UK newspaper urges readers to buy BDX before Brexit

[Comte Flaneur]

Very good

Here is Thomas Friedman’s take:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/opin ... -news.html

And mine:

Brexit update: Tories in meltdown as May calls the ERG’s bluff
 
Part one: Background – how we got here (optional but recommended)
 
The UK is in the midst of its gravest ever peace time political crisis. To understand why this is, and how this might play out, it is useful to revisit the background as to how we arrived here.
 
Brexit was based on a fantasy, which nobody really expected to happen…
 
Three years ago, according to the Leave campaign, by exiting the EU the UK could ‘take back control’, notably of immigration, whilst maintaining full access to the single market, without having to pay into the EU budget, and whilst being able to negotiate its own trade deals.
 
Only a small minority of ‘experts’, with knowledge of EU institutions and how the EU actually works, knew this was a nonsensical fantasy, but the complacent Remain campaign didn’t even bother to point this out because everyone knew they were going to win anyway.
 
And the electorate, used to being spoon fed news and views, was not really interested in understanding the arcane workings of the EU and its institutions. Therefore, resorting to slogans like ‘let’s take back control’, which were as meaningless as they were effective, the Leave campaign, backed by savvy backers, exploiting big data and social media to the maximum, engaged in their bold gambit. But they realistically saw little chance of winning.
 
…The outcome turned on one man’s ambition…
 
However, their fortunes took a turn for the better when, four months before the referendum, Boris Johnson, a politician with even higher viewer recognition than David Cameron, opportunistically threw in his lot behind Leave. In hindsight, this was probably the most decisive moment in the referendum campaign.
 
Brexit arguably happened because of one man’s over-arching ambition to become prime minister. Even though Johnson himself did not expect Leave to win. In fact, while he enthusiastically embraced and embellished the Leave campaign’s false narratives, he was actually gambling on a narrow victory for Remain, which would put Cameron in an untenable position, thus paving his path to 10 Downing Street.
 
…and nobody planned for it…
 
In the event of Leave winning, he was shell-shocked.  And so was everyone else. Because nobody had a plan, which helps to explain why we are in this mess nearly three years later. Vote Leave knew they had presented an undeliverable unicorn embellished by false promises on the NHS, baseless scare stories of the UK being overrun by Middle Eastern immigrants, and the ease of delivery of new trade deals.
 
That the government itself did not have a plan was nothing short of extraordinary.  And breathtakingly irresponsible. In the 2000s, Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown commissioned 23 sperate studies into joining the euro before concluding it was not in the UK national interest.
 
That not one Brexit impact assessment was commissioned will surely be the subject of a public enquiry in the future. Cameron promptly exited left stage, opening up the opportunity for Theresa May to realise her long her long held ambition to lead the Conservative Party and the country.
 
…leaving the ERG to grab the initiative, fill the vacuum and control the narrative… 
 
May, an agnostic default Remainer, had little understanding of the EU, and the only things she really cared about were uniting the Conservative Party and controlling immigration, where she had so conspicuously failed as Home Secretary. It probably never occurred to her to reach out to other parties, in Parliament, and the country to discuss the best way forward. 
 
The ‘people’ having voted for a unicorn, now expected it to be delivered. As cold reality set in, and the painful trade-offs became apparent, the unicorn turned out to be a zombie.  May tacked hard to the right, dancing to the tune of the ERG, the small minority of hard core Brexiters in the Conservative Party, who have dominated the agenda and the narrative ever since.
 
By October 2016 Conservative Party conference May had embraced the hardest of hard Brexits, which meant exiting the customs union and the single market, arguably the most important determinants of the prosperity of the British economy in recent years. Consequently, this position coincided with a second big leg down in the pound to the post-GFC lows.
 
May’s gambit to reinforce her authority and Hard Brexit policy by calling a general election in April 2017 backfired spectacularly when, rather than beat Corbyn’s Labour in a landslide, she lost her majority and had to turn for support to the notoriously awkward-to-deal-with DUP.
 
May pretended that nothing had changed, noting that 85% of the electorate had voted for Brexit supporting parties, when the reality was that swathes of ‘homeless’ moderate Remainers had voted Labour tactically, with the express aim of denying May a majority, which they effectively succeeded in doing.
 
It was from this extreme position that a weakened May gradually rowed back to her softer and much derided ‘Chequers’ proposal over the next year and a half and the final deal, reached last November, which represented a compromise on so many levels, notably having to accept a backstop for the Irish border, which was never going to be acceptable to the DUP.
 
May’s deal - a legally binding withdrawal agreement and non-legally binding political declaration - were doomed from the start because it was seen as the worst of all worlds – losing access, whilst not really taking back control – ironically uniting the ERG and Remainers in opposing it.
 
…leading the accusations of betrayal and surrender, which seeped into the mainstream
 
The ERG adopted ever more emotive, war-like metaphors, bemoaning ‘surrender’ (to the EU) and ‘betrayal’ (of democracy and ‘the people’, all 17.4m of them who voted to leave), even applying this to different, albeit softer versions of Brexit. 
 
But part of the point of this introduction is to illustrate how this small group of anti-EU fanatics, aided and abetted by the Brexit-backing newspapers, has come in from the fringes and so dominated the narrative, normalising extreme populism, radicalising the Party and influencing public opinion. 
 
The notion that anything less than a ‘clean’ Brexit isn’t really Brexit at all and is therefore a betrayal has seeped into the collective consciousness and narrative almost unchallenged. As has making it virtually taboo to discuss a second referendum or revoking Article 50. MPs doing so risked being vilified.
 
Brexit proponents have also claimed to have superior insights as to why exactly people voted to leave, perhaps attributing to many of them implausibly sophisticated insights.  Some have even professed to know better than businesses what is good for them, especially those on the front line desperately lobbying to maintain close trading links with Europe or single market access.
 
The pendulum has swung a long way in the last three years, will it swing back?
 
However, the important point is that if you wound the clock back three years to before the referendum, and you offered the ERG May’s deal virtually all of them would have gleefully grabbed it with both hands. In part because any departure from the EU was then seen as a radical step.
 
Most of them would also have grabbed an exit with permanent customs union with both hands. An outcome now deemed to be a betrayal. This is a measure of how far the narrative has been shifted and distorted in the last three years. And to what extent the ERG has skilfully punched way above its weight for so long. 
 
While some still cling on to the hope of no deal exit, this is important to remember and bear in mind in navigating the path ahead, as public opinion polls continue to shift gradually towards a larger majority in favour of remaining in the EU and holding a people’s vote.
 
Not just this but the massive scale of the two people’s vote marches in October and March and the record breaking six million signatures on the revoke Article 50 petition may facilitate a swinging back in the pendulum to a very soft Brexit or no Brexit at all. This seems to be the direction of travel albeit against very determined resistance.
 
But it is why all but the most hard-core ERG folded behind May’s deal as the hardest Brexit on offer, and is why their bluff can be called. They can see the writing on the wall. The pendulum has swung a long way to the Brexiter narrative and has the potential to swing back.
 
But this is also why the Conservative Party is now in meltdown.
 
This from Liberal commentator Jonathan Lis earlier this week: “The Tories can no longer accept compromise. They can no longer accept moderation. They can no longer accept voices who defend business over nativism. The party has been taken over by toxic nationalism. There is no going back. If this party isn’t finished, the country soon will be.
 
Part two: Yesterday’s Cabinet meeting and May’s pivot
 
May gives up on the ERG and DUP
  
Yesterday May admitted that she can no longer sell her Withdrawal Agreement to the ERG and DUP, and she is now reaching out to the opposition leader Corbyn to forge a cross party consensus.
 
This could be an elaborate bluff and a trap for Corbyn because she is planning on asking the EU for a short extension to 22 May, implicitly ruling out participation in the European Parliamentary elections. So it could be a ploy to make Corbyn partly own her deal, which Corbyn has strenuously tried to avoid, and force a choice between her deal and no deal.
 
While Corbyn might be tempted to try to allow a no deal Brexit and pin the blame on the Tories, he would face a vicious backlash in his own party and risk mass resignations to TIG. And although the Conservative Party is in melt-down, Labour is not that far behind.
 
However, while May and Corbyn are ‘tribalists’, and have a track record of being untrustworthy, they do not want to be seen acting against ‘the national interest’ in a time of grave crisis. It is an opportunity for Corbyn to look statesman-like and as a leader-in-waiting.
 
May has agreed to another series of indicative votes if she cannot agree a way forward with her opposite number. This should be seen as a major concession. She would probably have no choice but at least to run off the winner against her deal, or back the winner. 
 
In the last set of indicative votes on Monday, three options came within touching distance of winning a majority – PCU, PV and CM2.0 - with plenty of scope for each of them to get over the line next time (see chart below).
 
The irony is that May and Corbyn are actually quite close in the sort of Brexit they would like to see, but both are at odds with their respective parties. Both would be happy with some kind of permanent customs arrangements (now an anathema for many Tories), both want to restrict free movement, and both are wary of a people’s vote.
 
At the same time Corbyn is under intense pressure from within his party to insist that any agreement on way forward is subject to a confirmatory public vote with Remain on the ballot paper.
 
May’s intention was to wrap up this process by close on Friday and communicate a way forward to Donald Tusk soon after, but this looks unrealistic now.
 
It is unlikely that the EU will grant May her short extension to 22 May, unless all parties can back a Permanent Customs Union, which would require only small tweaks to the Political Declaration.
 
If Parliament has not backed a way forward, it is much more likely that the EU will offer a choice between no extension – implying no deal exit or the UK revoking A50 - and a long extension, which will require UK participation in European Parliamentary elections, and possibly with other strings attached as well. At the time of writing Yvette Cooper’s no deal amendment was going towards a final phase.
 
Ireland stands to lose as much as the UK from no deal, and Leo Varadkar’s meeting with Macron yesterday and his meeting with Merkel tomorrow is notable in this respect, and suggests that the EU is unlikely, in the final analysis to allow the UK to crash out. The EU is batting for Ireland. But it will be keen to ensure that it is the UK that blinks first, so the EU will continue publicly to talk up the risk of no deal.
 
Any deal has to be on the basis of the current withdrawal agreement, which cannot be amended, so will involve changes to the PD. However, because the PD is not legally binding there is a risk that it is jettisoned by a May successor to achieve a harder Brexit. Therefore, Corbyn may insist that any changes to the PD are enshrined in UK law. 
 
The base case is that we get a long extension, with a pledge for a second referendum more likely than a general election. While many Tories are incandescent over May’s overtures to Corbyn, and are threatening to back any no confidence motion, there has also been a fierce backlash against a general election among Cabinet ministers and Tory MPs. It will also risk going down very badly among the general public as an unwelcome waste of time that may not solve anything.
 
It is also quite possible that May’s decision to reach out to Corbyn leads to the collapse of the government, sending the Conservative Party into a death spiral, and leading to some kind of unity government.
 

 
 
 

 
 

[Comte Flaneur]

This man...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... trump.html

...the scourge of English speaking modern democracies has a lot to answer for.

Brexit was his coup de grace.

[jal]

Thanks for the analysis Ian. Interesting times ahead. I was thinking that the same way Scotland had a referendum a few years back about independence, maybe Northern Ireland could do the same and then if successful, join the EU. Hard to see how that could work now but maybe it's a question for post Brexit.

[AKR]

Interesting observations, Comte. Let's invert this and pretend one was a middle class English tradesman, perhaps a plumber or something.

What has the free movement of labor, capital, and goods delivered for him over the last few decades?

Just to be contrary cat, if I put myself in those shoes I might feel he

* has experienced more competition from an influx of Polilsh skilled tradesmen, willing to work without licenses, undercutting him in projects
* has been squeezed out of housing anywhere near where he grew up, as land was redeveloped into luxury apartments/homes, for Russians and Saudis, whose shiny sports cars hog up all the parking.
* sees ever increasing congestion fees and petrol taxes, whose monies don't ever seem to go into anything he can see
* when his back hurts and he visits an NHS office, he's told its 8 mos wait for a referral to a specialist. he looks around the waiting room and sees pregnant migrant Syrians and Moroccans being treated right away.
* although the sterling has chopped around, to him, it feels like it has long term declined. the foreign goods he buys don't feel all that much cheaper due to this.
* Project Fear didn't faze him; he voted for Brexit.

I could go on, but I think these microvignettes cover his worldview.

When his cousin tells our plumber how good life is in Australia, with secure borders, he actually listens now. Maybe he should ditch his dreary life and buy a one way ticket to Down Under. His cousin claims the stories of rabid kangaroos are greatly exaggerated after all.

What does the Remain camp have to offer our prototype above?

[DavidG]

That's a useful counter-perspective Arv, but how many of those changes would have occurred anyway without joining the EU? I understand it's impossible to convince someone of that who is "living the dream," but the Remainers need to do a much better job of communicating.

[AKR]

A very fair objection, Dr G. Maybe if we looked at Commonwealth countries like Canada and Australia - who have some control over the immigration - it might give a cue. Both don't seem to have limited foreign property ownership much (at least until recently) unlike nations like Switzerland and Austria which in some regions have decided foreign property ownership isn't in their interest. Despite the plaintive wailings of local estate agents. So perhaps the world might looked like higher wages for the working/middle class, without much benefit in the affordability of homes.

Perhaps the economic pie would have been overall smaller by accepting the inefficiencies of NOT allowing people, capital, goods to find their best (and presumably highest) value. But it seems like for a large amount of UK subjects, they haven't tasted the fruit of globalization. All they feel and see in their day to day lives is the costs.

Ray Dalio, the charismatic leader of a Connecticut cult, has published a long form piece on these general issues today. Things are bad for the majority of Americans, and getting worse. That is being hidden in the 'averages'.

The political savant DJT speaks in Parseltongue to this fallen cohort, despite no obvious connection.

[Comte Flaneur]

Arv you said:

“(The British tradesman) has experienced more competition from an influx of Polilsh skilled tradesmen, willing to work without licenses, undercutting him in projects

- U.K. has high net migration, EU net migration has never been higher than non-EU migration.

- There were about a million Poles living in the UK at the peak, the highest cohort from the EU, which has built up over about 15 years. What you describe is a caricature, because most of them come because jobs have been plentiful. They have filled jobs that Brits were unwilling or unable to fill. I think that is a more accurate way of looking at it. Yes there have been some anecdotes of Brits complaining, but this is more cultural than economic populism. They dont like them because they are foreign. Communities with high migration have seen these tensions, and hate crimes exploded after the referendum.

- Migration has been a huge net boost to the UK economy especially now when the economy is at full employment. The contribution of EU migrants is significantly higher on average than from non-EU because of higher educational attainment. Two thirds of EU migrants from western and Southern Europe have degrees compared on one third of the British workforce.

* has been squeezed out of housing anywhere near where he grew up, as land was redeveloped into luxury apartments/homes, for Russians and Saudis, whose shiny sports cars hog up all the parking.

- Hmmm...only in central London, there has been a lot of gentrification in London allowing sellers to get a fortune to buy bigger properties outside London

* sees ever increasing congestion fees and petrol taxes, whose monies don't ever seem to go into anything he can see

- Congestion fees in London are generally thought to be successful. Very few people drive to work in London. T adesmen have access to special licences. UK petrol duties have been frozen for at least five years.

* when his back hurts and he visits an NHS office, he's told its 8 mos wait for a referral to a specialist. he looks around the waiting room and sees pregnant migrant Syrians and Moroccans being treated right away.

- Another canard, sounds like Nigel Farage complaining of health tourism. Yes there are British citizens of North African descent who are perfectly entitled to health care. So called health tourism is a tiny fraction of the contribution of non-EU migrants to the NHS. The drop in EU migration has already had a catastrophic impact on the NHS, where the shortage of doctors and nurses is now acute.

* although the sterling has chopped around, to him, it feels like it has long term declined. the foreign goods he buys don't feel all that much cheaper due to this.

Sterling is roughly 15% below where it was before the markets sniffed any serious chance of the UK leaving the EU. We are already a lot poorer for voting to leave the EU.

The UK economy is about 2.5% smaller than it would have been had the vote gone the other way and we have even left yet. Read this.

https://cer.eu/insights/cost-brexit-dec ... ve-decline

* Project Fear didn't faze him; he voted for Brexit.

Maybe not but Brexit will inflict unnecessary pain on him. In the long run he will be needlessly worse off compared to the status quo.

In your second post you suggest that the U.K. has not felt the fruits of globalisation. Nothing could be further from the truth, because we enjoy privileged access to the most sophisticated free trade zone in the world which we invented. The single market and its indivisible four freedoms - free movement of people, goods services and capital. It is the best thing we have going for us. Mrs Thatcher’s finest moment. And we are about to chuck it away.

That is truly tragic.

Never has a country acted to crassly against its own economic self interest.

[Blanquito]

Ian, you’re singing to the choir for my part. So let me ask, as you have unusually high credibility on this issue in my camp— is there any actually rational reason for the U.K. to want to leave the E.U.? I am not saying something that would outweigh the negatives of Brexit, just something that in isolation would likely to be a positive on the whole for the British economy or society or healthcare or environment or whatever? Is there any at all?

I’m a devoted globalist. There can be many negatives of integration for individual stakeholders, but for a body politic in the whole, globalization or economic integration is usually/always a net positive (not a small benefit is the fundamental reduction in the likelihood of war between the parties).

[Comte Flaneur]

Patrick

There is nothing I can think of, given the UK’s privileged position in the EU. If we did not have a permanent opt out from the single currency, I would have identified that as a valid argument for considering our membership.

What if the euro collapsed as some euro-sceptics are predicting? The UK would be severely affected whether we were in or out. Note that even inside the EU we are not on the hook for any euro bailouts.

The economic arguments for staying in are overwhelming, as I have demonstrated in this thread. Note the EU has myriad trade agreements, which the UK is a part of. When we become a ‘third country’ we will fall out of those agreements. Circling back to Arv’s point we will ‘de-globalise’

What is tragi-ironic that many of the main leave voting constituencies will lose EU structural funds, because they are so poor, so leaving the EU will make them even poorer. Sadly a case of turkeys voting for Christmas.

When it comes to security leaving the EU is lose-lose.

Then you go round the universities and the mood is very bleak. We will lose a lot of EU funding for research projects of which the UK is the major beneficiary. The list is endless.

On the other board there is a two year long thread on Brexit. I have challenged Brexit protagonists to come up with a coherent case for leaving the EU. The silence is deafening.

It comes down to ‘I had a bad experience with the EU Commission’ or I think the ECJ is politically motivated but then they can’t come up with one instance when the ECJ has imposed a major piece of legislation on the UK, or prevented Britain’s Sovereign parliament from passing its own legislation.

The notion that the EU is an out of control superstate is another myth which continues to circulate.

The EU budget is €150bn and most of it goes on structural assistance now - building infrastructure in poorer countries which should pay dividends in the long run. Much less of the budget goes on agricultural support than in the past.

The EU bureaucracy costs €6bn a year. I am sure that could be trimmed but it is a tiny number versus the EU27 GDP of about €18 trillion. Listening to the press you’d think that we pay 20% of public spending to the EU. The figure is 1%, and 0.4% of GDP. The economic benefits of full membership dwarf this.

The argument that the EU is undemocratic also collapses under the most cursory scrutiny. See various posts above.

The best argument for leaving the EU is that we will jettison the burgundy EU passports and get the old navy blue British passports back. Well that makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it?

[AlexR]

A shambles on which the sun never sets: how the world sees Brexit:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ees-brexit

Alex R.

[JimHow]

Glenda Jackson on Brexit:

https://www.npr.org/sections/performing-arts/

I had a chance to meet her in NYC a couple weeks ago, what a thrill, I last saw her 40 years ago in the summer of '79 in London as Cleopatra....

[Blanquito]

Boris the Bozo Johnson?!?!? OMG. Can’t be true. WTF is happening to the world? It’s all Duyba’s fault, he ruined the everything maybe even worse than Coolidge and Harding and Hoover did in the 1920s.

Trump will go gaga getting to play footsie with his British doppelgänger.

[Comte Flaneur]

As my friend Thom Blach noted Boris Johnson is a duplicitous shit with no redeeming features, so Trump will see him as a kindred spirit. He is not leader yet but is seen to be a shoe in.

This is a good summary of what happened to Mrs May. Good riddance I say.

http://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/

And what lies ahead over the summer

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... are_btn_tw

[AKR]

I love it. I don't even pay UK taxes, but feel like I'm getting my entertainment dollar from there too.

That and the Daily Mail links my wife sends me.

[Blanquito]

Any updates on Brexit now that BJ is running the show? Only 2.5 months to the deadline, is a hard Brexit inevitable at this point, or will they just give another extension?

[AKR]

I was randomly reading corp filings / presentations for a few hours yesterday (its my version of the Daily Mail) and tripped over Hammerson.

For those who don't follow them - they are a UK / Contintental property firm that operates malls.

So they are afflicted with Brexit, global recessionary fears, RetailPocalypse/AmazonUberAlles, and sterling trubs !

It's like a Perfect Storm of bad news.

Common changes hands at an 11% yield (who knows if you'll get that) and at 1/3 of their own appraised values.

However they shoulder a mountain of debt - 10x their yearly EBITDA.

If someone thought Boris and Brexit would only be bad and not Armageddon that might a worth a speculative/risky bet trading at 20 years lows, with a cash bid only 2 years ago that was 3x their current stock price.

[SF Ed]

Ian - what are your latest thoughts? It seems like the world is so short on the UK economy nothing could take the pound any lower.

SF Ed

[Comte Flaneur]

Hi Ed

I agree with you that the FX market is pricing an extremely pessimistic scenario. It is very complicated but basically and arguably there has been an audacious attempt by the Far Right to enact a coup, with Boris Johnson the figurehead of this pernicious cabal, advised by a fanatical wrecker/disruptor who was credited in swinging the referendum, Dominic Cummings.

Not for the first time since the Brexit referendum the executive (government) has made a power grab at the expensive of the courts and the legislative (Parliament) as happened in Germany and Italy in the 1930s, but our system proved resilient this week and now Johnson and his co-conspirators have been snookered by skilful parliamentary manoeuvring.

We are far from being out of the woods and are still in mortal danger of one of two related calamities. We could get an early general election which Johnson wins and we get a no deal Brexit, which would be catastrophic. We could end up with a Corbyn government. Corbyn is a Marxist.

The reason why £ is so low is that all of us political centrists are homeless. It is a choice between the far right and far left, neither of which is good for the prosperity of the country.

Corbyn’s advisers are close to Putin, and he refuses to criticise Maduro in Caracas. Corbyn is straight out of the looney left play book. But...life goes on. And for you folks in North America you can have cheap holidays in Blighty. We are looking forward to seeing Tom in DC, now Tom in Denver in two weeks from now.

[Comte Flaneur]

We have an historic election today

Here is a good article about the death of traditional conservatism in Britain. It sums up exactly how I feel. It applies equally to the US.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... onary-sect

[JCNorthway]

Interesting read, Comte. Not hard to tell what he thinks.

[AKR]

Wow this looks to be a devastating blow for Labour.

Possibly their worst turnout in a century.

Will the French even allow their wine to be sold in England any more?

Buy your Bordeaux now, you may never have another chance.

[JimHow]

That Guardian writer might as well have been writing about the US and the harbinger that is this election for things coming this way in 2020.

[jal]

Trump might win the next elections just like Boris Johnson did but unless the Democrats give us a Marxist nominee that panders to mullahs, dictators (Maduro, Assad and Qatar) terrorists (Hamas and Hezbollah) and antisemites (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news ... -mwhhfkknv), it is very unlikely he will win by such a huge margin.
This election in Britain has been imo more about repudiating Corbyn than about accepting Boris Johnson, the Tories and Brexit.

[marcs]

Arv you said:

“(The British tradesman) has experienced more competition from an influx of Polilsh skilled tradesmen, willing to work without licenses, undercutting him in projects

- U.K. has high net migration, EU net migration has never been higher than non-EU migration.

- There were about a million Poles living in the UK at the peak, the highest cohort from the EU, which has built up over about 15 years. What you describe is a caricature, because most of them come because jobs have been plentiful. They have filled jobs that Brits were unwilling or unable to fill.

It always surprises me when economists claim that immigrants fill jobs that natives are "unwilling or unable to fill", because it is in such conflict with basic economic theory. There aren't jobs that people are "unwilling to fill", there are jobs where the wages are below the market-clearing price. Immigrants bid down the market-clearing wage. With a lower supply of labor there is more pressure on employers to bid up the wage and/or improve working conditions. Claiming that there are certain jobs that natives are "unwilling or unable" (why?) to fill is a pure mystification of this, replacing the workings of the market with claims about inherent/unchangeable or inborn qualities of workers, both natives and immigrants.

There are other reasons why immigration might be economically beneficial, although even those often work through adjusting the wage margin, but stuff about natives being "unwilling or unable to fill" jobs is a pure mystification.

[DavidG]

Current immigrant employment and pay for many of those menial jobs can certainly be seen as exploitative. Even if immigrant itinerant farm workers are better off than than in the home country, many are still worse off than most employed citizens.

Asking here, not arguing, as I have no expertise in this area...p

Do you think if we closed the borders tight and deported all the aliens wages would rise and most of the agriculture, aquaculture, landscaping, cleaning, personal care, etc. jobs would be filled with US citizens? And the increased wages would eliminate the need for a $15 minimum wage? Would inflation and increased interest rates be knock-on consequences?

Would most of those jobs be filled by US citizens?Unemployment is already low, and yet there remain concerns about lack of benefits and lack of full-time jobs. How would seasonal work would solve those problems?

Clinton's welfare work requirements may have put more people to work but they also put a lot of them on the disability rolls. Are there enough people physically and mentally able (never mind willing) to do all those jobs if immigrant labor was eliminated?

[jal]

David, I do not want to answer, more qualified people than me can do that.

I just want to add that when you say unemployment is low, that is only partially correct. The unemployment rate is low but the Labor Force Participation rate is still low and has not recovered to pre-great recession levels - https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 . Reasons may be that more participants have retired than joined the Labor pool of workers or that unemployed people have simply given up trying to find a job. In any case, I just wanted to point that out.

So in my very humble opinion, as I'm not an economist and have only watched a few on TV, there is still room to expand the workforce.

[JimHow]

Surely the left in this country, including the failing NYT and the rest of the mainstream media, must be trembling at these Brexit numbers.

Carry on, impeachers.

As our humble president gets us out of wars, strikes trade deals with friends and foes, brings us record low unemployment, including among minority populations, and brings us stock prices previously thought unimaginable....

Dare I say it?

I'm almost getting tired of all this winning.

Pip, pip cherio, as our friends across the water would say.

[AKR]

It baffles me. I don't understand how those with clear moral clarity and policy lodestars like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan didn't get us where we needed to go while mendacious chameleons like DJT seem to do no wrong. I doubt he's ever even read Ayn Rand's books, or Milton Friedmans.

And even though the judicial appointments have been beyond amazing, he takes credit for them, when its not truly his work. It's all other people's work, like Federalist Soc. etc. That is annoying too.

[Comte Flaneur]

Arv you said:

“(The British tradesman) has experienced more competition from an influx of Polilsh skilled tradesmen, willing to work without licenses, undercutting him in projects

- U.K. has high net migration, EU net migration has never been higher than non-EU migration.

- There were about a million Poles living in the UK at the peak, the highest cohort from the EU, which has built up over about 15 years. What you describe is a caricature, because most of them come because jobs have been plentiful. They have filled jobs that Brits were unwilling or unable to fill.

It always surprises me when economists claim that immigrants fill jobs that natives are "unwilling or unable to fill", because it is in such conflict with basic economic theory. There aren't jobs that people are "unwilling to fill", there are jobs where the wages are below the market-clearing price. Immigrants bid down the market-clearing wage. With a lower supply of labor there is more pressure on employers to bid up the wage and/or improve working conditions. Claiming that there are certain jobs that natives are "unwilling or unable" (why?) to fill is a pure mystification of this, replacing the workings of the market with claims about inherent/unchangeable or inborn qualities of workers, both natives and immigrants.

There are other reasons why immigration might be economically beneficial, although even those often work through adjusting the wage margin, but stuff about natives being "unwilling or unable to fill" jobs is a pure mystification.

Gosh want a pedant you are Marcus.

There is no unemployment problem in the UK as in the US. What changed in 2004 was that the labour supply became more elastic. Poles came in but did not deprive brits of finding work because the brits generally found higher paying jobs.

Without the immigration we would have had higher wage inflation, higher interest rates and lower house prices.

[Comte Flaneur]

I will give my impressions of the election tomorrow.

But certainly Trump can take heart. In fact I now have come round to thinking Trump will win despite his low popularity and what I expect to be a very high turnout esp among younger voters. The turnout here in Thursday was disappointing.

But reading Jacques’s post I agree 100%. Corbyn was the biggest problem, and you will not get a Dem candidate who is unsound on anti-semtism.

[marcs]

Arv you said:

“(The British tradesman) has experienced more competition from an influx of Polilsh skilled tradesmen, willing to work without licenses, undercutting him in projects

- U.K. has high net migration, EU net migration has never been higher than non-EU migration.

- There were about a million Poles living in the UK at the peak, the highest cohort from the EU, which has built up over about 15 years. What you describe is a caricature, because most of them come because jobs have been plentiful. They have filled jobs that Brits were unwilling or unable to fill.

It always surprises me when economists claim that immigrants fill jobs that natives are "unwilling or unable to fill", because it is in such conflict with basic economic theory. There aren't jobs that people are "unwilling to fill", there are jobs where the wages are below the market-clearing price. Immigrants bid down the market-clearing wage. With a lower supply of labor there is more pressure on employers to bid up the wage and/or improve working conditions. Claiming that there are certain jobs that natives are "unwilling or unable" (why?) to fill is a pure mystification of this, replacing the workings of the market with claims about inherent/unchangeable or inborn qualities of workers, both natives and immigrants.

There are other reasons why immigration might be economically beneficial, although even those often work through adjusting the wage margin, but stuff about natives being "unwilling or unable to fill" jobs is a pure mystification.

Gosh want a pedant you are Marcus.

There is no unemployment problem in the UK as in the US. What changed in 2004 was that the labour supply became more elastic. Poles came in but did not deprive brits of finding work because the brits generally found higher paying jobs.

Without the immigration we would have had higher wage inflation, higher interest rates and lower house prices.

Higher wages and lower housing prices -- sounds good to me!

[AKR]

Without the immigration we would have had higher wage inflation, higher interest rates and lower house prices.

I think that is the whole point - the people at the low end of the economic order do not have land nor capital to sell. They actually would prefer higher wages and lower rents, even if the capitalists/rentiers dislike those.

If all you have is labor services to sell, you want that market to be relatively restricted.

Look at how certain professions control their licensing - doctors effectively act as a midieval guild. Electricians/Plumbers etc. make sure that English competency is well enforced to keep immigrants who are good with their hands working in painting and tiling.

[DavidG]

Arv, I agree with your larger point but (surprise!) think you mischaracterize medical licensure. There is no numerical limit on medical licenses. If you have the education, pass the tests, and don’t have a criminal record, you can be a licensed physician. The education and knowledge requirements are restrictive, but for public health purposes rather than economic protectionism.

The medical profession would welcome more medical schools and graduate medical education positions. We are facing a manpower shortage and would love to see more physicians being turned out. But the government has declined to support expansion of graduate and post-graduate medical training. There has instead been a shift to non-MD "mid-level" NPs, CRNAs, RNs and PAs to fill in the manpower gaps. That's cheaper than training and paying more physicians and it works well for a lot of routine care. But it poses concerns for complex care and is one area that organized medicine opposes.

[AKR]

Arv, I agree with your larger point but (surprise!) think you mischaracterize medical licensure. There is no numerical limit on medical licenses. If you have the education, pass the tests, and don’t have a criminal record, you can be a licensed physician. The education and knowledge requirements are restrictive, but for public health purposes rather than economic protectionism.

The medical profession would welcome more medical schools and graduate medical education positions. We are facing a manpower shortage and would love to see more physicians being turned out. But the government has declined to support expansion of graduate and post-graduate medical training. There has instead been a shift to non-MD "mid-level" NPs, CRNAs, RNs and PAs to fill in the manpower gaps. That's cheaper than training and paying more physicians and it works well for a lot of routine care. But it poses concerns for complex care and is one area that organized medicine opposes.

There are so many insane ways that medicine - as a profession - is artificially supply constrained that this could devolve into a polemic. Every trade tries to do it, but the health industry is just far more effective with it and unfortunately because so much of health care costs are - one way or another paid for / subsidized by the tax payer - it deserves far more scrutiny. The societies that pay for medical education (rather than forcing prospective doctors/nurses to bear that themselves) generally only tolerate a skilled wage differential of 3x for their medical staff vs the US model of 5x. I suppose that is the end game if we get Bernie/WarrenCare though. Public school teachers are generally not allowed to become millionaires, and I don't see an NHS style model allowing the same either.

[Comte Flaneur]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ianTodayUK

[ericindc]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ianTodayUK

my condolences.

[AKR]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ianTodayUK

Wow, he casts a lot of rocks at the USA. Especially 'flyover country'.

No nation is perfect but the siren song of self determination rings true everywhere.

Unelected and unaccountable Euro Commission members in Brussels weren't making Britain any better. Instead all subjects saw was the open borders policy of the EU leading to massive numbers of immigrants (many illegal) availing themselves of limited UK public services - health care, housing, schools. And instead of gratefully assimilating - they formed bantustans and kept their barbarous practices - female genital mutilation, honor killings, child marriage. If the EU had not encouraged uncontrolled migration and had some kind of points based migration like other Commonwealth countries - Canada or Australia for example - its much less likely this would have happened. I don't understand how or why the left thinks a public safety net can work with fanatical devotion to low skill, low productivity, low assimillation types of newcomers.

(and lest those who don't know me throw ethnic nativist accusations, note that I'm a product of immigration too, and just want newcomers who will be great fellow citizens. Lots of my community want more law & order in this dimension too)

=========

Still, Brits better load up on their BDX soon. The golden age of fairly priced cru classe is over.

[JimHow]

We all want to remain in our own tribes I guess.
Heck, even I was the chairman of the Coalition Opposed to Lewiston-Auburn Consolidation (COLAC).
We don’t want any of those low life Auburnites coming over the bridge, and they certainly don’t want any of us plebeian Lewistonians.

[Comte Flaneur]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ianTodayUK

Wow, he casts a lot of rocks at the USA. Especially 'flyover country'.

> Yes that is the only part of his article I felt uncomfortable with, but I think I get what he was trying to get across. The EU is by far the most sought after region to visit in the world - to go on vacation or to migrate to. It really is still the beacon for the rest of the developing world, though geography also has a lot to do with it. France and Texas are similar in size; France has over 200m visitors a year, Texas 8m.

No nation is perfect but the siren song of self determination rings true everywhere.

> Yes and the EU is an umbrella of sovereign nation states. EU institutions are tiny in relation to nation states. The most powerful institution in the EU is the Council - i.e., leaders. The most powerful person in the EU is the German Chancellor. The UK is signatory to 14000 international treaties and some like NATO have bigger implications for sovereignty than the EU.

Unelected and unaccountable Euro Commission members in Brussels weren't making Britain any better.

> give me some examples please, perhaps your top three?

Instead all subjects saw was the open borders policy of the EU leading to massive numbers of immigrants (many illegal) availing themselves of limited UK public services - health care, housing, schools.

> migration into the UK is an overwhelming positive for the public finances and the NHS. Without migrant doctors and nurses the NHS would collapse. Health tourism is basically so small as to be a myth but the Murdoch press love to run with it.

And instead of gratefully assimilating - they formed bantustans and kept their barbarous practices - female genital mutilation, honor killings, child marriage. If the EU had not encouraged uncontrolled migration and had some kind of points based migration like other Commonwealth countries - Canada or Australia for example - its much less likely this would have happened. I don't understand how or why the left thinks a public safety net can work with fanatical devotion to low skill, low productivity, low assimillation types of newcomers.

> Most migrants in the UK are well assimilated

(and lest those who don't know me throw ethnic nativist accusations, note that I'm a product of immigration too, and just want newcomers who will be great fellow citizens. Lots of my community want more law & order in this dimension too)

=========

Still, Brits better load up on their BDX soon. The golden age of fairly priced cru classe is over.

> Yes indeed ! See comments above

[Blanquito]

Couldn't agree more with your post, Ian. So much rightwing propaganda out there about immigration in the UK and USA, virtually none of which has any basis in empirical realities.