UK will have to give up all EU perks after Brexit, François Hollande warns

[Teleros]

Yeah, if nobody thinks the French can pay the debt back, they wouldn´t get a AAA rating.

And yet, as we all found out during the crisis, that's basically what had happened.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/rating

Moody's figures:
2007: A1
2009: A1
2010: A3
2011: B1
2012: C

Now the crisis begin in August 2007, and yet 3 years later Greece still has an A rating O_o . Dunno about you, but it sounds to me like the ratings agencies (at least, the big four that most of the world relies on) aren't to be trusted.

I find it funny that you have no problem with banks actively lying but with an alledged threat by the clinton administration. Do you have something that backs the threatening up?

I have a problem with banks lying of course, but I'd rather not give them a cause to lie in the first place. As for sources...

http://www.uspolicymetrics.com/the-c...nancial-crisis (Note: this is a WSJ article, but their site has a paywall)
http://www.investors.com/politics/ed...nancial-crisis
http://content.time.com/time/special...877322,00.html
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/28/are-t...-villains.html

What does it matter if you just lost your money? "They lost all my money, i don´t trust them anymore. Well why did you trust them in the first place? Because i had no idea that they would go bust."

I don't know about you, but whenever I'm about to do something big with my money, I actually check things out first. Make sure it's not a scam, or that they have a good refunds policy, etc.

You understand that this would needed to be implemented and agreed upon by the EU? Not that this doesn´t even make sense, it´s not even possible.

Don't be silly. The UK can implement whatever domestic regulations it wants once it's out of the EU. If that just so happens (cough cough) to help someone in the EU who helped them in the negotiations, well golly gosh.

That´s an older picture, Canada is now red too, but hey you will do this on the fly i´m sure, because trade agreements don´t need negotiations anyway.

Woot, +1 country .

Yep, that is literally how it can be done.

I don't think anyone's saying that's literally how it will be done, but yes, that's what an actual free trade deal would look like. Or... well I suppose you could also allow free trade in weapons & defence industry stuff, and use an even smaller postcard, but most countries won't do that for obvious reasons.

The fact that NAFTA etc goes into umpteen pages of regulations goes to show how far from not being free trade it is.

In terms of how it'll be done, I would have thought the process is simple. We have our wishlist, you have yours, and we figure out a compromise. But again, there's no need for this modern fad of negotiating a billion little regulations in a trade agreement.

Because you would be breaking current EU treaties while being a EU member and while trying to negotiate a future deal with the EU? I mean i don´t know how often i have to repeat that to you.

First, if we are breaking EU rules, nobody will give a damn, because again, nobody in politics is as hopelessly naive about these things as you.

Second, we can always claim that the talks were informal discussions, and not in any way negotiations, and that the negotiations we did after leaving the EU were so darn good that everything was signed immediately. Go on, take us to court and prove we're lying :P .

It´s not the EU that screws the UK, it´s the UK that wants to break up and keeps the best parts ignoring that these parts are bound to things they want to get rid of.

So the financial sector that currently is moving personel to other EU member states, they are supposed to fight the EU on this?

We're talking an alternate universe here remember, one where the UK never joins the EU. In those circumstances, there's no need for London to badger the EU about securing its place in internal EU matters, because it's not in the EU, and nobody else of any consequence will badger the EU about it because they'll get drowned out by the pro-London crowd in the EU.

That's hardly an unlikely scenario, either:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...page&q&f=false

1913: London's banking scene was twice the size of Paris's. Pre-WW1, remember.
1960s: London surges ahead via the new Eurodollar market, growing to 3-4 times the size of Paris in financial terms. Paris tries to beat the UK via Common Market stuff, this fails in the French civil unrest of May 1968.
1970: London has ~7x as many banks as Paris.

So if London's beating the stuffing out of Paris (and Paris seems to have always been the #1 city in continental Europe for finance) in the days before it joined (1973), I think it entirely plausible that businesses in the alternate reality EU will prefer the current situation to attempts by Eurocrats to nobble London.

= + =

There are no threats. There are only warnings.

See, this is like a club. Once you're in the club, you get all the club privileges. Once you're out of the club, you lose those privileges. It's not punishment, it's how the rules work. Only members benefit from club perks. It literally says that everywhere, plastered on every wall and table surface. Don't go around wanting to leave and then bitch that you're losing perks, because the remaining club members are being meanies and want to punish you.

That's not what agarohai is saying & Gahmuret are really saying. Yes, you're right about club membership privileges etc, but they're talking about Hollande's messaging:

What he's doing: "Woe to those who leave the EU, for we shall screw them utterly, and take all their money, and leave them destitute in the streets."
What he should be doing: "Leaving the EU would be stupid, because you get all these amazing benefits! Come on guys, look at all this awesome stuff the EU gives you!"

Campaigning on fear can work - I mean, look at the pro-union campaign in Scotland - but it's generally considered better to put out a positive message (look this time at the pro-EU campaign in the UK - how'd "Project Fear" work out this time?). I mean, better if you want the message to succeed - maybe they're really trying to rile up the French populace into voting for Le Pen & giving us Frexit :P .

Whether their reasoning behind Merkel's and Hollande's words is sound I couldn't say, but I think they certainly have a point about giving the wrong message to people.

It's not a welfare institution that dishes out free money just because you ask nicely. It never was. It's never going to be.

I'm pretty sure that's the view in Greece et al :P .

[Mayhem]

And yet, as we all found out during the crisis, that's basically what had happened.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/rating

Moody's figures:
2007: A1
2009: A1
2010: A3
2011: B1
2012: C

Now the crisis begin in August 2007, and yet 3 years later Greece still has an A rating O_o . Dunno about you, but it sounds to me like the ratings agencies (at least, the big four that most of the world relies on) aren't to be trusted.

So they did downgrade greece... you are just not happy with how early/late they downgraded them?

I have a problem with banks lying of course, but I'd rather not give them a cause to lie in the first place. As for sources...

http://www.uspolicymetrics.com/the-c...nancial-crisis (Note: this is a WSJ article, but their site has a paywall)
http://www.investors.com/politics/ed...nancial-crisis
http://content.time.com/time/special...877322,00.html
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/28/are-t...-villains.html

I don't know about you, but whenever I'm about to do something big with my money, I actually check things out first. Make sure it's not a scam, or that they have a good refunds policy, etc.

Ah so it was due to deregulation and not just due to threatenings by the clinton administration? Also the crisis happened 8 years after clinton was president, what exactly stopped them from working against what was going to happen during the times they had house and senate majorities?

Don't be silly. The UK can implement whatever domestic regulations it wants once it's out of the EU. If that just so happens (cough cough) to help someone in the EU who helped them in the negotiations, well golly gosh.

Not if those regulations would be against negotiated agreements, that´s kind of the point of.

Woot, +1 country .

I know, just copy paste. After all every country on earth is basically the same when it comes to trade and regulations.

Also lets just ignore all the green in those picture, despite what it stands for.

I don't think anyone's saying that's literally how it will be done, but yes, that's what an actual free trade deal would look like. Or... well I suppose you could also allow free trade in weapons & defence industry stuff, and use an even smaller postcard, but most countries won't do that for obvious reasons.

The fact that NAFTA etc goes into umpteen pages of regulations goes to show how far from not being free trade it is.

In terms of how it'll be done, I would have thought the process is simple. We have our wishlist, you have yours, and we figure out a compromise. But again, there's no need for this modern fad of negotiating a billion little regulations in a trade agreement.

You do understand that it´s about making away with more than one production line so that companies have it easier to sell their products. You´re proposing to implement even more production lines to the process and call it a win.

First, if we are breaking EU rules, nobody will give a damn, because again, nobody in politics is as hopelessly naive about these things as you.

Second, we can always claim that the talks were informal discussions, and not in any way negotiations, and that the negotiations we did after leaving the EU were so darn good that everything was signed immediately. Go on, take us to court and prove we're lying :P .

Yeah, the EU won´t give a damn about breaking EU rules while you´re trying to negotiate a trade agreement with the EU. Makes sense.

We're talking an alternate universe here remember, one where the UK never joins the EU. In those circumstances, there's no need for London to badger the EU about securing its place in internal EU matters, because it's not in the EU, and nobody else of any consequence will badger the EU about it because they'll get drowned out by the pro-London crowd in the EU.

That's hardly an unlikely scenario, either:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...page&q&f=false

1913: London's banking scene was twice the size of Paris's. Pre-WW1, remember.
1960s: London surges ahead via the new Eurodollar market, growing to 3-4 times the size of Paris in financial terms. Paris tries to beat the UK via Common Market stuff, this fails in the French civil unrest of May 1968.
1970: London has ~7x as many banks as Paris.

So if London's beating the stuffing out of Paris (and Paris seems to have always been the #1 city in continental Europe for finance) in the days before it joined (1973), I think it entirely plausible that businesses in the alternate reality EU will prefer the current situation to attempts by Eurocrats to nobble London.

When the UK joined it was called the sick man of europe for a reason. So you remain to be the sick man of europe while having no free trade with a market of 400+ million people and no international bank would build up as big of an office because they would need access to the EU and the UK isn´t providing that. I mean yeah it´s an alternate universe so everything is possible. Don´t know why we´re talking about alterante universes here.

[Slant]

That's not what agarohai is saying & Gahmuret are really saying. Yes, you're right about club membership privileges etc, but they're talking about Hollande's messaging:

What he's doing: "Woe to those who leave the EU, for we shall screw them utterly, and take all their money, and leave them destitute in the streets."
What he should be doing: "Leaving the EU would be stupid, because you get all these amazing benefits! Come on guys, look at all this awesome stuff the EU gives you!"

Campaigning on fear can work - I mean, look at the pro-union campaign in Scotland - but it's generally considered better to put out a positive message (look this time at the pro-EU campaign in the UK - how'd "Project Fear" work out this time?). I mean, better if you want the message to succeed - maybe they're really trying to rile up the French populace into voting for Le Pen & giving us Frexit :P .

Whether their reasoning behind Merkel's and Hollande's words is sound I couldn't say, but I think they certainly have a point about giving the wrong message to people.

I'm pretty sure that's the view in Greece et al :P .

Who are agarohai and Gahmuret? And why are you quoting them and somehow make it look like that's what Hollande says? Because I don't remember any EU leader threatening and all of them warning that they will not falter in the consequences. It's easy to mistake those two.

[Deleted]

Who are agarohai and Gahmuret? And why are you quoting them and somehow make it look like that's what Hollande says?

You quoted agarohai, who was quoting Gahmuret, and they were talking about Hollande messaging, as Teleros explained, and further elaborated on their own opinion.

[Teleros]

So they did downgrade greece... you are just not happy with how early/late they downgraded them?

Well exactly. Not much point downgrading their rating after the fact.

"So it turns out company XYZ went bankrupt yesterday, yet you gave them a AAA rating."
"Gosh, so they did. Yeah, they've got a Junk rating now."

Moody's & the other rating agencies are supposed to factor in the future when they do their ratings. Obviously they can't always get it right because we don't have perfect knowledge, but come on. A rating that says "well they paid up last year, but we have no idea what'll happen next year" is pretty useless.

Ah so it was due to deregulation and not just due to threatenings by the clinton administration?

Did you even read the WSJ article? For example:

1. The Clinton administration started it via the Community Reinvestment Act.
2. The regulators, not being the geniuses that banks hire, failed miserably at their job (this assumes there's zero corruption, BTW).

Or the Investors.com article, where it says that fiddling with the Glass-Steagall Act did diddly-squat as far as big Wall Street insolvencies & bailouts are concerned.

Also the crisis happened 8 years after clinton was president

Things take time to trickle through an economy, you know. Heck, what's the point in education if you won't see results within 4 years ?

what exactly stopped them from working against what was going to happen during the times they had house and senate majorities?

How about this:

"Every time Republicans in Congress or President Bush talked about reforming housing programs, Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut threw fits, threatening to gum up Congress and implying that GOP lawmakers were racists. The Republicans backed off."

Now I'm not exactly a fan of the noble defeatists in the Republican party anyway, and George W Bush's domestic policies (think "compassionate conservatism" etc) were awful, so sure, if you want to bash the Republicans for not fixing this, I'll join you. BUT... I'm still going to attach the most blame to the people who started the whole thing.

Not if those regulations would be against negotiated agreements, that´s kind of the point of.

Look, it's not our fault if we want to protect our environment and our children - THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!! - and your dirty French cars don't make the cut, but those nice German cars do.

Feel free to replace the specifics in the above with whatever sector(s) and nations you prefer. Though the bit about keeping children safe is probably a good line to use regardless.

Also... yes, domestic regulations absolutely can trump the negotiated agreements, because UK law will be supreme in the UK once we're out of the EU. Like I keep saying, any trade agreement we do with the EU will be along the lines of lowering tariffs between us, not agreeing to adopt EU regs on the internal UK market.

I know, just copy paste. After all every country on earth is basically the same when it comes to trade and regulations.

Fine, fine, you got me. Copy, paste, and then search & replace :P .

Come on, stop being so literal-minded. Obviously if the UK has no (say) steel industry, it won't bother putting in much about that into an agreement with the USA, but the fact that there are all these bilateral and multilateral trade agreements out there that the UK can cheerfully use as templates will make things easier.

Also lets just ignore all the green in those picture, despite what it stands for.

Oh I know what it stands for. It means a country the EU is working on a negotiation for / with. Which means that currently there is none.

You do understand that it´s about making away with more than one production line so that companies have it easier to sell their products. You´re proposing to implement even more production lines to the process and call it a win.

What are you talking about?

Free trade. As in selling things to foreigners without tariffs getting in the way. That has bugger all to do with how many production lines a company has etc.

Yeah, the EU won´t give a damn about breaking EU rules while you´re trying to negotiate a trade agreement with the EU. Makes sense.

Honestly, they won't in this case.

When the UK joined it was called the sick man of europe for a reason.

And yet were still #1 in finance in Europe. Those numbers I gave were the real ones, you know, from reality.

So you remain to be the sick man of europe while having no free trade with a market of 400+ million people and no international bank would build up as big of an office because they would need access to the EU and the UK isn´t providing that.

Again, read the stuff I quoted. The UK *was* providing banking services to Europe, and would've recovered economically - not due to EU membership (lol) but due to the Iron Lady, as happened IRL.

Don´t know why we´re talking about alterante universes here.

You started it :P .

= + =

Who are agarohai and Gahmuret?

The people you were replying to :P .

[Slant]

The people you were replying to :P .

Rofl, like I read the names of the people I reply to. Oops.

[Mayhem]

Well exactly. Not much point downgrading their rating after the fact.

"So it turns out company XYZ went bankrupt yesterday, yet you gave them a AAA rating."
"Gosh, so they did. Yeah, they've got a Junk rating now."

Moody's & the other rating agencies are supposed to factor in the future when they do their ratings. Obviously they can't always get it right because we don't have perfect knowledge, but come on. A rating that says "well they paid up last year, but we have no idea what'll happen next year" is pretty useless.

See your own quote.

Also they can´t really look into the books of a government.

Did you even read the WSJ article? For example:

1. The Clinton administration started it via the Community Reinvestment Act.
2. The regulators, not being the geniuses that banks hire, failed miserably at their job (this assumes there's zero corruption, BTW).

Or the Investors.com article, where it says that fiddling with the Glass-Steagall Act did diddly-squat as far as big Wall Street insolvencies & bailouts are concerned.

Maybe you should´ve read more than the first 2 links.

Things take time to trickle through an economy, you know. Heck, what's the point in education if you won't see results within 4 years ?

I just use this explanation as an answer to why greece wasn´t downgraded right away.

How about this:

"Every time Republicans in Congress or President Bush talked about reforming housing programs, Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut threw fits, threatening to gum up Congress and implying that GOP lawmakers were racists. The Republicans backed off."

Now I'm not exactly a fan of the noble defeatists in the Republican party anyway, and George W Bush's domestic policies (think "compassionate conservatism" etc) were awful, so sure, if you want to bash the Republicans for not fixing this, I'll join you. BUT... I'm still going to attach the most blame to the people who started the whole thing.

Ok, blame who you want, it was still about regulations being lifted and not about threats or anything a like.

Look, it's not our fault if we want to protect our environment and our children - THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!! - and your dirty French cars don't make the cut, but those nice German cars do.

Feel free to replace the specifics in the above with whatever sector(s) and nations you prefer. Though the bit about keeping children safe is probably a good line to use regardless.

Also... yes, domestic regulations absolutely can trump the negotiated agreements, because UK law will be supreme in the UK once we're out of the EU. Like I keep saying, any trade agreement we do with the EU will be along the lines of lowering tariffs between us, not agreeing to adopt EU regs on the internal UK market.

Like you keep ignoring that for example if the UK joined the single market like Denmark, then the ECJ would be ruling on anything thats regarding those regulations after the deal is in place. So you´re again wrong. I told you this pages ago, in a trade agreement you not only negotiate tariffs and such but also the judicial authority overseeing those regulations.

Fine, fine, you got me. Copy, paste, and then search & replace :P .

Come on, stop being so literal-minded. Obviously if the UK has no (say) steel industry, it won't bother putting in much about that into an agreement with the USA, but the fact that there are all these bilateral and multilateral trade agreements out there that the UK can cheerfully use as templates will make things easier.

Never said it wouldn´t make things easier now did i?

Oh I know what it stands for. It means a country the EU is working on a negotiation for / with. Which means that currently there is none.

See how Canada in that picture was still green and now is red? Having everything set up and waiting for implementation is also marked as green.

What are you talking about?

Free trade. As in selling things to foreigners without tariffs getting in the way. That has bugger all to do with how many production lines a company has etc.

I mean yeah, if you ignore every law and regulation that is different between the countries than a free trade agreement has bugger all to do with production lines. I especially like that sentence while you wrote exactly the opposite a few pages ago.

Honestly, they won't in this case.

Because the EU has more to lose than the UK, right, right?

And yet were still #1 in finance in Europe. Those numbers I gave were the real ones, you know, from reality.

And yet you´re still a member of the EU and remain as such for at least 2 years. Great work for not defaulting because of nothing?

Again, read the stuff I quoted. The UK *was* providing banking services to Europe, and would've recovered economically - not due to EU membership (lol) but due to the Iron Lady, as happened IRL.

Again, talking about alternate reality.

You started it :P .

I did? Woops.

[Teleros]

Also they can´t really look into the books of a government.

Maybe not into really great detail, but they can still do a lot, even with just the publically published figures. Moreover, if they genuinely think there's a hidden black hole in a country's finances big enough to affect their rating, they ought to say that.

Maybe you should´ve read more than the first 2 links.

I did :P . The regulators lowered the minimum deposits required etc in order to let the banks meet the targets the regulators imposed :P . Is that meant to count as deregulation now :P ?

I just use this explanation as an answer to why greece wasn´t downgraded right away.

They should've been downgraded... probably long before they joined the Euro though. As I recall the story was that Goldman Sachs helped them cook the books to get into the Eurozone in the first place.

Like you keep ignoring that for example if the UK joined the single market like Denmark, then the ECJ would be ruling on anything thats regarding those regulations after the deal is in place. So you´re again wrong. I told you this pages ago, in a trade agreement you not only negotiate tariffs and such but also the judicial authority overseeing those regulations.

In the main however there's tons of existing law and cases as to who has legal authority. There's no particular need to haggle over whether your courts get more or less influence on disputes unless (a) you want to abuse this to get an advantage, (b) you think the other side will abuse it, or (c) you like to micromanage things.

Now I'll admit, I think there's good reasons to limit, say, what US courts can say & do, because too often their justice system resembles a corrupt, clogged toilet. And frankly I'd far prefer UK courts to, oh I don't know, Chinese or Zimbabwean ones. So yes, sometimes that's an issue, but on the whole it's not a terribly big one. I mean, the British Empire had free trade for a sizeable chunk of the 19th century, and honestly the world hasn't become that more complex in terms of trade.

See how Canada in that picture was still green and now is red? Having everything set up and waiting for implementation is also marked as green.

Whoever did that map needed more colours then .

Mind you, it's just an off-hand thought, but I wonder how long the implementation side of things takes, because that probably ought to be considered. If I can roll out a new treaty with Canada or whoever that takes a few months to negotiate and then goes active within weeks at most, that seems like a far more profitable treaty for all the businesses who can now get to work immediately.

By comparison, the EU/Canadian treaty negotiations were announced in May 2009, and was voted on in February 2017 by the EU, but now requires EU national parliaments to vote on it before it goes into "full effect", according to the EU website for it. Still, let's say 8 years from start to finish, assuming there were no unannounced negotiations before May 2009. That just seems like a long time to me.

Of course, the reason seems obvious - namely, that it's not just a trade agreement, which is what I think the UK would settle for. The EU site also has it doing stuff like environmental protection and similar scams.

I especially like that sentence while you wrote exactly the opposite a few pages ago.

Huh?

Because the EU has more to lose than the UK, right, right?

No, because they're just realists, and they know they'd all do the same if they were in the UK's position.

And yet you´re still a member of the EU and remain as such for at least 2 years. Great work for not defaulting because of nothing?

Not sure what you mean here .

You: When the UK joined it was called the sick man of europe for a reason.
Me: And yet were still #1 in finance in Europe. Those numbers I gave were the real ones, you know, from reality.
You: And yet you´re still a member of the EU and remain as such for at least 2 years. Great work for not defaulting because of nothing?

Just seems like a non sequitur to me...

Again, talking about alternate reality.

In terms of the recovery, okay - but again, it's a pretty plausible one. It was Thatcher who broke the power of the trade unions, allowed the "Big Bang" in the City of London, and went on a privatisation spree - don't recall much about EU influence in the history books :P .

[Mayhem]

Maybe not into really great detail, but they can still do a lot, even with just the publically published figures. Moreover, if they genuinely think there's a hidden black hole in a country's finances big enough to affect their rating, they ought to say that.

I don´t think they want to rely on what they think a country might hide.

I did :P . The regulators lowered the minimum deposits required etc in order to let the banks meet the targets the regulators imposed :P . Is that meant to count as deregulation now :P ?

No, why would lifted regulations count toward deregulation, that makes no sense.

They should've been downgraded... probably long before they joined the Euro though. As I recall the story was that Goldman Sachs helped them cook the books to get into the Eurozone in the first place.

Yeah, and if someone other than the greek government and goldman sachs was aware of that they wouldn´t have joined. Kind of the purpose of cooking the books is that no one finds out about it.

In the main however there's tons of existing law and cases as to who has legal authority. There's no particular need to haggle over whether your courts get more or less influence on disputes unless (a) you want to abuse this to get an advantage, (b) you think the other side will abuse it, or (c) you like to micromanage things.

Now I'll admit, I think there's good reasons to limit, say, what US courts can say & do, because too often their justice system resembles a corrupt, clogged toilet. And frankly I'd far prefer UK courts to, oh I don't know, Chinese or Zimbabwean ones. So yes, sometimes that's an issue, but on the whole it's not a terribly big one. I mean, the British Empire had free trade for a sizeable chunk of the 19th century, and honestly the world hasn't become that more complex in terms of trade.

No of course not, the world is pretty much the exact same thing as back in the 19th century. ...

And what keeps the UK or the EU from changing existing law that would influence the trade agreement?

Whoever did that map needed more colours then .

Mind you, it's just an off-hand thought, but I wonder how long the implementation side of things takes, because that probably ought to be considered. If I can roll out a new treaty with Canada or whoever that takes a few months to negotiate and then goes active within weeks at most, that seems like a far more profitable treaty for all the businesses who can now get to work immediately.

By comparison, the EU/Canadian treaty negotiations were announced in May 2009, and was voted on in February 2017 by the EU, but now requires EU national parliaments to vote on it before it goes into "full effect", according to the EU website for it. Still, let's say 8 years from start to finish, assuming there were no unannounced negotiations before May 2009. That just seems like a long time to me.

Of course, the reason seems obvious - namely, that it's not just a trade agreement, which is what I think the UK would settle for. The EU site also has it doing stuff like environmental protection and similar scams.

Yeah the EU tend to go beyond mere trade agreements because they usually leave out environmental policies and some of the EU seem to care about the environment. Anyway it´s also an agreement with 27 nations, so yep it does take time, but you also then get to trade with 400+ million people at once.

Huh?

You wrote if one UK company doens´t meet the regulations from the country it wants to trade with and another UK company does ... that implies more than one production line.

No, because they're just realists, and they know they'd all do the same if they were in the UK's position.

Yeah, no.

Not sure what you mean here .

You: When the UK joined it was called the sick man of europe for a reason.
Me: And yet were still #1 in finance in Europe. Those numbers I gave were the real ones, you know, from reality.
You: And yet you´re still a member of the EU and remain as such for at least 2 years. Great work for not defaulting because of nothing?

Just seems like a non sequitur to me...

Of course you are still #1 in finance in europe because nothing has happened sofar that would have any impact regarding your position.

In terms of the recovery, okay - but again, it's a pretty plausible one. It was Thatcher who broke the power of the trade unions, allowed the "Big Bang" in the City of London, and went on a privatisation spree - don't recall much about EU influence in the history books :P .

You mean apart from the UK joining the EU? Saying it would´ve recovered anyway based on uhm nothing is yeah not in anyway more plausible than it becoming worse.

[Teleros]

I don´t think they want to rely on what they think a country might hide.

Regardless of that, the fact is that they do do these ratings on gilts, treasury bonds and the like, which means they are either confident in the numbers or lying about the uncertainty. If the former, they're bad for not accurately rating countries like Greece; if the latter, they're bad for, well, lying through their teeth :P .

No, why would lifted regulations count toward deregulation, that makes no sense.

Well, normally when we say "deregulation" we're talking about taking power away from the regulatory bodies. Say, if you no longer had to have a qualified electrician to re-wire your house, that would be deregulation because the bodies that previously said you had to have a qualified electrician now cannot force you to get one.

In this case, the regulators were choosing to weaken their own safety regulations in order to let the banks etc meet the demands of the regulators - and were also not giving up the power. It was a case of "we will choose to lower the minimum requirements for a mortgage so you can do as we say, but we can still raise the requirements any time we want to". That's... I mean it's certainly not what I think of as deregulation. Probably not most right-wing people, come to think of it.

/shrug

Yeah, and if someone other than the greek government and goldman sachs was aware of that they wouldn´t have joined. Kind of the purpose of cooking the books is that no one finds out about it.

The point is that the Greek economy was borderline at best before Goldman Sachs came along, at least as far as Euro requirements went. That should've been a warning flag, but let's face it the thing was far more a political decision than an economic one.

Still, let's suppose Greek bonds had been given a "C" rating prior to Goldman Sachs coming along. That would've made it probably impossible to get Greece into the Eurozone, because the Germans in particular would've raised eyebrows when Goldman Sachs (just hired by the Greek government, no conflict of interest there ) announces "hey it's cool guys, Greece can join no problem!" at the eleventh hour.

No of course not, the world is pretty much the exact same thing as back in the 19th century. ...

In terms of trade? Yeah it's not really that different. Stuff travels faster, and people can communicate much faster, but... honestly that's most of the change right there, at least as far as shipping stuff around the world goes. The biggest differences are the ease of mass movement today, and the capabilities of large international firms to operate on a global scale, which was harder in the 19th century when telegrams were rather slower than emails are today.

Had I picked the 18th century or earlier, then yes there would be far bigger differences, but the 19th century saw industrialisation spread from the UK to the rest of the West, things like telegrams and the "annihilation of distance" due to steam power and the like.

And what keeps the UK or the EU from changing existing law that would influence the trade agreement?

It's always a concern, regardless of the specifics of any particular trade agreement, between any particular countries. Doubly so if there's a public panic over something (horse meat in non-horse-meat products springs to mind).

That said... in general, self-interest can be a pretty powerful motivating factor in this regard. One of the reasons London is the seat of maritime law for basically the whole planet is that, besides the huge amount of expertise and case histories etc, it's pretty conservative, in a small-c way I mean. If a country goes around changing the law to screw foreign businesses and countries after the fact, it'll very quickly get a reputation as a bad place to invest in or do business with (ohai Russia :P ).

No, it won't always work, and yes, countries will sometimes do as you suggest. But everything in life is a calculated risk, and there's absolutely zero way to reduce the risk to zero, at least in this life.

Yeah the EU tend to go beyond mere trade agreements because they usually leave out environmental policies and some of the EU seem to care about the environment.

Well, I'd say that they claim to care about the environment, but I guess I'm just more cynical than you about all that .

Anyway... when it comes to trade, I don't think the UK will care all that much about such things. Canada or the USA etc are quite capable of taking care of their own environment, and the likes of China won't give a flying f--- about eco-friendly parts of the treaty, so frankly why bother in the first place? As a practical matter, better to make money now and let the Chinese continue building coal power plants than wait two years to make money and still have the Chinese building coal power plants.

Anyway it´s also an agreement with 27 nations, so yep it does take time, but you also then get to trade with 400+ million people at once.

True, but again that's another reason why the UK will probably be able to work things out quicker. There's only one government that needs to be consulted, not 27.

You wrote if one UK company doens´t meet the regulations from the country it wants to trade with and another UK company does ... that implies more than one production line.

Oh I see. That was just to point out that domestic regulations still apply in the case of free trade.

As to the issue of production lines - well they're separate businesses, and presumably competitors, so no wonder there's more than one production line . It'd be like expecting Burger King & McDonald's to share everything :P .

Yeah, no.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree then?

Of course you are still #1 in finance in europe because nothing has happened sofar that would have any impact regarding your position.

I mean that the UK was #1 in finance in Europe before it ever joined the EU, or the EEC, or anything like that. Despite being the sick man of Europe, the City was still top dog this side of the pond.

You mean apart from the UK joining the EU? Saying it would´ve recovered anyway based on uhm nothing is yeah not in anyway more plausible than it becoming worse.

Look, joining the EU severed the UK from all of its (rather preferential) trade agreements with the Commonwealth, among other things.

Now, if you look into what was behind the whole "sick man of Europe" stuff, it was a combination of grossly inefficient, nationalised industries, and out of control unions.

Thatcher privatised the businesses, broke the unions, unleashed the big bang in the City, and hey presto, the economy roared ahead. In what way was Thatcher's success dependent on EU membership O_o ?

Finally, what sort of Western country has ever gone into terminal economic decline (as you suggest the UK would've without joining the EU) without an accompanying demographic decline (eg Japan)? The idea is just absurd, and goes against all of established economics. I mean if you want to posit a communist revolution instead of EU membership, or some other factor that prevents Thatcher administering the medicine needed, then sure. But the EU is, and was, no economic cure-all.