The Brexit aftermath thread

[Slant]

Wow, a one billion Euro boost. That's almost as impressive as that 1.2 billion Euro trade deal with some African countries. That's definitely going to save the British economy. Absolutely. And it has nothing to do with military secrets and the fact that only certain select partners get to build the latest toy of the US military. This is all Brexit. Sure... what a tool. :P

[dribbles]

Wow, a one billion Euro boost. That's almost as impressive as that 1.2 billion Euro trade deal with some African countries. That's definitely going to save the British economy. Absolutely. And it has nothing to do with military secrets and the fact that only certain select partners get to build the latest toy of the US military. This is all Brexit. Sure... what a tool. :P

Not much compared to the 1 trillion you are in the hock for I agree! Don't you just love EU all in it together unity?

https://euobserver.com/political/143230

The German newspaper cited previous comments by Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party to say the Polish claim could total €690bn.

The Polish reparations process comes amid similar developments in Greece, where a report by cross-party MPs has said Germany owed Athens €299bn for damages caused by its Nazi-era occupation of the country.

I'm sure the British and Americans could recreate an additional debt owed. I almost feel sorry for, or is it pity, the EU.

[Slant]

Oh when all else fails, just cry "reparations". Always funny to see that desparation move. I heard Greece did very well with that tactic and absolutely avoided having to comply with the rules that anarchists like you like to destroy.

[Morgarw]

1) Join club with rules.
2) Agree to rules and the consequences of breaking them.
3) Break rules.
4) Meet consequences.

Clear?

Ok let's talk about rules.
Germany is running a commercial surplus for many, many years against the Eu rules.
France did the same of Italy in the past with no consequence at all.
Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria did not receive any single refugees in those years.
A lot of nation did break the rules in the last years, not only Italy.

[Slant]

Ok let's talk about rules.
Germany is running a commercial surplus for many, many years against the Eu rules.
France did the same of Italy in the past with no consequence at all.
Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria did not receive any single refugees in those years.
A lot of nation did break the rules in the last years, not only Italy.

Which rule?

To save everyone else the suspense while you're looking for it: There isn't any such rule. Don't hold your breaths, guys.

[Mayhem]

Which rule?

To save everyone else the suspense while you're looking for it: There isn't any such rule. Don't hold your breaths, guys.

Do you have a clue what years he's talking about? Because none of his post seems to make sense.

[Nigel Tufnel]

In fairness, though, @Gibblewink's post doesn't make that much sense either.

As a summarisation of the UK's relationship with the EU, it's not really accurate.

[Slant]

Do you have a clue what years he's talking about? Because none of his post seems to make sense.

Well, we've had a surplus of a couple billion for the past 5 years or so. It's not factually incorrect that we're profiting. However, people tend to ignore the reason for that surplus. They think it's because we force Greece and Italy to buy our stuff, mostly cars. They ignore that our domestic spending by the population has increased and let's be honest, how many Greek car brands do you know? And how many Italian brands are known for kitchen appliances? How many companies world wide produce MRI's? I mean, we can stop doing all that, but why? Just so some dipshits are happy that Germany is getting destroyed?

Our success is what people are blaming us for. What do they say... jealousy is a form of appreciation, I guess.

[Morgarw]

Which rule?

To save everyone else the suspense while you're looking for it: There isn't any such rule. Don't hold your breaths, guys.

do you really think you are the victim on what is going on in europe? you are a fool. You're lucky is the euro currency, too much low for you're economy and too strong for some other. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...an-Greece.html

By the way, you're the country who broke the rules most......https://global.handelsblatt.com/poli...u-rules-883837

And you are talking about italians LOL....

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Well, we've had a surplus of a couple billion for the past 5 years or so. It's not factually incorrect that we're profiting. However, people tend to ignore the reason for that surplus. They think it's because we force Greece and Italy to buy our stuff, mostly cars. They ignore that our domestic spending by the population has increased and let's be honest, how many Greek car brands do you know? And how many Italian brands are known for kitchen appliances? How many companies world wide produce MRI's? I mean, we can stop doing all that, but why? Just so some dipshits are happy that Germany is getting destroyed?

Our success is what people are blaming us for. What do they say... jealousy is a form of appreciation, I guess.

You're post its a clear ignorance on what we are talking about. the italian economy is running a commercial surplus too, but on the limits of the EU law....and its everything except bad. In fact they have the second manufactoring in europe. You basically are damaging the other economy with a currency too low for you, and too strong for the others.

[Slant]

do you really think you are the victim on what is going on in europe? you are a fool. You're lucky is the euro currency, too much low for you're economy and too strong for some other. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...an-Greece.html

By the way, you're the country who broke the rules most......https://global.handelsblatt.com/poli...u-rules-883837

And you are talking about italians LOL....

Where did I say Germany is the victim? Right, nowhere. I pointed out that Germany didn't break rules by having a surplus, because... surprise, there's no rule forbidding you to be successful.

What I do resent is uneducated people like you quoting me bullshit papers that I wouldn't wipe my ass with and blaming Germany for everyone else's problems. Start sorting your own shit out instead of expecting Germany to fix it for you. But hey, if you want us to run your country for you, no problem, start learning German and hand over the keys to your Government buildings. Where are you from again? Ah, doesn't matter. Regardless of the country that you're from, it'll be hilarious, considering what happened the last time Germany tried to sort Europe out.

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You're post its a clear ignorance on what we are talking about. the italian economy is running a commercial surplus too, but on the limits of the EU law....and its everything except bad. In fact they have the second manufactoring in europe. You basically are damaging the other economy with a currency too low for you, and too strong for the others.

Okay, I am ignorant. Where exactly is the surplus? But hey, keep on telling me how we're damaging the other economies. Because Germany dictates Euro currency policy. And we're too strong for others. Jesus Christ... what else? We're too German?

[Gibblewink]

In case anyone were wondering I was referring to the Italian budget deficit exceeding the 3% limit as a vague attempt at clarifying the issue for the benefit of Dribbles - not trying to make any point about EU-UK relations.

[Nigel Tufnel]

In case anyone were wondering I was referring to the Italian budget deficit exceeding the 3% limit as a vague attempt at clarifying the issue for the benefit of Dribbles - not trying to make any point about EU-UK relations.

Sorry, yes - I see. My bad.

One of the (many) problems with this thread is that you can drop by, read something completely out of context, have a spasm, then regret it.

Soz.

[Slant]

A commercial surplus I assume means a positive current account balance. Italy has returned to a positive current account balance only recently (in 2013) with deficits since 2001.

Not sure how that's a problem, though. Import/Exports by definition mean that you get a return value for the money you pay Germany. That is, when you buy a German car for 40k Euros, you get an item that's worth 40k Euros. Of course it'll lose the value rather quickly, because it's a car, but that's not really our problem is it. I get that it sucks to live in Italy or Greece (although one could argue that I would definitely prefer the living style in Italy or Greece and thus am getting the short end of the stick here...), but I'm really, really, really not sure what we're supposed to do about it.

Current crazy theories about what Germany can do:

1. Leave the Euro, return to the DM. Increase the value of the DM until nobody can afford to buy from us ever again, thus destroying our economy and everyone is forced to buy Japanese cars. Or well, American trash. So yeah, Japanese cars.

2. Stop doing what we do and start designing malfunctions into our products. Randomly, every 10km, you'd get a failure out of the following: 1. Oil leak 2. Hydraulcs leak 3. Random error light poping up without anything being wrong at all, 4. Misshifting the gears and 5. my personal favourite... windshield wipers randomly going off in bright sunlight. Since we don't want it to happen in rain, when it would be useful, we would have to design a windshield moisture sensor to detect whether or not wiping is appropriate. This sounds smart you think, and it would if we were out to sell cars, but in this scenario we're not, so we'll flip the switch and ONLY wipe when it's 30°C. When it's raining torrents, the wiper will be deactivated completely so even the lever won't turn it on.

3. Give the southern nations access to Germany's bank account including a carte blanche for withdrawals, so they can just take whatever money they want. We'll work our asses off so they don't need to improve. That's fine, I suppose. We'll rename Germany to "Europe's slave pen" to make this change more obvious.

[Nigel Tufnel]

3. Give the southern nations access to Germany's bank account including a carte blanche for withdrawals, so they can just take whatever money they want. We'll work our asses off so they don't need to improve. That's fine, I suppose. We'll rename Germany to "Europe's slave pen" to make this change more obvious.

Yes, this.

[Rockyreg]

The Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure is a regulation agreed upon by EU states and supervised by the commission and indeed one of the indicators it watches is for current account surpluses beyond 6% that it deems excessive. The Netherlands is the biggest offender on constant surplus btw, not Germany. We could have a discussion on why this can be an issue but in all honesty I am an accountant, not an economist, I had about four courses in macroeconomics and that's it and this is a fairly complex discussion.
Some of the arguments are an over dependence on the export sector that will increasingly support employment which creates a lack of diversification. It could be an indicator of weak domestic demand which futher aggravates the difference between workers in the export sector vs those in the domestic economy but this is not really the case in Germany.
But this is not really an argument that this is bad for Germany. It is an argument that this is bad for everyone else and most importantly it is a significant argument against the Euro.
Still the crazy theories you mention above are just that, crazy. Leading economists never have suggested that, they have all instead focused on boosting consumer spending which is something that Germany, which runs a double surplus, can afford. Of course if Germans have no interest in importing goods this will never really help anyway.

I think the main bugbear with a surplus is that if you have a surplus then somebody has to have a deficit. Obviously not all of the EU countries can have a surplus and with the deficit rules the only choice many countries have in meeting the rules is to shrink or lower growth in your economy, much to the displeasure of the electorate

[Slant]

The Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure is a regulation agreed upon by EU states and supervised by the commission and indeed one of the indicators it watches is for current account surpluses beyond 6% that it deems excessive. The Netherlands is the biggest offender on constant surplus btw, not Germany. We could have a discussion on why this can be an issue but in all honesty I am an accountant, not an economist, I had about four courses in macroeconomics and that's it and this is a fairly complex discussion.
Some of the arguments are an over dependence on the export sector that will increasingly support employment which creates a lack of diversification. It could be an indicator of weak domestic demand which futher aggravates the difference between workers in the export sector vs those in the domestic economy but this is not really the case in Germany.
But this is not really an argument that this is bad for Germany. It is an argument that this is bad for everyone else and most importantly it is a significant argument against the Euro.
Still the crazy theories you mention above are just that, crazy. Leading economists never have suggested that, they have all instead focused on boosting consumer spending which is something that Germany, which runs a double surplus, can afford. Of course if Germans have no interest in importing goods this will never really help anyway.

What does Greece have to offer that I would want to buy? Apart from food. Or Spain? And the only italian products that I'd like to buy are too expensive for me and probably have more horsepower than would be good for my driving temperament. It's not all economics, mate. It is a big chunk of it, but a good portion is also people being entitled to handouts without actually doing anything themselves. The EU isn't a welfare union. People have to start understanding how it works, otherwise they'll be in a shithole. I'm fairly certain we'll not bail out another country like Greece. The next one that decides to test the water will probably be let lose. There is no political will at all to try this a second time.

[Slant]

I love how you have to get defensive and denigrate everyone else in Europe (since I never said you had to buy from the PIIGS, maybe import more from Finland?) when I am simply posting opinions without making any personal judgments myself.

Not defensive, fed up with the bullshit. We're holding back all the time. People have got to stop talking this kind of bullshit.

[Noradin]

I think the main bugbear with a surplus is that if you have a surplus then somebody has to have a deficit. Obviously not all of the EU countries can have a surplus and with the deficit rules the only choice many countries have in meeting the rules is to shrink or lower growth in your economy, much to the displeasure of the electorate

No, you could in fact have a surplus in every country (by printing money corresponding to the increased non-monetary values produced--which is something the ECB and national banks of EURO member states do). The problem is really that some buy more than they can afford, not that others work more than they absolutely need to to survive.
But I will give you that the someone has to have a deficit deflection is very popular and widespread, because there is potential for a lot of money to be made off of managing debts and those in debt really like to shift the blame elsewhere.

[caervek]

I can not believe Nick Clegg is infact a Sir.

Why not? I can't think of a single politician who has done as much good for our people in the past quarter century.

The guy literally spent five years acting as a human shield to protect the citizens of the UK from a Tory government and burned his career in the process (as most voters are too stupid to see that).

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EU is under pressure from many angles. They should make friendly negotiations with the UK but instead they are playing hardball.

This thing so many people either don't understand or refuse to understand, is that the EU is making friendly negotiations with the UK over Brexit, overly friendly negotiations.

The reason it seems to some like they are being mean (compared to the normal dealing the UK does) is because the UK normally gets overly generous treatment in it's political/economic dealings because it's a member of the EU. In the Brexit negotiations the EU is simply treating us how every other country will treat us once we have left the EU and ceased to be part of a pseudo-superpower.

I will be blunt here, our empire has been dead for over half a century, we are merely a little island in the north sea (hell the only reason we were able to liberate the Falklands was due to our EU membership), once we have left the EU our political/economic standing will be significantly diminished. If anyone dislikes the way the EU is treating us in negotiations then buckle the hell up because they're using kiddie gloves compared to what's coming.

[Slant]

This thing so many people either don't understand or refuse to understand, is that the EU is making friendly negotiations with the UK over Brexit, overly friendly negotiations.

You have no idea how good it is to hear a British say that for once. I'll let you do the talking from now on. :P