Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

Patrick Minford is a classic for pushing the zero tariff approach to Brexit. he admitted that UK industry would virtually disappear if we went down this route but it was a still a good idea. Mind you, this is the same respected academic who said UKs GDP would drop by 20% with the introduction of the minimum wage.

Feel free to ignore this on reading who the authors are but here's a review of Economists for Brexits models and the flaws within - http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpo...ws-of-gravity/

This is a similar situation to climate change and vaccines - the vast majority of experts predict one outcome while a minority predict another. If the minority prediction fits peoples vision, then they are the only experts worth listening to

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

Germany shifts 50,000 gold bars overseas back to Frankfurt amid Eurozone collapse fears

hitler's gold the gift that keeps on giving ;)

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...inance-economy

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

That must hurt them even more, knowing that our currency is still considered one of the two solid ones.

Can I say I loved the comments in the article about some of the gold bar being ex-teeth, or do you get reported to the police for a hate crime these days? So confusing having to second think if anyone might get offended by taking a comment the wrong way :P

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/p...-a3618891.html

Hopefully the £ will rise a bit after the Conservative Party Conference. The rumours are that Boris who has been extremely quiet of late will make a leadership challenge. This is damaging an already-weak £ taking it back to levels only seen during the Financial Crisis. :(

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

No worries, Andrew. I'm sure that Theresa will continue to reign supreme.

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

As a B&B owner with a high proportion of foreign visitors, I am in effect an exporter of services, and I can tell you that the currency situation is doing no harm at all to those who export more than they import. Exporting is the future and once we're free of the Customs Union and able to make reciprocal deals with the whole world rather than just the EU, those who can export are going to do very nicely indeed, as are those who are able to exploit the relative expense of imported goods by manufacturing domestically at a more competitive price.

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

I know! Remainders are talking as if the fall in the value of the pound is a bad thing, whereas it's the best thing that could have happened for our exporters.

The pound was over-valued before anyway, and this is no more than a long awaited correction.

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

If the UK is to export more then the value of Sterling is key to that and the higher it is the harder that gets. The low pound is also making the UK less appealing to EU migrants and that, IMHO, is a big factor in the latest migration stats.

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

Yes, it's all good in my book. I really don't know what the remainers are afraid of. Although some can't deal with change very well, which is understandable, I suppose.

I see so many opportunities opening up for us with Brexit. I really do think the remainers will be pleasantly surprised when they see the results.

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

Anyone would think there was no productive life outside the EU and no possibility of mutually beneficial relationships between us and them after Brexit. It's really quite bizarre how some people are evidently so wedded to the idea of being part of a club committed to achieving a single European state that they'd peddle all the nonsense about the those wanting to leave hating Europeans blah blah blah. I don't know anyone who hates Europe but I do know plenty of people who hate what the EU has become and where it's headed. There's plenty more who feel the same within the EU too just in case anyone hadn't noticed. The trouble is the Eurocrats don't want to accept it and that's what's led us here.

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

True, though so far more than balanced by a drop in consumption and investment.

See how it settles in the longer run. So far this has been the most ineffective devaluation in terms of impact on exports since at least the 70s. Most of what we export is, for obvious reasons, not all that price sensitive.

Our export market has changed dramatically. We are world leaders in a few fields, those fields aren't that dependent on costs. Items that are price-sensitive are produced in countries where the cost of said production is far lower than anything a Sterling devaluation could allow us to reach.

Once inflation has run its course it'll be worth watching what happens.

---------- Post added at 22:35 ---------- Previous post was at 22:25 ----------

I'm fairly sure the Customs Union doesn't impact on export of services outside of the European Union, the Common External Tariff is on goods, and trade deals that include services are extremely rare and usually come in things like the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, etc, rather than bilateral deals. These carry a whole bunch of things with them that may prove unpalatable to those concerned about total 'sovereignty' whatever that is.

About 80% of our economy and an even higher proportion of exports are services.

Even free trade agreements on goods aren't trivial. We have FTAs with about 65% of the world economy right now. That's not going to be trivial to replace in a way that doesn't cause some enormous problems for some sectors of our economy. I've read the stuff about unilaterally declaring zero tariffs. It'd be absolutely insane.

You make a valid point about manufacturing finished goods domestically, however we aren't exactly raw material rich as a nation and factory gate inflation has been a big issue that's undone a fair amount of the benefits of the devaluation.

It's been good for my employer though for sure - even with the pay rise they gave me I'm still 15% cheaper than I was a bit over a year ago ;)

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

That may well be true but you are still a lot more expensive that your potential colleagues in China and India ... :(

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

But then there is the Culture differences - I have worked with/opened up outsourcing in India, China, and Vietnam, and the challenge with the Chinese and Indian outsourced resource is "face"; they don't want to contradict you/let you know things aren't going well, so you have to have lots of resources involved in checking/planning/rechecking.

That's why most companies don't outsource their Project Managers/Solution Architects/Network Engineers/Business Analysts - keep the management/oversight in the country, coding outside (and there are still issues with that model).

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

And let them deal with customers problems.

Re: Brexit: Article 50 Has Been Triggered !
 

Indeed I am. Just as well there's no viable replacement for me there at this time :)