Brexit Thread V - The Final Countdown?!?

[Silurian]

@Hrothbern it seems like a PR stunt to me.

When I did my degree back in the 80s we were taught to calculate the amount of vehicles that would go through a junction.
There will now be nice computer programs to find the ultimate capacity of the critical junctions.

So they announce that the are going to put an extra 150 vehicles on a route and people who do not need to drive that route will not on Monday.
I would not be surprised if with the extra 150 trucks there are not in fact less vehicles on the road.

 

[Hrothbern]

The impresson I get is that Theresa May is not doing anything in the way of making no-deal preparations.

I think that some of her ministers are getting jittery and realise that the risk of taking
the blame for lack of preparedness is less than the risk of being sacked by her.

@Hrothbern it seems like a PR stunt to me.

When I did my degree back in the 80s we were taught to calculate the amount of vehicles that would go through a junction.
There will now be nice computer programs to find the ultimate capacity of the critical junctions.

So they announce that the are going to put an extra 150 vehicles on a route and people who do not need to drive that route will not on Monday.
I would not be surprised if with the extra 150 trucks there are not in fact less vehicles on the road.

Yes and yes to you both
A show
Which also fits that the amount of money spend so far on the prep of nodeal is so much lower than the quick fix budgets from Hammond.

And beneath that fake reality spun by May
Is the monster under your bed

 

[Takhisis]

You've been screaming about Project Fear for two years now, Edward, but you're apparently backing Project Ignorance, right? It's perfectly in line with the Govt, of course, so it's hardly unprecedented, but still...

I thought that you had misspelled ‘Gove’ when I first read that and then realised it was missing an apostrophe.

 

[Arakhor]

You're at least several weeks too late to that particular party, I'm afraid.

 

[Takhisis]

You're at least several weeks too late to that particular party, I'm afraid.

Interesting choice of words.

 

[innonimatu]

A goal for many people, eh? Do you have any citation for that, Innonimatu?

Yes. Me. It's my assessment, take it or leave it. I'm been right far more often that I've been wrong.

The agility of May and Corbyn doing their splits is exceptional:
Both trying to stay in one piece with the overwhelming majority of their party members wanting the exact opposite on Brexit as their party leaders !

Corbyn avoiding to say that Labour favors Remain while 88% of his party members want to vote for Remain in a seconf referendum.
May trying to force her deal through Parliament while 64% of her party members want a cliff edge no-deal and 29% support her deal..
When the choice for Conservative members would be between no-deal and Remain, 76% would choose no-deal

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...believe-corbyn-should-back-second-brexit-vote
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ers-would-choose-no-deal-over-may-brexit-plan

There are lies, damned lies... and The Guardian since it was taken over by the City bankers. I hope people outside the UK will soon cease taking that propaganda rag seriously. Inside the UK most already did.

You can have whatever result you want from a pool by choosing the questions. How about this:

Do you agree or disagree that ‘Anything less than a clean break from the EU will be a betrayal of the Referendum vote’?

Field work dates: 14 December 2018 - 15 December 2018
Poll by YouGov

Strongly agree 29%
Partially agree 19%
Partially disagree 12%
Strongly disagree 23%
Don't know 17%

Why, might those people who want a referendum be also fearing a betrayal?

Odds are, most of the people in constituencies represented by Labour MPs feel like this. They still favor leave. The regional breakdown of of the answers is enlightening. Midlands/Wales is 51/31 for Agree, and the North is 48/30. Only in Scotland, which is already represented by another party, did most people answer they disagreed. And in the end this is no more than another biased question in a poll, keep that in mind.

Corbyn hasn't been more than half a lifetime doing politics without knowing a thing or two about the people his party represents.

 

[Kyriakos]

Indeed, regardless of where you stand on leave/remain, the guardian is just the blairdian and should not be taken seriously.

 

[innonimatu]

Perhaps she saves that ammo for her second vote on her deal, when GBP and stocks go down after the first vote fails.
What more does she has in mind ?

I think her strategy is missing the other lesson from recent history in Greece. When the issue of complying with the ultimatum from the EU was put to a popular vote the geeks voted no. Despite the EU being already in the process of crashing their financial system and starting the process of starving them by freezing foreign trade. Greece is an actual example of a country where people were murdered for lack of essential goods due to the actions of its international creditors pressuring the government of Greece into submission. Despite all this, knowing all this, the greeks were pissed off enough to vote no when the question was put to them.

May is counting on the MPs betraying brexit and passing her deal. She doesn't want to have article 50 withdrawn because that would only postpone the time of reckoning with those pissed-off voters, until the next election. She's counting on doing what the traitors in Greece did, have the representatives capitulate to a deal and let it be a fait accompli in the next election. Problem is, history is also making it obvious that those traitors will not be forgot and forgiven come the next election (Syriza is going to lose, and lose big, despite the alternative being the old breed of corrupts recycled). With this in mind, is May going to have the votes she needs to force her deal through? I think not, and the more fear she tries to create the more public anger she'll feed, and remind those MP about what they'll have to face in the future.

 

[Kyriakos]

I hope they lose big and die forever. Yet they are trying to buy votes of civil servants. Strange how the only good idea, limit the large civil servant sector, never materialised and the eu/troika didnt mind either cause they never cared about anything other than austerity as forced precedent (and have all major companies sold to foreign plutocrats in a price they like).

 

[Takhisis]

Indeed, regardless of where you stand on leave/remain, the guardian is just the blairdian and should not be taken seriously.

An excellent example of Greek humour.

 

[Kyriakos]

An excellent example of Greek humour.

Reminds me of when an english person told me that sarcasm was an english invention.

 

[Takhisis]

I don't see it.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I think her strategy is missing the other lesson from recent history in Greece. When the issue of complying with the ultimatum from the EU was put to a popular vote the geeks voted no. Despite the EU being already in the process of crashing their financial system and starting the process of starving them by freezing foreign trade. Greece is an actual example of a country where people were murdered for lack of essential goods due to the actions of its international creditors pressuring the government of Greece into submission. Despite all this, knowing all this, the greeks were pissed off enough to vote no when the question was put to them.

Greece voted for no austerity but to also remain in the eurozone this is why they elected Alexis Tsipras whom promised them all of these things .... somehow
Greece financial system is already insolvent and how much crushing is the EU responsible for and how much is its the fault of Greek government ?
That the EU is likely to have placed its own interest ahead of the Greeks this is no real surprise.
Good on Greece for voting Oxi, now show us the indomitable Greek will to fight corruption and tax evasion

 

[innonimatu]

Good on Greece for voting Oxi, now show us the indomitable Greek will to fight corruption and tax evasion

You are a broken record whenever Greece is mentioned: "tax evaders!"

The countries within the EU that historically have deliberately shielded tax evaders, that have provided the shell companies, the legal cover and the financial machinery for every big tax evader, including the Greek ones, have been the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. You have mentioned those connected with tax evasion exactly zero times in all these years. But whenever what was done to Greece is mentioned you pull the "tax evaders" cry.

You are not doing this out of ignorance. You're doing this in a pathetic attempt to distract from the facts. Greece should have defaulted on the debt. Instead it was lent more money so that it could use it all only to pay back its international creditors. The ECB's legal obligation was to provide backing for the greek financial system throughout any restructuring necessary. Instead it cut support entirely to blackmail the country's government into submission.

The reason this remains relevant for Brexit is that the EU has not changed. There is no "solidarity" among member states, there are only interests clashing. It's not about having cooperative advantages, it's about exploiting politics (all the rules being made and interpreted) to gain competitive advantages over the others stuck inside the "union".

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't see it.

Maybe you were trying to find something against you, when i remain your friend

 

[Yeekim]

Greece should have defaulted on the debt.

Sure, they should have, but they didn't want to accept the consequences and return to drachma.

Instead it was lent more money so that it could use it all only to pay back its international creditors.

Greece certainly would have much preferred getting more money for domestic spending and to hell with creditors. Calling it "loans" would then have been misleading; under such terms "humanitarian aid" would have been more precise. Sadly for them they failed to convince anyone that they were deserving of such aid.

 

[FriendlyFire]

You are a broken record whenever Greece is mentioned: "tax evaders!"

The countries within the EU that historically have deliberately shielded tax evaders, that have provided the shell companies, the legal cover and the financial machinery for every big tax evader, including the Greek ones, have been the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. You have mentioned those connected with tax evasion exactly zero times in all these years. But whenever what was done to Greece is mentioned you pull the "tax evaders" cry.

You are not doing this out of ignorance. You're doing this in a pathetic attempt to distract from the facts. Greece should have defaulted on the debt. Instead it was lent more money so that it could use it all only to pay back its international creditors. The ECB's legal obligation was to provide backing for the greek financial system throughout any restructuring necessary. Instead it cut support entirely to blackmail the country's government into submission.

The reason this remains relevant for Brexit is that the EU has not changed. There is no "solidarity" among member states, there are only interests clashing. It's not about having cooperative advantages, it's about exploiting politics (all the rules being made and interpreted) to gain competitive advantages over the others stuck inside the "union".

Its the EU of course there are tax havens
The Greek governement is free from any OBLIGATIONS like falisifying there fiancial records ? Or taking on rampant corruption ? or running an efficent government ?
And you can take a guess as to why the French moved to block the Germans from punishing the Greek government ? We can blame the EU of course but the Germans and French are both playing the same game, its always the same game

Only the ECB is legally obligated to print Euromonies for Greece
While Greece has zero legal obligatioins to the ECB, EU or EZ

And yes finally the correct conclusion, it is about politics

 

[Senethro]

Yes. Me. It's my assessment, take it or leave it. I'm been right far more often that I've been wrong.

No you haven't! Your two opinions are that the EU is weak and stupid, and that the EU is evil and domineering. You're able to interpret absolutely everything as "evidence" supporting one of these and believe yourself vindicated. Its a rigged game you're playing with yourself.

 

[Silurian]

Yes. Me. It's my assessment, take it or leave it. I'm been right far more often that I've been wrong.

There are lies, damned lies... and The Guardian since it was taken over by the City bankers. I hope people outside the UK will soon cease taking that propaganda rag seriously. Inside the UK most already did.

When was the Guardian taken over by the City bankers.
Or are you saying that any limited company is owned by bankers!
Do you have a link.

From Wiki

In October 2008 it was announced that the trust was being wound up and its assets transferred to a new limited company named "The Scott Trust Limited" to strengthen the protection it offers to the Guardian and because [l]ike all non-charitable trusts, and unlike limited companies, the Scott Trust has a finite lifespan.[6] The core purpose of the Trust was enshrined in the constitution of the Limited company and "cannot be altered or amended." The new company is barred from paying dividends, and "its constitution has been carefully drafted to ensure that no individual can ever personally benefit from the arrangements."[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited

 

[Hrothbern]

A bit more back to Brexit, though in the wider sense that the EU is to blame for the economical stagnation after the crisis (leading to more austerity), leading to broad masses of both left and right voting Leave.
First of all: the UK had its own currency and was fully free from the EU to her own monetary policies.
Secondly: the UK had in 2008 a govt debt of 40% of GDP. That's low and gives enormous financial room to apply fiscal policies after the 2008 crisis, that have as such high multipliers on GDP growth, because of that low % debt and also because of a traditional strong currency and financial standing of GBP (low-risk=>lower interest).
Thirdly: the UK blew up its social cohesion, its very low Gini, in the 80ies under Thatcher, that put the lower incomes in the position of second rank citizens, which went ok-ish as long as the economy as a whole did grow fast enough, but started to get ugly when the growth stagnated. The Gini mainwhile high compared to developed EU countries
Besides all the nationalistics and politics that got so much attention... the UK, Thatcher choose the biggest diverge from the social European model in the 80ies, continued more moderate under subsequent PM's that diverge, and paid the price in the form of broad disappointed masses seeking an escape, a change whatever, a scapegoat (the EU).
The big spin that Farrage-Johnson-Rees-Mogg delivered was to canalise that disappointment towards an opportunity for a hard-right neoliberal change on top of the Thatcher diverge.

Comparing the UK with EU overall, or some EU countries seems ok to me. But for example Greece specifics not anymore related to the UK-EU analysis need perhaps a Greece-EU quarantaine thread.
Let me only add to Greece, that imo Greece screwed up big style like the UK in the 80ies. You could even say since 1974 when the military junta was brought down, because inflation goes almost immediately up to 20% until 1992, and the govt debt from 20% to 100% of GDP in 1992 and continues at 100% until 2008. And just like with Major in the UK, governing by neglect going with the flow consolidating the Thatcher diverge, Greece, continues its devastating economical policies until the 2008 crisis, pooring money from borrowings in the economy landing very soon in the hands of the rich, that do not invest or consume in Greece. The difference being with UK that Greece is in fact in 1992 totally ready for bankruptcy which does not happen because the international Capital lowers gradually its interests on Greece bonds during 1992-2000 from 25% to German rates of 5%.
Saying that the EU is guilty for Brexit or Grexit, for broad masses of unhappy people is misleading. Is ignoring Thatcher, is ignoring that Greece should have defaulted in 1992 with its own currency the Drachma.