Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament • Hacker News Board

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#971

Post by sonnyblarney » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

jayalpha wrote: post #815

sonnyblarney wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gains that Germany and France will make in EU oriented financials services will pale in comparison to the loss of a major trading partner. Remember that the EU is becoming less and less important over time as a financial services market, even the UK's financial services sector has become less dependant on it over time. The juicier fruit is in the rest of the world. There's quite a lot of real trade between the EU…

"Remember that the EU is becoming less and less important over time as a financial services market, even the UK's financial services sector has become less dependant on it over time." Ah, no? "The juicier fruit is in the rest of the world." The world is limited. a) USA. Very little taxes in trade with the EU already. Little to gain with FTA. b) Canada? Okay, but the UK has this Free trade agreement (FTA) already via…

Your comments assume 'FTA' is the key ingredient in the equation - it is not.

The UK is growing financial services exports in almost all of the markets you mentioned, so I don't really see what your point is there. [1]

Third - the UK is not 'leaving' European markets, they are changing the terms of trade. Goods and services will continue to flow.

(Thankfully, 'services' don't face the fundamental challenges that 'goods' do at the border outside of a customs union)

The UK already exports as much financial services to the US as it does to the entire EU [2] and the underlying impetus is fundamentally in the rest of the world.

Similar to your comment about Japan - the UK already exports quite a lot in financial services (3 billion pounds/year and growing).

" Also, trust me, the Chinese have not forgotten the Opium war" No, I don't trust you.

[1] https://colresearch.typepad.com/colresearch/2017/03/trends-a...

[2] https://colresearch.typepad.com/colresearch/2016/08/how-impo...

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#972

Post by nearbuy » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:27 AM UTC

jonathanstrange wrote: post #837

nearbuy wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear the refrain that, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms that have been tried". But how many forms have actually been tried? As far as I know, every country is either a democracy or an autocracy. Maybe it could be better phrased as, "Democracy is better than autocracy, and we think it's crazy to try anything else".

What else do you have in mind? There are dozens if not hundreds of different types of democracy, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, and many forms of democracy that have not yet been tried. Most of them would be disastrous, for example "direct democracy" as opposed to representative, parliamentary democracy could not possibly work outside of a small village. But it's odd to look at this as trying…

I don't have anything specific in mind, and obviously it's virtually impossible to just "try out" different systems in an established country.

My objection to refrains along the lines of "democracy is the best system" is that it tends to shut down thought about other possibilities. We were taught from the time we're young that democracy is the best. But in reality, there's been very little experimentation. I'd rather encourage people to think on how we can continue to evolve our forms of government, not just in the details, but all the way up to how we choose our leadership.

I don't know how we'd test them. Computer models? Trial runs in small communities?

I don't know if anyone will come up with anything better. But there are possibilities other than "everyone votes for a leader" or, "one leader has power for life".

Democracy can be damn scary sometimes. The Nazi party was democratically elected. Who's to say that in 20 years, the majority of Americans couldn't be bigoted against some minority?

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#973

Post by mirimir » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:40 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #877

mirimir wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In seeking to destabilize opponents, a key strategy is sowing domestic discontent. Everyone does it, to the best of their abilities. And in particular, it was a key part of the Cold War. So the US managed to destabilize the Soviet Union. Threats from NATO and strategic nuclear weapons forced the Soviets to spend so much on defense that the civilian economy was destroyed. And yes, corruption and incompetence also play…

What if, instead of foreign influences, you just swap in poor economic management? I mean, China has moved from a position considerably weaker than Russia in its heyday to one that is probably stronger. So whatever mischief you think the US tried, obviously the Chinese have figured out how to deal with it. It seems to have involved a dose of freeish-markets. > And in the 60s, promoting protest against the Vietnam war…

Re the Vietman War, of course opposition made perfect sense. It was a stupid, misguided adventure. It was driven by the "zero tolerance" standard for accepting communist development, even when in response to legitimate grievances. For Vietnam, that was long-term colonialist repression by the French.

So I'm not arguing that the Soviets created the antiwar opposition. But they clearly helped it develop. As I understand it, the main actors were domestic US communists, who were encouraged to join the movement, help train and organize, and so on. I was there, and I was part of it.

About Russian-influence conspiracy theory, have you actually watched RT very much? They've been trolling disgruntled Americans for almost 15 years. As subversive as VoA ever was, they've been total straight shooters compared with RT.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#974

Post by nearbuy » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 3:09 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #721

nearbuy wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear the refrain that, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms that have been tried". But how many forms have actually been tried? As far as I know, every country is either a democracy or an autocracy. Maybe it could be better phrased as, "Democracy is better than autocracy, and we think it's crazy to try anything else".

What else is there? The only systems I'm aware of are variants of either democracy or autocracy. Control is either dispersed among many (democratic) or centralized among a few (autocratic). Or there's no control and you have anarchy, I guess. There is certainly in a lot of room for improvement in how we elect leaders and what powers we give them. But, I think the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that dispersed power…

I replied to a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18927767

To reiterate, my main objection to asserting "democracy is the best" is that it discourages thought about other possibilities.

I don't know what work better. But I do think there are other possibilities. I'm using a somewhat stricter definition of democracy and autocracy. For our purposes, lets say a democracy allows nearly everyone to vote for a person or party that will have complete or nearly complete control over the government. We'll allow exceptions for felons and young people not voting. Lets call countries where one person has full power an autocracy.

I'm not going to give an example of a perfect form of government. But I'll give some bad or half-baked ideas just to illustrate it's possible.

As you mentioned, there's anarchy. Not far from there, you could have rule by corporations, where corporations hire their own internal police force to protect their employees, enforce their rules, and make up for the lack of national government. I know, scary. I said these weren't good ideas.

You could have rule by experts. Technocracy, or something similar. Only economists would vote on economic policy, medical professionals would vote on healthcare policy, etc.

We could say all new laws must be in pursuit of some mandate, such as increasing standard of living for the lowest 30% of the population. Laws that don't work towards this goal could be challenged and struck down in courts. Maybe laws could be proposed by anyone and the most upvoted ones would be considered by the courts.

Maybe direct democracy should be revisited now that we have the internet.

We could allow more departments to operate independently, much like the Federal Reserve Bank does now.

Maybe it's totally impossible to improve on the democracy we have now. I'd still rather not discourage thinking about it.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#975

Post by nearbuy » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 3:14 AM UTC

2038AD wrote: post #762

nearbuy wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear the refrain that, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms that have been tried". But how many forms have actually been tried? As far as I know, every country is either a democracy or an autocracy. Maybe it could be better phrased as, "Democracy is better than autocracy, and we think it's crazy to try anything else".

I think part of that is democracy is a good brand and applies to concretely different things like: * No votes, just voluntary interactions * The people voting on every issue * The government/representatives being chosen randomly from the people * Elected representatives being voted for by the people * Political parties being voted for by the people Then you have more details like franchise, denizens vs citizens, bica…

The term can be pretty broad. In terms of what's used in practice, it's generally elected representatives or parties.

China's a pretty interesting counter-example. I don't know very much about their government unfortunately, beyond what tends to make the news.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#976

Post by nearbuy » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 3:18 AM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #873

nearbuy wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear the refrain that, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms that have been tried". But how many forms have actually been tried? As far as I know, every country is either a democracy or an autocracy. Maybe it could be better phrased as, "Democracy is better than autocracy, and we think it's crazy to try anything else".

Did you mean republic also known as highly hierarchical representative democratic bureaucracy?

Yes, I suppose that's more accurate. For some reason, your phrasing hasn't yet caught on with the general public.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#977

Post by rswail » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:08 AM UTC

robertony wrote: post #838

yholio wrote: post #41

The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on. It was a lie, you cannot force the EU to accept an unfavorable trade deal. If only for the reason that it would set an exceptionally bad precedent and everybody would want their own deal, to pick and choose the parts of EU membership that are favorable to them, leading the EU to implode. Somebody needs to own up to that lie and accept that a "no deal" outcome, wh…

The Brexit promise was to leave the EU and open better trading options with the rest of the world. Outside of the EU, there is no issue reducing VAT, customs fees etc. In fact, WTO rules even allow more competitive options between countries if the UK chooses to lower associated fees in the WTO. Additional the UK is able to negotiate trade deals for it's own interests rather than concerns about protectionism for the E…

Except that the UK is a small island off the side of the third largest trading bloc in the world. Why would anyone want to negotiate only with the UK?

Why would Japanese companies want to continue to manufacture vehicles in the UK when it will only support its local market?

The UK is a relatively small market, its only advantages were stability (now lost), having the City (a tax haven, with branches in British off-shore locations), and access to the EU.

You've still got the City, but EU finance will move to other capitals.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#978

Post by rswail » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:11 AM UTC

robertony wrote: post #855

_lbaq wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Brexit promise was to leave the EU and open better >trading options with the rest of the world. One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country.

> One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country. The EU has a history of being really slow at negotiating trade deals unfortunately. Further, the EU enforces VAT fees and implements protectionism with these methods to favour EU-based businesses, even when no EU competitors exist. These fees have a trendency to reduce economic activity within the EU and prevent che…

You mean the European Union negotiates to advantage the Union? Did you know that Scotland doesn't like England having a say in what happens there?

The UK had the benefit of memebership of the EU (the freedoms of goods/services/people) without the hindrance of the Euro on its own monetary policy.

Now people that can't even remember what it was like to be at the end of the British empire think that there was some magical period to go back to. It's pathetic.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#979

Post by rswail » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:12 AM UTC

robertony wrote: post #855

_lbaq wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Brexit promise was to leave the EU and open better >trading options with the rest of the world. One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country.

> One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country. The EU has a history of being really slow at negotiating trade deals unfortunately. Further, the EU enforces VAT fees and implements protectionism with these methods to favour EU-based businesses, even when no EU competitors exist. These fees have a trendency to reduce economic activity within the EU and prevent che…

One of the biggest exports from the UK is financial services. One of the reasons for that is the EU "passport" given to financial services firms to trade.

The UK is losing that export market. Really really dumb.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#980

Post by rswail » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:17 AM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #607

yholio wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no Canada+ on the table and there never was, it's just "Canada" without the "+": a set of trade liberalization measures that cover some physical goods and very few services. It's a bad match for Britain's needs: http://www.policyreview.co.uk/eu-uk-canada/ It's hard to understand why Germany or France, who stand to gain from excluding the powerful UK service sector from the EU financial markets, would think t…

The gains that Germany and France will make in EU oriented financials services will pale in comparison to the loss of a major trading partner. Remember that the EU is becoming less and less important over time as a financial services market, even the UK's financial services sector has become less dependant on it over time. The juicier fruit is in the rest of the world. There's quite a lot of real trade between the EU…

The UK already has a "Canada++" deal. They have carve outs on all sorts of EU regulations, they're not part of the Euro-zone, they have the natural barrier of the Channel (aside from inflatable rafts) against illegal immigration...

Plus the UK currently has a say in all other EU regulation.

Brexit was a stupid idea by rah-rah Tories that think the UK is still an Empire. Cameron was a mindless twat that thought he could kill off half his party with a dumb referendum.