European Union - Ramifications
Discussion
DonkeyApple said:
...they will have an aggressive competitor in their door step.
That is IMO a key point, UK needs to remember how important it is for London to remain a major global centre. If London goes down the drain the whole UK goes with it. (Except, of course, Nicola Sturgeon.....)DonkeyApple said:
Except they don't. They can't currently compete against London and London is about to be cut free from the restraining nature of the EU regulatory environment. London is about to be allowed to be aggressive and competitive. A lot of office workers who have been plodding along will need to readjust their outlook.
Hi Donkey,Exactly what restraints will be released from London business once out of the EU? (Genuine question as I don't know the answer?)
Ozzie Osmond said:
blueg33 said:
If I borrow cash to build without an exit, the group would be trading insolvently because of the scale.
I've never heard that before, and I don't think it's right. However, you may be running a business which is so marginal that you don't really know whether or not you're profitable or not and are actually looking to lay off that risk onto other people - the lenders.In UK you're only insolvent if you can't pay your debts on time. If it's a limited company the directors are responsible for making sure the company can pay its debts - and they only incur personally liability if they trade without a positive balance sheet and/or positive cash flow. In addition, "Wrongful Trading" carries significant penalties and only arises if you knew or ought to have known that your company was going to the wall.
Ozzie Osmond said:
blueg33 said:
If I borrow cash to build without an exit, the group would be trading insolvently because of the scale.
I've never heard that before, and I don't think it's right. However, you may be running a business which is so marginal that you don't really know whether or not you're profitable or not and are actually looking to lay off that risk onto other people - the lenders.In UK you're only insolvent if you can't pay your debts on time. If it's a limited company the directors are responsible for making sure the company can pay its debts - and they only incur personally liability if they trade without a positive balance sheet and/or positive cash flow. In addition, "Wrongful Trading" carries significant penalties and only arises if you knew or ought to have known that your company was going to the wall.
Very severe penalties.
DonkeyApple said:
Except they don't. They can't currently compete against London and London is about to be cut free from the restraining nature of the EU regulatory environment. London is about to be allowed to be aggressive and competitive. A lot of office workers who have been plodding along will need to readjust their outlook.
The competition point makes sense, and sure loosening of regulation will attract business domestically, but unless I'm mistaken in order for London to keep passporting rights we will more or less have to abide by Eu rules or have our own regulation that the Eu accepts as equivalent. twinturboz said:
The competition point makes sense, and sure loosening of regulation will attract business domestically, but unless I'm mistaken in order for London to keep passporting rights we will more or less have to abide by Eu rules or have our own regulation that the Eu accepts as equivalent.
correct and if London doesn't get passporting of services its screwed, and Paris/Frankfurt will be rubbing their hands with gleeEdited by Adam B on Sunday 10th July 22:24
Ozzie Osmond said:
DonkeyApple said:
...they will have an aggressive competitor in their door step.
That is IMO a key point, UK needs to remember how important it is for London to remain a major global centre. If London goes down the drain the whole UK goes with it. (Except, of course, Nicola Sturgeon.....)
Ozzie Osmond said:
blueg33 said:
If I borrow cash to build without an exit, the group would be trading insolvently because of the scale.
I've never heard that before, and I don't think it's right. However, you may be running a business which is so marginal that you don't really know whether or not you're profitable or not and are actually looking to lay off that risk onto other people - the lenders.In UK you're only insolvent if you can't pay your debts on time. If it's a limited company the directors are responsible for making sure the company can pay its debts - and they only incur personally liability if they trade without a positive balance sheet and/or positive cash flow. In addition, "Wrongful Trading" carries significant penalties and only arises if you knew or ought to have known that your company was going to the wall.
The thing with development is that it's always highly geared. So asset equals liability until the end of the build when profit is made.
DonkeyApple said:
Yup. And how much overseas labour London will keep needing. Will be some very upset regional chimps should we exit.
Again a good point. I know that in an earlier post you mentioned the huge wealth divide, and I responded with a comment about the socialist republic of Britanistan, but it seems to me that Brexit must logically result in an even greater wealth divide as UK becomes more and more dependent upon attracting wealthy Arabs, Russians and Chinese. Unless we are happy to allow "foreigners" to be super-rich while "true Brits" must be restricted.Already it seems the banks are saying, "At least being outside the EU we will be able to exceed the EU bonus cap and so attract people to London"! Exactly the opposite of creating a "more equal society"!
I was interested to hear Donald Trump talking about globalisation having, in some ways, created a race to the bottom in terms of employment and pay. It's a very similar point.
My purely personal opinion remains that leave voters are going to find themselves on the wrong end of "be careful what you wish for". Already the farmers who voted leave are sobbing for replacement of their EU subsidies - £17,000 per farm every year across the UK - so that they can "remain competitive". One thing is absolutely certain, in a new globally trading UK the domestic farming industry would be stone dead. They won't even have access to cheap East European labour to pick their crops. The turkeys voted for Christmas.
blueg33 said:
No it's not marginal. Developments are forward funded by the investor. If i borrow development finance without a route to repay it after the 12 month term I am stuffed, I will be borrowing knowing i can't pay it back.
I haven't read the whole thread however Trading whilst insolvent is a very grey one ( been through it with many clients) really the conditions for trading whilst insolvent is if you don't have a solution to pay back and you are incurring more debt. Ok so thats the sentiment rather than the actual wording. I would be very careful with this and take legal advice as failing to do this can lead to prison in extreme cases.
Phib
Ozzie Osmond said:
DonkeyApple said:
Yup. And how much overseas labour London will keep needing. Will be some very upset regional chimps should we exit.
Again a good point. I know that in an earlier post you mentioned the huge wealth divide, and I responded with a comment about the socialist republic of Britanistan, but it seems to me that Brexit must logically result in an even greater wealth divide as UK becomes more and more dependent upon attracting wealthy Arabs, Russians and Chinese. Unless we are happy to allow "foreigners" to be super-rich while "true Brits" must be restricted.Already it seems the banks are saying, "At least being outside the EU we will be able to exceed the EU bonus cap and so attract people to London"! Exactly the opposite of creating a "more equal society"!
I was interested to hear Donald Trump talking about globalisation having, in some ways, created a race to the bottom in terms of employment and pay. It's a very similar point.
My purely personal opinion remains that leave voters are going to find themselves on the wrong end of "be careful what you wish for". Already the farmers who voted leave are sobbing for replacement of their EU subsidies - £17,000 per farm every year across the UK - so that they can "remain competitive". One thing is absolutely certain, in a new globally trading UK the domestic farming industry would be stone dead. They won't even have access to cheap East European labour to pick their crops. The turkeys voted for Christmas.
If we look at the bottom end of the market where do we suspect the minimum wage would actually be today if it weren't artificially inflated in law given the endless pool of penny workers we have access to in the EU?
Free migration of labour is excellent above a certain level of employment and I would say it is essential to an island such as ours which is so outward looking and business orientated but below that level it has been utterly devastating to social mobility, social cohesion and the majority of people in the UK. Having to try and fudge the gap with enforced minimum wage inflation, paying workers to not work and deregulating retail debt so that Ocean Finance and Wonga can simulate a false impression of short term wealth has been utterly foolhardy.
Frankly, these have mostly been domestic political failings and in many regards the EU has been used as a scapegoat by those who have profited but to me the vote last week showed that one way or another the regions have reached breaking point. But how do you redress the North/South employment imbalance while it is far more sensible for the South to buy cheap labour from the Continent than the North?
DonkeyApple said:
Free migration of labour is excellent above a certain level of employment and I would say it is essential to an island such as ours which is so outward looking and business orientated but below that level it has been utterly devastating to social mobility, social cohesion and the majority of people in the UK.
We're at all time high levels of employment, aren't we?78% labour force participation rates.
74% employment rate.
Long term unemployment is at 1.5% and was heading down fast to the all time low of 0.8%.
Not for much longer I suspect.
walm said:
DonkeyApple said:
Free migration of labour is excellent above a certain level of employment and I would say it is essential to an island such as ours which is so outward looking and business orientated but below that level it has been utterly devastating to social mobility, social cohesion and the majority of people in the UK.
We're at all time high levels of employment, aren't we?78% labour force participation rates.
74% employment rate.
Long term unemployment is at 1.5% and was heading down fast to the all time low of 0.8%.
Not for much longer I suspect.
Labour hid unemployeds by booking large numbers as 'unable to work' and the Cons have hidden many as zero hour workers.
ONS employment data is not exactly a robust image of true unemployment levels.
And being at higher levels of employment further highlights the deep social issue of zero wage inflation and the fudges to compensate.
DonkeyApple said:
The wealth divide is more dangerous at the bottom end than the top. A few imported billionaires has far fewer social ramifications than millions having no social mobility or wage inflation prospects at the bottom end.
That's certainly a convenient argument for the "super rich" to use. Just as it is convenient for them to make their "trickle down" argument which demonstrably does not stack up.You previously raised the question,
DonkeyApple said:
Do you think excessive wealth divides are morally acceptable?
When leave voters look at London and see so many people living in £1m houses with £100k incomes they may well think those people are "rich". But my bet is those people don't feel rich at all when they look at their month end bank statement compared with the high rollers in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Kensington.IMO the wealth gap between 99% of the UK population and the super-rich cannot be considered morally acceptable if any other aspect of the wealth gap is under examination. The logic of, "It's OK for me to be super-rich but it's not OK for you to be rich", simply doesn't stack up.
DonkeyApple said:
walm said:
DonkeyApple said:
Free migration of labour is excellent above a certain level of employment and I would say it is essential to an island such as ours which is so outward looking and business orientated but below that level it has been utterly devastating to social mobility, social cohesion and the majority of people in the UK.
We're at all time high levels of employment, aren't we?78% labour force participation rates.
74% employment rate.
Long term unemployment is at 1.5% and was heading down fast to the all time low of 0.8%.
Not for much longer I suspect.
Labour hid unemployeds by booking large numbers as 'unable to work' and the Cons have hidden many as zero hour workers.
ONS employment data is not exactly a robust image of true unemployment levels.
And being at higher levels of employment further highlights the deep social issue of zero wage inflation and the fudges to compensate.
1. Even with Brexit we face free movement of labour.
2. EU immigration was tiny (0.3% of the population) so shutting it off makes a marginal difference at best.
3. Brexit causes economic contraction leading to far more redundancies than immigration gets close to.
walm said:
We're at all time high levels of employment, aren't we?
Not for much longer I suspect.
Agreed, not least because what really matters is how many people are claiming benefits - a number which has been coming sensibly under control. IMO investment will cease, consumers will stop spending and unemployment will rise.Not for much longer I suspect.
If there's a moral issue to be addressed there is already a mechanism to deal with it, increase of the minimum wage. But then we get rapidly back to the question of UKs competitiveness or otherwise on the global stage, and access to key markets. No point having a high minimum wage if it destroys your commercial viability.
walm said:
DonkeyApple said:
walm said:
DonkeyApple said:
Free migration of labour is excellent above a certain level of employment and I would say it is essential to an island such as ours which is so outward looking and business orientated but below that level it has been utterly devastating to social mobility, social cohesion and the majority of people in the UK.
We're at all time high levels of employment, aren't we?78% labour force participation rates.
74% employment rate.
Long term unemployment is at 1.5% and was heading down fast to the all time low of 0.8%.
Not for much longer I suspect.
Labour hid unemployeds by booking large numbers as 'unable to work' and the Cons have hidden many as zero hour workers.
ONS employment data is not exactly a robust image of true unemployment levels.
And being at higher levels of employment further highlights the deep social issue of zero wage inflation and the fudges to compensate.
1. Even with Brexit we face free movement of labour.
2. EU immigration was tiny (0.3% of the population) so shutting it off makes a marginal difference at best.
3. Brexit causes economic contraction leading to far more redundancies than immigration gets close to.
DonkeyApple said:
If someone voted to remain because they couldn't afford to make a free choice or because they didn't understand the long term ramifications for the UK by staying then they are also in the same boat.
I don't know what I am having for breakfast tomorrow so the long term ramifications for the UK appeared highly opaque to me, to say the least, whether we were in or out.More fool me I guess.
Ozzie Osmond said:
DonkeyApple said:
The wealth divide is more dangerous at the bottom end than the top. A few imported billionaires has far fewer social ramifications than millions having no social mobility or wage inflation prospects at the bottom end.
That's certainly a convenient argument for the "super rich" to use. Just as it is convenient for them to make their "trickle down" argument which demonstrably does not stack up.You previously raised the question,
DonkeyApple said:
Do you think excessive wealth divides are morally acceptable?
When leave voters look at London and see so many people living in £1m houses with £100k incomes they may well think those people are "rich". But my bet is those people don't feel rich at all when they look at their month end bank statement compared with the high rollers in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Kensington.IMO the wealth gap between 99% of the UK population and the super-rich cannot be considered morally acceptable if any other aspect of the wealth gap is under examination. The logic of, "It's OK for me to be super-rich but it's not OK for you to be rich", simply doesn't stack up.
. I can pick up a few history books but I suspect I'll struggle to find examples of social default/collapse resulting in a few super rich taking to the streets instead of their aeroplanes.
. We can also dislocate super prime London property as its core driver has not been immigrants but overseas investment capital. We could halt that quite easily.
The two decade fudge of removing regulation to allow the poor to borrow money to make themselves feel wealthy and keep their behaviour at bay has hardly proven to be sensible but again, such debt has never led to anywhere except deeper poverty and a loss of social mobility and prospects in the long run. Hence why all societies have always needed to regulate it.
walm said:
DonkeyApple said:
If someone voted to remain because they couldn't afford to make a free choice or because they didn't understand the long term ramifications for the UK by staying then they are also in the same boat.
I don't know what I am having for breakfast tomorrow so the long term ramifications for the UK appeared highly opaque to me, to say the least, whether we were in or out.More fool me I guess.
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