OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[Andy_Faber]

It doesn't seem like a price worth paying to me but this is not my area. More of a question for Roger, but he's still marching over the cliff edge shouting abuse at the Germans.

I meant more on a 'social justice' basis, ie they only appear to make money out of money/less well off folk, are deemed to have no morals and to have got away with bankrupting the country etc etc

[ramAnag]

I meant more on a 'social justice' basis, ie they only appear to make money out of money/less well off folk, are deemed to have no morals and to have got away with bankrupting the country etc etc

As you'd probably expect, I agree with most of that sentiment (if you remove the word 'only'). I think the banks and certain leading bankers have got off very lightly since 2007/8 and I think their behaviour has been largely amoral if not actually immoral.
Having said that, a little perversely, I'm not certain that we can afford to 'lose' them in the way you suggest, but I'm sure those such as Roger, Manx, Swale and KCG could come up with a more informed answer.

[roger_ramjet]

It doesn't seem like a price worth paying to me but this is not my area. More of a question for Roger, but he's still marching over the cliff edge shouting abuse at the Germans.

The UK banking sector contributes about 5% of the total government tax take (30 billion or so) via irrecoverable VAT, employment taxes and NI and the bank levy. they also pay a bit of corporation tax but that's actually not the biggest tax they generate. They employ some 430,000 people.

A lot of those figures will be retail banking, but that probably is still making losses and is employing less and less people as branches and people disappear from the banking system. Love em or hate em the merchant banking sector brings in a **** ton of income to the UK, some of which is turned into direct taxes but much of which is paid over as employment taxes on the excessive basic pay and bonuses.

these guys have become hate figures, maybe rightly, but they contribute an awful lot to the funding of UK plc and their flight would harm the economy, even if it does give Andy a nice warm feeling. Overall the financial services sector generates almost 70 billion in tax and employs over a million people 3.5% of the UK work force. My bet is also that not too many of those people are EU migrant labour shipping net income back home!

[Andy_Faber]

The UK banking sector contributes about 5% of the total government tax take (30 billion or so) via irrecoverable VAT, employment taxes and NI and the bank levy. they also pay a bit of corporation tax but that's actually not the biggest tax they generate. They employ some 430,000 people.

A lot of those figures will be retail banking, but that probably is still making losses and is employing less and less people as branches and people disappear from the banking system. Love em or hate em the merchant banking sector brings in a **** ton of income to the UK, some of which is turned into direct taxes but much of which is paid over as employment taxes on the excessive basic pay and bonuses.

these guys have become hate figures, maybe rightly, but they contribute an awful lot to the funding of UK plc and their flight would harm the economy, even if it does give Andy a nice warm feeling. Overall the financial services sector generates almost 70 billion in tax and employs over a million people 3.5% of the UK work force. My bet is also that not too many of those people are EU migrant labour shipping net income back home!

Two thing in response.

No it doesn't give me a nice warm feeling, as people I don't know them and as you point out they contribute a bloody lot to the tax take, they might as well be immoral here as in France

You are right about there being few employees who were EU wallahs sending money home, my experience of such places is a bit out of date though and mostly US-based companies such as GATX

[ramAnag]

The UK banking sector contributes about 5% of the total government tax take (30 billion or so) via irrecoverable VAT, employment taxes and NI and the bank levy. they also pay a bit of corporation tax but that's actually not the biggest tax they generate. They employ some 430,000 people.

A lot of those figures will be retail banking, but that probably is still making losses and is employing less and less people as branches and people disappear from the banking system. Love em or hate em the merchant banking sector brings in a **** ton of income to the UK, some of which is turned into direct taxes but much of which is paid over as employment taxes on the excessive basic pay and bonuses.

these guys have become hate figures, maybe rightly, but they contribute an awful lot to the funding of UK plc and their flight would harm the economy, even if it does give Andy a nice warm feeling. Overall the financial services sector generates almost 70 billion in tax and employs over a million people 3.5% of the UK work force. My bet is also that not too many of those people are EU migrant labour shipping net income back home!

Two unloaded questions then Rog. I accept that you - and the others mentioned - know more about economic matters than I do. Yet you seem to be acknowledging that, if Brexit goes ahead, there is a risk of us losing at least some of the banking sector and the employment and tax that goes with it.

So.
1) As a direct result of Brexit do we, in your opinion, run the risk of losing that 'awful lot of funding of UK plc' you speak of?
2) If, as I suspect, the answer is 'Yes'...why do you persist in opposing those who want a second referendum - or at least the 'softest' possible Brexit - now that some of the likely consequences are more widely known?

[roger_ramjet]

1 yes
2 i dont oppose soft: never been pro hard. One of the downsides of diabetes.

But I do oppose referendum after referendum because the losers want to continue the debate. We may well be making a mistake economically but its not all about that. People voted out for different reasons by and large, mostly bigotry. But thats democracy for you.

Also, as has been pointed out on here a lot, those who voted out are the ones most likely to suffer the consequences. There is part of me that wants to see them reap the financial consequences of that decision.

[roger_ramjet]

Im over 60 and from a purely selfish perspective - dilligaf.....

[Trickytreesreds]

Tricky has a problem with anyone who isn't white, english and has an IQ in double figures!

Oh behave yer great wuss.

Total quisling

[Andy_Faber]

Two unloaded questions then Rog. I accept that you - and the others mentioned - know more about economic matters than I do. Yet you seem to be acknowledging that, if Brexit goes ahead, there is a risk of us losing at least some of the banking sector and the employment and tax that goes with it.

So.
1) As a direct result of Brexit do we, in your opinion, run the risk of losing that 'awful lot of funding of UK plc' you speak of?
2) If, as I suspect, the answer is 'Yes'...why do you persist in opposing those who want a second referendum - or at least the 'softest' possible Brexit - now that some of the likely consequences are more widely known?

R's, note that the BBC news article on the subject last eve was highly loaded towrds 'Britain losing tens of thousands of banking jobs to France', then the interviewer (the one who looks 17 and plays guitar, I MUST improve my short term memory) asked the 'key interviewee' of the article and the response was 'yes, thousands may move. Might be hundreds. Might be none....' Dear old BBC, they just can't help themselves sometimes

And my two penn'orth on a second referendum? Maybe, but WITHOUT an option to remain in the EU. That's done, and we aren't Scotland.

[ramAnag]

1 yes
2 i dont oppose soft: never been pro hard. One of the downsides of diabetes.

But I do oppose referendum after referendum because the losers want to continue the debate. We may well be making a mistake economically but its not all about that. People voted out for different reasons by and large, mostly bigotry. But thats democracy for you.

Also, as has been pointed out on here a lot, those who voted out are the ones most likely to suffer the consequences. There is part of me that wants to see them reap the financial consequences of that decision.

Okay, I'll ignore the second answer because you seem to have returned to you default setting of flippancy, you have far too much to say to be a 'dilligaf' and you've also spoken of having at least one child.

Who mentioned 'referendum after referendum'? We now generally accept the following...
The Brexit referendum was brought about in an attempt to settle internal Tory party squabbles.
It wasn't taken as seriously as it should have been and was hijacked by the right wing press.
People were misled into voting a certain way.
Only approximately 37% of the electorate voted in favour of 'Leave'.
The result was advisory and not binding.
The consequences are likely to be financially damaging if not disastrous for the U.K.

Given the final point, together with what we now understand after thirteen months of rancour, why not have another referendum to ask the British public - if we must - is this really what you want? If, after all that has gone on, the result of a properly run referendum with voters having access to facts rather than propaganda is still, 'we want to leave'...then even I will shut up.

[Andy_Faber]

Okay, I'll ignore the second answer because you seem to have returned to you default setting of flippancy, you have far too much to say to be a 'dilligaf' and you've also spoken of having at least one child.

Who mentioned 'referendum after referendum'? We now generally accept the following...
The Brexit referendum was brought about in an attempt to settle internal Tory party squabbles.
It wasn't taken as seriously as it should have been and was hijacked by the right wing press.
People were misled into voting a certain way.
Only approximately 37% of the electorate voted in favour of 'Leave'.
The result was advisory and not binding.
The consequences are likely to be financially damaging if not disastrous for the U.K.

Given the final point, together with what we now understand after thirteen months of rancour, why not have another referendum to ask the British public - if we must - is this really what you want? If, after all that has gone on, the result of a properly run referendum with voters having access to facts rather than propaganda is still, 'we want to leave'...then even I will shut up.

who's this 'We', R? You and Swale does not a quorum make

[ramAnag]

who's this 'We', R? You and Swale does not a quorum make

Okay...accept that...'We' was meant to mean 'the public/electorate' and I'm not speaking for Swale...but is there actually anything there that you'd dispute?

[roger_ramjet]

Well I think there was misleading propaganda put about by both factions, so that cannot really invalidate the decision one way or the other; also the "only 37%" argument can be ignored as still less voted pro remain, so that's 2 disputed.

Whether the referendum came about to unite Tories is sort of specious: it doesn't really matter why it was called - it was: and the view it came up with is to leave. I believe the advisory only status is legally correct but morally I cannot see how the government in power - whoever that may be - can ignore the decision. Certainly not if it wants to stay in power.

That just leaves the fact that it may be economically a poor decision. You are convinced, I tend to agree but dont see the end of the world quite as clearly as you. Others (perhaps deluded) think we will be OK. Point is that the great British public who made the decision probably did not make it on the basis of economics. Sovereignty, nationalism, immigration, stressed public services etc all were higher up their decision tree I imagine. If you think you don't understand economics, how do you think the long term unemployed pensioner or class DE type voter managed it? They didn't and indeed wouldn't understand it in any subsequent referendum.

There was ill informed decision making by the OUT group but who is to say the same was not true of the REMAIN group? Did those people who made a decision on economic grounds even consider the motivation and logic applied by those who made a more emotional decision?

It pains me to say it, but its not all about money - yes that really is me saying this. Those who voted OUT clearly did not consider those factors to be an important element in their decision making (or were too thick to understand it).

[mistaram]

Roger. 17million to thick to understand it. Here is me daft enough to think it was a secret ballot

[Trickytreesreds]

Sovereignty, nationalism, immigration, stressed public services etc all were higher up their decision tree I imagine.

That is the gist of it,

The economics may take a hit. But as I said earlier, Germany was ground into dust in 1945 and is now the 4th biggest economy in the world.
Why the cowards in all this, think that we need to be entrapped in a plot for a superstate, escapes me.

I'm all for free trade, but where did this plot for the USE, come from?