Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
What irony? It’s not me who’s banding about ‘finger in the air’ figures.
What economists know is that when you create opportunities for business, businesses will seize them. But you cannot put a figure on it until you know in what way these opportunities will be exercised.
|
The OBR does not bandy around finger-in-the-air figures, Old Boy. They know that macro is not a cash and carry.
What economists do know is that when you increase costs and red tape in one country, you put that country at a competitive disadvantage. That's where your minus 4% comes from. At the moment, the opportunities we're creating are for overseas businesses and not UK ones.
Take the latest farce - from January, our steel and aluminium producers will continue to face hefty 25% tariffs from the US whilst our EU competitors will face none.
Quote:
The UK steel industry is braced for an immediate slump in trade from New Year’s Day when European Union rivals will gain a 25% price advantage selling to the giant US market.
The EU and the US reached a Halloween agreement to remove tariffs on a quota of steel and aluminium imported from the bloc into the US from 1 January, but tariffs will remain on all UK steel and aluminium exports after government talks failed to secure a matching breakthrough.
The international trade secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, earlier this month invited the US commerce secretary for further discussions in London, which are understood to be scheduled for January. However, an industry source said they were not optimistic that a deal would be reached quickly.
The tariffs were first introduced by former president Donald Trump in 2018 under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act on national security grounds. Imports supposedly undermined the US’s ability to produce its own steel.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business...iffs-abolished