put some pressure on the UK government to retain access to the single market.

There's plenty of it about Nick, but we do need the single market in order to retain the inward investment of foreign companies that have set up their European bases here if only to secure the half a million jobs they currently provide us Brits with. Volume retail businesses like McDonald's and Starbuck's will stay here regardless because we're just fodder for them, but manufacturer's may think twice as their costs have rocketed especially when they are importing raw materials.
Here's the BBC take on how the negotiations at the G20 are going.

Basically all the world leaders are publicly saying we won't get an easy ride but obviously the politics/diplomatic overtures aren't necessarily going to be reflected in any actual deals we might enter into. And still we wait.....

NickFazer wrote:

bwfc71 wrote:

NickFazer wrote:Yes I agree that blocks of countries can cooperate in  all all manner of things more effectively than one nation by itself, I just don't think that you need to create a superstate with a single currency, a parliament, a commission, a president, several presidents actually and a court of justice to achieve it. Its a difficult road to go down, especially when the member nations are so culturally and  economically diverse.

So the US is a failure? Never mind Canada, China, Australia or even Germany which are countries made up of varying different "states"/countries that have joined together.

You could add to that the UK, Italy, Spain and Belgium, all of these in the past have been sovereign states or parts of different nations or various empires in the past. The difference is that they have some cultural or economic ties that makes the arrangement sensible and that they are relatively few in number or in size or are under the yoke of a military or (usually unpleasant) political regime. What the EU is trying to achieve is a bloc of nations that don't to any great degree share cultural or economic ties and impose shared values, justice system and economics. When it was 9 members (EEC) that politically and economically were similar and restricted the areas it concerned itself with you could argue that it was successful, I feel that it has overreached in expanding the number of members and in its integrationist ambitions.

What is the cultural tie between New Mexico (which was land bought from Mexico and they spoke Spanish and had same economy as Mexico) and Hawaii which was bought of us British when we were almost bankrupt due to the Empire bleeding us dry (which was British in nature, and for most part is still) or New York which was aa Dutch outpost until we traded Suriname for New Amsterdam, and what about current trends such as the Bible-Belt mid-West are they the same as New Jersey, or oil rich Texas or richest state of California, which has a GBP higher than many countries or what about the wastelands of the US were the desert - culturally they are all different but they all joined together to create a union - they all have their own laws as well as Federal Laws, they all have their own Parliaments as well as the Federal Parliament which we all know about - even the individual state economies are very different from farming economies to financial economies to oil economies.  And yet the US are not happy they want to influence the rest of the world with the "US" way of politics, and capitalism.

But these differences can also be seen in present day Canada which has to contend with the French speaking states, and then there is Australia were each state is different from each other and China that has so many different states and each state is different from each other again from farming in the rice fields to the mountainous regions that has a tourist economy to Hong Kong which is the richest part of Chin due to the finance industry!

Everything's looking good, all the lies and rubbish the remain camp sputtered out has yet to happen.

I think we're more respected around the world due to Brexit, Donald Trump said it was an amazing thing that the British people stood up to a failed EU.

Teresa May backing out of the points based immigration pledge today.

I'm really struggling to see what Brexiters can claim to have gained from the referendum at this point.

bwfc1874 wrote:Teresa May backing out of the points based immigration pledge today.

I'm really struggling to see what Brexiters can claim to have gained from the referendum at this point.

 
saw that and old Nigel is worried. The argument mentioned on the BBC report i read about there being more immigration in Australia under the points system doesn't make sense.

Australia is still under populated for such a massive country and they are still actively looking for skilled people to emigrate, so yes their immigration is bound to be higher.

Lets not turn our back on what the Majority voted for, eh.

Think it's too late Scott, most of what 'The Majority' voted for seems to have been backed out of.

Farage will come back to sort them, I think they're still getting over the result.
We're still paying millions of tax payers money to the EU, so they better hurry the fuck up.

scottjames30 wrote:Lets not turn our back on what the Majority voted for, eh.

At the risk of repeating myself, what did they vote for Scott?

Nobody seems to agree what they voted for so if nobody knows what it is, how can anyone turn their back on it?

wanderlust wrote:

scottjames30 wrote:Lets not turn our back on what the Majority voted for, eh.

At the risk of repeating myself, what did they vote for Scott?

Nobody seems to agree what they voted for so if nobody knows what it is, how can anyone turn their back on it?

I voted for - to scrap the open door policy, Millions upon Millions of people can just come in from all of the four corners of Europe, we need to control Migration.

To stop paying 34 million pounds a day ( of tax payers money ) into the EU.

Let's just hope David Davis gets his points across for Brexit.