Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

gfplux

ukcarper wrote: »

True but there is no real incentive to develop machines when you have an source of cheap Labour.

I used to hear a great deal a couple of years ago that banks were reluctant to lend to small businesses.
Has that changed?
Lending money to a strawberry farmer in normal times would be tricky. Brexit has made the short term future uncertain so I suspect most banks have tightened their lending criteria.
I do not see the Government offering to underwrite these loans any time soon.

gfplux

iro wrote: »

A good question a 'proper wage' is one that attracts workers without relying on those from a poor economy where living standards are a sixth of the UK's

A proper wage is when employers are incentivised to substitute capital for labour, this will not happen whilst FOM is in place.

How many hand car washes existed before 2004?

None (unless you count bob a job week).

Why does it take a foreigner to see a gap in the hand car wash market?

iro

gfplux wrote: »

Why does it take a foreigner to see a gap in the hand car wash market?

Let us substitute labour for capital and then subsidise the labour by billions of handouts in tax credits that get spent elsewhere this was the Blair approach.

gfplux

fewgroats wrote: »

I think this "We leave next March" is a delaying tactic. We could leave now if it were possible.

Whatever happens in March will be up to a new Prime Minister.

Wrong.
Britain leaves the EU at the end of March 2019 UNLESS something dramatic happens to stop it.
That’s less than 300 days away.
If a transition agreement is signed it will mean that from April 1st 2019 will have left but will continue AS IF it were still a member until the end of December 2020.

gfplux

spikyone wrote: »

Whilst I was (and still am) a Leave supporter, I'm not naive enough to believe that in 2018 there's a queue of teenagers desperate to earn money by picking fruit. And it doesn't solve the problem of fruit picking outside school holidays.

However I agree with the sentiment that importing labour for a job that 99% of the population could perform is a ridiculous situation. We are not short of potential labour to pick fruit, but Tony Blair's "send them all to university" idiocy has created a nation where practically everyone thinks that manual work is beneath them. What we need is a more joined-up approach to those that are claiming benefits, where going out and picking fruit - or filling other low-skill employment gaps left by reduced unskilled immigration - is advantageous compared to the free money of being on the dole. That doesn't necessarily mean cutting unemployment benefits, but might mean the government subsidises fruit-picking to slightly top up a minimum wage provided by growers. That supports the industry and has to be cheaper than just paying people to "look for work". Win-win.

Great in theory but can you see it even being tried? Would a farmer risk his crop on the possibility that enough pickers would be supplied at the right time and day in and day out through the season. I suspect not.

gfplux

vivatifosi wrote: »

I was watching Adam Boulton on Sky News earlier and there was plenty of Brexit on that, in particular Faisal Islam and the story about components from UK manufacturers. It wasn't all about that though, there was also a really good segment on the total c*ck up currently being made by the train companies.

I had heard about % of home made components but only in discussion about making America great again.
Frankly did not know of nor thought about this as a Brexit issue.

This from Bloomberg email today.

QUOTE
Beware of British Parts | The European Commission has issued a warning to companies that, as of next March, British parts won’t count as EU content in goods exported from the bloc to countries with which it has trade deals. The advice is to treat any U.K. inputs as “non-originating,” but some companies might interpret it as a suggestion to switch to EU parts instead. Trade deals include so-called rules of origin, specifying that goods getting special treatment must be made at least partly in the relevant country – in this case the EU. That means companies using U.K. components will have to recalculate how “European” their goods are after Brexit.
END QUOTE

Does anyone know what or which components may or might be affected?

Ballard

iro wrote: »

Is it just me or is the wall to wall coverage of Grenfell pushing Brexit down the news agenda?

How about a dedicated 'Grenfell channel' for those interested in the minutiae?

The rest of us can then watch the news, i.e. stuff that is happening today.

This says a lot about you.

Thrugelmir

Originally Posted by gfplux
Why does it take a foreigner to see a gap in the hand car wash market?

Slave labour perhaps.

Better than paying tax and national insurance on earnings for picking fruit. As work is cash in hand. Easier too.

Herzlos

What components may be affected? Literally anything that can be a component of something else, that is then exported by the EU. It'd o my mean more paperwork as they may lose the "mostly EU origin" exemption for stuff like type approval. So it may be easier to source EU stuff.

The rules exist so you can't import non-compliant stuff from the far east, stick a new label on it and claim it's european.

This is something the EU will be very careful with, for goods that are "British".

Thrugelmir

ilovehouses wrote: »

Those good old days you remember were probably pre-industrial revolution.

We're moving bravely into a brave new world grasping the many opportunities not hankering after the good old days of the 1830s.

Yeah. No one wants to work anymore. No need. Get a few BTL's to generate an income. While buying imported goods from China. Absolute doodle.