Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kensington and Chelsea. Definitely!
Kensington High Street for the inhabitants of Kensington High Street!
You can keep your stinkin' High Street. We Chesterton Roadies don't want any part of it!
UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
141–150 of 649 posts
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#142Great news. Of the four happiest countries in the world, three are European countries outside the EU. Autonomy is crucial to happiness.
A great thing about autonomy is the ability to quickly solve national problems. Compare and contrast non-EU Iceland and EU Greece. Both came near to collapse due to financial crises. Iceland jailed the bankers and recovered. Greece is in the EU straight-jacket, the corrupt bankers became kings and the people will be in debt bondage for decades. Brexit is comparable to the Berlin Wall falling. Like the Soviet Union, t…
> Greece is in the EU straight-jacket
The lack of freedom for Greece to manage its finances is because it's a member of the Euro, not the EU. That isn't really relevant to the UK.
And as far as I know, neither the Euro nor EU laws limited the Greeks' ability to prosecute their bankers. Is there a reason those are connected?
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK incorporating in Netherlands is very cheap. You need 1 euro starting capital and the notary fee, which is a few hundred euros. Are you referring to the initial incorporation costs or the ongoing tax burden?
A few hundred euros is a lot more than the UK. You can get the whole thing done in the UK for like £15.
Yes, but you do get tax breaks if you have a small company, such as Mkb-winstvrijstelling, which is 14% of the profit.
There is nothing similar in the UK AFAIK.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#144I'm a big believer in not having assumptions and testing things with actual experiments. This is one experiment I'd rather not be participating in, though. It's difficult to see very much positive about this move; certainly there will be some benefits, but I expect greatly outweighed by the negatives (which will include higher prices, lower employment and probably lower standards for UK workers - the EU has consisten…
> which will include higher prices Interesting. I was in a UK supermarket the other day and the asparagus on offer was from Spain and Mexico. The Mexican variety was cheaper, and just as good. Currently, Mexico pays a 14.4% common external tariff on this product, and it's still cheaper than what the EU (with it's massive array of agricultural subsidy) can produce. I imagine this is just the tip of the iceberg.
That may be because the minimum wages are massively different for the two countries, with $0.48/hr in Mexico vs $4.98/hr in Spain[1]. Globalism does exploit the lower standard of living of other countries, after all. That means that even though there are massive tariffs, these "third world" countries can still make a profit because of the abysmal quality of life for its citizens.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#145I'm a bit tired of reading doomsday messages by now. I am an European living and working in the UK and even though this affects me I have no reason to believe that things will go downwards now. If there's anything I've learned so far then that every analysis I've read couldn't have been more wrong. It almost seems like the more the UK economy doesn't collapse the more people shout even louder how bad the Brexit is. M…
It doesn't help the EU is acting like a petulant wronged partner. We didn't even cheat on you!
I mean, seriously, £68 billion for stuff we're not going to be able to use? Grow up and rework your budget. No trade negotiations until we leave?
It makes them look like utter fools, one dose of actual democracy deciding they've had enough of backdoor federalisation and they're threatening every punishment they can think of.
I know others now express regret at voting leave, but I now start to have the opposite, I voted remain and the way Junker et al. are acting is a stark reminder at how undemocratic, bureaucratic and unrepresentative of its citizens the EU is.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't have the option per se: it can ask to abort it, and it can do so with the agreement of the 27. Also, the 27 can agree to a date far off in the future (it doesn't have to be two years). It seems staggeringly unlikely that they would allow us to abort without a major change in relationship, though, and politically things would need to get extremely difficult for the UK for that to become palatable. All the e…
What is the precise source for the statement "it can [abort the process] with the agreement of the 27"? It's not in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
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Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#147I'm a bit tired of reading doomsday messages by now. I am an European living and working in the UK and even though this affects me I have no reason to believe that things will go downwards now. If there's anything I've learned so far then that every analysis I've read couldn't have been more wrong. It almost seems like the more the UK economy doesn't collapse the more people shout even louder how bad the Brexit is. M…
The worst effects will be felt when the UK is booted from the EU single market. UK trade policy has been based around being an entry point of products from elsewhere into the EU. When that goes poof, a whole lot of trade will go directly from the world to the EU countries and those areas will do their very best to make free trade agreements with the EU. The UK will simply lose out. That's the jackhammer awaiting the UK.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#148I'm a big believer in not having assumptions and testing things with actual experiments. This is one experiment I'd rather not be participating in, though. It's difficult to see very much positive about this move; certainly there will be some benefits, but I expect greatly outweighed by the negatives (which will include higher prices, lower employment and probably lower standards for UK workers - the EU has consisten…
These are pretty much the same forecasts Switzerland and Norway were supposed to face when they rejected to join the EU... people losing jobs, Swiss Franc falling, export collapsing, etc... well, it went a little bit in a different way. OFC leaving is totally a different thing from not being in at all, but still... there are going to be pro and cons, but the economy will adapt as happened in Switzerland and Norway. S…
What? Norway is a member of the EEA and Switzerland has bilateral agreements that come to the same thing. Nothing changed for them they just don't get a say in the rules.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#149Whatever one may think of the politics or if one's country should join/leave, it's absolutely true that EU has been a big factor in keeping the peace between European nations for decades. The Nobel Peace Prize to EU got a lot of criticism because of politics, but I think it was important to show that EU has helped keep the peace.
I don't buy this argument.
There was a long period of peace after Waterloo in 1815.
After WW1 the powers of Europe were still big players on the world stage and Germany still felt it had some sort of imperialist destiny to fulfill.
After world war two Europe was exhausted and reliant on the usa for protection from the warsaw pact.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#150Whatever one may think of the politics or if one's country should join/leave, it's absolutely true that EU has been a big factor in keeping the peace between European nations for decades. The Nobel Peace Prize to EU got a lot of criticism because of politics, but I think it was important to show that EU has helped keep the peace.
I know there has been intra-nation peace in western Europe since the end of WWII, but how do we know it was due to the EU? Both the peace and the EU would seem to as easily explained by the post war situation where European nations were now second tier economicly, and threatened by a big external nation. The reward for war was no longer there, and the need for cooperation was high.
> European nations were now second tier economicly, and threatened by a big external nation.
Wasn't this also true for eg WW1?
Even with the same actors