Brexit, for once some facts.

[PeterL]

That's not the problem, Google can lead to numerous excellent expert articles on the most obscure of creatures. The problem is reaching that information, Google's algorithm commonly failing to perform. Being US centric doesn't help, throwing up vast amounts of information only relevant to the USA, even when using the correct national link.

And Google search for relevant natural history photos is hopeless, even when using the correct scientific name. The majority are spurious possibilities gathered.
.

In that case I bow to your knowledge which I am sure is correct. Hopefully it will improve and history tells us it will. I still remember the web in the late 80's - very primitive and relatively expensive in Compuserve days.

 

[PeterL]

Better send Nissan, BMW and Honda packing then?

Not at all - we need the jobs and the money it brings - to tide us over!

 

[oldgroaner]

That looks a bit like VAT rates to me. What about all the other taxes?

This appears to be the situation (could all be lies of course)

After all it is in the Daily Express.

 

[oldgroaner]

Not at all - we need the jobs and the money it brings - to tide us over!

Till what replaces it exactly, can you be specific? or is this in the realm of pious hopes?

 

[oldgroaner]

In that case I bow to your knowledge which I am sure is correct. Hopefully it will improve and history tells us it will. I still remember the web in the late 80's - very primitive and relatively expensive in Compuserve days.

And how many baud was it? 1,200? the company got impatient and installed an ISDN terminal that is still on the wall with the long dead number on the front. it's still there behind my Computer Desk

 

[PeterL]

This appears to be the situation (could all be lies of course)

After all it is in the Daily Express.

Apple's and Pear's surely. We've been dishing out the cash for a lot longer than most and owed more to our friends in the US before MT finally cleared the bill. The bucket is empty as the man said - but, we still carry on regardless. Corporate Taxes are not the same as VAT they are additional. To those two you can add Rent. Rates, Wages, Energy - the list seems endless.

 

[PeterL]

And how many baud was it? 1,200?

If you were lucky and HDD was all of 500Kb and memory even less. On reflection 5Mb

 

[oldgroaner]

Apple's and Pear's surely. We've been dishing out the cash for a lot longer than most and owed more to our friends in the US before MT finally cleared the bill. The bucket is empty as the man said - but, we still carry on regardless. Corporate Taxes are not the same as VAT they are additional. To those two you can add Rent. Rates, Wages, Energy - the list seems endless.

And it is for every other country too remember.
And Tax avoidance is endemic here.

 

[oldgroaner]

If you were lucky and HDD was all of 500Kb and memory even less.

Our first Autocad System stored drawing data on 12" Floppy Discs that were so floppy you handled them with great care

 

[PeterL]

And it is for every other country too remember.
And Tax avoidance is endemic here.

Far from it - try the Mediterranean bordered countries.

 

[Zlatan]

I trust you - on that at least.

Well, that didn't last long - the boredom bit's OK but as I recall Germany has been running a surplus for quite a while.

Just checked my facts. This from New York.

If that’s the case, why did I start off by saying that Germany’s trade surplus is a problem? Last year, Germany’s global trade surplus surpassed that of China for the first time. Together, Germany and China’s surpluses create dangerous forces in the global economy. In normal times, money should flow, relatively freely, from nation to nation. As a general rule, people save money in banks, and the banks lend that money to businesses, which use it to invest in new factories, services, and government bonds. Some nations have more money saved than they do businesses that deserve investment; the extra money goes to some other nation with more promising businesses. In theoretical models, these flows of money are self-correcting. If one nation attracts too much investment or another attracts too little, then their exchange rates will adjust, and the money will stop flowing from the cash-rich nation to the investment-rich one.

With Germany, this hasn’t happened. There is a growing hoard of cash piling up because Germans tend to save a lot, as does their government. While Germany has strong industries, it doesn’t have the Internet, biotech, and robotics hubs that make the U.S. so attractive to foreign investors. Germany also greatly benefitted from the creation of the eurozone, which increased exports of German goods to other European countries. The 2008 financial crisis was caused, in no small part, by a similaramassing of cash, particularly in China. Back then, China had so much money looking for a place to invest that it started pouring into U.S. real estate and other ill-fated investments. This helped create the enormous housing bubble, which, when it burst, left us in crisis. It’s not clear exactly what the long-term impact of Germany’s cash hoarding will be. But the longer it builds and the bigger it gets, the more likely that it will erupt in some ugly and damaging way. Two prominent European think tanks found that more than two-thirds of economists surveyed believe that German surpluses are “a threat to the Eurozone economy.” The Obama Administration thought so, too.

The solution to Germany’s surplus has nothing to do with trade deals or the particular deal-making skills of government officials, as Trump would suggest. Rather, it’s a difficult and challenging dilemma that will likely have to be resolved by the European Central Bank. Germany needs a stronger euro, so that its citizens can buy more goods from abroad and export less, reducing its surpluses. But a stronger euro would be disastrous for Greece, Portugal, Italy, and other poorer members of the eurozone, which need a weaker currency to encourage exports and discourage consumer spending. This would be made easier by a political and fiscal union like the one in the United States. Our central and state governments continuously handle the disparate economies within our borders. We take tax money from high-growth areas and redistribute it to low-growth ones. Silicon Valley, in effect, subsidizes Mississippi. (Interestingly, blue states generally subsidize red ones.)

Germany could also spend more of its money on infrastructure or public projects of some kind. If Germany doesn’t take steps to reduce its trade surplus, at some point, if past patterns predict the future, there could be the discovery of a bubble in Germany or somewhere else in the eurozone, a sudden market panic, and a collapse of confidence, leading to stock-market collapse and recession. It could rend the eurozone apart. Such a crisis might be a short-term boon for the United States, as investors seek its safety, but it would also cause consternation in the global economy. It used to be assumed that the U.S. leadership considered global stability as a form of self-interest. A sudden collapse of Germany’s surplus could lead to the type of economic disaster that often spurs political instability, a lack of global coöperation, and a turning toward ugly forms of nationalism.

Brilliant post...

 

[PeterL]

Our first Autocad System stored drawing data on 12" Floppy Discs that were so floppy you handled them with great care

Before that we had valves, each of which was housed in a cabinet the size of a small room - we used to go in and polish them! (the anodes) Not wearing a ring however, your finger might fall off.

 

[oldtom]

Yet if all the parties now take the outcome of the election as a signal to spend money we don’t have then bankruptcy is not far away.

Your grasp of economics is coloured by the lies forced upon you and millions of others by the tory propaganda wing, aka the mainstream media.

WW1 and WW2 failed to actually bankrupt the country as proved to be the case with our involvement in a whole raft of other hostile military actions our forces have been required to fight in through the last 70 years on behalf of the British establishment.

We have been wasting and continue to waste hundreds of millions of pounds in the middle east and the country is nowhere near bankrupt, even bereft of productive large-scale industry for export, so raising the income of the poorest in society is not going to be even noticed.

Tom

 

[PeterL]

Brilliant post...

Some sense at last on here - as Jacob would say.

 

[oldgroaner]

Far from it - try the Mediterranean bordered countries.

You really do kid yourself, don't you?

 

[PeterL]

Your grasp of economics is coloured by the lies forced upon you and millions of others by the tory propaganda wing, aka the mainstream media.

WW1 and WW2 failed to actually bankrupt the country as proved to be the case with our involvement in a whole raft of other hostile military actions our forces have been required to fight in through the last 70 years on behalf of the British establishment.

We have been wasting and continue to waste hundreds of millions of pounds in the middle east and the country is nowhere near bankrupt, even bereft of productive large-scale industry for export, so raising the income of the poorest in society is not going to be even noticed.

Tom

If mine is coloured how about yours? Do you really think that the easy life is for all - no place for aspiration or failure?

 

[Zlatan]

Some sense at last on here - as Jacob would say.

Seeds and stony ground I,m afraid...or perhaps more pork and education ???

 

[Zlatan]

You really do kid yourself, don't you?

That's rich !

 

[oldgroaner]

Brilliant post...

Nonsense more like

 

[oldgroaner]

That's rich !

Thank you