Not surprised. The "fear, uncertainty and doubt" of leaving the EU is clearly becoming a little less uncertain leading to more fear of Brexit. Inevitable that some will resort to even more extreme views.

Had unofficial confirmation this week that one of my clients, a major US multinational, have already established the plan to move their European HQ to Switzerland if we vote Brexit. Not if we leave; if the referendum votes "leave".

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

A couple of useful, perhaps even insightful, comments on recent news items.
Use of the word “Queue”:-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...pm_world_pop_b


And some commentary, analysis and general overview of some of the arguments, with a twist in the tale/tail:-
Why should we take advice from a president who has surrendered the world to chaos?


As for earlier comments herein related to writers on the internet, I read and assess the message without recourse to who the messenger happens to be; in other words, it is best to make up your own mind about the veracity of any particular piece of information.


It is salutary to know that traditional-minded, closed-shop type of people holding a particular ideology (whether they be MSM, historians, environmentalists or whatever) and all the other self-interested groups find their current orthodoxies under challenge – long may it continue.
In the specific two cases of the writings of Mark Weber to which I linked, he cites a wide range of traditional, well-known historians in his writings and he makes a strong case in each of the two articles, irrespective of the background history of the website for which he writes.


However, the overall point is that the current dude in the White House has done nothing different from his predecessors, but he has been far less subtle – possibly because he is winding down and seeing out his period of notice?

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Dave

[QUOTE=Walkabout;536694]
In the specific two cases of the writings of Mark Weber to which I linked, he cites a wide range of traditional, well-known historians in his writings and he makes a strong case in each of the two articles, irrespective of the background history of the website for which he writes.
[QUOTE]

Your don't need to spend more than 10 minutes researching the IHR and Mark Weber to understand their agendas and attempts to change modern history through pseudo scholarly publications like their own Journal of Historical Review and their links with far right white supremacy movements

Mark Weber: The Professional Denier

I think I'll get my facts elsewhere thanks

Swiss facts:
1.They have 15% immigration at present.
2. This is of concern to the Swiss people who have made that clear in a referendum that gives their government two years to come up with a solution to what is considered to be excessive amounts of foreign workers imposed upon them by the EU regulations.
The two years expires around the end of this year.

Opinion:
The Swiss have a system of democracy that is the purest/nearest thing to a true democracy this side of utopia.

It does not pay for the Swiss government to attempt to ignore the result of the cantons' referendum (from memory, there are 16 of them and each and every one has a veto).

In any case, we will continue to be able to trade with the Swiss.

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Dave

Musing upon the UK economy, on the one hand we have a government in place (for now at least) that claims to subscribe to the laissez-faire (L-F) approach to everything, the economy, policy for education – everything.
A key exception lies in EU sponsored legislation which is implemented in UK law with alacrity and is then monitored and enforced by the best group of civil servants on this planet.

Meanwhile, our official “opposition” political parties have no answer to this L-F approach, being formed from and based on what amounts to discredited socialist ideology from the 19th century (even Cuba is joining in and is coming in out of the cold).
OTOH, the very same UK government (including anyone bought by the establishment) have claimed via their recent publications to be able to predict, to an order of accuracy of one decimal point, what will come to pass with the UK economy about 15 years from now.
So, we have a L-F approach to the economy on the surface but big government lies behind that; big government that is over-bearing, excessively prone to interfering and generally incompetent in that it takes short term decisions based on their own political expediency, especially when elections are in the offing.
Just put this down as some kind of anomaly or is it the best of both worlds?


Globalisation.
It's the way forward.
For trading that is.
It should be borne in mind that governments don't trade; it is businesses, and individuals, who trade – governments just get in the way, imposing national and international rules as a means of implementing their political power and influence.
But, nation states are extant; they are not going to disappear in some magical process of elimination leading to a utopian planet of world citizens, a single world currency, a single world of common taxation rates and free movement of billions of people from anywhere to anywhere else.
The evidence for this view is clearly seen within the ongoing Eurozone experiment; by any measure , it ain't working.
In the case of the UK, we have been selling off the family silver (to use one cliche) for many years – the net result is that what used to be considered to be key strategic industries are now owned by corporations based in other countries; Germany, France, India, China, USA, you name them.
Some recent examples:-
Tata Steel formerly “British Steel”, aka Corus, from India, will put the interests of their own home nation before those of the UK – their UK boss said as much to the House of Commons committee a couple of days ago.

SSI, another steel production company but based in Thailand, pull out of the UK closing down a plant for which they may* have received earlier grant funding from the UK government.
(Over the past years, various companies have done exactly this, receiving generous subsidies sourced from the UK government/taxpayers for local or national political reasons to set up a facility and then pulling out, virtually at no notice, once the subsidies have been paid into an overseas bank account and any time limitations imposed have expired).

EDF currently indulge in the internal politics of France rather than meet their commitments to UK national energy policy agreed (yet again) directly with the UK government.

The common factor is government interference in trade; a “we know better than those directly involved” approach.

Does any of this matter in the context of in/out of Europe?

*I haven't researched this because there are far too many examples in other industries; they are legion.
In addition, the recent decision to close down the SSI blast furnace was correct from an engineering point of view (and from an economic point of view, if one can get past politically inspired financial decisions, yet again).
Arguably, that plant should never have been re-opened in 2012.
Sahaviriya Steel Industries relights Redcar blast furnace | The Engineer
“This philosophy was, and could only have been dreamed up by individuals with a financial background. I can assure you they were not professional engineers”

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Dave

Here's another version of representative democracy that will be totally ignored, at least until next years' elections in France.
French National Assembly Votes to Lift Russian Sanctions

Edit:
That link will try to get you to sign up, and pay.

Here's the gist of the situation, as described by another online site:-
America and EU countries illegally imposed sanctions on Russia - Washington four times since March 2014 for fabricated reasons relating to Ukraine.

Nations unilaterally or collectively may not impose sanctions on other countries, individuals, businesses or organizations. International law permits only Security Council members to impose them.

They're counterproductive achieving nothing. The EU succumbed to heavy US pressure, instituting its own sanctions on Russian state-owned banks, defense and oil companies, as well as restricting sales of weapons, military and dual-use technologies, high tech and oil industry related products.

Russia responded in kind, banning imports of various EU agricultural products. Sanctions harm both sides, accomplishing nothing for either.

On Wednesday, 101 out of 577 lower house French National Assembly deputies voted on a non-binding resolution to lift sanctions on Russia - 55 for, 44 against and 2 abstentions, the majority of lawmakers not participating.

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Dave

We'll need to. They'll have a lot of our jobs if we Brexit.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

The logic of moving to a non-EU country like Switzerland in fear of the UK also becoming a non-EU country defeats me.


My industry is the heavily regulated and protectionist airline industry. It wound me up no end to watch Paul Kahn, the president of Airbus Group UK who said Airbus would not end its activities in the UK in the event of a vote to leave the EU but warned that future investments depended “very much on the economic environment in which the company operates”. This is the same company who a week earlier rolled off its first A321 at their new US Alabama plant and the same company who offered to transfer wing production from Broughton in Wales to China in exchange for a large order. So no change there, why did they make the intervention? What they don't want is the UK or Welsh government having the ability in an independent BREXITED UK to interfere should they wish to to move production out of the UK. This is how they want it, the EU to be supreme, an EU they can and do manipulate and the Welsh or UK government having little influence. As with steel so with aerospace.


Paul Kahn failed to mention (and was failed to be challenged on) if he would also decline the billions of taxpayers money used to build up Airbus – about €5 billion per project and if we left the EU would his outfit not ask the UK taxpayer for future subsidies, subsidies on which Airbus is 100% dependent. Draw your own conclusions...


As per my recent post about Triumph already anticipating the EU legislation, on hold until after the referendum, have made up their mind about whether to be in the EU or not and voted with their feet; they have built their four new factories in Thailand and Brazil


The other day I watched Ford's European chief Jim Farley state his company's position as Britain is better off remaining. The autocutie “interviewing” him failed to challenge the man on the fact that Ford, who continue to make many components in the UK closed down the factory that made that icon of the “British one man band” the Transit Van, the last Ford vehicle factory in the UK and moved it outside the EU to Turkey. Months before the closure they took £10m off the British tax payer to bolster the Southampton plant that made it. Jim Farley (and said “reporter”) neglected to mention the fact the Ford, the wealthiest and most profitable of the US car makers also got an £80m cheap loan from guess who? Yes the EU - to build up their Turkish plant. UK taxpayers subsidised Ford to move their plant outside the EU with the help of the EU.




As Cochise would say “white man talk with forked tongue”. Take away message is, there is no econonmic downside, only upside to leaving.



In any case, this referendum will be won on immigration and a strong stomach is needed for that distasteful fight.

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There is no need for a strong stomach for the immigration issue....its quite easy...put a stop to it so we as 'The British' stop getting fleeced by foreigners taking the p!33 out of our welfare and health systems.
I am a foreigner in the country I am living in, I don't ask for nowt and I definitely won't get nowt, as hard as it is, Thailand has it right in that respect

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417