Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

Thrugelmir

Tromking wrote: »

Interesting to hear the record ftse 100 close tonight being described by the BBC as not a barometer on the U.K. economy per se but more of a verdict on the booming worldwide economy. Any one here care to explain that to me, it sounds counter intuitive.

Some 71% of FTSE companies generate the majority of their revenues from outside the UK. If sterling is weak then profits made abroad and dividends paid in a foreign currency are worth more once they are converted back into sterling. If the £ was to return to say $1.50 and €1.40. Then the FTSE could well slip back.

vivatifosi

Found an article about what wasn't in the Brexit reports (pre-redaction):

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/lack-brexit-impact-assessments-dereliction-duty-part-david-davis/

Yes it's a comment piece, but I found it interesting.

Apologies if it has been posted before, I've not previously seen it.

Thrugelmir

vivatifosi wrote: »

Found an article about what wasn't in the Brexit reports (pre-redaction):

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/lack-brexit-impact-assessments-dereliction-duty-part-david-davis/

Yes it's a comment piece, but I found it interesting.

Apologies if it has been posted before, I've not previously seen it.

A politically orientated piece. That seems to be Labours strategy of keeping the media interest in Brexit alive. During a quiet period. At the pace the world is moving these days. One needs to ahead of rather behind the game.

vivatifosi

Thrugelmir wrote: »

A politically orientated piece. That seems to be Labours strategy of keeping the media interest in Brexit alive. During a quiet period. At the pace the world is moving these days. One needs to ahead of rather behind the game.

He is an MP and as such is one of the few people who has seen the unredacted version of the documents. Nobody else is coming out and saying anything. We've been talking for a while about how scant they are. He's the first person to say that the unredacted versions were also lacking and gave an example as to how.

If a Tory comes out and gives their opinion on the same docs, then great, let's hear about that too.

Brexit is one of the most important political decisions of the last fifty years and our decision making needs to be well informed.

Optimist

Tromking wrote: »

Interesting to hear the record ftse 100 close tonight being described by the BBC as not a barometer on the U.K. economy per se but more of a verdict on the booming worldwide economy. Any one here care to explain that to me, it sounds counter intuitive.

The fact that the FTSE-250 which is domestically focussed and also at all-time record highs seems to negate their argument.

Actually the FTSE-250 has ouperfomed the FTSE-100 by nearly double....

For whatever reason the BBC is not a good source for financial analysis

Moby

GreatApe wrote: »

What inequality? We have a great fair legal system and we have fair police and we have a good armed forces and we have comparatively little corruption and bribery and fair courts.

Take it from someone who has worked in the criminal justice system for 30 years this is not true. Ask any young black male in the inner city for example. Look at the profile of our prison population.

What you mean is there is a large difference in incomes and wealth.
Firstly I would say that exists everywhere. Do you think Stalin was living like the peasants under him? Do you think Kim looks like he is starving while his people die of famines?
More importantly I would argue that in a free market system like we have there is no big fundamental differences in your life if you are average or rich. A rich person drinks a £500 bottle of wine an average person drinks a £5 bottle of wine. A rich person goes out to a restaurant and spends £500 on a steak while an average person buys the ingredients in Tesco and cooks it at home. A rich person lives in a 200sqm home in Kensington that costs £10 million while an average person lives in a 100sqm home in stoke for £0.1 million. A rich person drives a £50k BMW while an average person drives a £5k second hand BMW. A rich person has a £50,000 handbag with some name of some designer on it an average person has a £50 handbag from M&S. A rich person gets a haricut from some famous stylist for £5000 an average person gets a haircut from

This is the great thing about free markets. It produces good quality goods and services at all price points

Actually I think free markets often produces poor quality food and encourages people towards ill health and a bad lifestyle. Watch the Super Size Me documentary for a good example. The rest of your comparisons are puerile of course. I've previously posted links for you to read re. relative poverty. You either believe them or you don't.

Sure the old have more than the young its how life works.
Just yesterday one of my friends complained that they have so little compared to their parents I had to point out to him that his parents had a combined 80 years of work and savings under them while he only had 5 years work and savings under him. Comparing a couple with 80 years income vs a single man with 5 years income is stupid. Also the old cant take it to the grave they had the young ~£200 billion annually.

There is a generation gap bigger than ever before due to the hoarding of property and wealth by the older generations. Even when they die these resources will be passed on to family therefore limiting the spread and opportunities of children from less wealthy backgrounds. We need a major increase in inheritance tax to deal with this.

Generation rent is fake propaganda
Only 3% of bits rent privately for more than 10 years.
97% of brits either buy their own home or are given a social house.

The reason private renting boomed post 2004 was the mass migration post 2004 once brexit is done if migration levels fall so will private renting stats

Not true. It's a harsh reality due to the hoarding of property and wealth to a narrowing section of the population.

Capitalism works very very well we have no poor people in the UK due to the economy. We do have poor people due to their dysfunctional lives. We have high wages full employment lots of freedom and opportunity. The glass is 95%+ full your confirmation bias makes you see it otherwise

Already told you....repeating the mantra does not make it true.

There is no point looking before 1950 the eletricity revolution of 1940-1980 changed everything. Also is it not amazing you need to search back 300-400 years to find fault with capitalism?

Civilised people learn from history. Idiots repeat the mistakes.;)

No you silly man. Life was horrid 300-400 years ago because we had not developed much science technology and capital.

An even sillier person ignores human nature. Technology is a force for good but also in the wrong hands can cause all sorts of problems. Donald Trump doesn't believe in global warming because it doesn't suit his business model and he's removing the barriers to drilling again all over the place!

Yes there were some rich people. That does not mean it would have been better without factories. Also had these people given up all their wealth to charity you do realize the poor would still be poor simply because nobody really had anything back then. You watch BBC fantasy drama about 300-400 years ago with pretty young ladies and gents in nice attire perfect bodies and lovely clean teeth. The reality would be closer to rotten teeth stench you could not bear parasites on most people and short life expectancy with women having 5-15 kids until their bodies could not take it no more or until one of the births killed them.

Have no idea what you are talking about.

Well break them up if you are sure of their monopoly positions. Capitalism tries to do that, communism has just one big company called the state and it dictates and command and controls you and everything in it.



Why would businesses or businessmen want the country to import low skilled migrants from eastern Europe? They are not think they know all the taxes are paid by the rich and businesses so while they might be able to hire someone for £8 per hour they will have to pay out another £10ph equivalent on their benefits via their taxes. This is why the right of the tories dont like free movement they dont want to pay even more taxes to get the low skill no English migrants upto speed. Not to mention multi multiculturalism is silly and dangerous.

Rather incoherent and confused.

You dont know that you are just spouting
Also Germany Canada have as much free markets as we do both also roughly tax and spend the same.
Scandinavia is lucky to have large natural resources that allow more communism locally. Its not like Norway gives its oil for free or subsidized prices to foreign countries no they want full price in fact more than full price thanks to the arabs holding back production to artificially keep prices high for all net oil sellers like norway. Its not like Sweden exports its huge hydropower for subsidised prices to the rest of europe no they want full price. With these large natural resources per capita they can afford more social programs. So could we if you know someone in the UK we can pipe out 10 million barrels per day tell us and we can do more social programs if you dont know anywhere we can find that much oil in the UK then keep quiet about the norway model which runs off the back of luck (good fortune to have oil) and rigged markets (the arabs keeping oil prices higher than they need to be)

We had huge access to other countries resources all over Africa, India and the Middle East. It was called the British Empire. We had a system though where the wealth was not equally spread but held by the mercantile middle classes and the rich landowners. Political systems matter as to how the wealth is spread...Like I said if you know your history you can learn a lot.

Moby

antrobus wrote: »

In what way?

I fear you are misinformed if you think that capitalism is "much more controlled" by (say) the German state. Or anything in Scandinavia for that matter. Not much sign of any control in Iceland in recent years either. (Depending on whether you view Iceland as part of Scandinavia or not.)

And how is Germany "much more cohesive" with the AfD in the Bundestag?

Scandinavia sports relatively high income equality, large, tax-financed welfare programs, powerful unions, and relatively low unemployment rates.

Capitalists tell us that the only way to societal prosperity is through low tax rates, deregulated business, and cut-throat competitive labor markets. Yet despite failing to meet the metrics of the Anglo-American variety of capitalism, Scandinavian countries stubbornly continue to prosper, and regularly come out on top of the global indexes of happiness and quality of life. The AfD may be in the bundestag but we have our own extremists and the only reason they are not in parliament is due to 'first past the post' not because we are better people!

Tromking

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Some 71% of FTSE companies generate the majority of their revenues from outside the UK. If sterling is weak then profits made abroad and dividends paid in a foreign currency are worth more once they are converted back into sterling. If the £ was to return to say $1.50 and €1.40. Then the FTSE could well slip back.

Thanks Thruglemir.
Talking of Sterling it’s not been heavily reported that it closed the year 9% down on its pre referendum level after opening the year 18% down. Accepting the Remainer mantra that we haven’t actually left yet, it does seem that every perceived negative the Remoaners like to hang their hat on are becoming as nothing.
Is Brexit or the thought of it becoming ‘normalised’ perhaps?

Tromking

Moby wrote: »

The AfD may be in the bundestag but we have our own extremists and the only reason they are not in parliament is due to 'first past the post' not because we are better people!

Perhaps we are better people, or our democrats who we vote for are. The argument against PR was always that it produces weak Government and encourages the lunatic fringe. As we’ve never voted for a party that would end FPTP I would say the intincts of the British people are spot on. I think I read somewhere that the AfD could be the official opposition in the Bundestag if Merkel throws her hat in with the second biggest party. Scary stuff, and would never happen in the UK because we’re better people.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Tromking wrote: »

Talking of Sterling it’s not been heavily reported that it closed the year 9% down on its pre referendum level after opening the year 18% down.

Eh?

Sterling has barely moved against the trade weighted index basket of currencies, it plummeted on 23rd June 2016 and has bumped along the bottom ever since.



Still firmly in Banana Republic Pound Territory.