World Trade Organisation Rules

setmefree2

Aliliva wrote: »

But my "final consumer" point of view is that I'll have to pay up to 10% more on goods imported from the EU.

The final consumer won't buy the goods that cost 10% more - they will buy something cheaper - like a car from America, Japan or Korea.

As another poster said there are lots of other things at play here - like exchange rates.

I was listening to the CEO of Carpetright - they get carpets currently from Belgium. However, if those carpets became 10% more expensive he said they would consider buying British as we still manufacture carpets here in the UK.

These are the sort of buying decisions that companies make all the times.

I would like to add that we have some excellent business leaders in this country imho.

CLAPTON

martinsurrey wrote: »

A key plank in leaving is getting the total numbers down, would a bank want to focus its workforce in a country where the total number of visas is limited?

that would clearly be a factor that the employer would have to consider.
how many long term essential foreigners are there in the banking system?

rubuhoeikanaika

CLAPTON wrote: »

that would clearly be a factor that the employer would have to consider.
how many long term essential foreigners are there in the banking system?

Each individual foreigner? Probably not that essential. But having a talent pool of 400 million to draw on vs one of 70 million? Totally worth a move.

CLAPTON

rubuhoeikanaika wrote: »

Each individual foreigner? Probably not that essential. But having a talent pool of 400 million to draw on vs one of 70 million? Totally worth a move.

EU countries don't allow unlimited non EU migration, so the banks won't be going anywhere near there will they.

In fact would you tell me which countries do allow unlimited immigration?

martinsurrey

rubuhoeikanaika wrote: »

Each individual foreigner? Probably not that essential. But having a talent pool of 400 million to draw on vs one of 70 million? Totally worth a move.

400m...

If we as a nation are going to commit to get total migration down to 10's of thousands (which lets be honest is a large portion of a leave win), we're going to have to stop hiring as many WORLD WIDE, so a pool of 40m (workers, excluding kids and OAPS), vs billions.

And one of the points is London has the expertise.

That expertise is NOT confined to British people, its also in the Germans, French, Poles, Indians, Americans who are drawn to the city.

Make them unwelcome, or make their replacement unrealistic, and they, along with their expertise, and their employers will move.

rubuhoeikanaika

CLAPTON wrote: »

EU countries don't allow unlimited non EU migration, so the banks won't be going anywhere near there will they.

In fact would you tell me which countries do allow unlimited immigration?

What are you talking about? There is unlimited immigration within the EU. I was using 400 million as a rough estimate for the EU population excluding Britain, versus 70 million as a rough estimate for the UK. These are the numbers of people who they could employ with no restrictions whatsoever.

If Britain leaves the EEA, it will be:

- Britain: domestic talent pool of 70 million, plus visa-based immigration from the rest of the world.

- rest of the EEA: domestic/single market talent pool of 400 million, plus visa-based immigration from the rest of the world.

Given that a large part of your business involves trading various euro financial instruments, so you need a substantial home base in a euro country anyway (it used to be in London but then that city lost its passporting rights when it left the EEA), what would you do?

setmefree2

rubuhoeikanaika wrote: »

Perhaps. But financial services doesn't rely on big car plants or whatever, and the people/expertise involved tend to be far more mobile than your average factory worker. That expertise could literally get up and get on a train to Frankfurt, and stay there.

If we imported a load of German engineers and a manufacturing plant, we could have BMW/Merc quality cars pretty quickly I reckon.

The City sucks in many of our finest graduates including a lot of our best Scientists and Mathmaticians. Maybe graduates won't want to go to Frankfurt and will stay here and do great things - that aren't banking.

rubuhoeikanaika

setmefree2 wrote: »

The City sucks in many of our finest graduates including a lot of our best Scientists and Mathmaticians. Maybe graduates won't want to go to Frankfurt and will stay here and do great things - that aren't banking.

That is true, that might be a silver lining. On the other hand, they tend to be the young mobile people who are motivated by money (if they are working for the City). So I'm sure a big chunk of them would be happy to live in Paris or Frankfurt or Dublin.

martinsurrey

setmefree2 wrote: »

The City sucks in many of our finest graduates including a lot of our best Scientists an Mathmaticians. Maybe graduates won't want to go to Frankfurt and will stay here and do great things that aren't banking.

and the Chavs abusing foreigners on trams will grab the world wide trading opportunities opened up to them and become the next Richard Bransons...

or maybe the brightest grads will move, they voted overwhelmingly to remain (if you believe the polls), they become bankers because they want the cash, if the cash is elsewhere, why not.

I moved from the North East to Surrey for work, its not that much further to Paris.

CLAPTON

rubuhoeikanaika wrote: »

What are you talking about? There is unlimited immigration within the EU. I was using 400 million as a rough estimate for the EU population excluding Britain, versus 70 million as a rough estimate for the UK. These are the numbers of people who they could employ with no restrictions whatsoever.

If Britain leaves the EEA, it will be:

- Britain: domestic talent pool of 70 million, plus visa-based immigration from the rest of the world.

- rest of the EEA: domestic/single market talent pool of 400 million, plus visa-based immigration from the rest of the world.

Given that a large part of your business involves trading various euro financial instruments, so you need a substantial home base in a euro country anyway (it used to be in London but then that city lost its passporting rights when it left the EEA), what would you do?

surely your logic is that a talent pool of 4,000,000,000 is better that a mere 400,000,000
why would a visa be a problem for people with these unique and special skills?
how many UK bankers are EU nationals and how many from the EUs.

as you know the UK has a higher level of financial services with the USA than EU so it would make more sense to allow unlimited immigration from the USA.