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Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

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Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#91

Post by masklinn »

zeveb wrote: post #69
vonnik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the…

> The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people. So it was always about power, then? Why shouldn't all states enjoy the free movement of goods & people without giving up their sovereignty? The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.

> Why shouldn't all states enjoy the free movement of goods & people without giving up their sovereignty?

Free movement between sovereign entities always entails yielding some amount of sovereignty loss, you can't have free movement of goods and people between two cities if there isn't a supra-city structure.

> The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.

That's just your opinion, I do not agree with it.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#92

Post by p4wnc6 »

mjevans wrote: post #87
evgen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have fundementally mixed things up here. The UK is (was) the second-largest economy in the EU. If you want to talk about percentage contribution to the EU budget the UK was a net contributor of 8.5 billion pounds (after "rebate") more than it received from that same EU budget that totals around 125 billion pounds. So they put in about 7% of the budget and get about 10% of the votes. Definitely a deal that…

I'll take your word on those numbers as they sound reasonable. However I do believe you've neglected the other points of the post which were about the value of access to the European market place and that 10% say in how said market is run. Those are costs / benefits which are not so easily counted before the painful divorce is complete.

But it's unlikely for EU nations to significantly damage trading relationships with the UK. Germany, for example, exports a huge volume of cars to the UK and it comprises a significant portion of German GDP. Yes, there's volatility around exactly how such a trade deal will get worked out, but it's unrealistic to lump "access to European markets" into one big ball and assume that Brexit means that whole topic will be impacted negatively.

In reality, most significant European trading partners with UK just want to keep on trading with them mostly as they have been, and will work out deals that allow such trading to mostly continue. There doesn't seem to be much reason to think such trade deals will be radically changed in a way that damages anyone for the long term.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#93

Post by djschnei »

masklinn wrote: post #71
djschnei wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because prior to the Hague Congress the countries that now inhabit the EU were shining examples of free trade. With the exception of Ludwig Erhard in Germany (which despite losing the war, had the strongest economic recovery), protectionism and regressive economic policy crippled the region. The EU initially healed some of those wounds, but what it was going to become was inevitable and predictable.

> The EU initially healed some of those wounds, but what it was going to become was inevitable and predictable. Of course free trade was an inevitable consequence of european integration, I never claimed otherwise.

Clearly, free trade can and did exist before 1992, 1957, and 1942. My point was that the initial idea behind the union (in it's various forms) was to ease the pain felt by the existing regressive protectionism of the region. All in all, considering the relatively small size of the world (economically), this was a great idea. However, over time the union has taken on even more restrictive forms of protectionism except now the border is different. The results, predictably, are the same.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

djschnei wrote: post #93
masklinn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU initially healed some of those wounds, but what it was going to become was inevitable and predictable. Of course free trade was an inevitable consequence of european integration, I never claimed otherwise.

Clearly, free trade can and did exist before 1992, 1957, and 1942. My point was that the initial idea behind the union (in it's various forms) was to ease the pain felt by the existing regressive protectionism of the region. All in all, considering the relatively small size of the world (economically), this was a great idea. However, over time the union has taken on even more restrictive forms of protectionism except…

> Clearly, free trade can and did exist before 1992, 1957, and 1942.

Trade did exist. Free trade less so, and a durable expectation of free trade on predictable terms (free or otherwise) even less so.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#95

Post by raverbashing »

Animats wrote: post #48

This may mean the breakup of the United Kingdom, too. Scotland and Northern Ireland mostly want to stay in Europe, and may choose to leave the UK, leaving Britain and Wales as the UK.[1] As a practical matter, it will become harder to do business into the EU from Britain. Visiting the EU from Britain may require a visa, and visiting Britain from the EU almost certainly will. This is really about Keeping Britain White…

> Visiting the EU from Britain may require a visa, and visiting Britain from the EU almost certainly will.

Oh I wouldn't worry one second about this.

UK allows visit without a visa from a multitude of countries. This is not changing (nor the EU side)

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#96

Post by IkmoIkmo »

evgen wrote: post #67
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really is a key point. The UK contributed a net of something like 140m pounds a week or so to the EU, that's about 7b pounds on a 1.8 trillion pound economy, or a small (0.3%) fraction or so of the GDP. For that they got 10% or so of the votes in all European affairs, and access to a market (50% of UK exports are to the EU) under favourable trade agreements, which are easily worth 0.3% of GDP in and of itself. N…

I think you have fundementally mixed things up here. The UK is (was) the second-largest economy in the EU. If you want to talk about percentage contribution to the EU budget the UK was a net contributor of 8.5 billion pounds (after "rebate") more than it received from that same EU budget that totals around 125 billion pounds. So they put in about 7% of the budget and get about 10% of the votes. Definitely a deal that…

> let's please stick to reality and facts here.

Why say you're sticking to the facts and then repeat pretty much the facts I stated with a different perspective?

8.5b (I think I had it at 7b, it depends on various valuations but ultimately it doesn't matter much as it's roughly the same) on the British economy (roughly 1.9 trillion pounds) is a fraction of a percent, I stated about 0.3%, you're stating around 0.45%, again, it's not much different, they're all figures in the same ballpark.

This 0.45% I cite because it's British GDP. I'm talking from the perspective of Britain having to give up part of its GDP as a contribution to the EU. That contribution is 0.45% of its economy, in return, you got 10% of the EU vote. That's reality and facts, no?

That's a tiny price to pay. Imagine you could pay 7b a year for 10% of the vote in the US, or in China, or hell imagine China or the US could purchase a 10% vote in the EU for 7b, it's a ridiculously silly small amount of money.

How am I not sticking to reality and facts.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#97

Post by tomp »

vonnik wrote: post #14
volatilitish wrote: post #2

As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. There will be a little volatility until some facts about how that divorce happens, emerge. Long term, we now have control of our future. In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It's there to hinder startups and small businesses. If y…

Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the…

> The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people.

I really hate this sentiment. This is just about the worst EU can do, it would damage its legitimacy in the eyes of us, EU citizens, even more than the handling of the Greek crisis already did.

I don't see any reason to punish a country for voting to leave the EU, except pure spite and greed for more power. Why can't we all be friends, each on the terms that they want?!

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#98

Post by Cuuugi »

badsock wrote: post #58
raverbashing wrote: post #3

There's some talk that immigration from the Commonwealth will be facilitated. I don't buy it. It's already difficult to find talent from the block, and several people come to Europe with a visa Yeah, I think the UK shot themselves in the foot with this

As a Canadian, I want nothing to do with a country where a party like UKIP has the kind of sway they demonstrated yesterday.

Also speaking as a Canadian, i am ok with it. We have multiple political views in this country, you don't speak for all of us.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#99

Post by masklinn »

mioelnir wrote: post #83
genzoman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not live in Europe, but this line struck me: "force everyone to do better". Which I interpret as you can't make decisions on your own, big daddy government must make those decisions for you.

The EU forces a minimum standard for you have to implement, correct. Like not pumping unfiltered sewage into a freshwater reservoir, giving a damn about air pollution, non-toxic children's toys etc. These are not made-up examples.

> The EU forces a minimum standard for you have to implement, correct. Like not pumping unfiltered sewage into a freshwater reservoir, giving a damn about air pollution, non-toxic children's toys etc.

And it's not just health or industrial standards, the EU forces a bunch of legal and human rights onto countries as well, many EU countries have gotten repeatedly and rightfully dinged over various deficiencies.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#100

Post by tomp »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #53
masklinn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make the EU sound like an abusive spouse. "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you!" The UK decided that it could tell the EU to get fucked and get all the benefits of the relationship without any of the drawbacks, it is not in the EU's interest to confirm that and it has very little reason to bend over for the UK. To reuse your ménage analogy, it's more like one spouse deciding to up and go and asking for the house, c…

It's more like one spouse saying "I'm leaving you, please don't hurt the children". (By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.)

I agree with yummyfajitas here. A rational person would say "OK, we're not compatible, let's split up, but no point destroying the house, spending all our money on lawyers and kill each other". An irrational, emotional, greedy or terribly insecure person would say "You? Leaving me? How could you?! You FUCKER! I'LL RUIN YOU!!! AAAARGGGGGHHHH!!!!!"
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