Europe Beyond Your Means

Europe Beyond Your Means: The Paris Edition

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There is another housing bubble developing. You can understand why the BoE is getting twitchy about rising mortgage debt; again. There is a protectionist hue to this which is a bit surprising given you are normally a rigorous supporter of free markets. The car industry by contrast, has prospered and is a big exporter, despite no protectionism and despite our being in the EU. Greece is is in trouble because it is in the euro and cannot devalue or set its own economic policy, as you have explained eloquently on many occasions.

Greece would welcome foreign investment — but who would want to invest there now?! The UK government has not been economically protective since Thatcher nor nationally protective since Major. We have now reached the point that we decide on the 23rd June whether to ditch the now defunct British government. This is what I believe the referendum is really about. We are already in the EU. The intent is to neutralise the British government once and for all whilst making the people think it was their idea.

These were never powers that politicians had any rights to permanently give away, without any authority from the voters. Richard 1 — The EU superstate and all those who support it in the British establishment. The British government will be reduced to a local council in a province of the EU. Talking of protectionist I worked for years for 2 large French and German companies in the Power Industry. When we did major maintenance or upgrades staff were always shipped in from France or Germany.

None of the equipment was sourced locally and all the available company cars were French or German. There is no way any other country would let a major strategic industry collapse.

Europe Beyond Your Means by Conrad G. Lucas II

This is just Tory dogma and crass stupidity. That silly education secretary says our children will suffer if we leave the EU. We need to be in control of our destiny. Plenty of our foreign aid is propping up bent arrangements and an unemployed Port Talbot will be subsidised anyway. Greece is not in trouble because it is in the euro and cannot devalue its own currency.

It is in trouble because it borrowed more than it could afford and the economic crisis made this worse. Instead the Greek government has had to rely on the ECB to do that, when it chose, which has come with a heavy economic and social price to the Greek people despite the Greek government having twice defaulting on its bonds, even though neither occasion has been officially recognised as a default by the credit agencies. The next occasion, which is possibly due this summer but after we have voted in our referendum, may be different:.

The euro enabled Greece to borrow too much as Greek interest rates were much lower than they would have been had Greece had its own currency. His idea is borrow to grow. His idea of growth is GDP goes up. However ask him how the money is repaid and its taxation. All the euro did was bring the problem sharply into focus more quickly and clearly than would happen in a country with the ability to print and devalue. We could start by levelling the playing field and exempting industry from the idiotic additional taxes which the rest of Europe dont pay.

Business rates should be levied according to the viability of the business. Our high Street is getting like a wilderness. What are you suggesting, that people should be at liberty to purchase dumped Chinese steel? In order to save Britsh steel as a viable industry, it is necessary to get out of the EU so that we can ensure that industry is not hampered by unnecessary and costly regulation, repeal the disgraceful Climate Change Act which was conceived for the sole purpose of closing down industries such as steel, and put tariffs on dumped steel products from anywhere.

And its all Mrs Thatchers fault for everything since she gained power and to date. Limits appear to be limitless? So the answer over steel from n0 11 is buy British, is this man heavily into recycling his predecessors ideology. Speak to any small business in steel fabrication and ask can you afford to buy the more expensive steel and compete along with the living wage, or would you just watch your competitors who have no obligation to sing by the same hymn sheet drive you out of business. Far to little to late, from the Chancellor who would sooner take his orders from a member of the Bullingdon club rather than his local Conservative Club.

If you are in business you have to buy the most suitable product for the best available price. If you do not you tend to make losses, lose customers, go bust or get taken over! Perhaps Cameron and Osborne have not worked this out yet having no understanding of the private sector? Also he could usefully listen to some sound electrical engineers instead of all the green loon priests who seem to drive DECC. You are denying this can and does exist! Most larger fabrications are produced in this country and mostly locally the cost of transportation of heavy bulky things such a staircase systems and the like prohibitively expensive.

I made and drove the lorry delivering these things for a number of years. No foreign competition just local. The idea of doing this for seven quid an hour just laughable and that includes all East Europeans in the same game too. I have been asked to do this for seven quid a few years ago. Pushed a trolley around in lovely warm, clean pick and pack warehouse words left out ed for seven quid five years ago less than a mile from my house.

Welding is double that and the rest in this country. Or are we betting it will flood for ever? Once again a well written and perfectly understandable post, and one which chimes with much of what many of us have said many times before. Individual Companies selling out to foreign owners is one thing, bad enough as it is, but selling services which are the basics of existence are another. Power generation, water supply to foreign owners is simply crazy, but compound that with foreign legislation and control over the environment, water management, farming production, fishing rights, taxation, employment law, welfare, and the deliberate running the down of the ability to generate our own power closing perfectly workable power stations , is simply suicide.

We need some real politicians who believe in our country and our people, and teachers who have confidence and instil confidence in our kids. All we have is self-interested career politicians who are terrified of losing their invites to EU and CBI lunches. Every day we buy things with money and get goods and services in return we are not poorer for it as we are producing goods and services somewhere else to pay for them.

Trade produces benefits in excess of costs. So it is with exporting and importing they do not need to balance because if we import more than we export then the money we have spent in excess of of what we have earned returns as capital. The current account does not affect our wealth. Deficit and debt is where the danger lies. Not often I disagree with you but I am happier to accept the Austrian school of economics ideas on trade on this occasion rather than yours. In my experience they do appear to have the knack of calling things correctly.

Your views on improving our balance of payments by improving the environment in which our exporting company can do better that I find compelling. However there are considerable barriers to doing that some you have listed. The EU and domestic policies and practices are affecting our competitiveness very damagingly as you point out.

So leaving the EU is important so as to unshackle our selves from their suffocating embrace. At least we then will have the freedom to address the problem without the restrictions which are great of the EU which are currently holding us back. However there is still a long way to go and considerable lefty, socialist and progressive barriers to overcome. We need another Margaret Thatcher who will take them on like she did. There is one anomaly though and that is Germany because despite the EU and the euro trade wise it is doing very well.

I put this down to the EU given them special treatment or at least turning a blind eye to any infractions of their rules. The euro being a benefit to them even as they are not to everyone else as the euro exchange rate favours them. Also they have employment and business practices that motives optimum productivity. I know not what they are but perhaps emulating them may be beneficial. Although I suspect we could not because we have a different mind set to them and lack their discipline. This Tory Govt does some good things fingers one hand..

Could be a strange one this, because whilst the international recommendation of Foreign Aid is 0. Could this be construed as improper use of State Aid? I think the article presents a parody of the Remain campaign arguments. But two can play at that game:. The EU model put out by the Leave campaign is a model for economic isolation. Taken to extreme it leads to emulating North Korea. They say they wish to discourage foreign investment. They dislike the purchase of UK assets by foreigners.

They believe that selling things will make us poorer. Selling what to foreigners? Products, or productive assets? It is the EU that is low growth and isolated from growing world markets; the EU overregulates, destroys economies with the politically inspired Euro, is inward looking, and now is in the process of being economically and culturally destroyed by? You have to default. The story told to keep the little people happy.

Reply I have published the estimates of future costs of the pay as you go state pension, which will be paid for out of future tax revenues which you also need to capitalise. It seems to me that we are to consumed into the EU by stealth. Both our institurions and industries will be so entwined that we can never leave. It is all part of the planned de-industrialisation of the U. Any decent government would tell him: Another good reason for seeking to stay in the EEA, or something similar, not as the final destination but to make the transition easier.

We are not living beyond our means, far from it! We are spending below the level required to maximise the use of our own resources; labour and capital. The non-government sector is using up its savings and maxing out its credit cards, trying to maintain its lifestyle.

We are not dependent on foreign savings for funding anything. And what options do foreign savers have for their dollar [Pound] deposits? They can do nothing, or they can buy other financial assets from willing sellers or they can buy real goods and services from willing sellers.

And when they do that at market prices, again, both parties are happy. The buyers get what they want — real goods and services, other financial assets, etc. The sellers get what they want — the dollar [Pound] deposits.

No imbalances are possible. And there is not even the remotest possibility of U. Private pension funds are doing the same.

Europe Beyond Your Means

A pension payment bill that is going to get a lot bigger. As a saver and investor I feel let down by Governments for many years now. I am not surprised people do not save, what incentive is their with almost zero interest. Investing patriotically in UK owned Companies is a thing of the past. Government policies allow them to fall into foreign hands. Will the Government allow the Port Talbot steel works to fall into the hands of the asset strippers?

I full agree with all that you have said. Same again in , which though is blamed on the bankers was at its heart about deficits, and what is scary is that those deficits which broke the market in are still there but being hidden by quantitative easing. Its no wonder we are having to sweat our assets so hard for we seem to be funding much of the world.

Public sector is being told buy British steel. Apart from the government making the case that they are doing something it is pure nonsense. They are advocating the very thing that helps to make us uncompetitive. That is putting social consideration above economic ones.

It is our pursuit of having things like pay and conditions, health and safety, social justice and not forgetting energy policies far in advance of our competitors that makes our production costs that much higher than theirs. So when you advocate that social considerations should take precedence over price for consumers then those costs are made worse. Accelerating the decline of our businesses because they cannot compete on price because their costs are so high. We cannot afford the business models that our politicians, employers and employees think they are entitled to until we can attain the productivity level that allows it.

That in the short term means making sacrifices. We should have learned this lesson from the loss of our ship building, coal industries and others and from the demise of so many bad businesses in the past like British Leyland. Things will continue to decline if we are too generous in socialising our wealth creators. I remember one month there was a much-lauded surge in the Foreign Direct Investment statistic for the UK, which actually corresponded to nothing more than a huge foreign takeover of an existing UK company, without any increase in productive assets.

And did the money actually come from Germany, and did it even go to France? If Bayer had borrowed money from a US bank, to buy shares held by a Japanese pension fund, where did France come into that? It is indeed refreshing to see someone point out the obvious, which is that financing a large current account deficit by capital inflows mostly foreign investment is completely unsustainable.

To me, the main problems with foreign owned business is twofold.

Account Options

The profits are sent abroad and not spent in this country as would probably be the case with dividends payable to UK owners. Indeed, there are cases when a business has been bought by foreign owners who have basically asset stripped and moved the business abroad. Surely a large part of the blame must be placed on the various investment funds and insurance companies who are the main owners of the shares. A foreign company offers more than the current value of the shares and they grab the offer in order to make a quick profit; they have zero interest in the company itself, just what its shares are worth at the time, and with the modern high speed computer trading, they all seem to behave like sheep.

Now the London Stock Exchange is to be sold, who knows what will happen next! Liberty may ride in and replace them so all will be well again. We in the UK always seem to follow this path of underinvestment in our businesses. It appears a peculiar British disease that allows overseas companies who do invest more in new technologies to take our business away from us. Leaving the EU will play a vital part as will a change in our trading practices, but we must change the way we look at ourselves.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that. Solutions to our problems do not lie abroad, they lie with ourselves. We must start to restore our self-respect. Take an attitude in China. As that nation began to grow individuals and its government recognised that many things it had produced were now in foreign hands.

They regarded this as a matter of shame and embarrassment. Some items had been sold, some stolen, but however that had happened they decided that they would start buying back fine artefacts; it was a matter of pride. They have belief in their nation and their identity and history and what they have achieved, and in recognising their mistakes they wanted to rectify them. We have sold too many of our businesses, many which had been created from nothing, by individuals when we had pride in ourselves and they had pride in their achievements, not the just money which came with it.

Our population was proud then too, in spite of the many hardships of the time.

See a Problem?

But a feeling took hold recently that they were merely saleable items, much like tins of beans, they were parts of old industries which we deemed to have no long term future, there were buyers out there. So, why not sell? These sales and de-industrialisation have proven to be grave mistakes, a consequence of short-termism and blinkered thinking which has plagued us for years.

We should stop thinking that we are somehow so rich that we can pay fast and loose with our nation and its assets. Let us hope it is not too late. We have built some new businesses recently, but we have missed the boat in most new products developed in the last couple of decades, the result of an attitude of mind — why should we make things when we can simply buy from others, a form of arrogance.

And then we had the idea which did the rounds to excuse our lack of manufacturing, of saying only do what we are best at and buy from others what they do best. This had the extension that we should be designers and let others make. We must change, but how? There must be many others, big and small. Where there is a will there has to be a way, in or out of the EU. But like a reformed alcoholic, we must admit and confess that we have been prostituting ourselves for the profit of City spivs and government posturers, and now we have stopped.

We invented standards during the industrial revolution and we are the second largest contributor to the EU but have no say. Is that what the Remain side call influence. Off topic — JR, you recently answered a poster that it is the government which is the customer for steel. Are you saying that it buys the steel and then sells it on to car manufacturers and others? You must be totally wrong, surely. Also today on the Marr Show Sajid Javid said that the public sector has been advised to consider buying British steel.

Again this refutes your reply.

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Yes the U, public sector does need substantial amounts of steel. People who support the BREXIT campaign continuously use the fact that we pay in more than we get out as a major reason. Surely as one of the richer nations in the EU this is a social responsibility. How much do you propose that the UK should pay the EU to support its poorer nations once we have left?

Wokingham is happy to contribute to the rest of the Uk because we belong to the same nation and accept. Similarly the UK should be happily a contributing member of the EU. Here and across the Pond private individuals even with humble savings are apt to buy shares. In Germany, they have operated what some might call a Corporate, or State capitalism. It is a matter of semantics but allows Germany to bypass EU law in relation to monopoly and legal corporate governance. But then they are business people and their sported expertise, even their personal interest is not geo-politics nor economic Security in a wider sense and beyond the front gates to their enterprises.

Which JR do you believe? When have the various Damascene conversions taken place, or is it the Denial of Peter. Reply My views are consistent. You will have to do better than general smears if you want to argue I have done a u turn. I have always believed that government sets the legal and economic framework for business, and that once you have some unfortunate interventions e. Dear energy and high energy taxes you might then need other interventions to offset the negative effects. Excellent comment, Dr JR. The UK has an exceptional future outside the EU, which is increasingly handicapped by problems of its own making, not the least of which is the Euro.

We have many capable entrepreneurs and businesses, just give them the chance in the right tax regime and wealth will follow.

Cameron and Osborne have lived their lives in the shadow of the EU and are psychologically dominated by its presence. We need a new leadership that is not afraid of independence and which rejects our increasingly colonial and subservient relationship with the Euro bloc of the EU. It seems strange to put it in these terms, but Brexiteers are freedom fighters, looking forward to a post-colonial future. We should also reject the increasingly tedious interventions in the referendum debate by ageing US politicians. It is interesting to note that George W Bush is conspicuous by his absence.

For all his faults, Dubya has manners, for which we should one day thank him. PFI was not cancelled, the plan to build hospitals, schools and other infrastructure off the books went on at high ed interest rates with the fine print in the contracts and is still going on today at a time when the government can borrow at 0.

The money is funnelled to offshore companies in Jersey and Guernsey and banks names removed ed , as the banks move in to takeover more hospital because they cannot pay their debt to them patient care and buying equipment and drugs will be hit badly, One bank ed has already taken over 3 hospitals from private companies to enforce the letter of the contracts and the same will happen to schools, they will take what assets they can get like land and put pressure on the boards to cut wages to make sure they get their interest and money.

PFI is already around billion off the books with the hospitals and schools paying the interest on the debt so if you add billion and rising to 1. When they are finished with the 8 areas and city mayors and councils by with bankers and companies sitting on the boardrooms deciding what to build how much it will cost with PFI borrowing to get the money, it will come to a fortune with you footing the bill with your household rates and of cos you will not be able to use it because if it roads or rail or building for rent or anything like that because it will cost to much to go on with the infrastructure paying the interest on the loans, it a bankers dream.

You might say no room for overseas labour to come in but they put them in portable housing and change them rent and transport costs out of their wages so they end up on 5 pounds a hour doing 10 hours a day. John as you and others should be aware , this is simple economics. Some contest that it does not work in macroeconomics , but as most things ,moderation stops the extremes. So when Alan tried to put the shoe on the other foot, he forgot to mention that there are Wellington Boots , slippers ,court shoes which can be worn according to occasion and bought either from our own shoe makers , Italy or Tai wan.

It is a case of managing , conservative spending and borrowing and looking at the ifs and buts. We have been unsafe in our monetary practices. Unfortunately economics means that all individuals take a sensible view even when speculating. As had been pointed out some years ago ?

Its competence and past and present successes in Big Data, Space, Robotics and autonomous systems.

What is presently happening with steel is nothing more than creative destruction at work Schumpeter. We live in a physical world that is based on control of property to supply our needs. Even the finest minds need nourishment and other basic requirements of the human condition. It follows that a virtual economy with a largely intellectual focus still consumes steel as the basic manufacturing and construction metal. Currently it seems that one nation, Communist China, has set out to achieve global domination in the manufacture of steel.

Markets for steel everywhere are being distorted by the Chinese supply glut. The Chinese state is run by superb strategic thinkers who are ruthlessly focussed on retaining power without a popular mandate. By dominating the world trade in steel, the Chinese export their unemployment and can potentially bankrupt the steel making businesses of nations that believe in finance by private capital. Only a powerful state can finance the production and sale of steel below cost, as China is doing. Within the EU, even the Germans will finally buckle, unless they introduce protectionist measures for their own industry.

We should try to keep it in order to retain a degree of economic flexibility and independence, whatever events may determine. Government minster for business on steel, we will take all the liability and leave the private offshore company with all the profits, I ask my self what is the point if your to take on all the liability you might as well take all the profits as well if there is any the government already pays out 90 billion pounds in business subsidies and if other companies follow tata steel will end up taking on all companies liability like pension and other fees so they just take the profits and pay no tax hear and pay the tax back home.

Another great idea that the taxpayers take on all companies pension liability which will come to billions of pounds a year, we already take on the pension liability of companies that go bankrupt this is the start of a new plan, just like the new plan for schools to be private, only 24 pupil per classroom no disabled children or badly behaved ones, leave thousand of children without schools to go to and council will have to step in to take on the children who cost the most to look after and as they are private schools you will be able to force them to take them and your child can be throw out at anytime with go school to go to because other private school will not want them.

The man took on tax haven reform and who is pushing for it only so he can bury it into the long grass because he up to his neck in it with a lot of other in this country. I agree that often these start-up companies after years have been taken over by bigger companies. A recent invention well publicised was graphene. Others have been those linked to genome reading and applications in pharmaceutical developments by GSK among others.

Ian, Look at http: You can click on each one and get some information on what is being developed. I do not know where you get your information from, but it does not fit with reality! You could repeat the same exercise with other universities, Cambridge, Imperial, Bristol.

The chancellor has been allowed, unchallenged to set policy based on his need to become prime minister rather than the best interests of the country. Only the BOE and Gideon believe this downward spiral to be sustainable…. My view is a temporary re-nationalisation of the steel industry would be a price worth paying to maintain the jobs, facilities and skills needed. A German club with rules set to suit the German national interest — why are we not hearing about more German steel plant closures?.

Nationalisation was never the root of the industries problems.. Two choices — stay in an unreformed Eu with worse conditions than ever before as our rebates will be taken away if we are foolish enough to stay. Keep grovelling to China and watch Germany get rich as we struggle to goldplate every Eu directive.

This how PFI work, the government borrow the money off the books and the interest is paid by the infrastructure like hospital out of their budget from the government and the contract last for 30 years and government supposed to pay the debt off in that time but as the government dose not pay the debt off it is rollover forever, so even if the hospital is knock down say in 60 or 70 years you are still paying for it because debt has not been paid and then the hospital trust has to build a new hospital on PFI while it still paying for the one that has been knock down and cos the new hospital will be at a massive cost so in 60 years time nearly all the money the government gives to the trust for patient care will end up as interest payments to offshore companies and banks.

All fine, but the steel issue is a strategic one, as well as an economic one. Might it pay us to stockpile Chinese steel for national emergencies, rather than carry on producing our own? Looking at this as a national issue is more than just selectively reducing power costs or business rates for steel manufacture. Perhaps getting rid of business rates would even more dramatically increase our auto, shipbuilding, brewing or other space-intensive industries. I always explain business rates to foreigners as a tax levied on us for hiring more employees or giving our employees more working space. It is a really insidious nasty tax, and is about to be handed to local authorities to do with as they wish.

Another Osborne epic fail. So much, economic uncertainty Greece-Germany. The whole of southern Europe beset with tramping persons on their territory encouraged by an uncharacteristically Germany sentimentality to the plight of unfortunates. Barbed wire, razor sharp fences being erected. At the centre Germany. If the UK as a whole is in deficit then someone in the UK has to finance that deficit by borrowing. At the moment the argument between left and right is over who should do the borrowing.

Government or the Private Sector. You can sign up to receive John's blog posts by e-mail by entering your e-mail address in the box below. The e-mail service is powered by Google's FeedBurner service. Your information is not shared. If you would like to have your link listed here please contact John's office. Living in the EU means living beyond our means By johnredwood Published: They also comment on good manners: While standard travel guides try to excel at aiding the harried traveler with comprehensive detail and well-organized content, Europe Beyond Your Means: The Paris Edition is long on attitude and short on fact.

In fact, its coverage is spotty at best. It lists only four restaurants and the only chart in the book outlines a pub crawl. It disappoints mainly because the title raises expectations that go unfulfilled. And if an amusing armchair introduction to Paris is desired, give it a try. Reviewed by Marilyn Berry February 13, This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer.

The Paris Edition

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