Honest question no baiting or insults

Fretwired

professorben said:

@fretwired fair point, but we were full members, without the Euro, Germany managed to extricate itself from recession a lot faster and stronger than we were, they had the euro.
I don't see that we would have been forced to take the Euro if we have managed to avoid it for the last 15 years.

Actually we are not really full members. When those countries that have the Euro want to talk about economic policy relating to the Euro we have to leave the room. The Euro is now compulsory, so the only members without it will be the UK and Denmark. Economic policy will be dictated by the needs of the Euro zone which Greece has found out to its cost.

Germany benefits greatly from the Euro. It's products are cheaper than they would be had Germany kept the Deutschmark. Germany also makes things .. the 2008 crash involved a banking crisis which hit the UK much harder than Germany hence Germany's faster recovery. The UK is over reliant on financial services - we need to rebalance our economy.

There are still EU countries that haven't recovered from 2008 - unemployment is high and economic confidence low.

digitalscream

@Fretwired - at the very least, those are all reasons to wait and see what happens over the next two or three years as the changes in the EU start to solidify and then make a decision.

Of course, the whole "closer political union, EU army etc" thing - do we really want that 800lb gorilla on our doorstep with the USA on the other side and have no direct way to influence either of them?

blueskunk

Got control ot borders and my country back!

Fretwired

digitalscream said:

@Fretwired - at the very least, those are all reasons to wait and see what happens over the next two or three years as the changes in the EU start to solidify and then make a decision.

Of course, the whole "closer political union, EU army etc" thing - do we really want that 800lb gorilla on our doorstep with the USA on the other side and have no direct way to influence either of them?

@digitalscream I'm past all this Britain as a global player bullshit. I look at Switzerland and think that could be the UK. We don't need Trident or a seat on the UN Security Council or US bases on UK soil. Let's build a fairer society, invest in our young people, up-skill the workforce and make things people want to buy. We can then get on with everyone - we can't influence the US or the EU so let's not bother. We can reconnect with the Commonwealth and become a major player in Asia. People will prefer an open and independent UK. We'd get on better with the Chinese if they saw we weren't fawning all over the US. Stuff the special relationship. In recent years its just meant supporting dodgy overseas wars. What's that done for Britain's global reputation?

Modulus_Amps

I could go on forever about how the EU has been negative for some people, of course it has been positive for other, but that is not your question. here are some of my experiences

Immigration

In 2004 I worked as a design engineer for a firm in Scotland, that year we had approx 20 Polish people come to work in our factory as welders and fitters, most of them could not weld so they had to be shown how to do it by the existing staff. I have no problem with any of that. what was wrong though is that those jobs had not been advertised in the local market, it was not as if we could not get suitable staff from the local market, the management chose to bring in the Polish workers because they were cheap to employ.

In the end some of them ended up being floor sweepers as they could not do the work to a high enough standard or did not try to learn the language, I know this happened in several firms in the NE of Scotland as recruiting firms were setting it all up.

I felt really bad for the shop floor staff who I worked with closely, as it was their value that was degraded as a result. morally that was a poor moment that could have been prevented had there been better control over that sort of thing.

Single Market

The above firm mentioned above is now closed, it could not handle the recessions and 130 people lost their jobs. The main reason the firm could not handle the recession is a massive share of the market they were in had been taken by 3 EU based manufacturing firms that we much larger, much more mechanised and therefore had the ability to flood the UK market with their products. In a small town  loosing that many jobs is disastrous. I am 100% sure all those shop floor workers voted out.

A small business having to comply with all the UK and EU directives is hard work, It is the reason a number of boutique amp builders have been shut down in the UK (for being reported for not doing so) and it is the reason a number of good techs wont start building to sell. when Marshall started to build amps in the 60's they did not have to worry about LVD, RoHS, WEEE, EN10065 etc

This may not change with Brexit, but if you ever buy an American based guitar magazine there are allot more products from smaller manufacturers.

that's not even dipping into the policy side of it, who really controls the EU law makers, why they have added poorer countries so fast, what the leaders of the EU political parties actually want, what greater integration really means

professorben

Fretwired;1132778" said:

digitalscream said:

@Fretwired - at the very least, those are all reasons to wait and see what happens over the next two or three years as the changes in the EU start to solidify and then make a decision.

Of course, the whole "closer political union, EU army etc" thing - do we really want that 800lb gorilla on our doorstep with the USA on the other side and have no direct way to influence either of them?





@digitalscream I'm past all this Britain as a global player bullshit. I look at Switzerland and think that could be the UK. We don't need Trident or a seat on the UN Security Council or US bases on UK soil. Let's build a fairer society, invest in our young people, up-skill the workforce and make things people want to buy. We can then get on with everyone - we can't influence the US or the EU so let's not bother. We can reconnect with the Commonwealth and become a major player in Asia. People will prefer an open and independent UK. We'd get on better with the Chinese if they saw we weren't fawning all over the US. Stuff the special relationship. In recent years its just meant supporting dodgy overseas wars. What's that done for Britain's global reputation?

If we hadn't had centuries of sticking fingers in other countries pies, either my military might or economic punishment I'd say yes....
But as far as I can see, we are too much the 'baddies' to be allowed to walk away now.

digitalscream

It's not about being a global player; it's about being stuck between two superpowers. Switzerland are in a different position - literally - given that they're landlocked by EU countries. The reality is that we'll end up leaning heavily towards one or the other, most likely the US (given the cultural similarities), and we don't have America's advantage of being geographically removed from...well, everything.

Nikko

blueskunk said:

Got control ot borders and my country back!

:O)

Fretwired

digitalscream said:

It's not about being a global player; it's about being stuck between two superpowers. Switzerland are in a different position - literally - given that they're landlocked by EU countries. The reality is that we'll end up leaning heavily towards one or the other, most likely the US (given the cultural similarities), and we don't have America's advantage of being geographically removed from...well, everything.

What are you afraid of? I think we'd get on better with Europe if we were one step removed from the EU. They can get on integrating and we can trade. I see no value in being subsumed by the EU machine.

Moe_Zambeek

dtr said:

Chalky said:

@dtr - the youth unemployment is very real for those caught up in it.

I agree, but youth unemployment has been coming down significantly in the last 5 years...

To me it looks like that graph is going in the direction I'd want to see continue. (Got it from here by the way - http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05871)

it doesn't sound like you're AGAINST youth unemployment almost halving over the last five years, so I'm struggling to see what the basis of your argument is.

This graph is for the UK - and may show that the UK's approach to the recession was in some ways successful (contrary to the IMFs predictions...). Youth unemployment levels in Greece (~50%) and Spain (~45%) are approaching catastrophic, though Spain's numbers were improving until very recently (maybe because they had no functioning Government to muck things up for most of the last year! ). The Eurozone as a whole trends at around 22% currently. In any case, I think the theory is that Greece is unable to make their economy more viable as they have no control over their currency. 

JezWynd

dtr said:

Chalky said:

@dtr - the youth unemployment is very real for those caught up in it.

I agree, but youth unemployment has been coming down significantly in the last 5 years...

To me it looks like that graph is going in the direction I'd want to see continue. (Got it from here by the way - http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05871)

it doesn't sound like you're AGAINST youth unemployment almost halving over the last five years, so I'm struggling to see what the basis of your argument is.

When that youth employment reduction is achieved by migrant labour taking up minimum wage jobs and living in poor accommodation while over-stretching local services then it is a problem. Not to forget the country they left behind falls ever further behind as anyone with any gumption has decamped to somewhere where the grass is greener.

Fretwired

professorben said:

If we hadn't had centuries of sticking fingers in other countries pies, either my military might or economic punishment I'd say yes....
But as far as I can see, we are too much the 'baddies' to be allowed to walk away now.

I agree, but you have to start somewhere. We tried Empire building .. it failed in the end as all Empires do.

professorben

Modulus_Amps;1132784" said:

I could go on forever about how the EU has been negative for some people, of course it has been positive for other, but that is not your question. here are some of my experiences



Immigration







In 2004 I worked as a design engineer for a firm in Scotland, that

year we had approx 20 Polish people come to work in our factory as

welders and fitters, most of them could not weld so they had to be shown

how to do it by the existing staff. I have no problem with any of that.

what was wrong though is that those jobs had not been advertised in the

local market, it was not as if we could not get suitable staff from the local market, the

management chose to bring in the Polish workers because they were cheap

to employ.







In the end some of them ended up being floor sweepers as they could

not do the work to a high enough standard or did not try to learn the

language, I know this happened in several firms in the NE of Scotland as recruiting firms were setting it all up.







I felt really bad for the shop floor staff who I worked with closely,

as it was their value that was degraded as a result. morally that was a

poor moment that could have been prevented had there been better control

over that sort of thing.




Single Market

The above firm mentioned above is now closed, it could not handle the

recessions and 130 people lost their jobs. The main reason the firm

could not handle the recession is a massive share of the market they

were in had been taken by 3 EU based manufacturing firms that we much

larger, much more mechanised and therefore had the ability to flood the UK

market with their products. In a small town  loosing that

many jobs is disastrous. I am 100% sure all those shop floor workers voted out.







A small business having to comply with all the UK and EU directives

is hard work, It is the reason a number of boutique amp builders have been shut

down in the UK (for being reported for not doing so) and it is the

reason a number of good techs wont start building to sell. when Marshall

started to build amps in the 60's they did not have to worry about LVD,

RoHS, WEEE, EN10065 etc

This may not change with Brexit, but if you ever buy an American

based guitar magazine there are allot more products from smaller

manufacturers.







that's not even dipping into the policy side of it, who really controls the EU law makers, why they have added poorer countries so fast, what the leaders of the EU political parties actually want, what greater integration really means

Ok I see your points, but that first issue was less about immigration than poor management. As far as I could see the country of origin of the unskilled labour was totally irrelevant to the issue, you could have bussed any number of dole queue chaps into the area and had exactly the same issue.
The second point was again poor management, if the company was not competitive, it's through failure of the bosses to invest back into new tech and training, a Chinese company could have done exactly the same thing and your old company would have gone the same way.

At least your company had the opportunity to compete on a level playing field with regard to import export.

The US guitar market prob covers more people than the population of this whole island! Of course there are more small companies a 1% share in the market is still a significant number of potential customers over there.
As it would be in the EU.

Troy

professorben said:

What was so wrong with being in the EU anyway?
I mean I've not been affected negatively in anyway that I can see by being in the EU.

It destroyed our fishing industry along with all the other companies supporting the fishing industry. I have seen this first hand.

Modulus_Amps

@professorben said:

Ok I see your points, but that first issue was less about immigration than poor management. As far as I could see the country of origin of the unskilled labour was totally irrelevant to the issue, you could have bussed any number of dole queue chaps into the area and had exactly the same issue.
The second point was again poor management, if the company was not competitive, it's through failure of the bosses to invest back into new tech and training, a Chinese company could have done exactly the same thing and your old company would have gone the same way.

At least your company had the opportunity to compete on a level playing field with regard to import export.

The US guitar market prob covers more people than the population of this whole island! Of course there are more small companies a 1% share in the market is still a significant number of potential customers over there.
As it would be in the EU.

yes ethically management failed, but it is not poor management, that is business, if someone sells you something for £10 and someone else sells it to you for £5 which are you going to go for.

Meanwhile in countries like Poland  the government is investing in there manufacturing facilities (some with EU money) to make them more competitive and very importantly the labour rate in those countries is much much much less, so making it even harder to be competitive.
Hardly a "level playing field" when a Polish company can pay  2.50eu/h and a UK company has to pay 9.50eu/h

Of course if you understand the reason that these poorer countries were added to the EU was so that business could have a cheaper labour market, so that the EU could be more competitive with China and the USA, you start to understand the behind doors workings of the EU and the business lobby groups.

As someone that sells all over the world I can tell you that the American market does not equal the EU market, it just does not work the same, the language barriers for starters don't help. saying you have access to a market, and the market actually being accessible are two very different things.

Yes you are right could be any of the poorer EU countries, not just Poland, they are an example. I have said it before, if the EU brought the living wage up in those countries this country would have voted remain as mass immigration would not have been an issue

Honestly, right or wrong, if you dismiss what I have said then you will never get the other side

Tone71

I dislike opening up but this is my experience of the EU.

Back to 2004 I worked in construction on building sites as a time served carpenter (5 year apprenticeship) and had a fairly comfortable income/life, then Mr Blair and Mr Brown decided to change the face of the UK by opening our borders and I remember it well, coming up to Xmas with young kids and my wages dropped £30 a day so that`s £150 a week or £600 a month directly due to immigration.

A few months later I was looking for a start (nature of building work) and drove around asking on sites if any carpenters were needed and was stopped at the gate on a large new build housing site and told "this Lithuanian site only, no jobs".

So that is why I personally dislike the EU and open border policy, not through racism but due to the sheer numbers and immediate effect it had on my personal situation and income and how it affected me. Bitter? You bet.

I left construction soon after and retrained costing thousands to start in a different industry. I still have many friends who work in the building industry and it is no different.

Kids who are/were not academic would have always have a chance to work in construction, learn a trade and have a job, these options are very few and far between now due to imported unskilled, cheap labour so youth unemployment is high as a direct result.

There are many, many reason for and against but all I know is that it affected me and I am happy we voted as we did.

I don`t think people would have voted out of the EEC but feel the EU superstate is a step too far for many.

Teetonetal

From my POV the EU made a mistakes when they let in countries who didn't meet their own cr

Fretwired said:

digitalscream said:

@Fretwired - at the very least, those are all reasons to wait and see what happens over the next two or three years as the changes in the EU start to solidify and then make a decision.

Of course, the whole "closer political union, EU army etc" thing - do we really want that 800lb gorilla on our doorstep with the USA on the other side and have no direct way to influence either of them?

@digitalscream I'm past all this Britain as a global player bullshit. I look at Switzerland and think that could be the UK. We don't need Trident or a seat on the UN Security Council or US bases on UK soil. Let's build a fairer society, invest in our young people, up-skill the workforce and make things people want to buy. We can then get on with everyone - we can't influence the US or the EU so let's not bother. We can reconnect with the Commonwealth and become a major player in Asia. People will prefer an open and independent UK. We'd get on better with the Chinese if they saw we weren't fawning all over the US. Stuff the special relationship. In recent years its just meant supporting dodgy overseas wars. What's that done for Britain's global reputation?

You are looking at Switzerland with no perspective.

• Switzerland has a history of neutrality and independence
  
• It is a federal state with it's cantons afforded fairly high levels of independence (income tax is per Gemeinde for example), in fact, Switzerland is almost a mini EU - shared currency, law and military, but independent regions. 
  
• Switzerland is fiercely conservative with a massive lean to the right, especially in the countryside - with a Green hue.
• There is a culture of Schweizer qualität - they pay more to buy Swiss
• Economy is not based on housing. only 20% are home owners.
• the economy is really financial based and they have the financial offices of many huge global companies (Google, Swiss Re, Man Investments, Fifa, Ebay and HSBC spring to mind)

From the start Switzerland has been afraid of the EU, it has never wanted to join and I think there have been 2 or 3 referendums on the subject, each defeated clearly. In fact in 2014 the population voted for fewer ties - wanting to pick and choose which states keep freedom of movement via Schengen (they want rid of the eastern and southern European blocs). 

Then of course, it sits neatly between north and south, east and west and provides a neat trade link through the alps. 

They are doing well for themselves and not joining as been the right thing for them to do.

professorben

Modulus_Amps;1132861" said:

@professorben said:



Ok I see your points, but that first issue was less about immigration than poor management. As far as I could see the country of origin of the unskilled labour was totally irrelevant to the issue, you could have bussed any number of dole queue chaps into the area and had exactly the same issue.

The second point was again poor management, if the company was not competitive, it's through failure of the bosses to invest back into new tech and training, a Chinese company could have done exactly the same thing and your old company would have gone the same way.



At least your company had the opportunity to compete on a level playing field with regard to import export.



The US guitar market prob covers more people than the population of this whole island! Of course there are more small companies a 1% share in the market is still a significant number of potential customers over there.

As it would be in the EU.










yes ethically management failed, but it is not poor management, that is business, if someone sells you something for £10 and someone else sells it to you for £5 which are you going to go for.



Meanwhile in countries like Poland  the government is investing in there manufacturing facilities (some with EU money) to make them more competitive and very importantly the labour rate in those countries is much much much less, so making it even harder to be competitive.

Hardly a "level playing field" when a Polish company can pay  2.50eu/h and a UK company has to pay 9.50eu/h



Of course if you understand the reason that these poorer countries were added to the EU was so that business could have a cheaper labour market, so that the EU could be more competitive with China and the USA, you start to understand the behind doors workings of the EU and the business lobby groups.



As someone that sells all over the world I can tell you that the American market does not equal the EU market, it just does not work the same, the language barriers for starters don't help. saying you have access to a market, and the market actually being accessible are two very different things.



Yes you are right could be any of the poorer EU countries, not just Poland, they are an example. I have said it before, if the EU brought the living wage up in those countries this country would have voted remain as mass immigration would not have been an issue



Honestly, right or wrong, if you dismiss what I have said then you will never get the other side

Yes I see your points, I'm not ignoring them, I'm challenging them.
Yes as an example the Poles can make a product more cheaply than the uk can, but only due to wages, the raw materials will still cost the same, unfortunately the issue of wages is not an EU thing, it's a global issue, the fact is we live in an expensive country, wages are higher than other places because they need to be, the price of a global marketplace, why did Fender start making guitars in Chiba? It's cheaper.
But they didn't stop making American guitars, far from it, they produce more than ever, I'd say the way forward is not to chase the lowest price point but to build to the highest quality point. Where a well paid and motivated staff are a boon.

JezWynd

 I'd say the way forward is not to chase the lowest price point but to build to the highest quality point. Where a well paid and motivated staff are a boon.

Which is exactly what we used to be very good at here in the UK.

Fretwired

Teetonetal said:

From my POV the EU made a mistakes when they let in countries who didn't meet their own cr

Fretwired said:

digitalscream said:

@Fretwired - at the very least, those are all reasons to wait and see what happens over the next two or three years as the changes in the EU start to solidify and then make a decision.

Of course, the whole "closer political union, EU army etc" thing - do we really want that 800lb gorilla on our doorstep with the USA on the other side and have no direct way to influence either of them?

@digitalscream I'm past all this Britain as a global player bullshit. I look at Switzerland and think that could be the UK. We don't need Trident or a seat on the UN Security Council or US bases on UK soil. Let's build a fairer society, invest in our young people, up-skill the workforce and make things people want to buy. We can then get on with everyone - we can't influence the US or the EU so let's not bother. We can reconnect with the Commonwealth and become a major player in Asia. People will prefer an open and independent UK. We'd get on better with the Chinese if they saw we weren't fawning all over the US. Stuff the special relationship. In recent years its just meant supporting dodgy overseas wars. What's that done for Britain's global reputation?

You are looking at Switzerland with no perspective.

• Switzerland has a history of neutrality and independence
  
• It is a federal state with it's cantons afforded fairly high levels of independence (income tax is per Gemeinde for example), in fact, Switzerland is almost a mini EU - shared currency, law and military, but independent regions. 
  
• Switzerland is fiercely conservative with a massive lean to the right, especially in the countryside - with a Green hue.
• There is a culture of Schweizer qualität - they pay more to buy Swiss
• Economy is not based on housing. only 20% are home owners.
• the economy is really financial based and they have the financial offices of many huge global companies (Google, Swiss Re, Man Investments, Fifa, Ebay and HSBC spring to mind)

From the start Switzerland has been afraid of the EU, it has never wanted to join and I think there have been 2 or 3 referendums on the subject, each defeated clearly. In fact in 2014 the population voted for fewer ties - wanting to pick and choose which states keep freedom of movement via Schengen (they want rid of the eastern and southern European blocs). 

Then of course, it sits neatly between north and south, east and west and provides a neat trade link through the alps. 

They are doing well for themselves and not joining as been the right thing for them to do.

OK .. all I meant was Switzerland manages to get on with everyone, has high wages and makes high tech goods. It has no nuclear weapons and stays out of wars. I realise there are other issues. My brush was broad ... :-)