Brexit, The Economy and House Prices (Part 2)

A_Medium_Size_Jock

An interesting report on some Italians views of why they migrate:

"Italy gets worse every time you look at it and offers less and less to young people," says Antonio Davide D'Elia, just one of thousands of young Italians who have decided to try their luck abroad.

The jobless rate hovers at over 11 percent, well above the euro area average of 9.3 percent. Among 15 to 24-year olds it leaps to 37 percent, compared with a European average of 18.7 percent.
But difficulties in finding work is not the only reason pushing young people to leave. "They also complain about the lack of meritocracy" and the time it takes to climb the career ladder, Cagliano said.

https://www.thelocal.it/20170721/more-and-more-italians-migrating-for-economic-reasons

setmefree2

"Technical Rectification" is the method by which the UK thinks it can re-establish the UK's independent presence at the WTO.

It is brass tacks time for Brexit negotiations.
Some of the issues involved are getting highly technical and detailed, but have huge significance.

It is the method by which the Trade Department and UK diplomats think they can re-establish the UK's independent presence at the World Trade Organisation, which Mr Fox visited on Thursday, accompanied by Sky News.In a dusty dark archive in the basement of the World Trade Organisation Geneva HQ is a room full of the documents that form the entire technical and legal apparatus for the global trading system.
There are the original signed trade treaties and there are the typewriter-typed negotiations, stretching back from decades before the WTO during the establishment of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT).

So what to do now, to disentangle the UK from the EU at the WTO. The answer, says Mr Fox, is to unilaterally assume UK's trade share of these EU quotas.
"We are full members of the WTO but we have been trading under EU schedules. Our licenses are the European licenses so we are engaged effectively in a cut and paste process... that says we want to transfer those schedules into uk schedules a process called technical rectification," the Trade Secretary told me.
"We're saying to our trading partners we want to ensure that as we leave the EU there is no disruption to your trade to your market access to UK. As part of that we have to split up the quotas that we have a share as part of EU," he said.
This could have been done by negotiation. It could have been done by a number of methods. Divide the quotas by 28 members of the EU, or by 15 reflecting the number of members when these schedules were lodged.
Instead Mr Fox's team are in the process of calculating the UK share of everything from say New Zealand lamb imports into EU (high) averaged over three years as a unilateral "baseline quota". There's even a debate about whether to use a so-called Olympic average where, like gymnastics judges, you ignore the top and bottom score of five.

The theory is that because there will be no detriment for both UK producers and third party exporters there would be no basis for showing harm and taking the UK to a WTO tribunal.

The problem is that it leaves the EU with its own choice as to whether to continue with the existing quotas, or subtract the quota assumed by the UK.
It is not even in clear that Brussels believes this is an issue which should be out of the formal EU negotiations. Sources in Geneva had signalled a hope from Brussels that the UK & EU would put forward a joint proposal to regularise WTO membership in the Autumn.

As Mr Fox told me: "Britain has to determine what Britain's quota will be when we're not in the EU... Britain has to be in control of this part of the process."
The problem is this leaves the EU in some difficulty with global trade partners, perhaps so much so that it might backfire on the goodwill required in UK-EU negotiations. And some trade experts feel such unilateralism might be a little too clever by half, stripping the UK of the capacity legally to subsidise its farmers.

http://news.sky.com/story/scheduling-conflict-for-liam-fox-at-the-wto-10955853

Rinoa

mayonnaise wrote: »

BofA chooses Dublin for its post-Brexit EU base





https://www.ft.com/content/f52e25c1-926d-3ef2-baa3-2177f5a72112

Drip, drip, drip....

And yet....

Confidence in the City has bounced back after the snap General Election, with the number of jobs rising 17 per cent in June compared to the same time last year, according to the new Robert Walters City Job Index.

http://www.cityam.com/268762/confidence-city-high-job-volumes-rise-nearly-fifth-after

A_Medium_Size_Jock

Nobody commented upon this when it was released so I will do it now.
According to the German Finance Ministry, Germany made money out of the Greek crisis by supposedly helping out Greece.
That will not surprise many of us here, but will the 1.34 billion Euros of profit they made go to Greece?
You're kidding, right?

“The interest gains must at last be paid out to Greece,” said Green party EU expert Manuel Sarrazin to the newspaper.
“It cannot be that [German Finance Minister] Wolfgang Schäuble can refurbish the German budget with Greek interest profits.”

https://www.thelocal.de/20170712/germany-made-more-than-1-billion-from-helping-out-greece-report

setmefree2

Farm subsidies will have to be earned rather than just handed out in future, the Environment Secretary Michael Gove has said in a speech.
Farmers will only get payouts if they agree to protect the environment and enhance rural life, he will say.
The move is part of what he calls his vision for a "green Brexit".
Farmers’ leaders want the current £3bn total to be spent on the environment, more infrastructure to develop farm businesses, and promoting British food.
The government has promised to keep overall payments at the same level until 2022.

He criticised the current system for giving money to some of the UK's wealthiest landowners, for encouraging wastage, and for not recognising "good environmental practice".
Mr Gove described Brexit as "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform how we care for our land, our rivers and our seas, how we recast our ambition for our country’s environment, and the planet".

Critics say under the CAP wealthy UK landowners are given subsidies of up to £3m a year.
The issue was highlighted last year when BBC News revealed that taxpayers are paying more than £400,000 a year to subsidise a farm where a billionaire Saudi prince breeds racehorses.
The Newmarket farm of Khalid Abdullah al Saud - owner of the legendary horse Frankel - is among the top recipients of farm grants, along with the Queen.
Environmentalists will applaud the promise of change; they blame the CAP for the huge loss of wildlife in the British countryside.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40673559

setmefree2

Government might be losing the Brexit spin battle, but it's triumphing on substance

Strictly speaking, Britain is not allowed to hold trade talks with anyone until we have left the European Union. But no one in London or Washington wants to wait that long so, on Monday, talks to establish a free-trade agreement will begin. It’s a fairly historic moment: Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, will meet Liam Fox to discuss what American officials describe as “ways to strengthen trade and commercial ties”. To have this happen so soon is more than any Brexiteer dared predict. Rather than be at the back of the queue, as Barack Obama had rather absurdly threatened, Britain is sneaking to the front.

This fits a trend. Brazil is keen to start talks with Britain, as are Australia and Turkey. They might be bemused at the political mess in Westminster but they seek closer links to our economy, the fifth largest in the world.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/21/government-might-losing-brexit-spin-battle-triumphing-substance/

setmefree2

Even Brexit Can’t Dim Exodus From EU’s Fastest-Shrinking Nation

If Brexit has diminished Lithuanians’ attraction to the U.K. -- the No. 1 European destination for the Baltic nation’s migrants -- they’re hiding it well. Outflows of the country’s workers to Britain accelerated in 2016, even after the summer decision to quit the European Union cast a cloud over their future rights, data released this month showed. Lithuania, whose population has plunged 16 percent to 2.85 million since it joined the EU in 2004, remained the bloc’s most rapidly shrinking state last year.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2017/07/21/even-brexit-can-t-dim-exodus-from-eu-s-fastest-shrinking-nation

Thrugelmir

always_sunny wrote: »

Just look at how businesses are responding to the mention of losing access to the SM

Which businessess though. The CBI is split. As JCB clearly showed. Much influence will lie with foreign owned companies and those that operate on a multinational / global scale. As they are the ones going to get hit hardest.

Thrugelmir

ilovehouses wrote: »

AIUI the UK haven't put forward their own alternative proposal.

With no access to the books how would expect them to? Sheer guess work is totally worthless. The EU have to provide the complete carcasse to be chewed over. Then the debt can be comprised away.

gfplux

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Which businessess though. The CBI is split. As JCB clearly showed. Much influence will lie with foreign owned companies and those that operate on a multinational / global scale. As they are the ones going to get hit hardest.

The multinationals have the most power when it comes to the lobby.
Does anyone know the view that BMW might take as many posts here assume they are talking often to the German Government.
BMW's perfect world would be continuous acces to the British market tariff and friction free, PLUS reduction in tariffs under an American/UK trade deal to allow greater sales, at lower prices or higher profit of the American produced BMW.
I am assuming there is a tariff on US made BMW's when shipped to Britain at the moment. Does anyone know?
Would a USA/UK free trade deal help to sell more muscle cars like the Cobra and Mustang?