Benefits of Brexit for Britain

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plodder
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Sun Oct 17, 2021 7:23 am

sheldrake wrote:
Sat Oct 16, 2021 9:07 pm
plodder wrote:
Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:51 pm
no you didn’t, because your point (wto is sparse as f.ck) didn’t need making and wasn’t responding to the conversation.
Yes it was. You asked for an example of something we'd be able to do that we couldn't before; A Labour government freed of single market rules could've saved jobs at Tata steel, at least until workable energy sources were put in place that got the costs down and made them competitive without support again. Besides which, you're not the only person in the thread. There are people who aren't necessarily aware that WTO rules are much less restrictive; the academic in the first link I posted wasn't even sure.
If you’re referencing academics who don’t know that the EU has a stricter and more comprehensive set of trade rules than the WTO then please try and find better academics.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:29 pm

According to The Spectator:
Brexit has ended Thatcherism.

the triumph of Brexit might be the death knell of the Thatcherite project, for Brexit, as well as causing problems that will require public money to fix, has stimulated a widespread longing for a revived nation state, which in turn has produced a new desire for social cohesion that sits uncomfortably with radical free-market economics. In becoming the party of Brexit, the Tories have bagged themselves a fascinating constituency of working-class towns. That’s a blessing, but these voters bring with them serious social problems, some exacerbated by previous Conservative governments, that require a policy agenda that goes well beyond laissez-faire.

As a result, the Conservatives are returning ineluctably to the themes of the 19th century: better pay and conditions, improved education, localism. Even the push to go green has a Romantic bent, to go back to the land, even to a rewilded landscape of boar and wolves. And though free-trade deals are being signed with gay abandon, ultimately the trend is away from globalisation and towards the restoration of a domestic economy serving a national polity. A pandemic and lockdown have turned us ever-inwards. It might be good to have some strategic industries onshore.

Brexit and Trump, the arch-protectionist, have more in common than we dare admit. Trump was a revolution from below that surprised the Republican establishment. Trump wasn’t a conservative, said the thinktanks and politicians, because he didn’t sound like Ronald Reagan. But Reagan was more like a Jeffersonian Democrat than an old-school Republican, a product of the Cold War consensus that had embraced free markets to beat the Reds.

Trump wasn’t about returning to the 1980s but the 1920s, when Republican elites protected markets with tariffs, curtailed immigration and stayed out of foreign conflicts. And the questions he asked — What is a nation without borders? Why do we want to spread freedom abroad? — again echo those older matters of belonging, identity and nationhood that gave rise to modern conservatism in the first place.

Conservatives are realising that their biggest concern is the maintenance of tradition, and in some cases they might discover that they have more in common with socialists — who at least value community over the individual — than they do with ultra-liberals. When Boris was confronted by businessmen angry with Brexit, his response, capturing the popular mood, was ‘f.ck business’.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/bre ... t-time-too
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by IvanV » Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:16 am

Trinucleus wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:38 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:20 pm
Trinucleus wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:33 pm
Given that it actually happens on EU countries, I don't think it counts as a benefit of Brexit
The economics editor of even the Guardian is well aware of what the EU single market state aid rules are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid ... ean_Union)
Measures which fall within the definition of state aid are considered unlawful unless provided under an exemption or notified by the European Commission.
We no longer need to apply for exemptions or request permission.
So the benefit is that we just don't have to get permission?
It doesn't stop it being an offence, as far as the EU is concerned. And the EU's sanctions for the offending non-EU states are worse than their sanctions for offending EU states.

In particular, if the EU decides that a non-EU state has applied a state aid to an industry, they can apply an anti-dumping duty. This is legal under WTO rules. Observe how the US sprays anti-dumping duties around, including recently for solar panels from China. And such duties tend to be really high. The EU tends to be a bit more continent than the US in this regard, but does it nonetheless. But the sanction for internal EU members being caught for non-permitted state aids is "pay it back". Which is often unenforceable and rarely enforced. But the embarrasment of being caught does often make it stop.

So it's better to have a permission system and know that you aren't going to be stuck with other countries applying a large import duty.

We look at China supporting various industries and getting a world-level stranglehold on those industries, like rare earth metals, and think, we'd like to do that. But it isn't easy, and British attempts to do that have failed. Here we are with our large wind turbine installation, especially offshore, and tried to support a wind turbine manufacturing indusry here. Yet wind turbines are hardly made in this country. European manufacture is in Denmark, Spain and Germany, three other countries with large installations.

Subsidy wars are really unhelpful for all parties involved. All parties spend public money, and it doesn't get them the sectoral growth they wanted because the foreigners are defending their industry just as much. So it's a really good idea to have a treaty saying "neither of us will apply state aids". It stops countries getting in a subsidy war whose outcome would be both countries pouring money down a black hole.

But short term political exigence often encourages countries to pour money into crap businesses, which it would do much better to allow to collapse. British Leyland, for example. Let's consider the example of flag carrier airlines, which governments often feel politically obliged to rescue.

So it was very beneficial to the Greek people for the cash-strapped Greek government to be able to usefully point to EU law and so refuse to bail out Olympic Airways for the n'th time, and let it collapse. OA's staff kept on striking for more money, even though their employer was losing money hand over fist. Since it's very quick and easy to move in when an airline collapses, so Greece still has adequate air transport, indeed better than it used to, as they don't have to put up with OA anymore. The Greeks have beneficially stopped pouring money down a black hole. Remote destinations with uncommercial services, like Karpathos and Kastellorizo, still have air service, but with an explicit public service contract like they are supposed to under EU law, rather than being cross-subsidised within a state airline. Other sensible EU countries that let their crap state-owned flag carriers collapse include Hungary and Belgium.

Meanwhile in Italy, they keep on rescuing Alitalia, and getting prosecuted for doing so. See what a good idea it would be to keep to the state aid rules?

Edited for typo and incomplete text.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by shpalman » Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:56 am

IvanV wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:16 am
Meanwhile in Italy, they keep on rescuing Alitalia...
ITA
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by IvanV » Fri Oct 22, 2021 11:33 am

shpalman wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:56 am
IvanV wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:16 am
Meanwhile in Italy, they keep on rescuing Alitalia...
ITA
Yes, the latest rescue of Alitalia was to renationalise it. I knew that, but I hadn't realised that they changed the name at the same time. I now see that technically speaking, I suppose to keep the EU off their backs, the state-owned ITA has only purchased "some of the assets" of the partially state-owned bankrupt (again) Alitalia, including aircraft, traffic rights, and the brandname, not the full operational business. Though doubtless in practice they will have had to take on many of the former employees to keep things running, as it isn't easy to suddenly buy 52 aircraft and start operating them. The logo looks remarkably similar to Alitalia.

The Swiss committed a similar folly about 20 years ago when bankrupt Swissair was bought by Swiss International Air Lines, which was actually another airline in the same group, originally called Crossair. The Swiss govt had only a 20% share in the rescued airline, but clearly they were funding the rescue.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:13 am

TAP is also a dead airline flying, and there are calls to nationalise it. I don't think the Portuguese government actually has enough money to, but they're suggesting a pretty generous bailout (again) so what do I know.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:19 am

IvanV wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:16 am
We look at China supporting various industries and getting a world-level stranglehold on those industries, like rare earth metals, and think, we'd like to do that. But it isn't easy, and British attempts to do that have failed. Here we are with our large wind turbine installation, especially offshore, and tried to support a wind turbine manufacturing indusry here. Yet wind turbines are hardly made in this country. European manufacture is in Denmark, Spain and Germany, three other countries with large installations.

Another country with high wind installation but no domestic manufacturing is Portugal. I also note that the renewables branch of the state energy company got privatised, sold and moved to Spain.

My local friends think there's no local businesses because the country is poor. I reckon the enormous inefficiency and unpredictability is more of a factor. The relatively high level of corruption (by West European standards) adds to the cost of business, but global corporations can clearly handle corruption because they operate outside Western Europe.

In Mexico, if you want a permit quickly you can bribe someone. In Portugal you might have to pay a bribe, but it still might not be quick, and there's just enough rule of law that you have to keep watching over your shoulder a little.

I'm wondering what gossip economists and others hear about why Portugal isn't a significant player in this market. Like, high education, high youth unemployment and bargain basement wages really ought to be huge pulls. And it's hella windy.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by IvanV » Sun Oct 31, 2021 11:49 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:19 am
Another country with high wind installation but no domestic manufacturing is Portugal. I also note that the renewables branch of the state energy company got privatised, sold and moved to Spain.

My local friends think there's no local businesses because the country is poor. I reckon the enormous inefficiency and unpredictability is more of a factor. The relatively high level of corruption (by West European standards) adds to the cost of business, but global corporations can clearly handle corruption because they operate outside Western Europe.

In Mexico, if you want a permit quickly you can bribe someone. In Portugal you might have to pay a bribe, but it still might not be quick, and there's just enough rule of law that you have to keep watching over your shoulder a little.

I'm wondering what gossip economists and others hear about why Portugal isn't a significant player in this market. Like, high education, high youth unemployment and bargain basement wages really ought to be huge pulls. And it's hella windy.
Portugal has the 10th largest wind installation in Europe. But it's fair comment, as Denmark is 9th. Part of the reason Denmark punches ahead of it's weight is that Danish power company Oersted (formerly DONG) is a major investor in other countries' wind farms, and energy industries more generally. Denmark was also a pioneer of off-shore installation.

Spain also has energy companies that are very active in investing in other countries' wind farms, and indeed their energy industries more generally, considerably more so than Oersted. I have asked a number of Spanish engineers if this is because Spanish engineering countries were unusually efficient, entrepreneurial or technically advanced. They have consistently said no, it was purely due to tax advantages of FDI from Spain. Similarly the Spanish investment in Heathrow. France and Italy, being 4th and 5th behind Germany, Spain and UK, can also perhaps bemoan their limited participation in wind turbine manufacturing. But Italy does have Prysmian, one of the 3 largest transmission cable manufacturers, which is a major growth market driven by renewable generation. It was responsible for the distinctly unreliable Western HVDC Link, which has now taken its website down, probably because the only kind of good news on it was "it is now up again".

Portugal is a backward country by "old EU" standards. It has developed considerably since I first visited nearly 40 years ago, but nevertheless not as fast as most other backward countries in the EU. It has certainly fallen well behind Spain over the last few decades. The main issue that holds such economies back is the same as what we see in Greece (though Portugal avoided its disaster), and increasingly in Italy which has had no economic growth for over a decade now - failure to address obvious impediments to economic development, because they would be damaging to minority vested interests. And the corruption and bureaucracy doesn't help either. I strongly and routinely recommend Why Nations Fail to people who wish to understand such reasoning in more detail. It's only part of the story, but it's a big part of it.

Why doesn't Portugal do anything like Denmark? Because it is mainly seen as a supplier of low cost labour in basic manufacturing, like clothes and shoes, and has no reputable highly competent major companies doing any major investment anywhere or leading tech investment. It has some electronics factories too these days, but still as outposts of other countries. It's location doesn't help. Slovakia is getting a lot of investment in similar kinds of lower-cost-outsourced-manufacture, but Bratislava is only 50km from Vienna, and so has better opportunity to leverage off that cluster into a wider range of locally-generated activities with wealthy markets nearby. I think it also suffers a bit of the malaise like Britain that Lisbon rules while Porto produces, so not many of the clever people in Lisbon care about much of that stuff (cf Britain's London vs Everywhere Else). No one outsources shoe-making to Denmark, so Denmark has to justify its very high wage status with high value added activities, and because it succeeds in doing so maintains that status. It didn't help Portugal being run by a dictator with the mind of an accountant - Salazar - throughout the middle of the 20th century, which meant that Portugal fell well behind during the great post-war growth, as he wasn't into taking investment risk. It is not even much of a force in its former colonies, a fact noted even in the 19th centry when the Royal Family decided there were better prospects in Brazil, and Pedro IV was only briefly king of Portugal but much longer Pedro I of Brazil. Well that's a bit of stream of consciousness why Portugal has such a weak economy, but maybe you can pick your way through.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:22 am

Interesting post, thanks Ivan. What you say makes sense and rings true based on what I've seen, but right now I'm struggling to resist making a cheap gag about "big DONG energy" so I'll leave a proper response for later.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Tue Nov 09, 2021 11:42 pm

Working class wages continue to be pushed up

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/20/amazon- ... rkers.html
If you’re coming in from another country, you have to earn at least £26,000 to be granted a work visa — people who go into warehousing aren’t going to earn that sort of money,” he explained. “So they’re not going to go into warehousing."
Imagine a world where a repetitive and physically demanding full time job that most people didn't want actually paid enough to support a family.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:24 am

Shell are abandoning their dual country structure and moving their HQ to the UK. They intend to transition to become a ‘net zero carbon energy company’. I dont know what they mean exactly; are they going to become all about wind and hydrogen, or is this about fossil fuels + carbon credit trading?
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by discovolante » Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:54 am

They say that's what they intend. And if they say net zero I'd say they almost certainly mean trading/offsetting, which should be watched closely obvs.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:04 am

discovolante wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:54 am
They say that's what they intend. And if they say net zero I'd say they almost certainly mean trading/offsetting, which should be watched closely obvs.
It likely means pipelines and production of blue hydrogen
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:33 am

plodder wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:04 am
discovolante wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:54 am
They say that's what they intend. And if they say net zero I'd say they almost certainly mean trading/offsetting, which should be watched closely obvs.
It likely means pipelines and production of blue hydrogen
I am not sure if people who might vote Green see this as a positive, but it does sound like a minor positive as a vote of confidence in the UK as a place to run a business
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:56 am

There's a lot of shite being spoken about green and blue hydrogen right now, on both sides. No way of knowing how it will land.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:10 pm

Main concern with hydrogen for me is how explosive and easily ignited it is. Somebody with a chemical engineering degree reassure me pls.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:14 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:10 pm
Main concern with hydrogen for me is how explosive and easily ignited it is. Somebody with a chemical engineering degree reassure me pls.
Is it any worse than petrol or jet fuel in that respect?
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:34 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:14 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:10 pm
Main concern with hydrogen for me is how explosive and easily ignited it is. Somebody with a chemical engineering degree reassure me pls.
Is it any worse than petrol or jet fuel in that respect?
Hydrogen is very leaky because the molecule is tiny and blue hydrogen uses fossil fuels in its manufacture. It's tied in w/ CCS.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Trinucleus » Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:39 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:14 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:10 pm
Main concern with hydrogen for me is how explosive and easily ignited it is. Somebody with a chemical engineering degree reassure me pls.
Is it any worse than petrol or jet fuel in that respect?
It's a lot less compact, so harder to store.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:46 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:14 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:10 pm
Main concern with hydrogen for me is how explosive and easily ignited it is. Somebody with a chemical engineering degree reassure me pls.
Is it any worse than petrol or jet fuel in that respect?
Yes, it a) can leak more easily b) is easier to ignite c) can react with ferrous pipes to make them brittle and d) can burn with a flame that's hard to see so that you accidentally walk into it.

Until somebody with the right kind of engineering experience can explain how we've gotten much better at handling it I would be very nervous about running my domestic boiler off it, for example.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:51 pm

Thanks, Trinucleus, plodder sheldrake, I'm wiser now.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Wed Nov 17, 2021 2:07 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:46 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:14 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:10 pm
Main concern with hydrogen for me is how explosive and easily ignited it is. Somebody with a chemical engineering degree reassure me pls.
Is it any worse than petrol or jet fuel in that respect?
Yes, it a) can leak more easily b) is easier to ignite c) can react with ferrous pipes to make them brittle and d) can burn with a flame that's hard to see so that you accidentally walk into it.

Until somebody with the right kind of engineering experience can explain how we've gotten much better at handling it I would be very nervous about running my domestic boiler off it, for example.
I guess for c) the pipes get replaced and d) a colourant would be added?
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Wed Nov 17, 2021 2:46 pm

This was interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety

One possible advantage of hydrogen is that although it leaks more easily, it also disperses a lot more easily.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:59 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:24 am
Shell are abandoning their dual country structure and moving their HQ to the UK. They intend to transition to become a ‘net zero carbon energy company’. I dont know what they mean exactly; are they going to become all about wind and hydrogen, or is this about fossil fuels + carbon credit trading?
Is that because they're pissed off over the recent Dutch high court ruling ordering them to comply with human rights legislation and by extension the Paris Agreement?
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Thu Nov 18, 2021 12:02 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:59 pm

Is that because they're pissed off over the recent Dutch high court ruling ordering them to comply with human rights legislation and by extension the Paris Agreement?
There's a summary here https://qz.com/2089366/why-shell-is-mov ... to-the-uk/ that cites multiple factors and the largest seems like the Dutch dividend tax that also got Unilever to move
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