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The Brexit Thread


No Excuses

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On the US side, there are 22 import duty rates above 100%, all on agricultural products. This makes some agricultural goods produced outside the US very expensive for US customers, and limits the amount of trade UK farmers do with the US. It will be the same story for the UK if it adopts the same tariffs that the EU currently levies on all non-member states, where the highest duties are all for agricultural products, including:

 

  • whey and modified whey (635%)
  • prepared or preserved poultry (289% and 143%)
  • prepared or preserved mushrooms (184% and 160%)
  • live poultry (156%)
  •  

If Theresa May wants to trade away farmers’ protections in a trade deal with the US, she will encounter significant opposition. Agriculture is protected in both countries because it is politically sensitive: farmers are a powerful lobby. High EU tariffs protect UK farmers from competition with cheap imports (whilst raising prices for consumers).

aka rural MPs and their voters

 

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But more importantly, Britain’s main export is services. It constitutes 79 per cent of the economy, according to the Office of National Statistics. Without access to the single market for services, and without free movement of skilled workers, the financial sector will have a strong incentive to move to the European mainland.

 

This is Germany’s gain. There is a general consensus that many banks are ready to move if Britain quits the single market, and Frankfurt is an obvious destination.

 

In an election year, this is welcome news for Merkel. That the British Prime Minister voluntarily gives up the access to the internal market is a boon for the German Chancellor and solves several of her problems. 

 

May’s acceptance that Britain will not be in the single market shows that no country is able to secure a better deal outside the EU. This will deter other countries from following the UK’s example. 

Moreover, securing a deal that will make Frankfurt the financial centre in Europe will give Merkel a political boost, and will take focus away from other issues such as immigration.

 

Angela Merkel is the luckiest statesman/woman alive.

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Britain is vying for the award for the most unsuccessful currency depreciation in history. More than a year after it began, the U.K. has nothing but inflation to show for the pound’s plunge.

Net international trade subtracted 0.9 percentage points from year-over-year GDP growth in the third quarter. The monthly trade deficit oscillates wildly, but has remained on a deteriorating trend.

 

Volumes of goods exports have flatlined, while volumes of goods imports have surged, reaching an all-time high in November despite a 10% year-over-year jump in prices.

 

The woeful export performance is largely explained by exporters’ response to the drop in the pound. Rather than seeking market-share gains by allowing the prices they charge in foreign currencies to fall, they have hiked prices in terms of pounds to cover the increased cost of imported components and in pursuit of wider margins. The price of goods exported was nearly 14% higher in November than a year previously, so foreign-currency prices have fallen by an average of only 4%. The competitiveness of U.K. exports in global markets, therefore, has improved only marginally.

 

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3 hours ago, FanboyOf91 said:

 

 

Twitter is chalk full of these dummy accounts in the political arena.

 

It's a really interesting form of asymmetric information warfare. Because the opposition side isn't doing this and it is not even on their horizon to push back against the mass dissemination of fake information and propaganda. 

 

I see that Facebook has already adjusted their algorithms to essentially limit the exposure fake news receives on their "trending" lists. They've also started flagging blatantly false stories. I don't think twitter has such a mechanism in place. But twitter also has a more limited scope in how you can disperse and influence naive and gullible segments of the public.

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