Brexit: the referendum

[Nessie]

Jules Galen, I have read your posts in this thread and they do contribute anything worthy of note.

I am happy to stay in the EU and will vote to stay.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Sure. tell us about the UK's great car companies, or its electronics manufacturers - or even its Haggis makers. Something!

Most everything that is value-added manufacturing in the UK is there because it is owned and operated by foreign companies.

Why does the ownership bother you so much? The stock exchange that the parent company is listed on is pretty irrelevant to the issue.

 

[Nessie]

Other countries have become wealthy enough to buy certain UK manufacturers. They are attracted by our ability to design and make very good quality products.

 

[jimbob]

Why does the ownership bother you so much? The stock exchange that the parent company is listed on is pretty irrelevant to the issue.

Yes, there's nothing particularly magical about UK ownership. GEC was a large British company and had some pretty iffy practices.

 

[ComfySlippers]

...
Sorry to break it to ya' man, but the Sex Pistols were right, and Britan's dreaming:
...

Do people give you funny looks on the bus?

 

[GlennB]

Do people give you funny looks on the bus?

Hey, we can all quote song lyrics:

I've got to break free
I want to break free, yeah
​

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Hey, we can all quote song lyrics:

I've got to break free
I want to break free, yeah
​

To do it right you need the headscarf and hoover.

 

[GlennB]

To do it right you need the headscarf and hoover.

And a tight leather mini-skirt?

On the other hand:

Let's stick together
Come on, come on, let's stick together
You know we made a vow not to leave one another never
​

 

[Jules Galen]

Other countries have become wealthy enough to buy certain UK manufacturers. They are attracted by our ability to design and make very good quality products.

Half true. Britain has good designers and some very smart people. In fact, if I were the head of a major corporation, I would have no qualms about setting up shop in the UK and enjoying the benefits of it's workforce (provided that they were still part of the EU, of course).

Nevertheless, the British have demonstrated that they - better than anyone else in history - know how to muck up great manufacturing companies. Seriously, show me a promising British-owned manufacturing firm, and I'll show you a company that is destined to fail. As a result, Britain can't build ships, or cars, or electronics, or telecom/networking equipment, or commercial aircraft...or even mine coal. Sooner or later a British Factory Manager will destroy the enterprise.

This inability to host its own manufacturing companies is a weakness of the British character...of British values (i.e., the values held by its leaders - the ones that really matter). As a result, I fear Britain will forever be destined to be a nation of Hopeless and Drunken Factory Hands and Bank Tellers. Politically, I fear it become "America's Little Buddy".

The point I am trying to make is: the UK needs the EU, so why even pretend it doesn't or tolerate those who would? Do any of you think the UK could go it alone - or would be happy being a political appendage of the United States?

If not, then it's time to eat some pride, chunk the Pound Sterling (what a joke...it's not even backed any more) and fully adopt the EU. Accept the fact that countries like Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and even Spain have out done you and strive to catch up....and even surpass them.

It's your choice.

 

[CapelDodger]

There was an interesting debate about Brexit in the House of Commons yesterday in which the Conservative MP for Gainsborough, Sir Edward Leigh, spoke eloquently for about an hour about the European Political Union.

One should remember that eloquence often conceals a lack of substance.

He made some interesting points that there had never been any independent analysis about whether we would be better off in or out.

The remit for such an independent analysis would be an interesting read, given that one or other case would be a hypothetical and the analysts would be economists. This point rather lacks substance.

He also said that the House of Commons only debates things like same sex marriages and hunting, and what type of sugar to put on creme brulee, but never about the mass of new laws and regulations coming form Europe every year, or about bugging.

Parliament's decline vis-a-vis the executive can be readily dated to Thatcher's election in 1979; the process simply continued under Blair. That was also when Keynesianism gave way to the neo-classical (technically, this was the Chicago School Discontinuity).

He also said that Heath's negotiations with the EU were stumbling in 1971, so Heath gave concessions which has resulted in disaster for the British fishing industry.

I think he's been getting his ear bent to fishermen, who will never concede that their own activities have proved counter-productive in the long-term.

It's like an old economics textbook once said the axiom that work comes before money has to be accepted, otherwise substantial economic growth casnnot occur. Germany after the 1939-45 war did just this without realizing it. Though 'bankrupt' it provided work.

All sorts of things are said in old economics testbooks. Some say that work needs capital to work on, and that the Marshall Plan provided that capital to the Federal Republic of Germany.

I'm a great believer in making things.

You can never have enough buggy-whips, I always say.

Nowadays trains and carriages are imported from Germany and Japan which I think is a monumental misjudgment.

Suppliers are chosen on the basis of quality and cost. I doubt the people making the choice regard that as misjudged.

Nowadays liberal-democratic governments don't manage their economies, they leave that to the markets.

 

[CapelDodger]

Why does the ownership bother you so much? The stock exchange that the parent company is listed on is pretty irrelevant to the issue.

The global economy is now dominated by supra-national companies, which national governments can only pander to. That was an oft-repeated Thatcherite message, although not in quite those terms. "You can't buck the market!" was more the form.

Thatcherites are deeply concerned about British sovereignty vis-a-vis Europe but will cheerfully surrender it to MegaCorp Holdings.

 

[MCel58]

Why does the ownership bother you so much? The stock exchange that the parent company is listed on is pretty irrelevant to the issue.

Not so much as it can determine where tax is due and where profits are used. So if the company is not actually a UK company, it may be paying little or no taxation in the UK and spending its profits outside the UK. If you want to understand exactly where the UK stands in competition terms with its EU neighbours see this http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Manufacturing_statistics_-_NACE_Rev._2. According to the governments own dashboard this is the breakdown at sectoral level " 77% of UK GVA is accounted for by the services sector, of which professional and business services (12%) is the largest sub-sector. The remainder is accounted for by manufacturing (10%), construction (7%), other production (5%) and agriculture (1%)
Services also dominate UK employment, accounting for 83% of jobs. Manufacturing (8%) and construction (6%) are the next two largest sectors by employment. Health and social work (13%) is the largest sub-sector within services. More on this can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...e/396740/bis-15-4-growth-dashboard.pdf#page34

 

[Aber]

Not so much as it can determine where tax is due and where profits are used. So if the company is not actually a UK company, it may be paying little or no taxation in the UK and spending its profits outside the UK.

Which the government seems to have recognised, and reduced UK corporate tax rates so that companies prefer to pay UK tax than higher rates elsewhere.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Not so much as it can determine where tax is due and where profits are used. So if the company is not actually a UK company, it may be paying little or no taxation in the UK and spending its profits outside the UK. [/url]

Not really. A British-owned company can play exactly the same game if it wishes to. This is nothing to do with the country of ultimate ownership and merely a result of the fact that companies can move their profits around if they operate in more than one country. Any reasonably sized manufacturing company is going to operate in more than one country.

 

[MCel58]

Which the government seems to have recognised, and reduced UK corporate tax rates so that companies prefer to pay UK tax than higher rates elsewhere.

Actually given the taxation approach by big companies I am much more interested in where they spend their revenues and profits as they will just shop around to find the lowest taxation point and the U.K. has been able to attract many of the large EU firms not only because of corporation tax but because of existing EU treaties on import, export and VAT taxes and for R&D. The very favourable terms set by the patent box taxation which reduces corporation taxation to 10% for those companies with patents and license streams. So the companies come to the UK not to invest but to cut costs and increase post tax profits which they do not necessarily spend in the UK.

 

[Lothian]

Which the government seems to have recognised, and reduced UK corporate tax rates so that companies prefer to pay UK tax than higher rates elsewhere.

Are you aware of any companies that have moved to the UK because of CT? Last I heard the UK CT revenues were at record lows.

 

[MCel58]

Are you aware of any companies that have moved to the UK because of CT? Last I heard the UK CT revenues were at record lows.

Yes at present 18 of the 50 largest EU firms have their HQ in the UK and most seem to have done it because of the low taxation approach by this government. However having your HQ somewhere is not the same as actually delivering your services and products, employing the majority of your workforce or in fact spending your revenue or profits.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Are you aware of any companies that have moved to the UK because of CT? Last I heard the UK CT revenues were at record lows.

I'm trying to think of recent examples of things being established in the UK to even look at. The biggest sweetheart deals that I can think of are for things like Amazon warehouses rather than manufacturing plants these days.

The UK is a fairly attractive place to invest thanks to its competitive business environment not just in taxation but also in things like employment law which are generally more lax than EU neighbours in terms of hiring and firing employees and the like.

As the EU expands that also works against us as it's much easier to close a UK plant and move it to Romania than a French one. For example.

One of the reasons why I never liked the 'we could be just like Norway or Switzerland' argument (apart from that it's simply incorrect in what it argues) is that both of those economies are pretty niche and not really comparable to the UK

 

[MCel58]

This article from the business insider seems to say it all. http://www.businessinsider.com/r-br...-companies-keen-to-cut-tax-bills-2014-09?IR=T

 

[P.J. Denyer]

And a tight leather mini-skirt?

I'll leave that to be decided between you and your significant other