Tech firms, come to Blighty! Everything is brill! Brexit schmexit, Galileo schmalileo The UK government has given itself a reassuring cuddle this week, asserting that – even if high-profile projects such as Galileo march overseas – international tech firms still love Blighty. UK Prime Minister Theresa May held a roundtable event yesterday to showcase Britain as the best place in the world to run a tech company …
"Tech and other firms like to come to blighty because we are moving to the American model of little regulation (after brexit) and exploiting workers."
So lets compare. Full employment, recovery from the last recession and apart from bone headed trade war tariffs economically doing well. Or the EU who are the opposite except for retaliating with bone headed trade war tariffs.
Is it the US or EU in existential crisis again?
@ Rich 11
"Do you also believe in unicorns?"
Oh no, please dont tell me you dont realise this is the good times. If your a believer in Keynes then this is the time to be fixing the roof before the next recession hits.
I am sorry to tell you that if you think normal is the peak of the greatest boom in recent history plus labour borrowing heavily and selling off UK gold, then I have bad news for you. We recovered from the recession ages ago, we need to be normalising the country now to be ready for the next recession. That means taking away the stimulus by raising interest rates and unwinding QE.
I am of course assuming you are in the UK, the US is in a much better position (although Trumps trade war may harm that). If however you are in the Eurozone I understand the disbelief and I am sorry for the damage caused to your economy by the ECB and the currency. And I honestly wish you the best of luck for whichever country you are in.
Agreed especially when banks and the car makets up sticks and move over the channel to mainland Europe or over the Irish Sea to Dublin.
I have to ask where the Tax income that HMG needs will come from when the City decamps to Frankfurt or Paris? It will happen but might take 3-5 years. At least all those office blocks could be re-purposed as housing but no one will have a job to pay for it.
IMHO, none of the parties in Westminster don't have a clue about how to solve the impenting fiscal meltdown especially JC who seems to think that nationalising everything in sight is the answer but has no idea how to pay for it.
>IMHO, none of the parties in Westminster don't have a clue about how to solve the impenting fiscal meltdown especially JC who seems to think that nationalising everything in sight is the answer but has no idea how to pay for it.<
I suggest you read the labour party manifesto - how we pay for things is described quite clearly, despite what the media might tell you.
For instance, renationalising the railways costs nothing - you simply wait for the franchise to expire, and don't put it back out to tender again. The train operators only lease their rolling stock, so we'd take up that lease & retain the profit that they make.
JC does have a clue
Borrowed this from Independent as it is not the well known video
“I suppose that now is as good a time as any to declare my hand. I’m with the man whose wife we fancy. I’m in,”
“Isn’t it better to stay in and try to make the damn thing work properly? To create a United States of Europe that functions as well as the United States of America? With one army and one currency and one unifying set of values?
“Britain, on its own, has little influence on the world stage. I think we are all agreed on that. But Europe if it were well run and had good cohesive, well thought-out policies, would be a tremendous force for good”.
“Isn’t it better to stay in and try to make the damn thing work properly?
Isn't the standard definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result? We've spent 25 years trying to make it work properly.
To create a United States of Europe that functions as well as the United States of America? With one army and one currency and one unifying set of values?
One army, one currency, one set of values we're all expected to share? There you have the best argument for Brexit there could be.
...
“Britain, on its own, has little influence on the world stage. I think we are all agreed on that. But Europe IF it were well run and had good cohesive, well thought-out policies, would be a tremendous force for good”.
That is one humongous 'IF' !!!
There is NO track record of this in the past or the present ..... so we are depending on a sudden and inconceivable change of mind for the future of not just one but dozens of Politicians that have taken years to agree anything (read: lets ignore the requirement for 'good cohesive, well thought-out' to allow this sentence to work.).
In short, will never happen without a major global event to change the minds of the many many countries that cannot agree anything unless the 'real benefits' are watered down to avoid any perceived gain by their rivals.
The big problem with the 'US of A' vs 'US of Europe', even if we ignore the above, is there is no concept of Europe that pulls the 'US of Europe' together while the 'US of A' is one country with one identity with a population that has been programmed over generations to think of the US of A as one entity that they as a whole support with their very fibre.
Conviction is a very powerful thing and the US of A thinks and knows it should be No. 1, it drives everything that is done and the EU will always be at a disadvantage.
That is the final nail in the coffin for the US of Europe Idea ......... a very big nail that some of the countries in the EU would be driving into the coffin themselves because of History and basic political reality.
So how does the UK change that and influence the hearts and minds of countries that have no reason to listen to us and in actuality are positively anti-UK, again because of history.
Which is the bigger fiction 'Brexit' or the UK changing the EU from within to create a Bigger, Better and Fairer 'US of Europe' !!!???
@ MJI
I agree. There are a variety of reasons to stay in and one of those is that as Trump is proving is the US cannot, any longer, be trusted to be the world police. After WW2 the US made arms and protection pacts with much of the world and as they appear to be no longer willing to do that a strong, unified Europe would have both the economic clout and military might to take up that slack. A fragmented Europe can do neither and plays into Putin's/Jinping's hand.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-05/trump-refuses-to-learn-the-lessons-of-the-marshall-plan
I totally agree
A quick manifesto
Whack up Capital Gains Tax on land and property - prevent monopolisation of property by investors - land is finite it needs to be used for living
Reduce Income tax - if you work hard you should earn money
Get rid of denominational education and private education. If parents want to assist their children they can contribute to the school they attend.
Try to separate the requirement of degrees from professions in all but the most vocational of courses. I reckon if the assessment of candidates into professions was completely separated from the teaching you could reduce the cost of assessments to the students while limiting numbers by simply making any assessment bloody thorough. This should allow decent colleges moocs or self studies a good chance of getting through if they don't have the money to attend high class uni
Just open up borders but track people for dodgy backgrounds. Borders are S*** the more people mingle less likely wars are.
With members of the Eurozone acting like brigands by not settling their bills what else would you expect from them. Several states are now effectively insolvent, with Euro-bonds and high Corporate Taxes on the way to finance their fantasies - reneging on promises made in return for British money is is just an easy path for them - for now.
Here is how you make the UK the number one destination for business. Cut business tax rates to 17.5%.
Cut income tax rates to 20% for everyone and the first £20,000 of everyone earnings are completely tax free.
Dismantle the welfare state entirely and allow private free enterprise to take care of the rest.
If we have a tariff free trade deal with the US and EU we become the best place in the world to do business and companies would flood here from all over the world.
This isn't rocket science, it's simply a total rejection of socialism, marxism and post modernism which are a cancer that eat away at the soft under belly of our nation.
Here is how you make the UK the number one destination for business. Cut business tax rates to 17.5%.
Cut income tax rates to 20% for everyone and the first £20,000 of everyone earnings are completely tax free.
Dismantle the welfare state entirely and allow private free enterprise to take care of the rest.
If we have a tariff free trade deal with the US and EU we become the best place in the world to do business and companies would flood here from all over the world.
This isn't rocket science, it's simply a total rejection of socialism, marxism and post modernism which are a cancer that eat away at the soft under belly of our nation.
Would you like a fried egg on that? Or a pineapple ring?
This isn't rocket science, it's simply a total rejection of socialism, marxism and post modernism which are a cancer that eat away at the soft under belly of our nation.
You are right in a way: as long as they can still get access to the quality of labour and the services they need, companies would flock here if taxes were lower than everywhere else. It would be a paradise for corporations and the better off.
However, if the welfare state was dismantled, where is the safety net if someone loses their job? Where does the care for the disabled, elderly, and most vulnerable come from? With lower tax receipts, how will the government fund the armed services, the emergency services, and the NHS? Bin collections? Road networks?
And when these all suffer, how will the corporations feel about having to pay higher wages to fund private insurances? Where law and order is breaking down? Where garbage piles up in the streets? Where their employees end up ill because they can't afford to see a doctor? Where the roads are crumbling (even more than now) and wagons can't get where they need to go (or where they have to pay extra to use private toll roads)?
You are also assuming that we would get a tariff free trade deal with the EU and the US, which are definitely not guaranteed.
>>And why on earth would the EU and USA sign tariff-free trade deals when you've essentially become a tax haven?
>Ireland, Luxembourg, Monaco, Cayman Islands Etc.
Monaco, Luxembourg and Ireland are already in the EU, so all deals are signed on their behalf.
Apparently the biggest imports and exports from the Cayman Islands are recreational boats....
@RobertLongshaft
Can I ask you a question on your utopia? How does it work with things like privatisation and PFI's?
Does free enterprise and privatisation work? Can you name one privatised service that didn't either rip of the tax payer or fail to live up to it's basic expectations?
Having no welfare state is what we had in the 19th century, do you propose we go back to people dying before they hit 30 or living in slums? Why stop there? You might as well bring in slavery.
ah, RobertLongshaft... let's just hope you or your family members never get ill, or have an accident.... or do you think the feckers should just lose their house and go bankrupt like those lovely republican americans do?
I know it's childish, and against El Reg rules to post personal insults, but sorry. You, sir, are a top class tosser.
>Here is how you make the UK the number one destination for business. Cut business tax rates to 17.5%.
Cut income tax rates to 20% for everyone and the first £20,000 of everyone earnings are completely tax free.
Dismantle the welfare state entirely and allow private free enterprise to take care of the rest.
If we have a tariff free trade deal with the US and EU we become the best place in the world to do business and companies would flood here from all over the world.
This isn't rocket science, it's simply a total rejection of socialism, marxism and post modernism which are a cancer that eat away at the soft under belly of our nation.<
In other words, let people starve as long as the 1% get richer. Well done.
@RobertLongshaft
An unfettered free market just leads to disaster. And many aspects of modern society just won't work in a purely capitalistic world. Just look at the joke of a healthcare "system" in the USA.
And I could never understand the idiotic view of slashing taxes and social programs. Are you going to start paving your own roadways and act as your own fire department, police force etc. Someone has to pay for all that, it won't just magically happen. And cutting social programs just leads to more poverty, that isn't good for anyone. Poor people don't help grow the economy much, and any money you saved would be made up by the increases in crime and additional expenditures on policing and the rest of the judicial system.
P.S. We're currently looking to expand our company into Europe, The UK isn't even up for consideration, largely because of Brexit, and nothing you've proposed would change that. Even if Brexit were canceled I'd wait a few years before considering the UK just to make sure things are stable. We'll most likely pick France or Germany.
We'll most likely pick France or GermanyMe, I'd go for Ireland. Cheap, an economy more likely to succeed than strike-ridden France, and a much nicer place to work than Germany.
Ireland offers what Britain did up until recently: EU membership, native English speaking, a timezone that kind of works for the America and Asia.
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