Brexit negotiations thread

[Tangled up in Blue]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44516123

See the PM has made it clear that tax rises will be needed to cover the projected increase in spending for the NHS.

That Brexit divident didn't last long.:smile:

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Brexit Dividend

this is how far we have come, after 2 years of apologists saying that the Leave campaign '£350m extra a week to the NHS' wasn't binding the government have now made it policy. Even though there is not one economist stating that we will not lose money in the short and medium term after Brexit the government have stated where they are going to spend this non existent money.

I'm struggling to take this at face value. They can't be that economically illiterate surely? So it's an outright lie. But why would they do that? I'm at a loss to work out the logic of this. Anyone?
(serious suggestions please not......you know)

It's smoke and mirrors.

Those taken in by the idea of £350m a week clearly don't look beyond the headlines and question things so May is trying to distract them with a headline and whilst they are celebrating that, May will cave in a number of their demands about Brexit.

Of course this just kicks the can further down the road. Sooner or later there will be a moment of reckoning as May is currently promising mutually exclusive things to different wings of the party.

Now NHS funding has been explicitly linked to Brexit by calling it the "Brexit dividend" once May's govenrment (she'll let someone else take the blame) comes clean about how this is to be funded it'll inevitably be rechristened the "Brexit tax", but in the meantime May can cling onto power for a few more months. Her goal is survival. What is best for the country comes second. She'll probably have Hammond take the fall when taxes go up, but for now they'll try and escape that by fiddling with the tax bands.

They only have to look under the Labour money tree. The one that will Provide the £300b to renationalise the railways. Don't waste your time asking any Labour MPs where it is because they can never answer.

Your solution to everything politics seems to be to look at what Labour are doing. It would be quicker to just put Labour in charge.

 

[Napster]

I’m not sure that that is the best question to focus on, initially. Economics is not a science, and there is no ‘right answer’. Get 20 economists in a room and you will have 20 different answers. The reason being that economics is about predicting the future - the effects of changing circumstances on supply and demand. In terms of Brexit, there are so many variables that we could debate all day (and tomorrow, and the day after) and still not be ‘right’ in terms of what actually happens in the end.

Taking one isolated question from the current public debate on Brexit as an example: the cost of imports (be they finished products or raw materials). A lot of the debate takes a narrow view that everything everyone does, all behaviour and choices, will stay the same but prices will go up. This will not be the case, people and businesses will substitute products or suppliers for example if steel costs more from Europe, either the relative cost of buying from alternate sources (eg Australia, Canada) will become relatively cheaper. Or, production at home will be relatively cheaper. So more may be produced at home and/or more may be sourced elsewhere. Existing barriers to sourcing elsewhere could fall through the reduction/removal of EU tariffs and our agreement of trade deals that suit the UK with suppliers who are keen to sell. We can also manipulate policy levers at home to encourage domestic production in ways that we are currently prevented from doing by EU rules (which may currently suit other EU states far more than they do the UK).

All that is certain is that some changes will come about. It is up to us to identify the opportunities and then take advantage of them.

It literally is.

This old chestnut of domestic production makes me laugh - domestic manufacturing is so weak. Our factories need investment, our infrastructure is poor, our workforce unready. It will take years to get up to speed, and once it is, the financial benefits will have been lost. Our economy is a services economy - that's where we need to focus.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

It literally isn’t I’m afraid Napster.

 

[Napster]

It literally isn’t I’m afraid Napster.

It's short for "economical science".

Science is defined as "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment."

some historical definitions:

Sir James Steuart (1767) wrote the first book in English with 'political economy' in the title, explaining that just as: "Economy in general [is] the art of providing for all the wants of a family, [so the science of political economy] seeks to secure a certain fund of subsistence for all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which may render it precarious; to provide every thing necessary for supplying the wants of the society, and to employ the inhabitants ... in such manner as naturally to create reciprocal relations and dependencies between them, so as to supply one another with reciprocal wants."

The philosopher Adam Smith (1776) defines the subject as "an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations," in particular as:a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator [with the twofold objective of providing] a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people ... [and] to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue for the publick services."

J.B. Say (1803), distinguishing the subject from its public-policy uses, defines it as the science of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth.

John Stuart Mill (1844) defines the subject in a social context as:The science which traces the laws of such of the phenomena of society as arise from the combined operations of mankind for the production of wealth, in so far as those phenomena are not modified by the pursuit of any other object.

William Stanley Jevons.. defines economics highlighting the hedonic and quantitative aspects of the science: "In this work I have attempted to treat Economy as a Calculus of Pleasure and Pain, and have sketched out, almost irrespective of previous opinions, the form [B}which the science[/B], as it seems to me, must ultimately take. I have long thought that as it deals throughout with quantities, it must be a mathematical science in matter if not in language.

Lionel Robbins (1932) developed implications of what has been termed "[p]erhaps the most commonly accepted current definition of the subject":[12]

Economics is a science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.[13]

I know you think that science is probably that which can be repeated and observed but for a more analytical science like economics, it's different. It is used to analyse as well as predict.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Indeed. It is termed a science and many attempts been made to lend weight to it and professionalise it. Yet, the reality is that science is something that can be both proven and disproven to produce outcomes that are either precisely the same or at least consistent within a band of probability - which is in itself consistent. This is not true of economics. Economics is about predicting the future and no matter what it is called or classified, it is not true science.

 

[Napster]

Indeed. It is termed a science and many attempts been made to lend weight to it and professionalise it. Yet, the reality is that science is something that can be both proven and disproven to produce outcomes that are either precisely the same or at least consistent within a band of probability - which is in itself consistent. This is not true of economics. Economics is about predicting the future and no matter what it is called or classified, it is not true science.

we will have to agree to disagree. My view of science is that it is measurable, not necessarily repeatable.

 

[Napster]

ps Rigsby et al, this is how you debate intelligently without attacking the person.

:winking:

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

we will have to agree to disagree. My view of science is that it is measurable, not necessarily repeatable.

Measureable before the event, to a high degree of accuracy. Economics is measureable after the event to a high degree of accuracy, not before. That is not to say that economics is not useful: it is. We have to take micro and macro level decisions all the time and we wish to base these on rationale, for which we use statistics, logic and experience. Economics is more scientific at the micro level (that is to say, decisions taken by or affecting individuals or limited groups that can be specifically identified as having the same set of precise characteristics in a certain situation) than it is at the macro level (nations or groups of nations). I could go on but you get the gist :smile:

 

[SARF]

Economists favourite words..

Could
Might
Possibly

Unforeseen
Unexpected

Revised

Get a few of those in each paragraph and your usually safe

 

[SARF]

Unfortunately for Osbourne he used the word ‘would’ in his taxpayer funded predictions of what might happen Immediatly after the vote.. tsk tsk. Economists schoolboy error number 1

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

President Truman famously said: “Give me an Economist with one hand. All my Economists say ‘on one hand... but then on the other...’ “

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Economists favourite words..

Could
Might
Possibly

Unforeseen
Unexpected

Revised

Get a few of those in each paragraph and your usually safe

Not only economists.I well remember a former TEFL lecturer of mine saying that as TEFL teachers:-"we needed to cover ourselves with modals." :winking:

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Unfortunately for Osbourne he used the word ‘would’ in his taxpayer funded predictions of what might happen Immediatly after the vote.. tsk tsk. Economists schoolboy error number 1

That would be "Boy George" Osborne,I presume? Also known to Private Eye readers as Gideon.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

It's smoke and mirrors.

Those taken in by the idea of £350m a week clearly don't look beyond the headlines and question things so May is trying to distract them with a headline and whilst they are celebrating that, May will cave in a number of their demands about Brexit.

Of course this just kicks the can further down the road. Sooner or later there will be a moment of reckoning as May is currently promising mutually exclusive things to different wings of the party.

Now NHS funding has been explicitly linked to Brexit by calling it the "Brexit dividend" once May's govenrment (she'll let someone else take the blame) comes clean about how this is to be funded it'll inevitably be rechristened the "Brexit tax", but in the meantime May can cling onto power for a few more months. Her goal is survival. What is best for the country comes second. She'll probably have Hammond take the fall when taxes go up, but for now they'll try and escape that by fiddling with the tax bands.



Your solution to everything politics seems to be to look at what Labour are doing. It would be quicker to just put Labour in charge.

I think this is pretty much it, but I am still genuinely shocked that she would announce that she would use a pool of money that everyone knows doesn't exist.

I'm thinking that the end result will be that as they are committed to the £20bn spend and the Brexit Dividend has unfortunately not materialised - you the British have the choice between paying higher taxes to plug the gap, or we can part privatise in order to protect your income.

It has been said that a US trade deal would entail access to the NHS for US private finance - this fits neatly into that narrative. Imaginary money replaced by private money.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44542156

More Parliamentary "ping-pong" on the way,later today I see.:smile:

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44542156

More Parliamentary "ping-pong" on the way,later today I see.:smile:

More gullible 'rebels' who straight after the vote are told the appeasement they were offered and accepted ain't worth ****.
All this toing and froing about what Parliament is willing to go along with is of little consequence when the Cabinet still haven't decided what they are willing to go along with - white paper sometime in July. Keep kicking that can down the road Theresa.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

More gullible 'rebels' who straight after the vote are told the appeasement they were offered and accepted ain't worth ****.
All this toing and froing about what Parliament is willing to go along with is of little consequence when the Cabinet still haven't decided what they are willing to go along with - white paper sometime in July. Keep kicking that can down the road Theresa.

I think Tom Peck, from the Independent, sums up the day pretty well. Brexit has become totally chaotic and completely undignified. As I read recently, don't think the EU give a toss anymore about our struggles, they've got more important and urgent matters to consider.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...wheelchair-conservatives-labour-a8408526.html

Is it true, there really is a leaving date in March next year? Otherwise, I just fear this farce could go on for ever! :omg:

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

I think this is pretty much it, but I am still genuinely shocked that she would announce that she would use a pool of money that everyone knows doesn't exist.

I'm thinking that the end result will be that as they are committed to the £20bn spend and the Brexit Dividend has unfortunately not materialised - you the British have the choice between paying higher taxes to plug the gap, or we can part privatise in order to protect your income.

It has been said that a US trade deal would entail access to the NHS for US private finance - this fits neatly into that narrative. Imaginary money replaced by private money.

The Brexit dividend is of course the Brexit deficit.

What's said to be "clear" is obviously muddled; "strong and stable" is manifestly weak and divided etc.

I know politicians were never particularly trustworthy but they use to just exaggerate or mislead and what they said was based on a twisted version of the truth. Now it's open barefaced lying and the Bigger the Lie the better. We see it with conspiracy theories and nonsense about child actors; we see it about inauguration attendance numbers etc and we know those advising in the US are bringing these propaganda tactics over here as we saw it on the side of buses.

I suppose the result of this to turn people off of politics. Then you don't have to worry about scrutiny and transparency and all those others pesky democratic traits that stop you enriching you and your mates.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Very worrying times in the world at the moment. We never seem to learn from previous experiences, whether it be trade wars or scapegoating immigrants. Just when people should be uniting and defending values, we choose to go on our independence strop, searching for some kind of Jerusalem, which has long ago, ceased to exist. Standing together in difficult times is generally your best hope for survival, yet, it's just at this moment, we choose to go it alone.