So how's Brexit going?

Discussion in 'Just Talk' started by chippie244, Mar 20, 2019.

  1. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    What "upper hand" did we give the EU? What else could we have done?
     
  2. greenback78

    greenback78 Active Member

    Fine in relative terms. It’s not a zero sum game so we have more to those than the EU. UK has benefitted from the single market for services but the import trade deficit is a bigger deal as we actually need this stuff. We don’t produce enough of what we import so it’s not going to be a case of switching off the tap but more like reduced demand under higher tariffs (Ireland agriculture will be stuffed) and paying more for things produced domestically (great for a handful of companies, bad overall for the economy). On the other hand, our services are not unique ie you can easily get financial services elsewhere in the EU and it’s a damned sight easier moving a few people and computers compared to a manufacturing line.

    We have some decent pockets of innovation but we’re not a high productivity manufacturing economy. The UK is far too reliant on services and retail consumption. Something economists have been saying for years but unfortunately the Tories have been in an endless circle jerk of Eurosceptic mayhem for 30 years and Labour were too focussed on the public sector to realise that the private sector needed a similar amount of love.

    Everything will find a balance eventually but the artificial novelty of sovereign decision making (we still have to abide my somebody’s rules - WTO or otherwise) isn’t really worth the price of a couple of further lost decades.
     
    btiw2, Vixere and chippie244 like this.
  3. goldenboy

    goldenboy Super Member

    Think you will find a great deal of people havent survived austerity.
     
  4. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    I'd be more concerned by someone using 'body language' to determine their decision on our country's future.
     
  5. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    Don't you think the growth of food banks is rather uplifting? It shows what a compassionate country we are.
     
  6. Baxi Boy

    Baxi Boy Active Member

    Some compassionate people yes,not Government though.I wonder how many people would be happy to have a rise in income tax if the money raised the level of those at the bottom who don’t earn enough to pay any tax?
     
  7. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    I agree that this does not appear to be a very compassionate government.

    I'm not sure what your other point is though. I think polls show that most tax-payers would be willing to pay a bit more to rescue our NHS, for example. I'm not sure they'd also do this to raise the lower tax threshold above the current £11k, a figure that seems to me to be far too low. Imagine earning only £11k and about to get taxed on any more than this?

    I suspect, although I don't know, that most of the people who run these food banks are basic-level tax payers, possibly not much better off than those they are helping, so I'm not sure I'd expect or ask them if they'd be willing to pay more tax to help those without.

    I wonder how many higher-rate tax payers are helping to run these banks? Or am I too cynical there?
     
  8. Baxi Boy

    Baxi Boy Active Member

    Governments that promise to raise income tax tend to lose votes,so not many in favour of that.The threshold has risen quite a bit in recent years to £12,500 from next week,but still too low of course and too much gap to the 40% rate at £50,000, Should be more like £18,000,and £40,000,with a sliding scale up from there.Footballers,Celebraties etc paying 80% if they want to live here.Lets face it anyone earning over £800 a week isn’t poor and could pay more.National insurance too no upper thresholds as now,make them pay 12% on all earnings over £8,632 a year.
     
    Vixere likes this.
  9. dinkydo

    dinkydo Screwfix Select


    Hey Vixere, I’m a tax payer and would not give a penny extra to the NHS, I have worked in private and NHS and seen the unbelievable waste in the later, give the NHS one billion this year and they will want two billion next year, what it needs is an outside trouble shooter to cut through the bs who had nothing to gain from giving unlimited funds to the NHS, a bit like when Maggie brought in the Canadian MacGregor to sort out King Arthur, anyone who thinks money will cure the NHS is a fool.

    It worked and we kept the lights on, no need to give me all that nonsense about communities destroyed, I am well aware of the arguments.

    Laurel and Hardy will be along shortly
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2019
    gadget man, longboat and MrA like this.
  10. Bob Rathbone

    Bob Rathbone Screwfix Select

    Vixere, thanks for your support, the finance industry has things all nicely set up at the moment, Bexit will give them some extra work. Financial institutions will be able to make a buck in all markets, they just have to work harder when the going is tough. Stability is the key, that's why the pound has fallen, not Brexit, but the uncertainty.
     
  11. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    That's quite scathing about our NHS, dinkydo, and I think you'll find you are in a minority there. What's more, it seems to be rated quite highly across the globe, and not just by our population. Results from Google suggest this quite comprehensively.

    What's your reference to 'communities destroyed'? You've lost me on that one I'm afraid.

    And who are you referring to by Laurel and Hardy?
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2019
  12. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    You lost me too, Bob; I wasn't aware I was giving anyone support.

    All I'm saying is that it would seem to be the case from reports that I've read - and it makes kind of obvious sense to me too - that the EU will also be badly affected by a no-deal exit by the UK. Not nearly as badly, but certainly significantly. There was even a report today that the Irish economy would be severely affected by a no-deal scenario.

    My point would then be, after the UK has hurt the other EU countries with a no-deal exit, how are they likely to react when we say to them the day afterwards, "Righty-ho, me ol' chukka, how about a trade deal?" I imagine not very positively.
     
  13. Crowsfoot

    Crowsfoot Screwfix Select


    When someone gets sick look after them from the cradle to death was the original mission statement of the NHS?
    Yet we now spend billions on preventative care of something that we might never catch, it's this policy that is swallowing up all the NHS cash.
     
    dinkydo likes this.
  14. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    That's surely quite a different issue, Crowsfoot, and perhaps worthy of a thread of its own?

    Personally I think that preventive measures makes complete sense.
     
  15. b4xtr

    b4xtr Active Member

    Talking of the NHS i thankfully have personally not needed to make use for 20+ yrs and hadn't realized until recently quite how many volunteers they have in the Hospitals and, the numbers are growing after a campaign by a newspaper, goes to show a lot of people are very fond of the NHS and generous when it comes to that particular institution
    ( yes the Mrs gets The Mail on a Saturday for the TV guide ) i would think there would be a massive cost if they were not there ?
    On another (similar ) note, i noticed an appeal on TV recently (rightly) asking the public for money for a flood disaster in a foreign land ( can't remember the area) and it raises the question for me, why isn't the foreign aid budget used for this sort of thing ?
    BTW this is not a political view just an observation
     
  16. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    I wasn't aware of significant volunteers in the NHS, b4xtr - it seems crazy it needs that to operate properly.

    The recent flood was in Mozambique, and was truly tragic. I, too, think it's fair enough asking the public for money towards such catastrophes, and also that wealthy countries dig deeper in to their pockets to provide additional funding, as the UK always does.

    'Foreign Aid', on the other hand, is meant to assist countries to improve their own development so they can ideally get to a position where they are able to compete with the rest of the world more fairly, so that the need for FA falls off over time. That clearly isn't going to happen any time soon :-(
     
  17. dinkydo

    dinkydo Screwfix Select


    Yes I see where you are coming from Crowsfoot, but also having worked within the NHS, some ludicrous practises are in place with the taxpayer left to foot the bill, example a manager on say £50,000 and the department closes so he is redundant, what happens then he is moved into another job he or she is not qualified for and gets pay protection for the next couple of years, or moved into a non job that at best may pay £18,000 pa shuffling paper, but the £50,000 pa stayes

    Heads of departments who may be on upto £80,000 pa often bring in outside consultants on perhaps between £200 to £300 ph to tell them how to do the job

    I could go on but that’s just a couple of examples.
     
  18. dinkydo

    dinkydo Screwfix Select


    Hi Vixere, If the NHS is rated highly across the globe I would think the ratings are from people that are not aware of the reality,

    My near neighbour was on a two year waiting list for a hip replacement, so to end her agony she paid £2000.00 and the job was done within a month by a surgeon that we the taxpayer paid to train,

    I know of people who pay to have their teeth fixed abroad because it is too expensive here, we also have British people who go to places like Turkey or Spain and pay for medical treatment because our waiting lists are too long and To go private here is far too expensive

    Nurses are often referred to as underpaid, they are only a tiny fraction of a percent of NHS workers but others barely get a mention,

    Also far too many nurses enter the profession to use it as a stepping stone into management there by we are losing the skills that they have been trained for (also see my answers to Crowsfoot) or after all the training decide they can’t afford to live on the wages and leave, shouldn’t they have known the deal before training?

    “communities destroyed” this was just an analogy between two organisations that seem impossible to fix, the coal industry that brought the country to its knees in the early 70s with a 3 day working week having to be introduced by the government, the unions were all powerful and a solution could not be found other than throwing millions of pounds at it to appease the unions, They tried it again in the eighties but this time the government was ready and brought in a trouble shooter, this involved closing down all the loss making pits which was most of them, this action in some instances threw most people in mining communities on the dole, the alternative was carry on funding loss making pits and supporting pits producing coal that was not needed,

    So my point is we need someone with the guts to go into the NHS cut through the bs and stop them taking the wee wee, unfortunately I can’t see that happening, but that was what the country thought where the miners were concerned

    Ah Laurel and Hardy, I was just making reference to a couple of prolific members of this forum one of which has a predilection for starting what becomes contentious threads, hey don’t get me wrong he’s good at it, in fact the forum would be the poorer if they were to leave (they aren’t leavers by the way) they give quite a few other regulars a good giggle, they engage quite regularly in a mutual admiration society in fact one of em has a name for this sort of behaviour, circle something or other, so one would say the moons made of green cheese and the other would give it a like and agree, I’m pretty sure if they were both made of chocolate they would eat one another, anyway on the tech side of the forum I’m taking nothing away and they generally give good advice.

    So I’m not gonna spoil the fun and name these two, let’s see if anyone knows em:)
     
  19. Vixere

    Vixere Active Member

    I'm sure we can all find stories of dreadful waiting times and suchlike, especially since this current government chose 'austerity' for the past decade. But the NHS is still largely held in high regard, and you can easily try a google for how it rates against other health systems across the globe. I think you'll find it's high.

    I would welcome a trouble-shooter to have a look at wastage, of which it is likely there is a fair amount. Do I recall a series of documentaries involving Harvey-Jones where he did this, a good while ago? Can't remember the findings.

    This needs an open, honest, non-partisan cross-party approach, so that the best solutions for the NHS are arrived at, and if that involves a penny on tax for example, all parties sign up to it.

    I agree with what you say - it's all very well for people to claim they'd be happy to be taxed more for the sake of the NHS, but I suspect that will change when it comes to ticking a ballot paper.
     
  20. Odd Bodkin

    Odd Bodkin Active Member

    It seems the maybot's final negotiating tactic is to promise everyone she'll bugger off if only the mouseketeers will vote for her deal.

    So, it seems a bad deal is preferable to no deal.

    As Boris might say: Exitus Acta Probat *

     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice