Cont: Brexit: Now What? Magic 8 Ball's up

[Vixen]

"Hedge funds" and "hedging" are two entirely different concepts (and have been for around two decades now, albeit "hedge funds" did have their origins in hedging, way back when). Hedge funds are nothing more than funds which tend to take higher-risk, higher-reward speculative positions, relying on a mix of quant analysis and intuitive market & political research. They came to prominence as the near-exclusive preserve of wealthy private individuals as investment clients, but increasingly the "traditional" banks and institutional money managers have been placing funds under this sort of management as well, where their investment rules permit it of course.


(Note to Don: ALL discretionary investment funds take "bets" on the market and/or currencies. It's sort of the fundamental point of investment. I virtually guarantee that a significant portion of your pension fund or your car/home insurance premium is being used to "bet" on the market and/or currencies....)

Sorry, I have to disagree with you somewhat that only 'high net worth' people can benefit from 'investment' funds . I was fortunate enough in a previous job for my employers to provide each member of staff with an independent financial adviser. I invested my pension contributions according to his advice. It has now grown substantially. The thing is, there was a period at the end of last year when it lost value quite rapidly. However, this market loss affected the whole market and thankfully, is back on course again.

The problem for most people is that they keep their savings in cash or cash equivalents, which is going to grow extremely slowly.

When I retire my investment portfolio means I will be better off than if I had just left it as cash. You need to invest in equities but balance it out with a portion of gilts and bonds and another portion of cash and cash equivalents, so if one sector crashes, at least you have the hedge of the others. At the end of the day, at least you'll have the original cash you put in with a bit of interest on top, should the worst come to the worst.

I don't know why people knock Rees-Mogg for being rich as he has always played the investment game, since age 11. If people take a risk in putting their money into start ups or whatever, then fair dos, as there is always a chance they lose their cash, as can be seen in every day news.

I'm a risk averse person so my funds are probably not as lucrative / disastrous as they could have been.

The point is, the Don moaning that only the rich will gain from Brexit is the politics of envy. Anybody can ring fence themselves with determination. Maybe it'll never make you rich, per se but at least you'll be debt free and can look forward to the future with confidence and with a safety net.

I cannot stand Rees-Mogg but it does bug me that so many people think they can 'always rely on the state'. You can't! You have to look after yourself.

 

[Vixen]

Well of course the odds of traditional bookies like Ladbrokes (and, for that matter, even the odds of betting exchanges) are largely predicated not on an analysis of the "factual" relative likelihood of events, but rather upon what betters' perceptions of the "factual" relative likelihood of events is.

But that aside, I would have thought that the smartest bet at this point (no such thing as a "smartest bet" on anything, but anyhow...) would easily be to back the "second referendum" option.

Because I simply cannot see the UK and EU - even, as I said, with the best will in the world on both sides and the hardest amount of effort - being able to solve this NI/Ireland border issue in a way that also effects Brexit for the UK. So even setting aside every single other potential sticking point, I don't see any way whatsoever in which the UK Govt will come back to parliament with any significant change to the current deal - let alone the UK Parliament ratifying such a deal. And without any form of resolution to the NI/Ire border issue, the UK Govt would automatically be breaking the promises made in the GFA if it went ahead and left the EU with no deal on 31st October (or on any future date).

So I simply do not believe that the UK Govt will enforce a no-deal Brexit. And I simply don't believe the UK Govt will ratify any form of deal - ever. That's a reasonably good example of a stalemate. And, as I said, one that can probably only ever get resolved to any degree of public satisfaction through a second referendum: one in which the majority is for "remain".

If it does - and I have a feeling the current government are happy to throw out the baby with the bath water - it will be a gross betrayal of the Irish and British people in Northern Ireland.

There was a very interesting long article in the TURUN SANOMAT on Sunday (which unfortunately, is paywalled on the net) featuring Frankie Quinn, who was a compatriot of Bobby Sands and co and spent some time being interred. He tells horror stories of secular gangs inside terrorising each other. He himself came from a Catholic family who lived on the wrong side of town. They were awoken one night by masked men with guns who marched them out into a waiting car and told them to get out of town and live amongst their own lot (Catholics).

A no-deal Brexit he fears will certainly lead to British troops back on the streets of Belfast and Londonderry, et al, which as part o the GFA the Brit Army agreed to leave. There has been ten years of relative peace and calm since.

What short memories some of these politicians have!

 

[Vixen]

Interviewed Kuenssberg, Johnson twists and turns like a twisty-turning thing, refusing to say exactly how he is going to take the UK out of the EU with no deal on 31 October, despite the recently-passed law supposedly preventing that.

Can I be the first person to say, "last-minute Order in Council"?

In a dog fight between overfed pampered poodle De Pfeffel and pit bull terrier Bercow, I know who my wager would be on.

 

[Vixen]

Well, we are in agreement upon which backstop is the case in point. However, it was not originally contained in May's discussion document - it was inserted by the EU negotiators. The resulting document was then presented to Parliament and rejected three times.
Since this complete and utter rejection by the legally-constituted and ultimate authority upon the acceptance or dismissal of that document, there has been an insidious attempt to legitimise it (by, for instance, calling it an agreement). It was never an agreement, and Mrs May's original document contained no reference whatsoever to a backstop in any form. The entire concept of the backstop is an invention of the EU negotiators and its continued presence in negotiations (and, I have to say, public discussion) is a sham.
Shades of the Ministry of Truth come to mind.

AIUI 'back stop' is just a shorthand. As is 'brexit' . I bet that word doesn't appear, either.

 

[Vixen]

The reunification of Ireland would also solve the problem.

Just sayin'.

Careful, you'll have Arlene Foster and her boys on your doorstep.

 

[LondonJohn]

Sorry, I have to disagree with you somewhat that only 'high net worth' people can benefit from 'investment' funds . I was fortunate enough in a previous job for my employers to provide each member of staff with an independent financial adviser. I invested my pension contributions according to his advice. It has now grown substantially. The thing is, there was a period at the end of last year when it lost value quite rapidly. However, this market loss affected the whole market and thankfully, is back on course again.

The problem for most people is that they keep their savings in cash or cash equivalents, which is going to grow extremely slowly.

When I retire my investment portfolio means I will be better off than if I had just left it as cash. You need to invest in equities but balance it out with a portion of gilts and bonds and another portion of cash and cash equivalents, so if one sector crashes, at least you have the hedge of the others. At the end of the day, at least you'll have the original cash you put in with a bit of interest on top, should the worst come to the worst.

I don't know why people knock Rees-Mogg for being rich as he has always played the investment game, since age 11. If people take a risk in putting their money into start ups or whatever, then fair dos, as there is always a chance they lose their cash, as can be seen in every day news.

I'm a risk averse person so my funds are probably not as lucrative / disastrous as they could have been.

The point is, the Don moaning that only the rich will gain from Brexit is the politics of envy. Anybody can ring fence themselves with determination. Maybe it'll never make you rich, per se but at least you'll be debt free and can look forward to the future with confidence and with a safety net.

I cannot stand Rees-Mogg but it does bug me that so many people think they can 'always rely on the state'. You can't! You have to look after yourself.

Read my post again. More carefully this time.

In the part you highlighted ("near-exclusive preserve of wealthy private individuals"), I was referring specifically to hedge funds. Not all investment funds. Furthermore, I was specifically referring to hedge funds in their earlier years.

I'm rather willing to bet that the advice provided by your IFA for your pension fund did not involve the placing of anything more than a very small portion of your capital (if, indeed, any at all) into hedge funds....

 

[LondonJohn]

There are countries outside the EU in the customs union and the single market. These options were widely discussed as potential future relationships by the members of the leave campaign. You are therefore wrong to argue that it wouldn't meet either the option on the referendum paper or even a looser definition.

As axiom 1 fails the conclusion is also wrong.

Yes, there are indeed such countries. But those countries arrived at those positions as a result of a limited opt-in to the EU, not a limited opt-out. The EU allowed these limited opt-ins because any expansion of the membership of the European project was preferable.

However, I don't agree that continued limited membership of the EU was ever effectively put as an option in the referendum (yet another mistake in the way the referendum was framed). I say that particularly because one of the four key freedoms of the single market doctrine is freedom of movement of labour, and one of the cornerstones of the Leave campaign was the putting to an end of uncontrolled immigration from other states within the single market. And a further cornerstone of the Leave campaign was the putting to an end of the EU "making our laws" for us and "taking our money" (both of which I disagree with, but one cannot deny that this is what Leave voters believed they were voting for). Continued membership of the single market and customs union simply would not have achieved those ends.

Like I said before, I am a firm Remain believer (and of course I voted as such). But Remainers can't simply wish away what happened in the referendum, nor what those who voted Leave clearly believed they were voting for. As I also said before, I firmly believe that very, very few of those who voted Leave did so on the basis of an informed understanding of what Leave would actually entail in practice (and that's why I believe a second referendum, on the basis of a much more complete and accurate understanding of what Leave entails, would be constitutionally reasonable and appropriate). However, I think one thing that IS clear is that most - if not all - of those who voted Leave in 2016 did so in the belief that they were voting for the UK to leave the EU fully, specifically (as I said above) in the matters of free movement of labour and the influence of the EC and the European Parliament over UK affairs.

 

[Vixen]

Read my post again. More carefully this time.

In the part you highlighted ("near-exclusive preserve of wealthy private individuals"), I was referring specifically to hedge funds. Not all investment funds. Furthermore, I was specifically referring to hedge funds in their earlier years.

I'm rather willing to bet that the advice provided by your IFA for your pension fund did not involve the placing of anything more than a very small portion of your capital (if, indeed, any at all) into hedge funds....

Two-thirds of hedge fund assets are held by institutional investors. This includes corporate employee pension funds. Corporate (and public sector) pension providers typically employ hedge fund managers.

It's a myth you need to be enormously wealthy. Sure, to be a hedge fund dabbler you need to be licensed and need capital behind you. However, anyone can deal in equities, which is basically where most of the wealth is reliably generated. There is nothing mysterious about it.

I had some spare cash I wanted to invest. I saw an ad for an eco-friendly site, so I made an enquiry.

The person who rang me up was so obviously a scammer, I contacted the Financial Services regulators and they confirmed my suspicions. I looked up this 'investment' site's 'terms and conditions' and it read 'Only high net worth individuals need apply' which straight away rang alarm bells. It was obviously trying to appeal to vanity to part people from their money.

There is no mystery attached to investing wisely. So many people don't bother because they believe 'only the rich' understand it or are allowed to or have the means to.

Oh and remember to use common sense.

ETA: I actually invested quite a lot of my own money into it because of the tax benefit.

 

[LondonJohn]

Two-thirds of hedge fund assets are held by institutional investors. This includes corporate employee pension funds. Corporate (and public sector) pension providers typically employ hedge fund managers.

It's a myth you need to be enormously wealthy. Sure, to be a hedge fund dabbler you need to be licensed and need capital behind you. However, anyone can deal in equities, which is basically where most of the wealth is reliably generated. There is nothing mysterious about it.

I had some spare cash I wanted to invest. I saw an ad for an eco-friendly site, so I made an enquiry.

The person who rang me up was so obviously a scammer, I contacted the Financial Services regulators and they confirmed my suspicions. I looked up this 'investment' site's 'terms and conditions' and it read 'Only high net worth individuals need apply' which straight away rang alarm bells. It was obviously trying to appeal to vanity to part people from their money.

There is no mystery attached to investing wisely. So many people don't bother because they believe 'only the rich' understand it or are allowed to or have the means to.

Oh and remember to use common sense.

*Sigh*

Read my post again. More carefully this time.

I'll repeat the pertinent part of my original post in bold italics (emphasis) and a separate paragraph, for comprehension:

""Hedge funds" and "hedging" are two entirely different concepts (and have been for around two decades now, albeit "hedge funds" did have their origins in hedging, way back when). Hedge funds are nothing more than funds which tend to take higher-risk, higher-reward speculative positions, relying on a mix of quant analysis and intuitive market & political research.

They (i.e. hedge funds) came to prominence as the near-exclusive preserve of wealthy private individuals as investment clients, but increasingly the "traditional" banks and institutional money managers have been placing funds under this sort of management as well, where their investment rules permit it of course."


Read the bold italicised paragraph slowly, carefully and thoroughly. Read all of it through to its end. And read it in conjunction with my post #3086. Again: slowly, carefully and thoroughly.

Oh and remember to use common sense.

 

[Lothian]

Yes, there are indeed such countries. But those countries arrived at those positions as a result of a limited opt-in to the EU, not a limited opt-out. The EU allowed these limited opt-ins because any expansion of the membership of the European project was preferable.

However, I don't agree that continued limited membership of the EU was ever effectively put as an option in the referendum (yet another mistake in the way the referendum was framed). I say that particularly because one of the four key freedoms of the single market doctrine is freedom of movement of labour, and one of the cornerstones of the Leave campaign was the putting to an end of uncontrolled immigration from other states within the single market. And a further cornerstone of the Leave campaign was the putting to an end of the EU "making our laws" for us and "taking our money" (both of which I disagree with, but one cannot deny that this is what Leave voters believed they were voting for). Continued membership of the single market and customs union simply would not have achieved those ends.

Like I said before, I am a firm Remain believer (and of course I voted as such). But Remainers can't simply wish away what happened in the referendum, nor what those who voted Leave clearly believed they were voting for. As I also said before, I firmly believe that very, very few of those who voted Leave did so on the basis of an informed understanding of what Leave would actually entail in practice (and that's why I believe a second referendum, on the basis of a much more complete and accurate understanding of what Leave entails, would be constitutionally reasonable and appropriate). However, I think one thing that IS clear is that most - if not all - of those who voted Leave in 2016 did so in the belief that they were voting for the UK to leave the EU fully, specifically (as I said above) in the matters of free movement of labour and the influence of the EC and the European Parliament over UK affairs.

There were lots of contradictions in the vote leave offer. I believe many people thought we could have our cake and eat it. There was lots of talk about retaining all the benefits without paying any money all enabled by German car makers. I don't think it is right to elevate some issues as more important than others. People had different priorities. You can't pin a single issue on all leave voters other than "leaving the EU" albeit that is not clear. There are elements of EU membership many leavers will want to keep or 'buy back', such as financial passporting, certain aircraft systems and security information exchanges..

 

[The Don]

There were lots of contradictions in the vote leave offer. I believe many people thought we could have our cake and eat it. There was lots of talk about retaining all the benefits without paying any money all enabled by German car makers. I don't think it is right to elevate some issues as more important than others. People had different priorities. You can't pin a single issue on all leave voters other than "leaving the EU" albeit that is not clear. There are elements of EU membership many leavers will want to keep or 'buy back', such as financial passporting, certain aircraft systems and security information exchanges..

Exactly !

Even if the EU were to drop trou (so to speak) and give the UK the "All the benefits of EU membership and none of the responsibilities" unicorn promised by the leave campaign, I don't think that Brexiteers could achieve consensus over those terms.

For every Brexiteer who is keen to have financial passporting there's likely another who wants to kick the financial services industry firmly in the shorts and so doesn't want it. For every employer who wants easy access to highly skilled EU workers, there's someone else who wants to keep all foreigners out.

Given that only 52% of people voted to Leave, it doesn't take many dissenters for any benefit or responsibility to fail to have majority support.

 

[mkg]

Let's see if we can find where we agree rather than disagee. Which if the following do you agree with.

(1)The original agreement did not contain any provision as to what would happen with the Irish border should a new agreement be reached in the transition period.
(2) The EU suggested a backstop
(3) The UK rejected that backstop and suggested their own
(4) The EU agreed to the inclusion of the UK version
(5) May endorsed the agreement and presented the version with the UK backstop to parliament.

Why bother? Yes, Mrs May produced a document which was discussed with the Commission and the Commission made alterations. Irrelevant - the document was rejected three times by Parliament and THAT is the defining act. There is no agreement upon ANY part of the document, let alone the backstop. Whatever happened and whatever was said is history, not law and certainly not a negotiating position.
The position at the moment is a stalemate and the default outcome at the moment is the UK leaving the EU with no deal. The UK has no responsibility to the EU to institute a hard border and, indeed, has a responsibility NOT to do so (or, at least, not to erect a policed border) as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. The EU is not a signatory to the GFA, although the RoI IS a signatory.
That's what I see and it is now, and has been since the beginning of negotiations, the base position.

 

[Andy_Ross]

According to the papers Boris was 'ambushed' by the duplicitous EU and his humiliation at the press conference is a humiliation for all of the UK and a good example of why we should leave.
Can't have a pipsqueak country like Luxembourg humiliating our Prime Minister.

 

[Lothian]

Why bother? Yes, Mrs May produced a document which was discussed with the Commission and the Commission made alterations. Irrelevant - the document was rejected three times by Parliament and THAT is the defining act. There is no agreement upon ANY part of the document, let alone the backstop. Whatever happened and whatever was said is history, not law and certainly not a negotiating position.

so you agree with my statements. Thanks

The position at the moment is a stalemate and the default outcome at the moment is the UK leaving the EU with no deal. The UK has no responsibility to the EU to institute a hard border and, indeed, has a responsibility NOT to do so (or, at least, not to erect a policed border) as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. The EU is not a signatory to the GFA, although the RoI IS a signatory.
That's what I see and it is now, and has been since the beginning of negotiations, the base position.

The WTO requires a border, unless there is a customs union. When we leave the EU we will leave the customs union. The UK then needs to decide whether to break WTO rules or break the GFA.

The EU will not break WTO rules and will put up a border in Ireland and will blame the UK for leaving the framework that allow the GFA to operate.

 

[The Don]

According to the papers Boris was 'ambushed' by the duplicitous EU and his humiliation at the press conference is a humiliation for all of the UK and a good example of why we should leave.
Can't have a pipsqueak country like Luxembourg humiliating our Prime Minister.

Absolutely, it cannot be the UK's fault for having no clear idea of what we want and not the first clue about how to do about getting it.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Uh, yeah it kind of does......

No it really doesn't. The EU document merely highlighted and spelled out the issue - which everyone was already well aware of. The idea that the EU suddenly invented it or came up with a massive gotcha in the shape of the backstop is nonsense.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Uh, yeah it kind of does......


In any case, the NI/Ireland border is a 100% logically-intractable situation, if one wants the twin goals of a) the UK leaving the EU and b) the Good Friday (and subsequent) Agreement being honoured. Because:

1) Leaving the EU necessarily entails leaving the single market and customs union (otherwise it's very highly arguable that this doesn't constitute Brexit);

Except of course in the promotional material for the brexit vote then it was assured those would remain.

 

[Nessie]

The reunification of Ireland would also solve the problem.

Just sayin'.

No, that would just introduce a whole new set of problems. Reunification may come one day, but it has to be wholly in terms and a timescale set by those in Ireland, north and south and where peace can be pretty much guaranteed.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The Supreme Court session is underway. Despite lodging an appeal against the Scottish decision, Johnson has not submitted a written statement.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Well, we are in agreement upon which backstop is the case in point. However, it was not originally contained in May's discussion document - it was inserted by the EU negotiators. The resulting document was then presented to Parliament and rejected three times.
Since this complete and utter rejection by the legally-constituted and ultimate authority upon the acceptance or dismissal of that document, there has been an insidious attempt to legitimise it (by, for instance, calling it an agreement). It was never an agreement, and Mrs May's original document contained no reference whatsoever to a backstop in any form. The entire concept of the backstop is an invention of the EU negotiators and its continued presence in negotiations (and, I have to say, public discussion) is a sham.
Shades of the Ministry of Truth come to mind.

Utter garbage. Brexiteer logic at its worst.

A solution to the Irish border issue has been needed since Day 1. That Theresa May forgot to include it in her homework is only evidence that the Tories were woefully unprepared and that no Brexiteer has any ******* clue about how the world actually functions.

The best and brightest Brexiteers haven't a clue. So what that says about the other 17.499 million is fairly obvious. Wouldn't trust any of them to sit the right way round on the toilet.