Scrutable

sheldrake wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:53 am ..You can see the difference when you look at actual Irish median income (significantly lower than the UK) vs Irish GDP per capita (almost 3 times the UK). ..

Have you got a source for that ? Just googled it and found this (from 2018) which seems to indicate Ireland has a higher hourly earnings than UK in EUR and PPS (Purchasing Power)

PeteB wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:36 pm

Have you got a source for that ?

I used this https://worldpopulationreview.com/count ... by-country, but it isn't adjusted by PPP like yours.

sheldrake wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:44 pm

PeteB wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:36 pm

Have you got a source for that ?

I used this https://worldpopulationreview.com/count ... by-country, but it isn't adjusted by PPP like yours.

Ah OK - I think that is "Data aggregated from 2006–2012 based on at least 2,000 interviews.
This data is based on self-reported data that was gathered between 2006 and 2012."

Here was another from 2018

Luxembourg is a tangent. For FDI and the success or otherwise of Brexit, it seems to me 150,000 died of Covid which allows people to muddy the water of discussing the underlying root problems in the UK at present.

In the mean time, things are not good in several sectors. The absolute benefit or cost of Brexit will not be uniform for all people just like you had access to petrol and a lot of others did not. I think it may take 20 years for the dust to settle.

In the meantime the candidesque approach of assuming everything is fantastic in the most wonderful of Brexit worlds strikes me as interesting given the UK government is now not happy with the agreement they signed with much fanfare in December last, but the part they want to renegotiate is the part affecting that part of the UK least affected by logistics problems.

In short, right now the jury suggests the UK has messed up in some way that can only be paid for with tax rises, an impoverishing reduction in universal credit. You attribute simplicity to complex issues and you throw stuff at the discussion hoping some of it will stick.

sheldrake wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:22 am Unemployment currently lower than at any point during the Blair or Brown governments https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlab ... s/mgsx/lms

With a furlough scheme operating? Shocker

temptar wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:08 pm For FDI and the success or otherwise of Brexit, it seems to me 150,000 died of Covid which allows people to muddy the water of discussing the underlying root problems in the UK at present.

In the mean time, things are not good in several sectors. The absolute benefit or cost of Brexit will not be uniform for all people just like you had access to petrol and a lot of others did not. I think it may take 20 years for the dust to settle.

Perhaps, but I think you should acknowledge how many disaster predictions about brexit were predicated on much shorter timescales after voting out, or actually withdrawing from the EU, which just haven't materialised. You're using a lot of qualitative/subjective language here, and it would be better if you demonstrated your points with real economic data.

In the meantime the candidesque approach of assuming everything is fantastic in the most wonderful of Brexit worlds strikes me as interesting given the UK government is now not happy with the agreement they signed with much fanfare in December last, but the part they want to renegotiate is the part affecting that part of the UK least affected by logistics problems.

They're not happy with the EUs approach to 'best endeavor', certainly.

Trinucleus wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:08 pm
With a furlough scheme operating? Shocker

It was even lower before Covid.

The UK is almost as successful as a tiny tax haven in the EU. Yay brexit.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:29 pm The UK is almost as successful as a tiny tax haven in the EU. Yay brexit.

More successful than Germany and every other EU country by that measure. Look at where the real job creation is.

sheldrake wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:31 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:29 pm The UK is almost as successful as a tiny tax haven in the EU. Yay brexit.

More successful than Germany and every other EU country by that measure. Look at where the real job creation is.

But where is the link with brexit?

I see the point that the UK economy hasn't completely ground to a halt this year, which is good. But if this is supposed to be a brexit consequence (which I assume it's why you posted it in this thread) you need to explain how leaving the EU has helped. Or why being in the EU has hampered every country except Luxembourg.

sheldrake wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 7:03 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 6:50 pm I'd say it's fairly plain that at least some of the issues in the UK are
A. Definitely happening (eg some localised shortages of food and fuel), and
B. Probably exacerbated by brexit. It's a contributory factor, even if "with covid" is also on the death certificate.

It's not clear to me exactly which bit sheldrake disagrees with. Can we have more light and less heat? (The gas price hikes might help with this)

I doubt brexit has much effect, because

a) given the proportion of drivers who actually came from the EU (already posted) and how that proportion had actually increased since we voted out (also posted).

b) The biggest driver shortage is currently in Poland, and it's pretty big in Germany

I would describe this as triggered by a reckless haulage industry negotiating tactic, on a background of Covid, with brexit as a possible minor factor.

I honestly think the only reason this thread has dwealt on it so long though, is because people really are looking for something they can say 'aha, told you so!' about brexit because so many of the lurid predictions have already been proven wrong.

It's time people moved on from that and started thinking about the better kind of society they can carve out using the new political independence as an opportunity instead of being gloomy about something that didn't go their way five years ago. All that will happen if you do that is the Tories will get to define that future. Even Starmer shows glimmers of grasping this, for all his other faults.

Coming back to this.

There are indeed widespread shortages of drivers and some products. Nevertheless, it's pretty clear that the UK in general is experiencing more shortages of food and fuel than the EU norm (that is, outside of isolated cases resulting from localised industrial action, pandemic lockdowns etc.).

Why do you think the UK haulage industry is able to engage in this kind of negotiating tactic and other countries' industries can't? I note that the UK government itself seems to think lack of EU hiring is a problem, which is why they've made extra visas.

Your posts seem to jump between saying nothing is happening, and saying that it is but it's a good thing. I think it would help if you organise your ideas a bit more coherently.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:36 pm

But where is the link with brexit?

Broadly I think it's good counter evidence to the gloomy predictions that have been made over the last five years. I also think that the currency devaluation since brexit coupled with the UK government signalling its intention to avoid the degree of business regulation being created by the EU has helped inward investment, in particular in the tech sector. EU targetting of non-EU tech giants like Apple, in particular, have been noticed. There are good business reasons why tech giants like Google and Facebook continue to increase the software engineer footprint in London rather than Munich or Paris.

Found this interesting from the BBC Newsnight editor
https://twitter.com/BenChu_/status/144 ... 38/photo/1

We seemed to have the worst % GDP drop because of Covid, but we've caught up with Italy at least

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:43 pm
Why do you think the UK haulage industry is able to engage in this kind of negotiating tactic and other countries' industries can't? I note that the UK government itself seems to think lack of EU hiring is a problem, which is why they've made extra visas.

Your posts seem to jump between saying nothing is happening, and saying that it is but it's a good thing. I think it would help if you organise your ideas a bit more coherently.

I thought I'd been pretty clear that I don't think EU hiring (specifically) is important. UK immigration has increased over the last 5 years, but we also still have very low unemployment. The haulage sector just hasn't invested in worker pay and conditions in the way it needs to, and has provoked panic buying to try and shake up immigration rules w.r.t what kind of pay is needed to bring somebody in from the outside. Lots of elements of our media have been waiting with baited breath to say 'see, I told you so!' about brexit, because so many of them went out on a limb with nonsense predictions over the last 5 years. They've actively made the panic buying worse by acting as an echo chamber for this 'look isn't brexit terrible?' meme, just to salve their own egos.

France and Germany have higher pay for their truckers (good for them) so their trucker shortage isn't as bad, but their media class also isn't waiting with baited breath to jump on a problem and make it worse to try and make themselves look less wrong.

sheldrake wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:44 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:36 pm

But where is the link with brexit?

Broadly I think it's good counter evidence to the gloomy predictions that have been made over the last five years.

This isn't the testing a cherry-picked George Osbourne gloomy prediction from five years ago thread.

The problem I have is that I have not yet heard a proBrexit cone up with an honest assessment of something beneficial from Brexit. Making your HGV driving test is not, actually, a good thing. Regards the vaccines approval, that was done using an EU mechanism.

I mean, I have had 5 years of it will be great. But no actual detail.

we're sending the Syrian dinghies back. Oh, hang on.

plodder wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:04 pm This isn't the testing a cherry-picked George Osbourne gloomy prediction from five years ago thread.

If you would like a separate 'Brexit Pessimissm that was wrong' thread, I can do that. The post you're addressing did have other content though.

temptar wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:05 pm The problem I have is that I have not yet heard a proBrexit cone up with an honest assessment of something beneficial from Brexit. Making your HGV driving test is not, actually, a good thing. Regards the vaccines approval, that was done using an EU mechanism.

I mean, I have had 5 years of it will be great. But no actual detail.

Vaccine contract negotiation worked out better than it did for other EU countries, but we've had the 'you didn't have to leave the EU for that' -> 'when why didn't any other EU country take advantage and keep up with us' discussion already.

UK inward investment in some sectors *has* benefitted from Brexit in my view. London tech certainly did. A raft of announcements of new tech jobs came right after the vote, that were partly about costs due to the currency shift and partly about long-term expectations about how business friendly regulation would be.

sheldrake wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:35 pm

plodder wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:04 pm This isn't the testing a cherry-picked George Osbourne gloomy prediction from five years ago thread.

If you would like a separate 'Brexit Pessimissm that was wrong' thread, I can do that. The post you're addressing did have other content though.

I'd be happy if you'd just stop going on about "failed predictions" as a distraction tactic.

It's not a distraction tactic, it's a sincere attempt to get people to the left of the tories to look for opportunities to create something positive instead of just moaning about something that happened 5 years ago.

sheldrake wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:39 pm

temptar wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:05 pm The problem I have is that I have not yet heard a proBrexit cone up with an honest assessment of something beneficial from Brexit. Making your HGV driving test is not, actually, a good thing. Regards the vaccines approval, that was done using an EU mechanism.

I mean, I have had 5 years of it will be great. But no actual detail.

Vaccine contract negotiation worked out better than it did for other EU countries, but we've had the 'you didn't have to leave the EU for that' -> 'when why didn't any other EU country take advantage and keep up with us' discussion already.

UK inward investment in some sectors *has* benefitted from Brexit in my view. London tech certainly did. A raft of announcements of new tech jobs came right after the vote, that were partly about costs due to the currency shift and partly about long-term expectations about how business friendly regulation would be.

You paid significantly more for your vaccines and together with that other hive of moral superiority the US, applied a de facto export ban. The EU did not apply an export ban, and in fact supplied some half of its output outside the bloc including to the UK. This matters a lot when trying to deal with a global pandemic.

Regarding other countries using the approval mechanism that you did, in fact Hungary did.

Announcements of jobs need to be followed up with those jobs. One of the interesting points will be future divergence on the use of data, especially biometric and other personal data. Note that the EU doesn't buy into technology for technology's sake hence thus week's discussions on facial recognition systems.

Business friendly regulation is not, by definition, always good for society

temptar wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 2:48 pm
You paid significantly more for your vaccines and together with that other hive of moral superiority the US, applied a de facto export ban. The EU did not apply an export ban, and in fact supplied some half of its output outside the bloc including to the UK. This matters a lot when trying to deal with a global pandemic.

We just paid more to get the vaccines fast. The EU was the only party that actually tried to seize vaccines at ports or raided plants.

Announcements of jobs need to be followed up with those jobs. One of the interesting points will be future divergence on the use of data, especially biometric and other personal data. Note that the EU doesn't buy into technology for technology's sake hence thus week's discussions on facial recognition systems.

It's more than a question of what's allowed, it's also about how onerous reporting and inspection are.

Business friendly regulation is not, by definition, always good for society

I agree with that, which is why I'm not supportive of the haulage industry's pleading to reduce wages for migrants. There's a lot of environmental and other employment regulation I wouldn't want to see dropped either.

PeteB wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:36 pm
Have you got a source for that ? Just googled it and found this (from 2018) which seems to indicate Ireland has a higher hourly earnings than UK in EUR and PPS (Purchasing Power)

I think the main problem with this data is that it ignores the effect of unemployment on incomes by only looking at data for people with jobs. I will keep looking for something better.