UK Politics & Current Affairs Discussion & DIY Home Improvement Thread

[ilovebender.com]

3 minutes ago, Raavi said:

 

Are you literally 12?

I'm sorry, I mean, America bad, EU good...

 

(Actually, I don't, but, that's what you've been saying based on nothing).

 

Why is America bad?

Is it because they have freedom?

Is it because life means life (crazy idea that)! and that they can still sentence someone to death?

Why is America bad?

Edited December 19, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[sivispacem]

3 minutes ago, ilovebender.com said:

Why is America bad?

Nobody says it was, you semen guzzling cunt hive.

 

Quote one single comment made by anyone stating that America is bad.

[ilovebender.com]

1 minute ago, sivispacem said:

Nobody says it was, you semen guzzling cunt hive.

I'm straight but if you like semen, I'm not here to judge, you judgmental arsehole homophobe.

[sivispacem]

Quote a single post in which anyone had said, or even suggested that "the US is bad"

[ilovebender.com]

2 minutes ago, sivispacem said:

Quote a single post in which anyone had said, or even suggested that "the US is bad"

Well I've stated how France are bad and how Germany are bad.

If you still want us to be closer to these countries, I'm glad to inform you; it's not going to be your year.

Edited December 19, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[sivispacem]

3 minutes ago, sivispacem said:

Quote a single post in which anyone had said, or even suggested that "the US is bad"

 

[ilovebender.com]

7 minutes ago, sivispacem said:

 

No.

 

It means digging and I ain't about to dig for you considering you lost any argument anyway.

UK's leaving the EU; you lose since no matter what I say or do, nothing can change Brexit.

 

I like how you've seem to have changed your tune though, and that you accept America isn't bad.

Now if you only knew what you were talking about when it comes to France, Germany, NL, Spain and 23 other backwards countries.

 

日本語を話せますか？

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[Crokey]

3 minutes ago, ilovebender.com said:

Well I've stated how France are bad and how Germany are bad.

If you still want us to be closer to these countries, I'm glad to inform you; it's not going to be your year.

OK to put this in Spot the Dog simple terms

 

Bob has a shop,

Bob buys stuff from Pierre and Klaus to stock his shop with all his best sellers and are his best suppliers and gets a nice discount,

Bob sells stuff to Pierre and Klaus who are his best business customers,

Bob asks his personal customers what they think of Pierre and Klaus knowing that his personal customers don't have all the facts,

Bob tells Pierre and Klaus he doesn't like them anymore because a little over half his private customers don't understand them,

Bob loses his great discount from Pierre and Klaus which means his stock is now really pricey,

Bob can't sell his stuff to Pierre and Klaus for a good price anymore because of Bobs personal customers,

Bob loses lots of money and now can't afford to get Lisa new braces.

 

Now the moral of the story is that Bob's an idiot; however, Bob can save himself by having a quiet word with Pierre and Klaus and coming to a good deal whilst keeping his personal customers happy as well... and to ensure that Lisa can get new braces.

[make total destroy]

The only thing worse than the EU is the USA

[ilovebender.com]

11 minutes ago, Crokey said:

OK to put this in Spot the Dog simple terms

 

Bob has a shop,

Bob buys stuff from Pierre and Klaus to stock his shop with all his best sellers and are his best suppliers and gets a nice discount,

Bob sells stuff to Pierre and Klaus who are his best business customers,

Bob asks his personal customers what they think of Pierre and Klaus knowing that his personal customers don't have all the facts,

Bob tells Pierre and Klaus he doesn't like them anymore because a little over half his private customers don't understand them,

Bob loses his great discount from Pierre and Klaus which means his stock is now really pricey,

Bob can't sell his stuff to Pierre and Klaus for a good price anymore because of Bobs personal customers,

Bob loses lots of money and now can't afford to get Lisa new braces.

 

Now the moral of the story is that Bob's an idiot; however, Bob can save himself by having a quiet word with Pierre and Klaus and coming to a good deal whilst keeping his personal customers happy as well... and to ensure that Lisa can get new braces.

Bob should have prepared for Brexit like the government warned Bob to do, and it's not like Bob didn't have since 2016 to get his business prepared for Brexit.

 

Bob didn't prepare for Brexit, and now his business is out of business and there's no one to blame but Bob.

He knew he couldn't buy and sell from Pierre or Klaus like he used to, but did that stop Bob?

Instead of looking towards Hank or Taro, Bob thought not of his future and continued like it was 2015 when it was almost 2020.

Hopefully a dental plan can get Lisa her new braces.

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[Crokey]

Psst. Bob in the story is Britain.  Sorry I didn't write it in crayon.

[ilovebender.com]

10 minutes ago, Crokey said:

Psst. Bob in the story is Britain.  Sorry I didn't write it in crayon.

I thought Bob was that foolish UK business owner who's business model depended on being in the EU. You know Hank was America, and Taro was Japan right? The other people Bob could have traded with instead of Pierre and Klaus.

 

Still, Bob was told to prepare for Brexit so if Bob was that foolish business owner who's business depends on being in the EU and Bob hasn't changed his business model and his business fails, that's on Bob. It's Bob's business and Bob should have ran it better - especially since Bob was warned to prepare for Brexit and has had since 2016 to get ready. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[Joe Biden]

Don't talk sh*t about my man @El Penguin Bobo

 

Also ilovebender you are a retard

 

[Pesos]

5 hours ago, ilovebender.com said:

I thought Bob was that foolish UK business owner who's business model depended on being in the EU. You know Hank was America, and Taro was Japan right? The other people Bob could have traded with instead of Pierre and Klaus.

 

Still, Bob was told to prepare for Brexit so if Bob was that foolish business owner who's business depends on being in the EU and Bob hasn't changed his business model and his business fails, that's on Bob. It's Bob's business and Bob should have ran it better - especially since Bob was warned to prepare for Brexit and has had since 2016 to get ready. 

Maybe crokey should have paid to have it written in the sky.

 

Bob is Britain

[Tchuck]

Also lol, yeah, stop trading with Germany and France, which are a timezone away, and start trading with Japan or the US. Yeah. That's not gonna have a negative effect on your prices at all.

 

Oh and don't forget, Pierre and Klaus will keep trading with Hank and Taro anyway. In fact, without Bob in the way, they can sell the stuff they sold to Bob, to Taro or Hank. Specially since Bob needed the stuff made by Pierre and Klaus, as they were the best at it. Plenty of market for their goods. Bob, though? Bob is f*cked. His goods are worse, and now he has to sell them even further away.

[sivispacem]

16 hours ago, ilovebender.com said:

I like how you've seem to have changed your tune though, and that you accept America isn't bad.

I haven't "changed my tune" because I never stated or suggested the US was "bad" in the first place. Nor did anyone else. Which you'd know if you were endowed with basic reading comprehension.

 

16 hours ago, ilovebender.com said:

so if Bob was that foolish business owner who's business depends on being in the EU 

I mean the story makes it pretty clear that Bob is the UK so it's hilarious you can't understand simple analogies, but f*ck me is your understanding of business that poor?

 

Businesses can't properly prepare for Brexit because the British government won't reveal what they aspire our future trading arrangements to be. It's not a binary matter of "being able to do business" or "not being able to do business"; it's not even questions around tariffs. It's timeliness and availability, understanding the customs environment, and future regulatory aspects. Wealthier companies serving the service industry can bypass most of these issues by setting up registered companies elsewhere in Europe and using these to continue doing business in the event of a failure to obtain a trade deal. But that's tougher if you're a small manufacturer or, worse still, supplying perishables or farm animals. 

 

What you don't seem to understand is that many of the firms in the high technology industries you pretend to want to encourage are reliant on an exceptionally diverse supply chain. Take aerospace; it's not uncommon for entire projects to be dependent on a single third party supplier who are the only people in the world making a certain thing. What can these companies really do to prepare? Cancel billions of pounds of contracts and collapse? Conduct a séance to try and summon a new supplier from the dead?

 

It's even worse when they're engaged in multipartite projects with third parties integrated into each others value chain. Companies are struggling because three years with no direction and literally zero efforts by central government to inform businesses of what the post-Brexit trading relationship is going to look like is an impossibly small amount of time to completely revector your business model. 

 

And revector it towards where?!? Once we leave we lose the free trade agreements we already have in place and are back to basically trading on terrible terms with everyone. I can see why businesses don't want to make wild outsider-odds bets on the outcomes of hypothetical future trade deals, given the government has been woeful at foreign and trade policy for the last five or so years.

[Rhoda]

I almost never contribute to these topics because I know my place. I'm not going to pretend to know what WTO is, or what the true implications of our future is, be that economic or social. Already we're seeing tensions between supporters of a contradictory party and the minorities that are as desperate for a fair country as anybody else. I wouldn't say I have my head in the sand, but to quietly seethe is healthier to me because all that will happen is I'll get my arse handed to me by somebody who knows far more than I do. It's a scary prospect and we should strive to support each other. That being said, I hope things do go the way Bender is suggesting because he will be one of the worst affected. He can quote me and slander me, I do not care and I don't think I'll be arguing with him because I have better things to do. I'll concentrate on my job and career which incidentally doesn't involve getting polymer pound notes stuffed into my underpants by thirsty women with an equally bleak future ahead of them. I wonder how he'll feel when he realises the face on those notes belong to a wealthy German woman, and I can only hope it's akin to the feeling of getting absolutely slated at a stand up comedy show and you only realise what happened when you're lying in bed at 2AM and can't sleep. Good luck feeling the benefits from this tax break, because as far as I can tell, the HMRC isn't aware of those dusty old tenners you keep rolled up under your discount mattress. You're living in a fantasy world, and I'm actually nice enough to wish you don't wake up from it because we're likely better off as society for as long as you live in that strawman house.

 

Er, I mean, America baaaaad.

 

[Tchuck]

@sivispacem what I think you are forgetting is that ilovebender is not relying on logic or research or even the real world; instead, he's hoping there will be a better deal in the future. Hoping. Yes let's uproot everything that has been working for the past couple of decades, and switch it up for something... that doesn't exist yet, and hope that it will be better. The US are the good guys after all, they wouldn't screw a country in need.

 

In the words of Dutch; have some god damn hope, sivis!

[sivispacem]

1 hour ago, Tchuck said:

he's hoping

I forgot it was hope that paid my mortgage and fed my family.

[Uncle Sikee Atric]

4 hours ago, sivispacem said:

I forgot it was hope that paid my mortgage and fed my family.

It's also hope that's going to ensure everything is rosy for me as well.

 

Having fought the benefits system for 20 years, with repeated claims and form reissues to ensure we collect what is rightfully ours, I know that damn system inside out.  From the stupid assessments, to the requirements for everything to be completed yesterday and then waiting months for things to happen their end.

I'm still waiting for the green paper that was promised in 2012 for my allowance reform, I think I'll give up hope on that and stay on the pittance that would otherwise cost councils thousands for what I do.

Things are bad enough already, it's only going to get worse if we just rely on hope.

[Ned Bingham]

Now seems like a good time for a female Labour leader.  With four or five years till the next election (presumably) she can be road tested and if she proves to be any good she can lead the party into the next election, and if she isn't much cop then there is plenty of time to bring someone else to the fore.

 

PM's bill goes through but loses its workers rights clause.  Looks like we may all have to get on our bikes and look for work.

[Uncle Sikee Atric]

39 minutes ago, Ned Bingham said:

PM's bill goes through but loses its workers rights clause.  Looks like we may all have to get on our bikes and look for work.

They're just going to shove the unemployed onto zero-hours contracts....  No more need for Job Seekers Allowance after that happens..

[ilovebender.com]

11 hours ago, sivispacem said:

I haven't "changed my tune" because I never stated or suggested the US was "bad" in the first place. Nor did anyone else. Which you'd know if you were endowed with basic reading comprehension.

 

I mean the story makes it pretty clear that Bob is the UK so it's hilarious you can't understand simple analogies, but f*ck me is your understanding of business that poor?

 

Businesses can't properly prepare for Brexit because the British government won't reveal what they aspire our future trading arrangements to be...

I never said we had certainty, I know we have no certainty or guarantee who we'd be trading with next. 

All I see is what all you see; which is UK's leaving the EU, so any business here dependent on exporting and importing to and from the EU that have been warned to get ready for Brexit and to reorganise/restructure that dependency on UK's EU membership and instead has decided to do nothing, if they become a causality of Brexit, it's not entirely Brexit's fault -- As Brexit never stopped them from restructuring their business, it'll be the company director's fault or the chief executive officer's fault or inaction and status quo know things are going to change in terms of UK being in the EU.

Hopefully we can sign a new deal with somebody else meaning their goods can come into the UK duty free and no import tax paid to the UK; and maybe in return we can list our companies on their index of publicly traded companies, and if they want to buy British, could be a new market for British manufacturing if duty free flowed both ways - I'm just hoping for the best with that one.

 

I believe you're wrong, the British government said since the days of May to our day of Johnson, we're going to negotiate a free trade deal with the EU; We're going to ratify our withdrawal in Parliament, if EU say no, we'd walk away off a cliff edge; then we're going to try to have a deal with the EU and can extend it for up to 2 years but the PM has made it illegal to ask for an extension post 2020, and so he should, so if we don't have our deal by then, we can then talk with other markets.

 

Have they not hinted at trade deals? They're not physic and have uncertainty but the clairty of Brexit happening now - So far however, the government have revealed their plan to talk with the EU first to keep inline with the Lisbon Treaty and have hinted at negotiating trade deals post Brexit outside of the EU in a no deal Brexit.

That's the Tory plan. They've already revealed what they aspire our future trading arrangements to be to the best of their ability falling short of being able to tell you the future or rolling over and cancelling Brexit.

Edited December 20, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[sivispacem]

1 hour ago, ilovebender.com said:

I never said we had certainty,

I'm not asking for "certainty" and nor are businesses. Most organisations are astute enough to know that nothing is ever certain is business. 

What they do want, quite rightly, is at least a framework or general direction to work with, but even that seems beyond the government to deliver.

 

This is why the CBI- that is, British business leaders who have to deal with this stuff day-to-day- has been so critical of the opaque approach taken by the government.

 

1 hour ago, ilovebender.com said:

any business here dependent on exporting and importing to and from the EU that have been warned to get ready for Brexit

 How can they "get ready" for an unknown outcome? Notwithstanding the fact that the government's own guidance on Brexit preparations has been contradictory, inaccurate and enormously late, they don't know what outcome to prepare for. Preparations for a no-deal Brexit are very different from preparations for a broad free trade agreement, and it's often not within the purview of businesses in terms of either finances or expertise to plan for both simultaneously. The decision of them to wait it out until the last moment in order to try and figure out what the outcome they're supposed to be preparing for actually is has actually turned out to be a fairly astute one given we're nearly a year down the line and still no closer to knowing even the basics of what our trading relationship with the EU will be once we leave.

 

1 hour ago, ilovebender.com said:

Brexit never stopped them from restructuring their business

Comments like this bely just how little you understand about the most fundamental basics of business. Restructuring is incredibly time-consuming and costly; it's only ever done as a last resort and usually represents a last-gasp to save a business from insolvency and liquidation. It's not something that organisations can afford to do every few months as the government flip-flops from a "soft" to a "hard" to a "organised" to a "messy" Brexit. 

 

1 hour ago, ilovebender.com said:

I believe you're wrong

What you believe is largely irrelevant, because I'm not.

 

1 hour ago, ilovebender.com said:

the British government said since the days of May to our day of Johnson, we're going to negotiate a free trade deal with the EU

The issue is that this statement is about as useful for businesses to base medium-long term investment and planning on as "the sky is blue" or "trade deals are a thing".

 

Government policy has changed from near-perfect alignment, to close alignment, to nobody-knows-how-much-alignment, over the last six to twelve months. The degree of alignment with the EU is important, because that determines exactly how free from tariffs any subsequent trade deal will be. The greater the degree of regulatory alignment, the higher the chance that that particular good or sector can be traded tariff free.

 

The problem is that the UK government policy, or even guidance, on where planned divergence from EU regulations is going to take place is nonexistent. This appears to be a deliberate negotiating tactic not unlike the brinkmanship which was conducted during the Withdrawal Agreement; the difference here is that the government's private, undisclosed position makes a huge difference to whether or not it will be viable for a particular business or sector to continue trading within Europe after we leave. So working out whether or no we're intending on staying alined to EU vehicle or aviation standards, or farming and agricultural practices, has become somewhat akin to divination- trying to read the mood music of unelected special advisers and second-guess the personal views of people who may or may not find themselves in cabinet in a few weeks. And that's unsurprisingly a bit of a sh*tter for business confidence.

 

 

And this whole debacle overlooks huge swathes the service industry (particularly finance, consultancy and professional services)...IE near enough 60% of the UK's economy, which fall entirely outside the remits of the free trade agreement anyway.

 

1 hour ago, ilovebender.com said:

They've already revealed what they aspire our future trading arrangements to be

Only in the same "have our cake and eat it" terms which resulted in us coming back with two successive diabolically sh*t withdrawal agreements.

The UK cannot diverge from EU regulation and maintain a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU; the two are diametrically opposed. Until businesses know where the compromises are made; where regulatory divergence happens and where regulatory alignment is continued; they cannot realistically prepare for the future.

[ilovebender.com]

1 hour ago, sivispacem said:

...Restructuring is incredibly time-consuming and costly;..

So be it if you have to invest time and money into your business to restructure it to prepare for Brexit; I don't even care if UK and US gets a post Brexit deal signed and agreed in some future generation based on decades of cooperation, if we have to - Because we shouldn't be afraid of hard work and we should work towards a better future, what are you, afraid of hard work?

Needless hard work it is not though since Brexit's happening and we've all been warned to prepare for Brexit, so, an organisation in such a position as to have a dependence on UK being in the EU ought to prepare, restructure even, if it has to to survive Brexit and continue on after.

If a business doesn't prepare for Brexit and fails because Brexit destroys their business plan and they didn't bother to adopt a new business plan - that's on them, since now there's even more certainty we're leaving the EU in one shape or another.

Restructuring, it might not be easy, but it's not impossible!

Edited December 20, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[sivispacem]

Nice job of reading absolutely nothing I posted. It really is an absolute waste of time and energy trying to discuss anything with you rationally.

[ilovebender.com]

16 hours ago, sivispacem said:

Nice job of reading absolutely nothing I posted. It really is an absolute waste of time and energy trying to discuss anything with you rationally.

You don't accept that the state doesn't own private businesses that might get caught up in Brexit so has done all it's can by warning us to prepare for Brexit which might mean changing a business model or two; it could be a radical restructuring, it's down to the business to prepare for Brexit.

Government has to get a Brexit Brexiteers can stomach, that's what the government has to do. 

[Brad]

17 hours ago, ilovebender.com said:

So be it if you have to invest time and money into your business to restructure it to prepare for Brexit; I don't even care if UK and US gets a post Brexit deal signed and agreed in some future generation based on decades of cooperation, if we have to - Because we shouldn't be afraid of hard work and we should work towards a better future, what are you, afraid of hard work?

Needless hard work it is not though since Brexit's happening and we've all been warned to prepare for Brexit, so, an organisation in such a position as to have a dependence on UK being in the EU ought to prepare, restructure even, if it has to to survive Brexit and continue on after.

If a business doesn't prepare for Brexit and fails because Brexit destroys their business plan and they didn't bother to adopt a new business plan - that's on them, since now there's even more certainty we're leaving the EU in one shape or another.

Restructuring, it might not be easy, but it's not impossible!

Plenty of business models rely on access to the single market. Our "exports" are in services, which rely on market access. 

Restructuring, whatever that means in your definition, costs time and money, not withstanding opportunity cost. Businesses that rely on friction less trade in which their supply chains depend on and the free flow of information, in accordance to regulatory alignment, has been the reason for our competitive position in the Single Market. 

 

You speak of hard work, but it seems counter-intuitive, rather anti-business, to "work hard" to stand still. Put another way, you've put a gradient on the treadmill with no real tangible benefit for businesses. And I refer to my remark on opportunity cost above. 

 

You can argue for Brexit all you like, you may be uncomfortable with supranational legislation. Make that argument, but do not argue on a platform that this will yield economic benefits (other than niche sectors which do not make a difference to the treasury's balance sheet). It simply will not. 

[ilovebender.com]

9 minutes ago, Brad said:

Plenty of business models rely on access to the single market... 

At the moment.

 

No body knows what the future holds, so until there's certainty be it no deal/deal/trade deal with somebody else, business as usual will run out in 2020. Might be forced to restructure if you want to remain in business, but; how to, that's the answers the people need but lack, since nobody can predict the future; Hence this predicament of uncertainty we're in.

9 minutes ago, Brad said:

 

 

You speak of hard work, but it seems counter-intuitive, rather anti-business, to "work hard" to stand still.

Well that's the dumbest thing I ever read, congratulations.

 

 

Be like a shark, no neck, can't look back, only forward.

 

If you don't like hard work, get out of the business world, I could ascertain you're probably more labour than management if you think managers/directors don't like hard work. How is working hard anti business? - that's what I want to know.

If you stand still, it means you've done nothing, that's not hard work, that's being lazy and stupid, doing nothing and knowing something's going to happen.

Edited December 21, 2019 by ilovebender.com

[Brad]

1 minute ago, ilovebender.com said:

At the moment.

 

No body knows what the future holds, so until there's certainty be it no deal/deal/trade deal with somebody else, business as usual will run out in 2020. Might be forced to restructure if you want to remain in business, but; how to, that's the answers the people need but lack, since nobody can predict the future; Hence this predicament of uncertainty we're in.

 

The future is crystal clear. We just haven't had a real debate on nominal sovereignty, sovereignty and trade offs with the international system. And while we don't know our destination because as a nation, we haven't had a comprehensive debate on the trade offs we accept, there are a couple of examples of where we'll land. 

 

Norway: Member of the Single Market through the EFTA, but has its own independent trade policy. However, not an ideal destination for the UK. Doesn't make sense for an economy with world class services to not have a say on the legal direction of the ECJ. Norway, on the other hand, is commodity rich and yields more benefits following an independent trade policy. 

 

Switzerland: Switzerland is unique as it negotiates uniquely sector by sector. Could be a destination, but Switzerland has been perpetual negotiation with the EU and such an arrangement will take decades, as it took for Switzerland. Also, this has a unique freedom of movement provision in its treaty. 

 

Any other models, refer to the "Barnier staircase". 

 

Again, I don't know what you mean by "restructuring" because that takes many forms. But no amount of restructuring will matter if the economics do not make sense. Whether in the form of tariffs or consequent transaction costs of leaving the single market impact a company's balance sheet, then restructuring means "to when the economics make sense". Naturally, this leads to job losses. 

 

Because if businesses are accountable to their shareholders and the option to restructure has been an economical viable option, with or without EU access, then why have businesses not done this independent of the political environment? But it just so happens that transaction costs and ease of access to the single market are integral to businesses.