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  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,062
    Jonathan said:

    SeanT said:

    Jonathan said:

    SeanT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    I think you missed an 'ergo' in there.

    Yesterday, I heard a story (whether true or not iack-office was going to Warsaw, sales & trading for the bulk of European clients would go to Frankfurt, and a number of investment banking jobs would be moved back to the US.

    I don't know the veracity of the story, although the source is a plausible one.
    Indie reporting German press:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-latest-news-goldman-sachs-move-half-london-jobs-3000-employees-new-york-europe-eu-frankfurt-a7534776.html
    London will take a hit, and then it will recover. It always does. It's in the DNA of the place.

    It was the biggest city north of the Alps in the 2nd century AD.
    We don't know what will happen. London before the EU was a rusty crumbling wreck. If the money goes it might go that way again. Equally, London might benefit from cooling down a bit. The people are currently being priced out, which can't be good long term.
    London boomed in the 80s because of Thatcher and the Big Bang, low taxes, etc. Also because of English law, globalization, and so on. The EU has benefited london in terms of free movement, but the EU has not been crucial to the city's success.

    Clearly leaving the EU will take some wind out of the city's sails. But I don't think it will damage it, long term.

    Besides, all these negative prognoses ignore the possible upsides, and the extra flexibility Brexit brings. The City can happily kiss goodbye to the stupid EU banker bonus laws, for a start.

    As with all things Brexit, the process is so huge, dynamic and unique it really is impossible to predict what will or won't happen 5 or 10 years down the line.
    London's renaissance predates big bang, it started in the 70s. It continued in the 80s. It really accelerated around the millennium. Early 90s London was still very drab.

    Many here interpret Brexit as an attack on London, it's international culture and it's dominance of the UK.
    Hopefully it will be very successful
  • Options
    JonathanDJonathanD Posts: 2,400
    Pong said:

    SeanT said:

    Pong said:

    RobD said:

    Pong said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    I think you missed an 'ergo' in there.

    Yesterday, I heard a story (whether true or not is another matter) that Goldman was going to substantially reduce its London footprint. The European back-office was going to Warsaw, sales & trading for the bulk of European clients would go to Frankfurt, and a number of investment banking jobs would be moved back to the US.

    I don't know the veracity of the story, although the source is a plausible one.
    Indie reporting German press:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-latest-news-goldman-sachs-move-half-london-jobs-3000-employees-new-york-europe-eu-frankfurt-a7534776.html
    I think finance in Europe will become much more like the US - that is much more spread out, without one city having such complete dominance.

    We'll probably most feel the negative effect in ancillary services: i.e. other businesses that were headquartered in London so as to be near the source of so much financial services activity. (Accounting, law, etc.)

    I wouldn't like to be long prime London property. Oops.
    lol

    I wouldn't like to be Philip Hammond;

    https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business/economic-research-and-information/research-publications/Documents/research 2016/total-tax-leaflet.pdf

    That's the equivalent of 4 new hospitals every week.
    The entire financial sector is going to leave?
    Not all of it. I'm sure the Co-op will stick around.

    The overall tax take is very likely to go down though. It would be sensible to plan for -1 hospital/week, although it could feasibly be -2
    I think the tax take will go down. But maybe not for the reasons you state. It might decline because we have to slash corp tax and the bank levy to persuade them to stay (or return). Either way a headache for Hammond.
    Tax cuts for banks/bankers is going to be a very hard sell.

    Did anyone think this brexit thing through?
    A headache for Hammond, a nightmare for the JAMs who relied on the NHS, state schools and all the other things those taxes funded.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    rcs1000 said:

    SeanT said:


    Simply wrong. London's population (the surest measure of a city's success) declined throughout the 1970s and early 80s, and bottomed out in the mid 80s. From the late 80s on it began to rise, just as Thatcher's reforms were kicking in, and it hasn't stopped climbing since.

    https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_Greater_London_graph.png

    The idea London enjoyed a "renaissance" in the 70s is deliciously ridiculous.

    In the 1970s, the Eurodollar market took off in London, mainly because it was not hampered by the American Glass-Steagall Act (which split domestic from investment banking in the US, and whose repeal is blamed by some for recent financial crises). Mrs Thatcher's 1980s Big Bang led to huge increases in capitalisation as American and other foreign banks bought the old British merchant banks, building societies turned into banks (what could possibly go wrong?) and so on.

    Edit: removed screwed up quoting history.
    Absolutely right re the Eurodollar market: it was matching Europeans' savings with America's thirst for capital.
    Wasn't it petrodollar focused, not European savings? It happened in London because the Saudis couldn't invest in interest bearing instruments at home, while the US introduced a withholding tax
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,758
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    rcs1000 said:

    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    DavidL said:

    Yeah but those people in Goldmans would much rather live in Frankfurt, honest.

    @rcs1000 may have a good line on GS, but Frankfurt is unlikely. Amsterdam would have been more believable. A lot of this is going to be lobbying manoeuvres to try and get the government to soften on immigration so the City can keep the passport or have some equivalent status.

    The government has no choice but to soften. It's not just the City, it's high-tech too, as wellas pharma, the universities, the health service and so on. Reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands will have a devastating affect on high-skill job recruitment and will do immense damage.

    No one's going to reduce skilled immigration. Not even TMay. And the best estimates reckon migration will be brought down to 150,000-200,000. Still big big numbers by historical standards.

    One way they will do this is by reclassifying unskilled migrants coming for agricultural/hospitality work as "seasonal workers", rather than actual immigrants. Etc etc. These people will get six month work permits and so forth, but not settlement rights and benefits.
    There are other ways skilled immigration can reverse: papital of the EU.
    London's problem is that it has let itself get cut off from it's immetill needs to repair.
    I think it's brilliant that PB Leavers have now gone from wanting to leave the EU to predicting with satisfaction the demise of the great city of London.
    youre sort of making that up now arent you ?
    "London's problem"...."a faultline the country still needs to repair"...

    I am, while we're on the subject of London, currently 5,907th in the queue to get tickets for Angels in America at the National. It will be a blessed relief when this faultline is repaired because that I'm sure will mean theatre tickets are easier to get.
    of course there's a faultline, it was one of the issues Cummings claimed was a huge advantage to Leave. People in London couldnt conceive that anyone would think differently from them. London has developed it;s own agenda and to some extent decoupled from the rest of the country. Long term that's not healthy imo for either party.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    FF43 said:

    Charles said:


    Post hoc proctor hoc

    How much post hoc before you accept an ergo?




    Cogito
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,062
    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re Goldmans and the like, I think it's inevitable that London will lose its status as the only City in European finance. And, long-term, that's probably a positive for the UK economy. It means we'll be less reliant on a few mega-earners, trophy asset prices won't be so inflated, and we'll lose a boom-and-bust sector.

    Now this doesn't mean London won't be bigger or more significant than Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin. It just means that more finance will happen in these other places. Other places will reach critical mass.

    The biggest near term consequence of this will be that property prices will be pressured - first in London, then the South East, then countrywide. (Again, this is a long term good thing.) Falling UK property prices will reduce the UK wealth effect, and drive up the savings rate.

    And this will be the Brexit recession.

    A necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Albeit an incredibly painful one. And one that will likely cause massive recriminations.

    It sounds like a recession which will hit London hardest and longest.

    Its the recession which should have happened after 2008 but which a trillion pounds of borrowed money was used to stop.
    That's a fair assessment.

    I'm glad I'm not leveraged long prime London property. Oh wait...
    Clearly now is the time to come to Zurich.
    Any tips , I will be there next week. Do they have McDonalds
  • Options
    FF43FF43 Posts: 15,760

    FF43 said:

    Charles said:


    Post hoc proctor hoc

    How much propter hoc before you accept an ergo?


    None. That's why it's a fallacy.
    Post hoc can NEVER be ergo propter hoc? We're now onto the post hoc fallacy fallacy. People scream correlation isn't causation on any data they find inconvenient.

    Btw this isn't s Brexit comment. We're all doing it.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    rcs1000 said:

    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    DavidL said:

    Yeah but those people in Goldmans would much rather live in Frankfurt, honest.

    @rcs1000 may have a good us.

    The government has no choice but to soften. It's not just the City, it's high-tech too, as wellas pharma, the universities, the health service and so on. Reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands will have a devastating affect on high-skill job recruitment and will do immense damage.

    No one's going to reduce skilled immigration. Not even TMay. And the best estimates reckon migration will be brought down to 150,000-200,000. Still big big numbers by historical standards.

    One way they will do this is by reclassifying unskilled migrants coming for agricultural/hospitality work as "seasonal workers", rather than actual immigrants. Etc etc. These people will get six month work permits and so forth, but not settlement rights and benefits.
    There are other ways skilled immigration can reverse: papital of the EU.
    London's problem is that it has let itself get cut off from it's immetill needs to repair.
    I think it's brilliant that PB Leavers have now gone from wanting to leave the EU to predicting with satisfaction the demise of the great city of London.
    youre sort of making that up now arent you ?
    "London's problem"...."a faultline the country still needs to repair"...

    I am, while we're on the subject of London, currently 5,907th in the queue to get tickets for Angels in America at the National. It will be a blessed relief when this faultline is repaired because that I'm sure will mean theatre tickets are easier to get.
    of course there's a faultline, it was one of the issues Cummings claimed was a huge advantage to Leave. People in London couldnt conceive that anyone would think differently from them. London has developed it;s own agenda and to some extent decoupled from the rest of the country. Long term that's not healthy imo for either party.
    So let's bring it down a peg, hence my original comment which you didn't like.

    London is a global financial and cultural city located in the UK. I appreciate that it must be like someone very successful buying a Rolls Royce in, say, Leamington Spa and parking it on the street. At some point it might get keyed. Not by you, of course, you respect and admire success. But not everyone's like you, sadly.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited January 2017
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    rcs1000 said:

    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    DavidL said:

    Yeah but those people in Goldmans would much rather live in Frankfurt, honest.

    @rcs1000 may have a good line on GS, but Frankfurt is unlikely. Amsterdam would have been more believable. A lot of this is going to be lobbying manoeuvres to try and get the government to soften on immigration so the City can keep the passport or have some equivalent status.

    The government has no choice but to soften. It's not just the City, it's high-tech too, as wellas pharma, the universities, the health service and so on. Reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands will have a devastating affect on high-skill job recruitment and will do immense damage.

    No one's going to reduce skilled immigration. Not even TMay. And the best estimates reckon migration will be brought down to 150,000-200,000. Still big big numbers by historical standards.

    One way they will do this is by reclassifying unskilled migrants coming for agricultural/hospitality work as "seasonal workers", rather than actual immigrants. Etc etc. These people will get six month work permits and so forth, but not settlement rights and benefits.
    There are other ways skilled immigration can reverse: people might choose to go somewhere else.

    London, and Cambridge have been magnets for finance and technology. What if other places achieve magnet status?

    As Sean_F pointed out, cities that get cut off from their Empire rarely thrive. London was capital of the British Empire and was then the commercial capital of the EU.
    London's problem is that it has let itself get cut off from it's immediate hinterland. Not physically - though the RMT give it a go - but ideologically. It's because it thought that the sticks were irrelevant it finds itself facing Brexit. It's a faultline the country still needs to repair.
    I think it's brilliant that PB Leavers have now gone from wanting to leave the EU to predicting with satisfaction the demise of the great city of London.
    youre sort of making that up now arent you ?
    "London's problem"...."a faultline the country still needs to repair"...

    I am, while we're on the subject of London, currently 5,907th in the queue to get tickets for Angels in America at the National. It will be a blessed relief when this faultline is repaired because that I'm sure will mean theatre tickets are easier to get.
    Is that the new Victoria Secret's show?

    :wink:
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379
    edited January 2017
    Charles said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    rcs1000 said:

    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    DavidL said:

    Yeah but those people in Goldmans would much rather live in Frankfurt, honest.

    @rcs1000 may have a good line on GS, but Frankfurt is unlikely. Amsterdam would have been more believable. A lot of this is going to be lobbying manoeuvres to try and get the government to soften on immigration so the City can keep the passport or have some equivalent status.

    The government has no choice but to soften. It's not just the City, it's high-tech too, as wellas pharma, the universities, the health service and so on. Reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands will have a devastating affect on high-skill job recruitment and will do immense damage.

    No one's going to reduce skilled immigration. Not even TMay. And the best estimates reckon migration will be brought down to 150,000-200,000. Still big big numbers by historical standards.

    One way they will do this is by reclassifying unskilled migrants coming for agricultural/hospitality work as "seasonal workers", rather than actual immigrants. Etc etc. These people will get six month work permits and so forth, but not settlement rights and benefits.
    There are other ways skilled immigration can reverse: people might choose to go somewhere else.

    London, and Cambridge have been magnets for finance and technology. What if other places achieve magnet status?

    As Sean_F pointed out, cities that get cut off from their Empire rarely thrive. London was capital of the British Empire and was then the commercial capital of the EU.
    London's problem is that it has let itself get cut off from it's immediate hinterland. Not physically - though the RMT give it a go - but ideologically. It's because it thought that the sticks were irrelevant it finds itself facing Brexit. It's a faultline the country still needs to repair.
    I think it's brilliant that PB Leavers have now gone from wanting to leave the EU to predicting with satisfaction the demise of the great city of London.
    youre sort of making that up now arent you ?
    "London's problem"...."a faultline the country still needs to repair"...

    I am, while we're on the subject of London, currently 5,907th in the queue to get tickets for Angels in America at the National. It will be a blessed relief when this faultline is repaired because that I'm sure will mean theatre tickets are easier to get.
    Is that the new Victoria Secret's show?

    :wink:
    More like Victor's Secret.

    Edit: 5,440th now.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,056
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379
    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    @MaxPB suppose we do get equivalence.

    Ask yourself equivalence with what and under the jurisdiction of which rule-making body?

    It will still be the EU which grants it, rules over it, ensures it remains current (equivalence is only granted at a point in time and governs an existing set of rules rather than a regulatory environment) and, finally, enforces it.

    Some control.

    ESMA?

    I'm really not that fussed, I've said time and again trade is somewhere that compromise is acceptable, even desirable. The EU was and is about much more than trade, which is why I voted to leave and am happy that we are leaving.
    ESMA is tasked by the EU to implement its will.

    But that's fine, I understand your viewpoing. Now some people, even can you imagine some PB Leavers, were all exercised about sovereignty. It is transparently obvious that whatever situation we reach with financial services that we will give up sovereignty to another body, the ECJ, say. But if all Leavers are happy to cede sovereignty to the ECJ then who am I to argue.

    Just that one does wonder what all the fuss was about and what it was all for if we are back under the oppressive yoke of the EU.

    Again, trade is an area where we have already ceded sovereignty to the WTO. I'm not particularly bothered about that either.
    Fair enough. You are then a special kind of Leaver. Not worried about ceding sovereignty, not worried about immigration. Good for you.
  • Options
    RogerRoger Posts: 18,892
    edited January 2017
    Completely OT. I went to a circus last night in Monaco. Lions tigers elephants llamas galloping horses troups of acrobats highwire acts performers from all over the world......the biggest and most adventurous circus I've seen. All four and a half hours of it.......

    After everyone was seated a brightly coloured band started playing and the audience suddenly stood and started a rythmical clapping. It was Prince Albert with his wife Charlene his sisters Caroline and Stephanie and two children who had just arrived to my left. The affection was genuine and unmistakable....

    Though in principle I''m not in favour of hereritary monarchies it was difficult not to compare the charming and dignified Rainiers with the Addams Family who are taking over in America this afternoon.....


  • Options
    TOPPING said:

    SeanT said:

    As for cities that lose empires necessarily becoming less important, that is rather belied by the incredible success of Singapore and Hong Kong, which thrive as big, free trading English language cities on the periphery of (but not within) vast economic powers.

    If Londoners are nimble enough, there will be opportunities aplenty post Brexit, and RCS can stop having a breakdown.

    If you think Hong Kong operates outside the PRC you have a woeful understanding of the country you have, so you say, been enthusiastically promoting for the past 10 years.

    Yep, Hong Kong is becoming ever-more tightly controlled from Beijing and, while still a brilliant place to visit, is losing its principal selling point as a jurisdiction in which English common law is interpreted by an independent judiciary and disinterestedly enforced. It is losing out now to Singapore and Shanghai; the latter on the basis that you might as well be fully inside the PRC as outside in a place totally supplicant to it.

  • Options
    rural_voterrural_voter Posts: 2,038
    At least if a recession changes peoples' minds about Leaving, we have two years for lawyers to find the clause in the Treaty of Lisbon that entitles us to call off Article 50.
  • Options
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    rcs1000 said:

    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    DavidL said:

    Yeah but those people in Goldmans would much rather live in Frankfurt, honest.

    @rcs1000 may have a good us.

    The government has no choice but to soften. It's not just the City, it's high-tech too, as wellas pharma, the universities, the health service and so on. Reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands will have a devastating affect on high-skill job recruitment and will do immense damage.

    No one's going to reduce skilled immigration. Not even TMay. And the best estimates reckon migration will be brought down to 150,000-200,000. Still big big numbers by historical standards.

    One way they will do this is by reclassifying unskilled migrants coming for agricultural/hospitality work as "seasonal workers", rather than actual immigrants. Etc etc. These people will get six month work permits and so forth, but not settlement rights and benefits.
    There are other ways skilled immigration can reverse: papital of the EU.
    London's problem is that it has let itself get cut off from it's immetill needs to repair.
    I think it's brilliant that PB Leavers have now gone from wanting to leave the EU to predicting with satisfaction the demise of the great city of London.
    youre sort of making that up now arent you ?
    "London's problem"...."a faultline the country still needs to repair"...

    I am, while we're on the subject of London, currently 5,907th in the queue to get tickets for Angels in America at the National. It will be a blessed relief when this faultline is repaired because that I'm sure will mean theatre tickets are easier to get.
    of course there's a faultline, coupled from the rest of the country. Long term that's not healthy imo for either party.
    So let's bring it down a peg, hence my original comment which you didn't like.

    London is a global financial and cultural city located in the UK. I appreciate that it must be like someone very successful buying a Rolls Royce in, say, Leamington Spa and parking it on the street. At some point it might get keyed. Not by you, of course, you respect and admire success. But not everyone's like you, sadly.

    Not in Leamington Spa, Mr Topping. We were an island of Remain in a sea of Midlands Leave :-) The Spa is a boomtown. Rollers are very passe here.

  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,056
    It's often said on here that some remainers are keen to blame any bad news on Brexit. In a similar manner, some leavers seem very keen to deny any bad news might have anything to do with Brexit.

    The truth probably lies somewhere in between: Brexit will be just one factor amongst many in such decisions, albeit in some cases a major factor. It may be weighty enough to push companies and individuals into decisions that would not have been made without Brexit.

    There are also opportunities as well. Companies may make decisions to our benefit because of Brexit, although I expect those will mostly occur once things have calmed down.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,610
    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    @MaxPB suppose we do get equivalence.

    Ask yourself equivalence with what and under the jurisdiction of which rule-making body?

    It will still be the EU which grants it, rules over it, ensures it remains current (equivalence is only granted at a point in time and governs an existing set of rules rather than a regulatory environment) and, finally, enforces it.

    Some control.

    ESMA?

    I'm really not that fussed, I've said time and again trade is somewhere that compromise is acceptable, even desirable. The EU was and is about much more than trade, which is why I voted to leave and am happy that we are leaving.
    ESMA is tasked by the EU to implement its will.

    But that's fine, I understand your viewpoing. Now some people, even can you imagine some PB Leavers, were all exercised about sovereignty. It is transparently obvious that whatever situation we reach with financial services that we will give up sovereignty to another body, the ECJ, say. But if all Leavers are happy to cede sovereignty to the ECJ then who am I to argue.

    Just that one does wonder what all the fuss was about and what it was all for if we are back under the oppressive yoke of the EU.

    Again, trade is an area where we have already ceded sovereignty to the WTO. I'm not particularly bothered about that either.
    Fair enough. You are then a special kind of Leaver. Not worried about ceding sovereignty, not worried about immigration. Good for you.
    Ceding sovereignty over trade is something I think is inevitable. I don't think it should be considered over anything else.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Roger said:

    Completely OT. I went to a circus last night in Monaco. Lions tigers elephants llamas galloping horses troups of acrobats highwire acts performers from all over the world......the biggest and most adventurous circus I've seen. All four and a half hours of it.......

    After everyone was seated a brightly coloured band started playing and the audience suddenly stood and started a rythmical clapping. It was Prince Albert with his wife Charlene his sisters Caroline and Stephanie and two children who had just arrived to my left. The affection was genuine and unmistakable....

    Though in principle I''m not in favour of hereritary monarchies it was difficult not to compare the charming and dignified Rainiers with the Addams Family who are taking over in America this afternoon.....


    You must be the first person in history to refer to the Grimaldis as "charming and dignified"!!!

  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,093
    MaxPB said:

    HYUFD said:

    MaxPB said:

    TOPPING said:

    MaxPB said:

    DavidL said:

    Yeah but those people in Goldmans would much rather live in Frankfurt, honest.

    @rcs1000 may have a good line on GS, but Frankfurt is unlikely. Amsterdam would have been more believable. A lot of this is going to be lobbying manoeuvres to try and get the government to soften on immigration so the City can keep the passport or have some equivalent status.
    The only place with, in the lingo, the same ecosystem (all ancillary and related services in the same place) is New York.

    If bits move it will be a gradual blunting of London's preeminence rather than a collapse.
    New York and Singapore is the real threat. I don't much like Sadiq, but he is right. If London loses business it won't be to Paris and Frankfurt, it will be to NYC and Singapore. From what I can tell arm's length locations are to be preferred for EUR transactions. Then again, if we are to lose business I'd rather lose it to non-EU countries anyway so I'm fairly relaxed about it.
    HSBC are moving jobs to Paris, Goldman to Frankfurt etc. European cities will narrow the gap with London and NYC may start to pull ahead especially with the incoming Trump administration and the GOP Congress seen as pro business (though if the Democrats win the mid terms things may change a little)
    HSBC say Paris, GS might say Frankfurt. In reality it would be Singapore and NYC respectively.
    Not for EU business
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,056
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,093

    rcs1000 said:

    SeanT said:

    MaxPB said:

    DavidL said:

    Yeah but those people in Goldmans would much rather live in Frankfurt, honest.

    @rcs1000 may have a good line on GS, but Frankfurt is unlikely. Amsterdam would have been more believable. A lot of this is going to be lobbying manoeuvres to try and get the government to soften on immigration so the City can keep the passport or have some equivalent status.

    The government has no choice but to soften. It's not just the City, it's high-tech too, as wellas pharma, the universities, the health service and so on. Reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands will have a devastating affect on high-skill job recruitment and will do immense damage.

    No one's going to reduce skilled immigration. Not even TMay. And the best estimates reckon migration will be brought down to 150,000-200,000. Still big big numbers by historical standards.

    One way they will do this is by reclassifying unskilled migrants coming for agricultural/hospitality work as "seasonal workers", rather than actual immigrants. Etc etc. These people will get six month work permits and so forth, but not settlement rights and benefits.
    There are other ways skilled immigration can reverse: people might choose to go somewhere else.

    London, and Cambridge have been magnets for finance and technology. What if other places achieve magnet status?

    As Sean_F pointed out, cities that get cut off from their Empire rarely thrive. London was capital of the British Empire and was then the commercial capital of the EU.
    London's problem is that it has let itself get cut off from it's immediate hinterland. Not physically - though the RMT give it a go - but ideologically. It's because it thought that the sticks were irrelevant it finds itself facing Brexit. It's a faultline the country still needs to repair.
    No different from New York and Trump voters or Paris and Le Pen voters
  • Options
    Overweight and obese heart surgery patients are less likely to die in hospital after operations than patients of normal weight, according to a study by Fox's colleagues at Leicester.

  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,949
    Charles said:

    chestnut said:

    London started to blossom in the mid 1980s.

    To put it in perspective, my parents sold a nice house with a 1/2 acre garden in Kensington for £500K in 1982.

    That's the one deal my Dad regrets most of all - he seriously considered keeping the place.
    Half an ACRE in Kensington.

    Bloody Hell, is the house still in its original form or did the back garden get flatted up ?
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    dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,288
    The Greens have picked the runner up in Bristol West as candidate for Metro Mayor in Bristol/Bath/S.Gloucs area.

    http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/the-race-for-bristol-metro-mayor-is-hotting-up-as-the-green-party-reveals-its-candidate/story-30072424-detail/story.html

    Am disappointed not to hear on TV or radio an Adagio marked Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam as Trump is inaugurated today.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,949
    edited January 2017
    TOPPING said:



    So let's bring it down a peg, hence my original comment which you didn't like.

    London is a global financial and cultural city located in the UK. I appreciate that it must be like someone very successful buying a Rolls Royce in, say, Leamington Spa and parking it on the street. At some point it might get keyed. Not by you, of course, you respect and admire success. But not everyone's like you, sadly.

    Have you ever been to Kenilworth, Leamington or the Gibbet Hill/Kenilworth Road area of Coventry ?
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379
    Pulpstar said:

    TOPPING said:



    So let's bring it down a peg, hence my original comment which you didn't like.

    London is a global financial and cultural city located in the UK. I appreciate that it must be like someone very successful buying a Rolls Royce in, say, Leamington Spa and parking it on the street. At some point it might get keyed. Not by you, of course, you respect and admire success. But not everyone's like you, sadly.

    Have you ever been to Kenilworth, Leamington or Gibbet Hill/Kenilworth Road area of Coventry ?
    Yes I have already been put right on that one.
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    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Pulpstar said:

    Charles said:

    chestnut said:

    London started to blossom in the mid 1980s.

    To put it in perspective, my parents sold a nice house with a 1/2 acre garden in Kensington for £500K in 1982.

    That's the one deal my Dad regrets most of all - he seriously considered keeping the place.
    Half an ACRE in Kensington.

    Bloody Hell, is the house still in its original form or did the back garden get flatted up ?
    This is what's left of the home I grew up in

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZHQIC3eBvw
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    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,103
    Charles said:

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.

    So nothing to do with the 'we're not like them' English exceptionalism you frequently use to justify your position? No, it's all about your deep bonds with the little people...
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    RogerRoger Posts: 18,892
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    Couldn't you have used some of the proceeds to buy yourself a tripod?
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.

    So nothing to do with the 'we're not like them' English exceptionalism you frequently use to justify your position? No, it's all about your deep bonds with the little people...
    I'm not to going to engage with someone who misrepresents my position.
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    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Roger said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    Couldn't you have used some of the proceeds to buy yourself a tripod?
    Not my film - we sold it to Freddie Mercury (who left it Mary Austin). It's just some fan sitting on the wall filming the back yard.
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    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    Charles said:


    Post hoc proctor hoc

    How much propter hoc before you accept an ergo?


    None. That's why it's a fallacy.
    Post hoc can NEVER be ergo propter hoc? We're now onto the post hoc fallacy fallacy. People scream correlation isn't causation on any data they find inconvenient.

    Btw this isn't s Brexit comment. We're all doing it.
    Correct post hoc can not be ergo. It takes more than post hoc to prove ergo.

    People scream it because correlation isn't causation. Stop trying to demonstrate causation with correlation and people will stop screaming it.
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    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379
    SeanT said:

    For an example of Brexit Remoaner lunacy, it's quite hard to beat this


    'Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers, told NRC Handelsblad newspaper this week that he expected Mrs May’s Brexit plans to lead to "massive unemployment" by 2037.

    “Let’s speak to each other again in 20 years, and then England will be back to where it was in the seventies,” he said. “Totally outdated, massive unemployment, totally impoverished.”'

    That's right. The Dutch finance minister is actually clairvoyant, such that he can predict unemployment figures in a foreign country in 20 years time. Also he just "knows" that England will be totally outdated, totally impoverished, and most of us in Britain will be eating moss and seagull feathers.

    https://www.ft.com/content/9415b692-de23-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce

    This is the mindset of Davos man, of the established EU politician. They are not rational, they are not masters of the universe, they are cardinals of the church confronted by Galileo and the Reformation. They have no real idea at all, they have blind and flailing Faith: a religious impulse disguised as economic theory.

    Sean what the fuck are you doing up this early in the morning? Or are you still going from last night?
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,056
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    LOL. Pull the other one.

    You don't know what the company is, or what the call centre does. It's not outside the bounds of possibility that Brexit, or the fear of Brexit, may cause them problems, is it? Perhaps Mr Bromponaut is lying, or perhaps his friend is, or the company.

    Or perhaps it's true.

    As for not providing evidence for your claims: you haven't provided evidence in the past about your claims about the Garden Bridge, as just one example. "Oh, Meryn Davies told me."

    BTW, how is the Garden Bridge getting on? :)
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    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,758
    @Topping - Re London

    sorry work getting in the way of blogging

    London has to some extent decoupled from the rest of the country. You see it regularly on this blog where what's important is often at different ends of the spectrum.

    What;s the solution ? Not sure, but I suspect moving chunks of HMG out of London would help as well as more decentralisation to the regions to let them manage their own affairs and stop moaning. The regions dont gain by holding back London any more than London gains from ignoring the other 55 million people on these islands, it's a symbiotic relation which at present is out of balance.



  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,277
    Scott_P said:
    Dunno about Trump's skin colour, but mine is a deathly white as he gets the nuclear codes.
  • Options

    Scott_P said:
    Dunno about Trump's skin colour, but mine is a deathly white as he gets the nuclear codes.
    You think Trump more likely to kick something off than Clinton! You haven't been paying attention have you.
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    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,610
    I see the British consumer has finally begun to stop shopping.
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    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,218
    edited January 2017
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    Lovely, nostalgic blast of noblesse oblige with a side note of patronage there..
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    OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,913
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re Goldmans and the like, I think it's inevitable that London will lose its status as the only City in European finance. And, long-term, that's probably a positive for the UK economy. It means we'll be less reliant on a few mega-earners, trophy asset prices won't be so inflated, and we'll lose a boom-and-bust sector.

    Now this doesn't mean London won't be bigger or more significant than Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin. It just means that more finance will happen in these other places. Other places will reach critical mass.

    The biggest near term consequence of this will be that property prices will be pressured - first in London, then the South East, then countrywide. (Again, this is a long term good thing.) Falling UK property prices will reduce the UK wealth effect, and drive up the savings rate.

    And this will be the Brexit recession.

    A necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Albeit an incredibly painful one. And one that will likely cause massive recriminations.

    It sounds like a recession which will hit London hardest and longest.

    Its the recession which should have happened after 2008 but which a trillion pounds of borrowed money was used to stop.
    That's a fair assessment.

    I'm glad I'm not leveraged long prime London property. Oh wait...
    Clearly now is the time to come to Zurich.
    I'm possibly heading to LA...
    Love the way you and Max are legging it after visiting Brexit on the rest of us (Smiley face).
    I'm retired and have decided to hedge my bets and get a place in Portugal - at least if our living standard is going to drop I'd rather it dropped whilst sitting in the sun rather than sitting somewhere in this rainy and cold congested island!
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,610

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    LOL. Pull the other one.

    You don't know what the company is, or what the call centre does. It's not outside the bounds of possibility that Brexit, or the fear of Brexit, may cause them problems, is it? Perhaps Mr Bromponaut is lying, or perhaps his friend is, or the company.

    Or perhaps it's true.

    As for not providing evidence for your claims: you haven't provided evidence in the past about your claims about the Garden Bridge, as just one example. "Oh, Meryn Davies told me."

    BTW, how is the Garden Bridge getting on? :)
    Do you believe Jamie Oliver when he blamed Brexit for his restaurant closures?
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    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,277
    Says it all. Tim Stanley has written an article for DT, entitled: "Why President Trump won't be the disaster people think"

    It must all of 200 words. Thin gruel indeed.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2017/01/19/president-trump-wont-disaster-people-think/
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    PongPong Posts: 4,693
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.

    So nothing to do with the 'we're not like them' English exceptionalism you frequently use to justify your position? No, it's all about your deep bonds with the little people...
    I'm not to going to engage with someone who misrepresents my position.
    Almost every non-betting discussion on PB involves people deliberately misrepresenting others positions. In their own heads they never lose an argument.
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    dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,288
    edited January 2017
    Damning turn of phrase on the departing President.

    A good but not great leader, he never learned how to use power.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/the-guardian-view-on-obamas-legacy-yes-he-did-make-a-difference
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    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"

    Exactamundo.
    And explains perfectly why we did the 100% right thing to leave. Dodged a very nasty bullet coming at the EU cozy status quo.
  • Options
    CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,221
    Fascinating discussion this morning. By an amazing coincidence I sent a possible thread header to OGH last night which touches on a closely related topic.

    Anyway, am off as have work to do. Next weekend I'm off for a long weekend walking around Keswick and will also be in Millom so if I learn any great insights into Copeland will let you know. It's my first break since October - those wicked bankers haven't left yet, you know! - so I cannot wait.
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    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,454
    On London's position as a global and European financial centre, some of that has been aided by EU membership and much of it has not.

    On the structural advantages, the English language, position at the centre of the world's timezones, the legal system, the excellent range of professional ancillary services available in London, its culture, and diversity of life, and its geographical proximity to Europe - you can get to Amsterdam/Paris by train in 2 1/2 hours for a meeting and back the same day - will remain unchanged.

    On the potential positives, its regulation environment may also change (liberalise) to make it more attractive, we may ease visa access for global financial workers (within limits) and strike more liberal services access agreements elsewhere in the World.

    On the negatives, it will not be able to provide Eurozone financial services directly from London without using a subsidiary, and a few other non-tariff barriers may re-emerge. It may also be a little bit more time consuming to clear the border. And it clearly will not remain the overwhelming financial 'capital' of the EU, just dominant. Also worth noting an awful lot of capital and investment has been sunk here, with many workers and employees putting down firm roots - frictional costs to change - so I expect the jobs that will move will be those that must move. But no more.

    I think the most likely outcome is the City moves to a hub-and-spoke model, where the financial "hub" for London is still there, but a bit smaller, but there are many spokes that support and work with it within the EU.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,277
    TOPPING said:

    SeanT said:

    For an example of Brexit Remoaner lunacy, it's quite hard to beat this


    'Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers, told NRC Handelsblad newspaper this week that he expected Mrs May’s Brexit plans to lead to "massive unemployment" by 2037.

    “Let’s speak to each other again in 20 years, and then England will be back to where it was in the seventies,” he said. “Totally outdated, massive unemployment, totally impoverished.”'

    That's right. The Dutch finance minister is actually clairvoyant, such that he can predict unemployment figures in a foreign country in 20 years time. Also he just "knows" that England will be totally outdated, totally impoverished, and most of us in Britain will be eating moss and seagull feathers.

    https://www.ft.com/content/9415b692-de23-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce

    This is the mindset of Davos man, of the established EU politician. They are not rational, they are not masters of the universe, they are cardinals of the church confronted by Galileo and the Reformation. They have no real idea at all, they have blind and flailing Faith: a religious impulse disguised as economic theory.

    Sean what the fuck are you doing up this early in the morning? Or are you still going from last night?
    Perhaps this Dutch bloke just thinks that we will have had two terms, or whatever, of Corbyn government? By the end of which people will be selling seagull feathers on the black market for razor blades.
  • Options
    OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,913
    malcolmg said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re Goldmans and the like, I think it's inevitable that London will lose its status as the only City in European finance. And, long-term, that's probably a positive for the UK economy. It means we'll be less reliant on a few mega-earners, trophy asset prices won't be so inflated, and we'll lose a boom-and-bust sector.

    Now this doesn't mean London won't be bigger or more significant than Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin. It just means that more finance will happen in these other places. Other places will reach critical mass.

    The biggest near term consequence of this will be that property prices will be pressured - first in London, then the South East, then countrywide. (Again, this is a long term good thing.) Falling UK property prices will reduce the UK wealth effect, and drive up the savings rate.

    And this will be the Brexit recession.

    A necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Albeit an incredibly painful one. And one that will likely cause massive recriminations.

    It sounds like a recession which will hit London hardest and longest.

    Its the recession which should have happened after 2008 but which a trillion pounds of borrowed money was used to stop.
    That's a fair assessment.

    I'm glad I'm not leveraged long prime London property. Oh wait...
    Clearly now is the time to come to Zurich.
    Any tips , I will be there next week. Do they have McDonalds

    I'm there Thursday/Saturday next week - we could have a fascinating dinner - a rabid remainer, a rabid leaver and Malcolm. What could possibly go wrong!
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379
    SeanT said:

    TOPPING said:

    SeanT said:

    For an example of Brexit Remoaner lunacy, it's quite hard to beat this


    'Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers, told NRC Handelsblad newspaper this week that he expected Mrs May’s Brexit plans to lead to "massive unemployment" by 2037.

    “Let’s speak to each other again in 20 years, and then England will be back to where it was in the seventies,” he said. “Totally outdated, massive unemployment, totally impoverished.”'

    That's right. The Dutch finance minister is actually clairvoyant, such that he can predict unemployment figures in a foreign country in 20 years time. Also he just "knows" that England will be totally outdated, totally impoverished, and most of us in Britain will be eating moss and seagull feathers.

    https://www.ft.com/content/9415b692-de23-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce

    This is the mindset of Davos man, of the established EU politician. They are not rational, they are not masters of the universe, they are cardinals of the church confronted by Galileo and the Reformation. They have no real idea at all, they have blind and flailing Faith: a religious impulse disguised as economic theory.

    Sean what the fuck are you doing up this early in the morning? Or are you still going from last night?
    It's 4.45 pm here in a very sunny Bangkok
    ahhhhhhhhhh. That makes more sense. For a moment I thought you had turned 9-5.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,610
    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"


    Yes, it's what I posted yesterday. They are absolutely shit scared that the UK will prosper after leaving the single market. That will bring into question how much value it really holds, if there is little to no economic value in the single market, why bother with the rest of the EU. What's worse is that by taking the single market off the table, Mrs May has taken away their punishment tool (denying the UK, single market membership). Though I think life on the outside will be tough at first (3-5 years of austerity and a recession) which is why I was in favour of staying in the single market, at least for a few years while we untangled our other trading relationships, I have no doubt that the UK as a country will succeed and outgrow the EU in time. Call it exceptionalism or whatever else, the UK is one of the greatest countries in the world, the EU is peripheral to that.
  • Options
    Blue_rogBlue_rog Posts: 2,019
    Patrick said:

    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"

    Exactamundo.
    And explains perfectly why we did the 100% right thing to leave. Dodged a very nasty bullet coming at the EU cozy status quo.
    I don't want to depress you but it's not a done deal yet. Expect the remain MP's to defy all party instructions and try to vote down triggering art 50. If art 50 triggered expect a myriad of court cases trying to overturn it. If they fail expect court cases trying to prove art 50 can be reversed.

    The remain camp have enough money to tie this up for years, and they will. They are hoping that the incessant drip of delays and barriers will wear away the will of the leavers when they should be pulling together and making leave a success.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    LOL. Pull the other one.

    You don't know what the company is, or what the call centre does. It's not outside the bounds of possibility that Brexit, or the fear of Brexit, may cause them problems, is it? Perhaps Mr Bromponaut is lying, or perhaps his friend is, or the company.

    Or perhaps it's true.

    As for not providing evidence for your claims: you haven't provided evidence in the past about your claims about the Garden Bridge, as just one example. "Oh, Meryn Davies told me."

    BTW, how is the Garden Bridge getting on? :)
    All Mr Bromponaut said was "the call centre is being relocated after Brexit". He didn't provide any evidence. My only comment was that he hadn't provided any evidence. Stop getting your knickers in a twist and trying to draw a broader point.

    On the Garden Bridge, I have no idea. I'm not involved - I just hosted a dinner for the Trust at which I spoke to Mervyn about it.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,610
    OllyT said:

    malcolmg said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re Goldmans and the like, I think it's inevitable that London will lose its status as the only City in European finance. And, long-term, that's probably a positive for the UK economy. It means we'll be less reliant on a few mega-earners, trophy asset prices won't be so inflated, and we'll lose a boom-and-bust sector.

    Now this doesn't mean London won't be bigger or more significant than Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin. It just means that more finance will happen in these other places. Other places will reach critical mass.

    The biggest near term consequence of this will be that property prices will be pressured - first in London, then the South East, then countrywide. (Again, this is a long term good thing.) Falling UK property prices will reduce the UK wealth effect, and drive up the savings rate.

    And this will be the Brexit recession.

    A necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Albeit an incredibly painful one. And one that will likely cause massive recriminations.

    It sounds like a recession which will hit London hardest and longest.

    Its the recession which should have happened after 2008 but which a trillion pounds of borrowed money was used to stop.
    That's a fair assessment.

    I'm glad I'm not leveraged long prime London property. Oh wait...
    Clearly now is the time to come to Zurich.
    Any tips , I will be there next week. Do they have McDonalds

    I'm there Thursday/Saturday next week - we could have a fascinating dinner - a rabid remainer, a rabid leaver and Malcolm. What could possibly go wrong!
    I'm off to the Philippines on Sunday!
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,056
    MaxPB said:

    Do you believe Jamie Oliver when he blamed Brexit for his restaurant closures?

    No.

    But I might be wrong. Also, Jamie Oliver is not all businesses, and one person using such excuses does not mean that all cases are incorrect. I also have some sympathy for the (mostly young) people who will now be out of work.

    RCS seems to have a much more balanced view (*): some jobs will be lost, some people will be hurt, but there will also be opportunities and in the long term it will be worth it.

    However it should be remembered that those jobs are real jobs, of real people. Those at the top end might be able to follow work to Zurich and elsewhere. Many others can not.

    Aside from that, I think I expressed my views well enough in my post at 09.15.

    (*) I hope I'm not misrepresenting his position.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,277
    SeanT said:

    TOPPING said:

    SeanT said:

    For an example of Brexit Remoaner lunacy, it's quite hard to beat this


    'Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers, told NRC Handelsblad newspaper this week that he expected Mrs May’s Brexit plans to lead to "massive unemployment" by 2037.

    “Let’s speak to each other again in 20 years, and then England will be back to where it was in the seventies,” he said. “Totally outdated, massive unemployment, totally impoverished.”'

    That's right. The Dutch finance minister is actually clairvoyant, such that he can predict unemployment figures in a foreign country in 20 years time. Also he just "knows" that England will be totally outdated, totally impoverished, and most of us in Britain will be eating moss and seagull feathers.

    https://www.ft.com/content/9415b692-de23-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce

    This is the mindset of Davos man, of the established EU politician. They are not rational, they are not masters of the universe, they are cardinals of the church confronted by Galileo and the Reformation. They have no real idea at all, they have blind and flailing Faith: a religious impulse disguised as economic theory.

    Sean what the fuck are you doing up this early in the morning? Or are you still going from last night?
    It's 4.45 pm here in a very sunny Bangkok
    Sunny here too though! Five days of perpetual dankness have finally lifted.

    :sunglasses:
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379
    OllyT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re Goldmans and the like, I think it's inevitable that London will lose its status as the only City in European finance. And, long-term, that's probably a positive for the UK economy. It means we'll be less reliant on a few mega-earners, trophy asset prices won't be so inflated, and we'll lose a boom-and-bust sector.

    Now this doesn't mean London won't be bigger or more significant than Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin. It just means that more finance will happen in these other places. Other places will reach critical mass.

    The biggest near term consequence of this will be that property prices will be pressured - first in London, then the South East, then countrywide. (Again, this is a long term good thing.) Falling UK property prices will reduce the UK wealth effect, and drive up the savings rate.

    And this will be the Brexit recession.

    A necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Albeit an incredibly painful one. And one that will likely cause massive recriminations.

    It sounds like a recession which will hit London hardest and longest.

    Its the recession which should have happened after 2008 but which a trillion pounds of borrowed money was used to stop.
    That's a fair assessment.

    I'm glad I'm not leveraged long prime London property. Oh wait...
    Clearly now is the time to come to Zurich.
    I'm possibly heading to LA...
    Love the way you and Max are legging it after visiting Brexit on the rest of us (Smiley face).
    I'm retired and have decided to hedge my bets and get a place in Portugal - at least if our living standard is going to drop I'd rather it dropped whilst sitting in the sun rather than sitting somewhere in this rainy and cold congested island!
    I think we have slightly more UK-loving super-patriot PB Leavers living abroad (not counting those who can swan off at any moment which bring to mind three off the top of my head) than Remainers.
  • Options
    OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,913
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.

    We both know that will never happen, every negative impact of Brexit will be "explained" away by people like yourself as actually having been caused by something else. I have more respect for posters like RCS who are prepared to admit there are real downsides to what we are doing. There were of course real downsides to Remaining as well.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,062
    OllyT said:

    malcolmg said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re Goldmans and the like, I think it's inevitable that London will lose its status as the only City in European finance. And, long-term, that's probably a positive for the UK economy. It means we'll be less reliant on a few mega-earners, trophy asset prices won't be so inflated, and we'll lose a boom-and-bust sector.

    Now this doesn't mean London won't be bigger or more significant than Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin. It just means that more finance will happen in these other places. Other places will reach critical mass.

    The biggest near term consequence of this will be that property prices will be pressured - first in London, then the South East, then countrywide. (Again, this is a long term good thing.) Falling UK property prices will reduce the UK wealth effect, and drive up the savings rate.

    And this will be the Brexit recession.

    A necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Albeit an incredibly painful one. And one that will likely cause massive recriminations.

    It sounds like a recession which will hit London hardest and longest.

    Its the recession which should have happened after 2008 but which a trillion pounds of borrowed money was used to stop.
    That's a fair assessment.

    I'm glad I'm not leveraged long prime London property. Oh wait...
    Clearly now is the time to come to Zurich.
    Any tips , I will be there next week. Do they have McDonalds

    I'm there Thursday/Saturday next week - we could have a fascinating dinner - a rabid remainer, a rabid leaver and Malcolm. What could possibly go wrong!
    I am looking at Monday to Wednesday , unfortunate. Will be busy but would have been nice to have a beer at least.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,056
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    LOL. Pull the other one.

    You don't know what the company is, or what the call centre does. It's not outside the bounds of possibility that Brexit, or the fear of Brexit, may cause them problems, is it? Perhaps Mr Bromponaut is lying, or perhaps his friend is, or the company.

    Or perhaps it's true.

    As for not providing evidence for your claims: you haven't provided evidence in the past about your claims about the Garden Bridge, as just one example. "Oh, Meryn Davies told me."

    BTW, how is the Garden Bridge getting on? :)
    All Mr Bromponaut said was "the call centre is being relocated after Brexit". He didn't provide any evidence. My only comment was that he hadn't provided any evidence. Stop getting your knickers in a twist and trying to draw a broader point.

    On the Garden Bridge, I have no idea. I'm not involved - I just hosted a dinner for the Trust at which I spoke to Mervyn about it.
    My knickers are firmly in order, thanks.
  • Options
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    LOL. Pull the other one.

    You don't know what the company is, or what the call centre does. It's not outside the bounds of possibility that Brexit, or the fear of Brexit, may cause them problems, is it? Perhaps Mr Bromponaut is lying, or perhaps his friend is, or the company.

    Or perhaps it's true.

    As for not providing evidence for your claims: you haven't provided evidence in the past about your claims about the Garden Bridge, as just one example. "Oh, Meryn Davies told me."

    BTW, how is the Garden Bridge getting on? :)
    All Mr Bromponaut said was "the call centre is being relocated after Brexit". He didn't provide any evidence. My only comment was that he hadn't provided any evidence. Stop getting your knickers in a twist and trying to draw a broader point.

    On the Garden Bridge, I have no idea. I'm not involved - I just hosted a dinner for the Trust at which I spoke to Mervyn about it.

    Charles is absolutely, definitely not part of the establishment :-D

  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,031
    Blue_rog said:

    Patrick said:

    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"

    Exactamundo.
    And explains perfectly why we did the 100% right thing to leave. Dodged a very nasty bullet coming at the EU cozy status quo.
    I don't want to depress you but it's not a done deal yet. Expect the remain MP's to defy all party instructions and try to vote down triggering art 50. If art 50 triggered expect a myriad of court cases trying to overturn it. If they fail expect court cases trying to prove art 50 can be reversed.

    The remain camp have enough money to tie this up for years, and they will. They are hoping that the incessant drip of delays and barriers will wear away the will of the leavers when they should be pulling together and making leave a success.
    The Article 50 Enabling Bill will pass with a majority of 350 or 400.

    If you want, we could have a spread bet on the size of the majority.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    OllyT said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.

    We both know that will never happen, every negative impact of Brexit will be "explained" away by people like yourself as actually having been caused by something else. I have more respect for posters like RCS who are prepared to admit there are real downsides to what we are doing. There were of course real downsides to Remaining as well.
    I've not commented on Brexit for a long time because the debate never moves forward on here.

    Of course there are downsides and risks. I broadly agree with Rob on that. I'm just more sanguine on the prospects for the London property market.
  • Options
    glwglw Posts: 9,549
    SeanT said:

    That's right. The Dutch finance minister is actually clairvoyant, such that he can predict unemployment figures in a foreign country in 20 years time. Also he just "knows" that England will be totally outdated, totally impoverished, and most of us in Britain will be eating moss and seagull feathers.

    You can quite easily demonstrate the futility of making a 20 year economic forecast by looking back 20 years. Who would have thought 20 years on from Blair winning we would have Brexit? Or Trump becoming President in the US?

    As a rule of thumb the further into the future someone is willing to forecast the more likely they are to be a charlatan.

    Basically the Dutch finance minister is a berk.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,031
    glw said:

    SeanT said:

    That's right. The Dutch finance minister is actually clairvoyant, such that he can predict unemployment figures in a foreign country in 20 years time. Also he just "knows" that England will be totally outdated, totally impoverished, and most of us in Britain will be eating moss and seagull feathers.

    You can quite easily demonstrate the futility of making a 20 year economic forecast by looking back 20 years. Who would have thought 20 years on from Blair winning we would have Brexit? Or Trump becoming President in the US?

    As a rule of thumb the further into the future someone is willing to forecast the more likely they are to be a charlatan.

    Basically the Dutch finance minister is a berk.
    If Jeremy Corbyn wins in 2020, he (the Dutch Finance Minister) could be right. But he'll be right because Jeremy Corbyn won, not because of Brexit.
  • Options
    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    rcs1000 said:

    The Article 50 Enabling Bill will pass with a majority of 350 or 400.

    If you want, we could have a spread bet on the size of the majority.

    I would wait until Tuesday before striking that bet
  • Options
    Blue_rogBlue_rog Posts: 2,019
    edited January 2017
    rcs1000 said:

    Blue_rog said:

    Patrick said:

    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"

    Exactamundo.
    And explains perfectly why we did the 100% right thing to leave. Dodged a very nasty bullet coming at the EU cozy status quo.
    I don't want to depress you but it's not a done deal yet. Expect the remain MP's to defy all party instructions and try to vote down triggering art 50. If art 50 triggered expect a myriad of court cases trying to overturn it. If they fail expect court cases trying to prove art 50 can be reversed.

    The remain camp have enough money to tie this up for years, and they will. They are hoping that the incessant drip of delays and barriers will wear away the will of the leavers when they should be pulling together and making leave a success.
    The Article 50 Enabling Bill will pass with a majority of 350 or 400.

    If you want, we could have a spread bet on the size of the majority.
    I'd love to but for 2 reasons

    1 I don't understand spread betting
    2 Every time I've had a political bet recently (American election, Brexit) I've emptied my small betting account.

    I don't want to jinx the result :lol:

    I really do want art 50 to be triggered
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,313
    Cyclefree said:

    Fascinating discussion this morning. By an amazing coincidence I sent a possible thread header to OGH last night which touches on a closely related topic.

    Anyway, am off as have work to do. Next weekend I'm off for a long weekend walking around Keswick and will also be in Millom so if I learn any great insights into Copeland will let you know. It's my first break since October - those wicked bankers haven't left yet, you know! - so I cannot wait.

    Millom is an unusual place; I had a holiday there quite some years ago. Just a stone's throw from the Lake District on the map, yet it feels miles away when you are actually there. And the coastline south of there feels like the back of beyond.
  • Options
    glwglw Posts: 9,549
    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"


    The "EU elite" was expecting the UK to beg to remain in the Single Market somehow. May shot that fox, and now they are feeling anger and bewilderment.
  • Options
    CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    isam said:
    Something ironic about the Fight Against Slavery depending on unpaid labour...
  • Options
    glwglw Posts: 9,549
    rcs1000 said:

    If Jeremy Corbyn wins in 2020, he (the Dutch Finance Minister) could be right. But he'll be right because Jeremy Corbyn won, not because of Brexit.

    Yes but being right for the wrong reasons is luck not judgement. Now please point me to the person who said in 2000 that "in 20 years time Corbyn will become the UK PM".
  • Options
    OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,913
    SeanT said:

    OllyT said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.

    We both know that will never happen, every negative impact of Brexit will be "explained" away by people like yourself as actually having been caused by something else. I have more respect for posters like RCS who are prepared to admit there are real downsides to what we are doing. There were of course real downsides to Remaining as well.
    I don't know any PB Leavers who think Brexit will be pain free. It's absurd to think that. Brexit is a risk. It's like having a baby, as I've said 3 million times. There will be blood. And the first 3 years are always the worst.
    Make that 3 into 30 and we're in agreement!

  • Options
    John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    Good morning all.

    Brexit is going to be a very personal experience, just as recessions are. The Forest of Dean lost its major employers to Eastern Europe years ago (e.g. the Xerox plant in Mitcheldean). There just isn't that much around here to migrate, whether that's Portugal or elsewhere - this is the land of the small/micro business.

    My daughter works in an insurance industry call centre. She's more worried about the work they're doing to automate call-handling than she is about relocation to EU countries.

    We're changing the fitness function for businesses. Some will thrive, some won't notice and others will go under. I quite agree that it will badly affect many people, even if some of those don't normally inspire much public sympathy (who'd be a London estate agent?).

    We're already seeing at least some of the reverberations in the City. Leaving aside medium-term changes in FDI flows, the biggest issue is going to be our future tariff regime, particularly in terms of how it affects our agricultural sector (which is important in these parts - not many large agri-businesses in the Wye Valley).

  • Options
    justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    To make a technical point re-timetable for holding Parliamentary by elections, if Jaimie Reed does not resign until 31st January it will not be possible to hold that by election on 23rd February. At least 21 working days - weekend excluded - have to elapse from moving the writ and Polling Day. Perhaps he will resign earlier.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,379
    SeanT said:

    OllyT said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.

    We both know that will never happen, every negative impact of Brexit will be "explained" away by people like yourself as actually having been caused by something else. I have more respect for posters like RCS who are prepared to admit there are real downsides to what we are doing. There were of course real downsides to Remaining as well.
    I don't know any PB Leavers who think Brexit will be pain free. It's absurd to think that. Brexit is a risk. It's like having a baby, as I've said 3 million times. There will be blood. And the first 3 years are always the worst.
    And the first three years/early years of a DCF analysis are the ones with the greatest impact upon present value. Even with the risk free rate so low. But of course I don't have to explain that to you, now, do I?
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,610
    SeanT said:

    OllyT said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.

    We both know that will never happen, every negative impact of Brexit will be "explained" away by people like yourself as actually having been caused by something else. I have more respect for posters like RCS who are prepared to admit there are real downsides to what we are doing. There were of course real downsides to Remaining as well.
    I don't know any PB Leavers who think Brexit will be pain free. It's absurd to think that. Brexit is a risk. It's like having a baby, as I've said 3 million times. There will be blood. And the first 3 years are always the worst.
    Indeed, as I said above 3-5 years of austerity and recession.
  • Options

    NEW THREAD

  • Options
    justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    A short election campaign sort of plays into Labour's plan, but a dark, wet and cold period in which the voters are reluctant to get out (Stoke C has not had a great history for turnout I believe) plays into the protest vote hands, as Stoke C's TH has gone onto a highly paid arts job is not likely to impress voters so I think that the benefit to Labour could be minimal if or (when) the mud starts flying. Its likely to be dirty, but then again this vote will sit with those who backed Brexit, getting them out to vote will be key and although I don't rate Doc Nuttal's chances the middle class vote may go anywhere (if they decide to vote).........leaves it quite open.

    Late February will actually be a fair bit lighter than the last week of October!
  • Options
    The Problem for a lot of London's suburbs is they are no longer the forefront of investment in London. Back in the Post War decades there were strict controls on what could be built in inner London. New Factories were forbidden and were encouraged to move out of London to new trading estates in the Provinces or London New Towns. The building of newer large office buildings had to be agreed by central government.

    London was too congested and had too much wealth, it was going to be spread around.

    These restrictions lasted till the 70's in one form or another and it's the reason you find vast amounts of 1960's and 1970's office slabs in outer London suburbs and other commuter towns in the SE. You'll note many of these places have seen little office development since, either because people could build what they wanted in Central London or back office functions no longer needed to be near the Head office in Central London and could be anywhere in the UK , or later in the rest of the World or automated away.

    Many London suburbs have great links to Central London but poor orbital links. It does rather limit their natural hinterland. If you open an office in London and need access to as large a labour pool as possible then you need to be in central London, where millions of people are within a hours commute, rather than a few hundred thousand in some suburb.

    The main exception to this the Western Wedge where firms that like being near Heathrow have settled around the Motorway junctions along the M3,M4 and M40.

    The fate of the these former office locations in the Suburbs with fast rail links to the centre is for them to be converted to flats or knocked for even higher blocks of flats.

    There are major schemes in Croydon, Barking, Illford, Ealing, Wembley, The Golden Mile, Brentford, and Lewisham.

    Once even a minor change is made to allow high density residential to be built then the pace of change in London can be rapid. The Best Examples are the Upper Richmond Road in Putney and North Acton. There was a strip of dreary office blocks between the tube and the railway station in Putney. But one change of planning policy and these former low rent half empty blocks have nearly all been replaced with luxury apartment blocks.

    One the most extreme examples is at North Acton at the gyratory on the A40. Where the tube station used to be surrounded by industrial units and still is to the North, But is now a collection of hotels and student towers and apartment blocks that rise up like a mini manhattan beside the A40, still surrounded by trading estate and low rise council estates to the South of the A40, The frenzy set off at this frankly bleak little location will soon see it's first 30 and 40 storey blocks rise.

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    Even if London sees a decline in net migration, it is still short of over half a million housing units as of now.

    The problem is the high rises are only rising next locations no one politically gives a shit about. There are hundreds of stations surrounded by low rise terraces and semi's. They are not about to be bulldozed for even low rise apartments, even though if there were fewer planning controls it would have been happening everywhere for a long time.
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    OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,913
    malcolmg said:

    OllyT said:

    malcolmg said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Re Goldmans and the like, I think it's inevitable that London will lose its status as the only City in European finance. And, long-term, that's probably a positive for the UK economy. It means we'll be less reliant on a few mega-earners, trophy asset prices won't be so inflated, and we'll lose a boom-and-bust sector.

    Now this doesn't mean London won't be bigger or more significant than Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin. It just means that more finance will happen in these other places. Other places will reach critical mass.

    The biggest near term consequence of this will be that property prices will be pressured - first in London, then the South East, then countrywide. (Again, this is a long term good thing.) Falling UK property prices will reduce the UK wealth effect, and drive up the savings rate.

    And this will be the Brexit recession.

    A necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Albeit an incredibly painful one. And one that will likely cause massive recriminations.

    It sounds like a recession which will hit London hardest and longest.

    Its the recession which should have happened after 2008 but which a trillion pounds of borrowed money was used to stop.
    That's a fair assessment.

    I'm glad I'm not leveraged long prime London property. Oh wait...
    Clearly now is the time to come to Zurich.
    Any tips , I will be there next week. Do they have McDonalds

    I'm there Thursday/Saturday next week - we could have a fascinating dinner - a rabid remainer, a rabid leaver and Malcolm. What could possibly go wrong!
    I am looking at Monday to Wednesday , unfortunate. Will be busy but would have been nice to have a beer at least.
    Was in jest really, we are staying with family so wouldn't have been allowed out alone regrettably!!
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,313
    glw said:

    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"


    The "EU elite" was expecting the UK to beg to remain in the Single Market somehow. May shot that fox, and now they are feeling anger and bewilderment.
    Compromise comes at the end of the process, not the beginning. Probably at the very end.

    As a LibDem Remainer even I can see May is starting from the right place. As are the LibDems who can agitate for concessions that stand a good chance of arriving.

    The panic of the commentariat does however seem premature.
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    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,454
    MaxPB said:

    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.


    Yes, it's what I posted yesterday. They are absolutely shit scared that the UK will prosper after leaving the single market. That will bring into question how much value it really holds, if there is little to no economic value in the single market, why bother with the rest of the EU. What's worse is that by taking the single market off the table, Mrs May has taken away their punishment tool (denying the UK, single market membership). Though I think life on the outside will be tough at first (3-5 years of austerity and a recession) which is why I was in favour of staying in the single market, at least for a few years while we untangled our other trading relationships, I have no doubt that the UK as a country will succeed and outgrow the EU in time. Call it exceptionalism or whatever else, the UK is one of the greatest countries in the world, the EU is peripheral to that.
    The UK is the greatest country in the world.
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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,062

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.
    Really? What sort of 'evidence' and 'facts' would do it?

    It's a bit galling to have a rich, posh member of the establishment talking so cavalierly about the jobs of the plebs real people ...
    Location of a call centre is not, in any material way, influenced by Brexit - there are no trade barriers impacting provision of the service and it is very unlikely to suffer from any new ones. The move is more likely to have been caused by minimum wage increases.

    Bromponaut provided no evidence for his claim that the move was caused by Brexit. I simply pointed that out.

    And, for what it's worth, it was precisely because of people less fortunate than me that I voted to leave. It's probably against my personal financial interests, but that is always secondary to my broader obligations.
    LOL. Pull the other one.

    You don't know what the company is, or what the call centre does. It's not outside the bounds of possibility that Brexit, or the fear of Brexit, may cause them problems, is it? Perhaps Mr Bromponaut is lying, or perhaps his friend is, or the company.

    Or perhaps it's true.

    As for not providing evidence for your claims: you haven't provided evidence in the past about your claims about the Garden Bridge, as just one example. "Oh, Meryn Davies told me."

    BTW, how is the Garden Bridge getting on? :)
    All Mr Bromponaut said was "the call centre is being relocated after Brexit". He didn't provide any evidence. My only comment was that he hadn't provided any evidence. Stop getting your knickers in a twist and trying to draw a broader point.

    On the Garden Bridge, I have no idea. I'm not involved - I just hosted a dinner for the Trust at which I spoke to Mervyn about it.

    Charles is absolutely, definitely not part of the establishment :-D

    No he is the establishment
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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,062
    SeanT said:

    OllyT said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Heard tonight a friend's daughter is losing her job because her call centre is being relocated to Lisbon following Brexit.

    Real jobs, real lives.

    Post hoc proctor hoc
    Heartless.
    No, just sceptical that it is due to Brexit. More likely to be due to lower costs for low skilled worked in Portugal.
    What would convince you that *any* bad news was down to Brexit?
    Evidence. Facts would do it as well.

    We both know that will never happen, every negative impact of Brexit will be "explained" away by people like yourself as actually having been caused by something else. I have more respect for posters like RCS who are prepared to admit there are real downsides to what we are doing. There were of course real downsides to Remaining as well.
    I don't know any PB Leavers who think Brexit will be pain free. It's absurd to think that. Brexit is a risk. It's like having a baby, as I've said 3 million times. There will be blood. And the first 3 years are always the worst.
    How many babies have you had then
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    RogerRoger Posts: 18,892
    edited January 2017
    OT. I just heard an Oompah band playing followed by an American speaking loudly through a microphone. So I walked to where the sound was coming from and there was a vast crowd. My first thought was that I was in a nightmare and I'd found my way into Trump's inauguration.....

    .......the second was worse. That the good citizens of V-F-Sur Mer had decided to ingratiate themselves with their American visitors by putting on a band and inviting several Americans in uniform to celebrate the affair.

    It turned out to be a 50th anniversary of the US sixth fleet arriving in Villefranche harbour. God knows what they were doing here in 1967....... Looking for hippies.....

    http://www.usslittlerock.org/Villefranche/VsM/2017VsMReunion.html
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,348
    glw said:

    SeanT said:

    Further thoughts on that mad quote by the Dutch Finance minister.

    It's so bizarre and bonkers it is quite revealing.

    Methinks the EU elite is

    1. Personally hurt by Brexit, so they are reacting emotionally
    2. Terrified of contagion - this guy has Wilders to worry about
    3. Horrified by the sneaking suspicion that Brexit might actually succceed, that Britain could prosper: thus rendering the EU project pointless, and the EU project is EVERYTHING to many of these people. This notion is so abhorrent it causes cognitive dissonance and peculiar exaggeration to disguise this. "I'm so right about Brexit I can hereby inform you that England will turn into Venezuela by tea time on January 3rd 2057"


    The "EU elite" was expecting the UK to beg to remain in the Single Market somehow. May shot that fox, and now they are feeling anger and bewilderment.
    Yes, it was very good tactics. But there is some famous quote about the comparative importance of tactics and strategy. There is still work to do.
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    re the City and jobs. This is something I understand a fair bit about so allow me to alight on the subject a little. The big issue for years now has been costs, corporates simply want to pay less for lawyers, bankers and accountants - who can blame them? This is driving a move of back office staff to lower cost locations. Finance team moved from London, to Barcelona and thence Manilla a decade ago - I know, I used to work at Deloitte flogging these very things.

    Also technology is increasingly taking out white collar jobs, the best way to make new tech work is to open a new office, with new people to work in new ways. trying to slowly convert old people and old systems frequently fails.

    Then there is regulation, this has meant banks hiring in compliance for example and lawyer and accountants the same. These jobs create far less money and overall are a drain on the corporates - which leads to much lower profits. With lower profits comes a higher focus on cost. Also these jobs can be done from anywhere (...mostly, some compliance does need to be co-located with traders to stop abuse).

    Brexit is a cover. Goldmans would move its back office to Eastern Europe anyway. Credit Suisse has been in Warsaw for years. The Euro-trading bit is horseplay to make it sound like some actual jobs will move, doubt they will but it sounds good. Most of this was going to happen anyway but blaming Brexit is the natural catch-all for all corporates currently.

    Also the Banks would love to make their highly paid UK staff move to worse places where they can pay them less and have cheaper offices - an interesting battle to see who wins out. The Banks won the last big battle -the pay packets of Bankers are half what they were 10 yeas ago. Brexit is a good cover to try this on too.

    As for New York, huge amounts of New York jobs are being slowly moved to Charleston and North Carolina. All for the same reasons above that affect London - technology allows for a better spread of the work in lower cost locations.

    So, in short, London is going to lose a lot of jobs, often to the UK regions but also to other lower cost countries. This was going to happen anyway. London being London, other jobs will be created, probably in FIntech and Leisure - but also Hedge Funds and Asset Management where the back office needs are a bit smaller overall so the cost thing has a more marginal impact.
This discussion has been closed.