Messages

31

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 08, 2019, 01:53:49 am »

Well this is the funniest, weirdest story of 2019 thus far.
https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f

TL;DR: Jeff Bezos had his dick pics leaked to a US tabloid and they allegedly tried to blackmail him with them.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 04, 2019, 05:03:10 pm »

Not sure I understand. If EU laws have been fully repatriated by Brexit day then there shouldn't be any hiatus.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 04, 2019, 12:31:28 am »

How so?

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 03, 2019, 10:53:38 pm »

Hmmm I'm not a constitutional lawyer and it's a very specialist area, but I can give a few general points. From what I understand it is a very difficult process because EU law is highly centralised and much of it has direct effect. So it's not simply a case of copy/paste the entire body of the EU acquis onto UK books but rather having to re-write most of it to give effect to UK institutions rather than EU ones. It's not *that* complicated but it is very time-consuming. To give a rough idea of how much there is to get through:

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/cTH0UrpSu2s?t=3316

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It's a big task but one that should be delivered on schedule. We're not staying in the EEA (whereby we'd automatically retain c.20% of the EU acquis) so I'm assuming the difficulty of the job isn't really affected by a 'no deal' Brexit. We're still repatriating 100% of EU law whether it's 'no deal' or May's deal.

We're also not converting all of it (big chunks like the Charter of Fundamental Rights are being left out). In the long term ECJ case law will still apply post-Brexit when it comes to interpreting the relevant legislation and it'll be a case of future parliaments gradually working through what to keep and what to get rid of.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 02, 2019, 05:02:41 pm »

Companies aren't leaving, they're just having their exports squeezed by stronger local competition. You can't afford to pull out of the 2nd largest economy in Europe. What's happening is a significant amount of onshoring of supply chains in the food and drink sector. Ironically for all this talk of the border, it's NI than's benefiting most from Brexit thus far since it has the largest agricultural sector in the UK.

Does that mean less competition? Yes and no. Global agriculture is extremely protectionist anyway because voters have a romantic view about the rural economy and farmers are extremely good lobbyists. EU farming subsidies are more generous than anywhere else in the world (which every EU citizen pays for at the supermarket checkout) and French farmers riot all the time whenever that's threatened. There's also a natural ceiling in prices anyway due to how competitive the UK grocery market is.

It's like this: the UK imports most of its food. Makes sense to to buy it off poor Africans for bargain prices in return for services access rather than expensive stuff from the greedy French.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 01, 2019, 10:02:40 pm »

Actually a lot of the grandfathered deals will still be messed up and need renegotiating, as for example things which are made "in the EU" no longer includes the UK, so various products will no longer be under FTA as I understand it. There's also lots of altering of very minor text, but when you consider that the EU-ROK deal is over 1400 pages on it's own, it adds up. Not to mention ROK now see the UK as an equal in size, compared to negotiating with the EU, US etc and want more concessions.
I'm sure it'll all get sorted out, but many trade deals are not actually ready for B-Day yet.

It's very difficult but far from impossible. Remainer media likes to talk shit about the Dept for International Trade (mainly because Liam Fox is leading it) but it's done some really impressive work. For example the most complicated trade deal ever signed in history was between the EU and Switzerland, and they announced around Christmas that they'd managed to roll it over in time for Brexit.

Sure, the UK loses negotiating power when it comes to market size but at the same time it gains flexibility as it's no longer bound by the interests of the other EU27. You can go much further on services in return for opening up to agriculture or textiles for example, which also reduces costs on shop shelves in the UK. It's a win-win, whereas currently we're bound by Spanish, Italian and especially French agricultural interests.

Idk where you're getting this whole thing about onshoring from, as the trend so far seems very firmly the other way around. I'm curious as to what length of time you believe medium to long term to mean, roughly speaking.

I mostly deal with the food and drink sector. As a result of Brexit we've seen UK firms rapidly increase market share within the British market at the expense of EU27. Two examples so you can see what I mean:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41233255
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/brexit/fermanaghbased-egg-firm-planning-for-hard-brexit-37361470.html

And here's Robert Peston confirming what's happening from Davos of all places: https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1087763485184966657

It's partly due to the £ becoming more competitive, but mainly because of trade substitution. We already have industry bodies from Spain to Ireland sounding the alarm about what's happening.

Paul Kelly, Ibec’s director for the food and drink industry, warned that the imposition of tariff barriers could force some Irish businesses to transfer their activities to the UK market, resulting in job losses here. He also pointed out that 80 per cent of agri-food jobs were in the regions, meaning that “already economically disadvantaged areas will become more disadvantaged”.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/unions-say-eu-must-protect-rural-areas-and-food-sector-from-brexit-1.3048901

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 01, 2019, 08:36:03 pm »

To be clear, I just enjoy coming on here to debate political stuff while we all wait for BCoF. Nothing personal to me, I'm just very bored at work. Even though I put out some 'Holland' bait from time to time this thread wouldn't be as interesting without the Dutch contributions.

ITT:
Corporate lawyer baits unemployed social science students into having an absolute meltdown attempting to defend the hilarious and total failure that is the European integration project.

I don't think keeping Europeans from endlessly killing each other through famine and war and the freedom of movement would necessarily classify it as a total failure broseph.

*NATO. EU fucked up in Yugoslavia and Ukraine.

38

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 01, 2019, 03:26:49 pm »

You will have alienated a major economy on your doorstep

Yeah, and it will definitly hurt us. But I fail to see how, logically, the UK will be hurt comparatively less. You're not just gonna WTO trade with us, but also with the rest of the world. How will it be bad for us, but not for you?

Existing deals with countries outside the EU are already being what's called 'grandfathered', i.e arrangements rolled over as far as possible. It'll also be very easy for the UK to trade access to its markets for agricultural products in return for services (etc), which is something the EU struggles to do due to French objections.

It will hurt the UK, but the damage will mostly be sector specific. In the medium to long term EU exports to the UK (your largest market) will become increasingly uncompetitive assuming the UK goes down the path of trade liberalisation. The flip-side of that is prices in the UK, both for consumer goods and inputs for industry, will on average decrease. You'll also see onshoring as UK firms pull back operations from EU27 to Britain. UK tech industry, the biggest in Europe, will also benefit from escaping particularly burdensome EU regulation (for some reason Brussels has a death wish when it comes to digital technology).

You also have to recognise that the UK economy is c.80% services. It's easy to continue servicing EU customers in the event of a 'no deal' because all you need is to open a 'brass plate company' and employ a handful of people there, or some kind of 'eResidency' scheme. By contrast these options aren't available to German heavy industry.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 01, 2019, 12:52:58 pm »

I'm a corporate lawyer by profession, most of my time these days is devoted to Brexit related matters.

There's not going to be a closed border, mainly because not a single piece of infrastructure has been built to allow that to happen. If it's a 'no deal' then traffic will continue to flow and the EU will almost certainly end up introducing checks in the Celtic Sea (Irish and British goods alike will be subject to customs controls in continental Europe). Ireland will not like that, so we'll end up with a negotiated settlement somewhere down the line. If that happens then it's Ireland's fault, since Varadkar scrapped the UK/Irish technical team working on the border when he became PM and insisted on allowing Brussels to weaponise the issue. 

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: February 01, 2019, 01:42:06 am »

There is no such thing as the president of Holland.

Well, nobody's ever been there so we'll never know for sure.

Hahahahahahaha - oh god, you're serious?

Yeah I'm deadly serious. Eurozone interest rates are at -0.4%, ECB has wound down QE and growth is minuscule. They have nowhere to go. You think they're going to risk a huge economic shock for the Irish? Lmao, these people didn't give a shit about the Greeks so what makes the Irish so special? Even without the backstop they still have a really good deal.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 31, 2019, 09:51:06 pm »

Nobody cares about what the President of Holland has to say.

'No Deal' is going to happen if the backstop isn't removed, and for the UK it probably won't be that bad. You will have alienated a major economy on your doorstep and the EU will have to go to the negotiating table anyway to hash out a few 'mini-deals' to enable access to London financial markets and other things. I fully expect Ireland to be abandoned like the total irrelevance that it actually is, since everyone knows Brussels doesn't give a shit about peace or whatever they just wanted to weaponize it for the negotiations. Factor in the weakness of the Eurozone economy and it's pretty clear that you guys can't win a game of chicken with us. We will win this small victory at least.

You do make an interesting point re: Eurosceptic parties toning down. I think that's because a) economic reality (you guys are much more economically dependent on the EU than we are), and b) they actually have a very good chance to seize control of the Brussels institutions over the next 10 years. If the populist/nationalist parties pooled their MEPs then they'd currently be the the 3rd biggest in the EU "Parliament". I wonder how many they'll have after May? What a shame it would be if a literal neo-Nazi from Eastern Europe became President of the EU Commission in 2024 (you only need to be proposed by the biggest group in the "parliament" after all). That'd be terrible because I'd probably die laughing.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 29, 2019, 04:16:44 pm »

It's not relevant, just funny (especially since that trip to the USSR was also his honeymoon). It's somewhat bizarre that so many old, hard-left political figures went on holidays with their lovers to destinations behind the Iron Curtain. For example Jeremy Corbyn went on a motorcycle trip with Diane Abbott across East Germany in the 70s.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 29, 2019, 02:41:31 pm »

Lmao, video footage has emerged of a shirtless Bernie Sanders singing Soviet propaganda songs with a group of Russians.
https://twitter.com/TopRopeTravis/status/1089909214213038081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 26, 2019, 11:28:10 pm »

You think people join the army because they want to use weapon systems in real combat and for 'the glory of going to war'?

I really don't know why you think that's somehow controversial. Have you ever seen a military recruitment ad? The glory of war is one of the major themes they almost always draw upon. And yes, they usually show off plenty of hardware too.

Spoiler

Recruits are hard to come by because the folks coming of prime military age now have lived their whole lives in a never-ending war in other people's countries and the delusion of 'protecting your country' by means of bombing others half a world away has crumbled.

No that's really not why recruiment is down.

Also during peace time recruitment numbers tend to go down anyway. Few people want to train for years on weapon systems they might never get to use in real combat and they want the glory of going to war.

Most regular force soldiers now days never even see active combat or even fulfill combat roles. A lot of it nowadays is NATO deployments in allied countries, peacekeeping and border security.

For example there is about 15,000 personal in the RCAF but only 100 or so aircraft used in combat. 

[close]

I'm probably being a bit UK-centric. Most UK personnel will have seen service in Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya/Syria at some point. Also peacekeeping is active combat since firefights often take place and UN peacekeepers do get killed, plus the UN gives out medals for it.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 26, 2019, 02:11:38 pm »

Recruits are hard to come by because the folks coming of prime military age now have lived their whole lives in a never-ending war in other people's countries and the delusion of 'protecting your country' by means of bombing others half a world away has crumbled.

No that's really not why recruiment is down.

Exactly. No idea about the Netherlands, but in Anglosphere countries a big factor is that too many people are unfit due to obesity, diabetes, asthma etc. When a third of American men are obese then your recruitment pool is actually quite small.

Also during peace time recruitment numbers tend to go down anyway. Few people want to train for years on weapon systems they might never get to use in real combat and they want the glory of going to war.