Brexit - was it worth it? (Vol. 2)

[Crackie]

citizensm1th said:

our relationship with Europe is not in stasis

Absolutely.

This, in my experience, was a very large factor in many people's decision to leave.

[crankedup]

JeffreyD said:

crankedup said:

I would rather read from an industry wide perspective than one business fishermen. However I am sorry to say it does sound like this particular business has failed owing to political and legislative changes.
BTW thanks for posting it made interesting but sad reading.

Is the grant aid application process already up and running? Or is that something for the future?

I do not know when the grant aid will be live, I do know the industry received £32million last year which is in addition to the £100million grant package. IIRC the grant package will be over a five year period and use will be principle to help modernise the fishing fleet.
I might add that fishing would not have been my chosen job in life and I feel that they have been badly treated by U.K. Governments for decades.

[bitchstewie]

crankedup said:

Really!

If I was running a business that required investment then obviously, I would be identifying areas for investment, calculating the cost, calculating risks v reward, working down investment strategy and time schedules based upon my overall capital expenditure requirement, working down my returns and profit along with a host of other factors including staffing and premises. Hopefully I would arrive
with an overall objective and costings and the percentage cost affordable to the business.In other words a business plan.

Still seems a bit wordy tbh.

It's OK to say "I've no idea" because I know I haven't.

You don't know what the rules will be because the Government don't know.

Do you buy tanks that might not be needed "just in case"?

If that's your suggestion that's fine but I'm genuinely curious how much money you expect that every business in the UK was supposed to spend in the middle of a global pandemic with massive financial uncertainty to cover every scenario that might have been possible on Jan 1st.

Remember you've essentially said those that didn't plan for every possibility are stupid so it only seems fair to ask what you'd have done.

[Murph7355]

Fittster said:

Murph7355 said:

The vast majority of countries in the world are not members of the EU.

Many countries are parts of trading blocks, for example the US is a member of USMCA.

Can you detail which economically successful countries are not part of trade block?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_bloc

That has absolutely nothing to do with the point being made.

How many of those trading blocs have totally friction free, tariff free trade? Let alone the other bells and whistles the EU has that people on both sides get bent out of shape about.

The point being made is that for a long time we have known the backstop (for want of a better word) of what we would be dealing with when trading with the EU from outside. And most other nations on the planet trade with them on this basis. They are not unknown quantities. Far from it.

If organisations were sat around expecting either the referendum result to be overturned, or for completely friction free trade, or for membership of the CU/SM then I guess that was one approach. Not one I'd have taken, but an approach.

[crankedup]

Mortarboard said:

bhstewie said:

Lots of words.

Let's try again.

How much money would you have invested in something when you have absolutely no idea whether it is required or not?

'E 'oo dares wins, Rodders!"

If you aren't comfortable with uncertainty and planning for contingencies, business is not for you. It may sound harsh, but that's the way it goes.

To put it another way:
-If your business is the export of shellfish, and something like Brexit is coming up, you better make contingency plans.

I'd be making damn sure I'd be finding out the impacts to my industry would be understood by government. I'd be making sure I knew what alternative markets would be available to me if certain other markets were cut off/impacted severely.

Or are you trying to tell me that the following was something that could not be reasonably considered possible:
-The EU would be as protectionist after Brexit as before
-The UK would be a 3rd country and subject to the same rules as all the other 3rd countries


Look at Ireland, right next door. Reduced exports to the UK, sourced non-UK suppliers for imports, and spent vast sums in increasing direct logistics routes to the continent. Huge information and support from the Irish government.

M.

Sums it up, I put a little effort into my post to answer a question for sterile and it’s dismissed so casually. It’s like debating with school kids at times.

[crankedup]

bhstewie said:

crankedup said:

Really!

If I was running a business that required investment then obviously, I would be identifying areas for investment, calculating the cost, calculating risks v reward, working down investment strategy and time schedules based upon my overall capital expenditure requirement, working down my returns and profit along with a host of other factors including staffing and premises. Hopefully I would arrive
with an overall objective and costings and the percentage cost affordable to the business.In other words a business plan.

Still seems a bit wordy tbh.

It's OK to say "I've no idea" because I know I haven't.

You don't know what the rules will be because the Government don't know.

Do you buy tanks that might not be needed "just in case"?

If that's your suggestion that's fine but I'm genuinely curious how much money you expect that every business in the UK was supposed to spend in the middle of a global pandemic with massive financial uncertainty to cover every scenario that might have been possible on Jan 1st.

Remember you've essentially said those that didn't plan for every possibility are stupid so it only seems fair to ask what you'd have done.

Now you are being deliberately obtuse and frankly ridiculous, I thought better than that of you tbh.

[Mortarboard]

crankedup said:

Sums it up, I put a little effort into my post to answer a question for sterile and it’s dismissed so casually. It’s like debating with school kids at times.

The worrying thing is, lots of things that are causing friction now were hardly obscure effects coming out of left field. All definately things that were possibilities.

M.

[bitchstewie]

crankedup said:

Now you are being deliberately obtuse and frankly ridiculous, I thought better than that of you tbh.

You've criticised struggling businesses and said the people running them are stupid for not planning for a total unknown.

All I've done is ask what you would have done.

That doesn't seem ridiculous but hey ho.

[Murph7355]

Fittster said:

...
The Brexit deal is almost the same as a no deal; I can’t export our product because the costs associated with the paperwork and delays has pushed our prices up so we are no longer competitive with our EU oyster neighbours (Ireland, France, Denmark)...

What interests me on this front is who is taking up the slack in the '0' exports of UK shellfish?

Presumably these shellfish are coming out of UK waters, so the Irish, French and Danes aren't simply hoovering up more Oysters? Or are they?

Or each of these nations had a surplus of oysters or can easily turn one? In which case how were prices holding up anyway?

If there were no surpluses, then has the demand fallen away in light of a lesser availability?

I guess at the moment the demand has been driven down massively by Covid - I don't imagine many people will have oysters regularly at home! So possibly at the moment we are seeing a combo of lower demand and the Irish/French/Danes being able to meet it. But what happens when/if the demand ramps up again?

Less interested in the Brexity nature of this tbh, and more in the general economics

[Mortarboard]

bhstewie said:

crankedup said:

Now you are being deliberately obtuse and frankly ridiculous, I thought better than that of you tbh.

You've criticised struggling businesses and said the people running them are stupid for not planning for a total unknown.

All I've done is ask what you would have done.

That doesn't seem ridiculous but hey ho.

Made contingency plans, like business as usual.

Alternatively, Boris suggests the approach of "fk business"

M.

[Mortarboard]

Murph7355 said:

What interests me on this front is who is taking up the slack in the '0' exports of UK shellfish?

Presumably these shellfish are coming out of UK waters, so the Irish, French and Danes aren't simply hoovering up more Oysters? Or are they?

Or each of these nations had a surplus of oysters or can easily turn one? In which case how were prices holding up anyway?

If there were no surpluses, then has the demand fallen away in light of a lesser availability?

I guess at the moment the demand has been driven down massively by Covid - I don't imagine many people will have oysters regularly at home! So possibly at the moment we are seeing a combo of lower demand and the Irish/French/Danes being able to meet it. But what happens when/if the demand ramps up again?

Less interested in the Brexity nature of this tbh, and more in the general economics

Most shellfish are farmed, so you pull more/less depending on circumstances. They don't need "feeding" as such, so keeping them in water is just fine.

Demand likely down due to restaurant demand being suppressed. Once demand goes back up, so will prices if supply can't meet it.

M.

[bitchstewie]

Mortarboard said:

Made contingency plans, like business as usual.

Alternatively, Boris suggests the approach of "fk business"

M.

Yes I think the latter is the approach favoured on here.

The issue with the former is it's not just "plans" it's significant capital investment on hardware that could easily not have been needed.

I don't know how any business is supposed to do that "just in case" when it could literally change in the blink of a tweet from Frost or Barnier.

[JeffreyD]

crankedup said:

I do not know when the grant aid will be live, I do know the industry received £32million last year which is in addition to the £100million grant package. IIRC the grant package will be over a five year period and use will be principle to help modernise the fishing fleet.
I might add that fishing would not have been my chosen job in life and I feel that they have been badly treated by U.K. Governments for decades.

The 32 million was Covid related - as per many other sectors.

as far as you and I can tell the £100 million is at this stage just words.

Why would any business man invest his own cash (or take on debt) to build new purification centres when the promise of free cash money is around the corner?

[roger.mellie]

Mortarboard said:

Made contingency plans, like business as usual.

Alternatively, Boris suggests the approach of "fk business"

M.

I now self moderate my opinions of Boris on this thread as it's well known by some that I've no time for the despicable piece of st and I get accused of letting that colour my thinking. But I'll ignore that self moderation to say chapaeu (use of french is dodgy for some I'm sure). When businesses are having to act in spite of government policy you don't have a pro business government no matter what they claim.

[Mortarboard]

bhstewie said:

Yes I think the latter is the approach favoured on here.

The issue with the former is it's not just "plans" it's significant capital investment on hardware that could easily not have been needed.

I don't know how any business is supposed to do that "just in case" when it could literally change in the blink of a tweet from Frost or Barnier.

Investigating and fostering alternative markets would have cost almost nothing. Putting the relevant information on the scale of the effects to the government would have cost nothing. Lobbying the gov't to have a transition period on agri stuff for say 6 months to come to terms with the final agreement would have cost nothing.

I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but there's many examples of industries now acting "shocked" at the effects, despite these being eminently foreseeable potential outcomes.

I also think that the closeness of the referendum perhaps did not reflect the actual appetite to leave the EU. I think there was a significant number of "leavers" who voted remain on the basis that they didn't believe the Government would do a good enough job on the deal negotiations.

M.

Edited by Mortarboard on Tuesday 2nd March 16:36

[bitchstewie]

[DeepEnd]

bhstewie said:

Still seems a bit wordy tbh.

It's OK to say "I've no idea" because I know I haven't.

You don't know what the rules will be because the Government don't know.

Do you buy tanks that might not be needed "just in case"?

If that's your suggestion that's fine but I'm genuinely curious how much money you expect that every business in the UK was supposed to spend in the middle of a global pandemic with massive financial uncertainty to cover every scenario that might have been possible on Jan 1st.

Remember you've essentially said those that didn't plan for every possibility are stupid so it only seems fair to ask what you'd have done.

They can't afford to admit that they probably wouldn't have been able to cough up £100k - noting the points made by the actual oyster bloke up the thread.

The simple reason is that it then puts the responsibility on the govt to have mitigated this issue through negotiation and/or deal choice, or perhaps more fundamentally it comes down to the impact of their vote to leave (and in voting leave shaft this sector).

It is perhaps human nature for some - if someone causes a car crash and lots of damage, and they see a chance to blame someone else, certain characters will jump at the chance and never admit blame.

[stongle]

amusingduck said:

Apologies if we've already had this one

Banks in Germany Tell Customers to Take Deposits Elsewhere
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/banks-in-germany-...

WSJ said:

Interest rates have been negative in Europe for years. But it took the flood of savings unleashed in the pandemic for banks finally to charge depositors in earnest.

Germany’s biggest lenders, Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG , have told new customers since last year to pay a 0.5% annual rate to keep large sums of money with them. The banks say they can no longer absorb the negative interest rates the European Central Bank charges them. The more customer deposits banks have, the more they have to park with the central bank.

That is creating an unusual incentive, where banks that usually want deposits as an inexpensive form of financing, are essentially telling customers to go away. Banks are even providing new online tools to help customers take their deposits elsewhere.
Banks in Europe resisted passing negative rates on to customers when the ECB first introduced them in 2014, fearing backlash. Some did it only with corporate depositors, who were less likely to complain to local politicians. The banks resorted to other ways to pass on the costs of negative rates, charging higher fees, for instance.

The pandemic has changed the equation. Savings rates skyrocketed with consumers at home. And huge relief programs from the ECB have flooded banks with excess deposits. Banks also have used the economic dislocation of the pandemic to make operational changes they have long resisted.

Its actually illegal in numerous areas for banks to charge -'ve interest rates in some states. Its been an issue for anyone in deep negative territory (its only supposed to be a very short term measure). If you can't pass through negative rates its immensely difficult to make money (erosion of Net Interest Margin), so you have no choice but to subsidise the banks (as the ECB does with tiering). Basically the banks can deposit money back to the ECB and receive a higher rate than what they were paid - by the ECB to take it away at.

Its not really a Brexit problem, it predates it (and Sweden was the first European nation to do -'ve rates in recent history). It underlines 2 issues: impact of FoM on wage inflation (covered in Financial Stability Review) and dependency on subsidy support and relaxing global rules (Vestager speeches).

Oh, and one thing not covered by Roger and Digga early on WRT to why Amsterdam growth not Germnay or France - use of English (which might explain why the UK Govts approach to wider services business was a little too much top down)....

[Iminquarantine]

turbobloke said:

bhstewie said:

citizensm1th said:

The UK wanted the freedom to make its own rules, that comes with a price.
The question is at what point will people decide it is to high a price

Quite.

Rejoining? Dream on.

The glaring omission in the above, as usual, is that it looks at price (cost) with no mention of benefit - which by the very nature of new business start-ups and new jobs will take longer to appear than the costs of teething troubles.

This sin of omission catches out remainers on a regular basis, clearly a remainer message must be delivered on-message

I think the UK will negotiate to join the single market, Norway style, in a few years. The cluster fk which is Brexit will be obvious, but actually rejoining is politically difficult. Mainly as it would be a further national humiliation, on top of what by then will be several years of ongoing national humiliation.

The ‘benefits’ of Brexit are just the usual sunlit uplands, rainbows and unicorns. There is very little that British businesses or Britain itself can do outside the E.U., that it could not do inside. It will be hamstrung with lower growth and therefore lower tax revenue. European businesses will gradually replace British suppliers, with E.U. suppliers as it is cheaper.

I’ve already stopped buying off E.U. businesses, because it is too hard. I either don’t buy it at all, or pay more off a British supplier. This benefits the British supplier when I do it, not so much benefit to them with many more Europeans don’t buy off them.

[Murph7355]

Mortarboard said:

bhstewie said:

Yes I think the latter is the approach favoured on here.

The issue with the former is it's not just "plans" it's significant capital investment on hardware that could easily not have been needed.

I don't know how any business is supposed to do that "just in case" when it could literally change in the blink of a tweet from Frost or Barnier.

Investigating and fostering alternative markets would have cost almost nothing. Putting the relevant information on the scale of the effects to the government would have cost nothing. Lobbying the gov't to have a transition period on agri stuff for say 6 months to come to terms with the final agreement would have cost nothing.

I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but there's many examples of industries now acting "shocked" at the effects, despite these being eminently foreseeable potential outcomes.

I also think that the closeness of the referendum perhaps did not reflect the actual appetite to leave the EU. I think there was a significant number of "leavers" who voted remain on the basis that they didn't believe the Government would do a good enough job on the deal negotiations.

M....

Moreover, how many 3rd nations supply shellfish without the filtering stuff (as an example). The "unknowns" weren't really that "unknown", it seems to me.

Would the EU have dropped their protectionist mechanism (that is all it can be - it has bugger all to do with quality concerns/citizens health) just for us? Very doubtful in the circumstances.

"F*ck business" has to be taken in context. And it is most definitely not the approach I see in the main on here. But nor is "spoon feed business like a goose gets spoon fed" despite one or two at the extremes seemingly being of this view.