Will Britain ever just piss off and get on with Brexit? -mod warning in OP (21/12)

Laois_Man

Laois_Man wrote: »

Chances are, a democratic president wouldn’t be making the outlandish promises that the Trump administration have been making. Refer to Obama’s comments during his visit to London a few weeks before the referendum.

These comments?

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-44688534/obama-adviser-on-how-cameron-asked-for-brexit-warning

Pa ElGrande

Pa ElGrande wrote: »

Ireland is being held hostage by the politics of Washington (Pelosi - Democrats control congress and automatically block the Trump administration) and France/Germany (Christine Lagarde - ECB, Ursula Von Der Leyen - EU Commissioner).

Au contraire, mon ami. Ireland is patently being held hostage by the internal politics of the English. If they just grew the fúck up, stopped blaming foreigners/the EU for their own decline and started to blame the tax-dodging wealthy British who have pushed for all that cheap foreign labour to undermine English workers, Brexit would not be happening.

Laois_Man

Aegir wrote: »

These comments?

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-44688534/obama-adviser-on-how-cameron-asked-for-brexit-warning

Yes, those comments precisely!

Peregrinus

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

If things get nasty, how much of Ireland's exports could bypass Britain as a landbridge?

Given time to build up capacity on alternative routes, most of them. But at a cost which would likely make some of them uneconomic.

If the Channel ports stay gummed up for a signficant period, this is a problem of us. But it's a much bigger problem for the Brits.

Peregrinus

Aegir wrote: »

If a Democrat president was in power and talking about a trade deal, would you expect Pelosi to have made the same comments?

Yes, of course the Irish lobby in the US is fairly strong, but it is also a very convenient political football as well.

What Laois Man said. more or less; a Democratic president is unlikely to have taken the position Trump took on this, for three reasons. First, a Democratic president would be much less enthusiastic about Brexit than Trump is. Secondly, a Democratic president would probably prioritise a trade deal with the EU over a trade deal with the UK. Thirdly, the Irish-American political lobby, while it crosses both parties, is much stronger in the Democratic party, so a Democratic president would be more sensitive to its concerns.

But if a Democratic president were in office, and did take the Trumpish stance on a UK trade deal, would I expect congressional democrats to make comments similar to Pelosi's? Yes, I would.

Kermit.de.frog

I see Boris is coming.


PLEASE, please some paper use the headline "Varadkar receives BJ in Dublin"...it has to happen.

davedanon

Deleted User wrote: »

Au contraire, mon ami. Ireland is patently being held hostage by the internal politics of the English. If they just grew the fúck up, stopped blaming foreigners/the EU for their own decline and started to blame the tax-dodging wealthy British who have pushed for all that cheap foreign labour to undermine English workers, Brexit would not be happening.

Isn't that last point just a Tory/Leave article of faith, unsupported by fact? Typically, 'cheap foreign labour' mops up the crappy jobs that indigenous labour won't do.

El_Duderino 09

davedanon wrote: »

Isn't that last point just a Tory/Leave article of faith, unsupported by fact? Typically, 'cheap foreign labour' mops up the crappy jobs that indigenous labour won't do.

It's only cheap because supply of labour is plentiful. I'm usually on the left. I think the most basic aspect of commerce is supply and demand. If you can't find anyone to pick fruit then you increase the pay and conditions, you charge more and the product either sells enough to be viable or it doesnt. . If you have a constant supply of labour willing to do the work then wages stay low, no career progression and no wage growth because you can be replaced by someone else willing to accept the low wage.

I strongly suspect the UK will angle for dropping the backstop and use a border made of CCTV and the power of positive thinking. In exchange accept free movement for lower skilled workers to keep wages down. Boris Johnson isn't hanging around with fruit pickers and minimum wage workers in his spare time. He's hanging around with business owners and wealthy people. It has never occurred to me that he will be a PM for the poor. He's a Tory after all.

epicmoe

Balanadan wrote: »

They're sending MEPs to Europe to pocket our money while turning their backs and acting the bollocks.

The door is open, why are they taking so long to leave?

looks like their are according to BoJo

davedanon

"It's only cheap because supply of labour is plentiful."

Yes, I see your point. But I still don't think it's that binary. I'm a leftie, too, btw. I just think it's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario. Are the wages low because it's a dirty job that no-one wants to do (fruit-picking, etc) and so employers are forced to bring in seasonal labourers? Or were those jobs once better-paying and did wages get forced down by greedy employers importing cheap labour? I'd concede the point if I saw solid data that proved it was the latter, but not just based on our leftie dogma.

I'd better admit that despite being über-liberal on social issues, I suppose I'm a bit more conservative on economic stuff. Old age. At least I haven't turned into a bitter old angry white man. Many of us do.

shesty

Old age maybe, but experience too.
I share the sentiment of this thread title.It is all just painful at this point.

El_Duderino 09

davedanon wrote: »

"It's only cheap because supply of labour is plentiful."

Yes, I see your point. But I still don't think it's that binary. I'm a leftie, too, btw. I just think it's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario. Are the wages low because it's a dirty job that no-one wants to do (fruit-picking, etc) and so employers are forced to bring in seasonal labourers? Or were those jobs once better-paying and did wages get forced down by greedy employers importing cheap labour? I'd concede the point if I saw solid data that proved it was the latter, but not just based on our leftie dogma.

I'd better admit that despite being über-liberal on social issues, I suppose I'm a bit more conservative on economic stuff. Old age. At least I haven't turned into a bitter old angry white man. Many of us do.

It's definitely not chicken and egg. Let's be clear about that. If you can't find people to do a a job for whatever reason ( highly skilled, dangerous, very physical etc.), then the wages and conditions rise and more people are willing to do the job. This is basic. Scarcity rises prices. Scarcity of labour rises the cost of labour. Plentiful labour lowers the cost of labour.

It's funny how we tend to imagine fruit picking as a minimum wage job no matter what the circumstances. If it paid well then more people would be willing to do it.

davedanon

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It's definitely not chicken and egg. Let's be clear about that. If you can't find people to do a a job for whatever reason ( highly skilled, dangerous, very physical etc.), then the wages and conditions rise and more people are willing to do the job. This is basic. Scarcity rises prices. Scarcity of labour rises the cost of labour. Plentiful labour lowers the cost of labour.

It's funny how we tend to imagine fruit picking as a minimum wage job no matter what the circumstances. If it paid well then more people would be willing to do it.

Well, that's your contention. I wouldn't necessarily agree.


Ever picked fruit? I have: tomatoes, potatoes etc, back in the day. Absolutely brutal work. I can't imagine it ever being well-paid.

Sir Guy who smiles

davedanon wrote: »

Well, that's your contention. I wouldn't necessarily agree.


Ever picked fruit? I have: tomatoes, potatoes etc, back in the day. Absolutely brutal work. I can't imagine it ever being well-paid.

A lot of building jobs are brutally physical; but when the pay went up (2001-2006) the number of people interested in this work increased dramatically.

El_Duderino 09

davedanon wrote: »

Well, that's your contention. I wouldn't necessarily agree.


Ever picked fruit? I have: tomatoes, potatoes etc, back in the day. Absolutely brutal work. I can't imagine it ever being well-paid.

Yeah I worked on a tomato farm and a grape farm. And briefly on an aubergine farm. Agree it's brutal work. Aubergines was just too hard for me. Bent over all day with legs straddling the drill. It's like a stress position.

But I have to ask what you think causes a job to be well or poorly paid. My Contention is that pay is relative to supply of people to do the job (plus some market meddling like price fixing). If a job has people queueing up to apply, then the pay will fall because you'll still fins someone to do the job. If there aren't enough people to do the job the pay has to rise to attract people.

Am I being mental or is the principle of supply and demand not in action anymore?

How do you see it working?

Experience_day

davedanon wrote: »

"It's only cheap because supply of labour is plentiful."

Yes, I see your point. But I still don't think it's that binary. I'm a leftie, too, btw. I just think it's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario. Are the wages low because it's a dirty job that no-one wants to do (fruit-picking, etc) and so employers are forced to bring in seasonal labourers? Or were those jobs once better-paying and did wages get forced down by greedy employers importing cheap labour? I'd concede the point if I saw solid data that proved it was the latter, but not just based on our leftie dogma.

I'd better admit that despite being über-liberal on social issues, I suppose I'm a bit more conservative on economic stuff. Old age. At least I haven't turned into a bitter old angry white man. Many of us do.

An excess of labour will drive the price down. I've had the dubious "pleasure" of having lived in quite a few areas, and worked some mean jobs at university (here and abroad)



The abuse of staff is pervasive. I'm talking ridiculous shifts, unfair conditions, difficult work, seriously antisocial hours........all for minimum wage (which frequently would work out less when everything was combined).



Now granted this was in the '10s when things were not great but it was because there was a ton of people were willing to work and those that were not happy were replaced. I was doing agency work cleaning a retail store from 10pm-5am, and though we officially had a break......it was when the food came in, and thus didn't happen. I asked if we could move the break by an hour so we could actually have a break.............and 2 days later got told that my contract was ended. Someone else took the job instantly.



I realise it is anecdotal but the point is there. If you have a surplus of labour especially at the lower end of the market where rights are less known and less enforceable, you are going to see a depressed wage.

El_Duderino 09

Experience_day wrote: »

An excess of labour will drive the price down. I've had the dubious "pleasure" of having lived in quite a few areas, and worked some mean jobs at university (here and abroad)

This is how I see it. The constant supply of labour means wages stay low which is great for business owners and consumers because prices stay lower. Not good for unskilled workers as pay stays low and conditions deteriorate because there's always someone who will do the job for the same low wage.

I suspect BJ will be fine with free movement to keep wages low. Keeps his wealthy peers happy and his tory Base happy. Poor people voting tory is the saddest act of self harm I can ever imagine.

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

This is how I see it. The constant supply of labour means wages stay low which is great for business owners and consumers because prices stay lower. Not good for unskilled workers as pay stays low and conditions deteriorate because there's always someone who will do the job for the same low wage.

I suspect BJ will be fine with free movement to keep wages low. Keeps his wealthy peers happy and his tory Base happy. Poor people voting tory is the saddest act of self harm I can ever imagine.

The UK allowing people from the new Eu member countries free movement was a decision made by Tony Blair and was done solely to keep wage inflation under control.

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah I worked on a tomato farm and a grape farm. And briefly on an aubergine farm. Agree it's brutal work. Aubergines was just too hard for me. Bent over all day with legs straddling the drill. It's like a stress position.

But I have to ask what you think causes a job to be well or poorly paid. My Contention is that pay is relative to supply of people to do the job (plus some market meddling like price fixing). If a job has people queueing up to apply, then the pay will fall because you'll still fins someone to do the job. If there aren't enough people to do the job the pay has to rise to attract people.

Am I being mental or is the principle of supply and demand not in action anymore?

How do you see it working?

Relying on supply and demand for the production of food and farm labour has a colourful history in this country to say the least.

El_Duderino 09

ronoc wrote: »

Relying on supply and demand for the production of food and farm labour has a colourful history in this country to say the least.

I'm fine with subsidies to keep domestic agricultural afloat. But it shouldn't be used to keep the price of labour artificially low.

Experience_day

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

This is how I see it. The constant supply of labour means wages stay low which is great for business owners and consumers because prices stay lower. Not good for unskilled workers as pay stays low and conditions deteriorate because there's always someone who will do the job for the same low wage.

I suspect BJ will be fine with free movement to keep wages low. Keeps his wealthy peers happy and his tory Base happy. Poor people voting tory is the saddest act of self harm I can ever imagine.

Problem is that most people do not have someone else to vote for. Democracy is being tested all over the place.


Hell even in the states it's the same. Realistically you're stuck between a mong chatting sh1t on twitter every day, and democrats that seem to be turning into communists.


If there was a viable alternative it would make life easier.


The Brits either have:


1) Lib Dems (promise breakers who ardently support remain)
2) Labour (supporting remain, leader is a marxist)
3) Conservatives (nominally supporting leave, even though most of their party don't have a clue. Bad for poor perople.


If you support Brexit (and lets be honest Brexit was a protest vote), your options are pretty limited.

Snow Garden

Sir Guy who smiles wrote: »

A lot of building jobs are brutally physical; but when the pay went up (2001-2006) the number of people interested in this work increased dramatically.

Many construction jobs were taken by foreign workers who were low paid and treated very badly in many instances.

El_Duderino 09

Snow Garden wrote: »

Many construction jobs were taken by foreign workers who were low paid and treated very badly in many instances.

I'm pretty sure you are making the same point.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

davedanon wrote: »

Well, that's your contention. I wouldn't necessarily agree.


Ever picked fruit? I have: tomatoes, potatoes etc, back in the day. Absolutely brutal work. I can't imagine it ever being well-paid.

That’s a non sequitur. It could well be the opposite - the fact that it’s hard should push up wages, unless there’s a lot of labour around.

unskilled but difficult or dangerous work often had a premium.

quokula

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

That’s a non sequitur. It could well be the opposite - the fact that it’s hard should push up wages, unless there’s a lot of labour around.

unskilled but difficult or dangerous work often had a premium.

There's demand for the product at play as well as the supply of labour. There's a limit to how much people will pay for fruit. And much of it can be imported (though for environmental reasons alone we should really be cutting down on that)

Franz Von Peppercorn II

Experience_day wrote: »

The Brits either have:


1) Lib Dems (promise breakers who ardently support remain)
2) Labour (supporting remain, leader is a marxist)
3) Conservatives (nominally supporting leave, even though most of their party don't have a clue. Bad for poor perople.


If you support Brexit (and lets be honest Brexit was a protest vote), your options are pretty limited.

There’s the Brexit party which would pick up votes if the cons moved away to remain (or even a deal).

El_Duderino 09

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

That’s a non sequitur. It could well be the opposite - the fact that it’s hard should push up wages, unless there’s a lot of labour around.

unskilled but difficult or dangerous work often had a premium.

I think this is something that pro EU people are very reluctant to admit. Supply and demand are as old as buying and selling but in this one instance of EU Freedom of movement, we tend to imagine it couldn't possibly be at play.

The issue is often obscured when people are racist about it. If we were to say "rabble rabble, ruddy Polish, comin over here and takin our jerbs" then it would be struck out as racist and irrelevant.

But the fact is that supply and demand is at play. I'm actually very happy that nobody has suggested anyone is being racist for putting forward this argument about supply and demand.

El_Duderino 09

quokula wrote: »

There's demand for the product at play as well as the supply of labour. There's a limit to how much people will pay for fruit. And much of it can be imported (though for environmental reasons alone we should really be cutting down on that)

OK but that argument is accepting the fact that plentiful supply of labour prevents wages from rising and keeps domestically grown fruit cheap.

Do you acknowledge that part?

Yes, of course the Tories and their rightwing counterparts in every EU country have always pushed "free" movement and "free" trade as it intensifies employment competition and thus lowers their employment costs. Basic supply and demand. The people with menial or lower-paid jobs always lose out as they are the easiest to replace. You can also understand why a brickie or other tradesman would not exactly be enamoured with Eastern European tradesmen coming here and undercutting them - something which Irish builders profited from, of course. But the tradesman or taximan would be told by people who are not economically threatened by immigration that he is "racist" if he wanted to stop this immigration. Meanwhile the people pushing this smugly dress their economic interest in "multiculturalism" and "human rights" garb.

And this leads us back to the British rightwing, which is now pushing itself forward as defender of the ordinary English worker. People seem to forget that it was the Tories under Thatcher (of course) who pushed the entire idea of an EU free market and free movement of people when the EEC economy was in the doldrums in the mid-1980s. That's quietly dropped from the Tory/Brexit narrative now. Just as is the fact that Britain, in 2004 and contrary to EU policy at the time, took the initiative to open its doors to the new member countries to take in about 1.3 million Poles, Lithuanians etc. In other words, the EU had stricter controls on immigration than suited the British economy so Britain initiated taking in more immigrants (only Sweden and Ireland followed them).

Meanwhile the professions can happily be in favour of more immigration because it's not exactly as if somebody is going to walk off the boat and become the next editor of The Irish Times or the next Fintan O'Toole or have any other position in Irish (or British) society which depends on years of networking and has glorious self-regulating bodies to keep barriers up (Hi, that legal reform that will never happen under Fine Gael!). And, of course, with all the immigrant labour they can get cheaper childcare, gardeners, handymen and all the rest - in the full knowledge that the newcomers are rarely going to be able to afford to live in their areas.

Most extraordinary of all is all the plebs on websites like Boards manage to blame the "leftwing" for the policies which are clearly and indisputably from all those social liberals and social conservatives who are united by being economic conservatives. When it comes to economic self-interest, there really hasn't been much substantive change in "liberals" since the glory days of pushing free markets during An Gorta Mór 1845-51 - although they've become exceedingly adept at dressing up that economic interest in "human rights" and "antiracism" terms.

Either way, as always the poor are fúcked: either the economic conservatism with a liberal dressing that has been dominant for decades or the economic conservatism with a nationalistic dressing in the form of Brexit/Trump/reinvented opportunistic Tories. It all amounts to the same "Let's become more competitive by lowering labour costs". The obvious thing about Brexit, though, is that if the British economy is going to decline because of it (as almost all reports agree it will), it will be the same poor who disproportionately voted for Brexit who will be the first to lose out even more. Just as the US poor got it wrong by voting for the billionaire rightwinger Trump in reaction to their economic decline, the poor who voted for Brexit chose the most awfully rightwing "saviours".

knipex

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah I worked on a tomato farm and a grape farm. And briefly on an aubergine farm. Agree it's brutal work. Aubergines was just too hard for me. Bent over all day with legs straddling the drill. It's like a stress position.

But I have to ask what you think causes a job to be well or poorly paid. My Contention is that pay is relative to supply of people to do the job (plus some market meddling like price fixing). If a job has people queueing up to apply, then the pay will fall because you'll still fins someone to do the job. If there aren't enough people to do the job the pay has to rise to attract people.

Am I being mental or is the principle of supply and demand not in action anymore?

How do you see it working?

But the viability of the jobs is dependent on the product begin competitively priced.

If you labor costs skyrocket compared to the competition (domestic and international) then you go out of business. get rid of international competition the increases in growing \ processing cost drive up food prices.