9 ms·

Single market. Despite some bigots who don't want Polish people existing near them, having free movement of people, goods, capital and all the rest of it is rea

by gakada 10y ago

Single market. Despite some bigots who don't want Polish people existing near them, having free movement of people, goods, capital and all the rest of it is really good for the participant economies. Can you imagine if US citizens had to get a visa to move from New York to California?

imsofuture 10y ago
The US and the EU are really different entities.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  A lot of the same principles at play though. Single currency. No visas. Same norms and industry standards to make "exporting" from e.g. California to Texas painless. Etc.
  - vsl 10y ago
    US: Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. EU: A mix of countries that don't share the language or the culture. Legislative body is not voted (Comission: bureaucrats in the literal sense of the word). The little bit of directly-voted part, European Parliament, has only limited power and is out of sight of the voters. There's no oversight, most people don't even have a chance to know what's cooking until it's the law and is too late to do anything about it. US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. Without it, there's no oversight. Without oversight, you get the current EU.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      > Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. All of which took about two hundred years to achieve. The starting point was a mix of languages, to the point it was not clear that English would become so dominant as it has become (and it's not clear it will remain so) and the majority of the adult population could not vote at all. The EU is at the point of trying to "work around" the type of problems the US had under the Articles of Confederation. A lot of the cumbersome messy structure of the EU basically comes down to not wanting to make those mistakes (leading e.g. Congress to vote for measures only for states to just ignore them and refuse to fund stuff they were against, with Congress having no means of enforcing decisions). It took a lot of time and problems before the US went fully federal. > US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. By that argument, the existence of the US is an impossibility. The US did not have a common language when it was first created. There are still millions of Americans that speak little English, though the proportion is much greater now tha it used to be.
m_mueller 10y ago
Switzerland has had trade and free movement agreements with the EU for a while now. This argument alone doesn't justify a full membership IMO. Being a member of the economical zone does just that.
- danmaz74 10y ago
  Yes but Switzerlan got a free trade agreement exactly BECAUSE they accepted free movement agreement too. Which is exactly what brexiters don't want - they want free trade, but no free movement. They're not going to get it.
  - estefan 10y ago
    This is the biggest miscalculation of Cameron's career, letting the population of non-economists vote on our future like this. He'll be gone within the week. Every other country in the EEA has free movement of people as a condition. So we'll just have to have the same rules but not get a voice in making them. We've just cut off our nose to spite our face.
    - estefan 10y ago
      And yes, he's announced his resignation.
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    I wouldn't be so sure. The UK has a huge trade deficit with the EU, which means that import taxes on goods mostly hurts the EU, not the other way round.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      Watch that erode over the next two years as those businesses who can easily move does so. E.g. consider car manufacturers. Substantial interests in the EU would love to have tariffs on imports of cars from the UK, and the manufacturers here generally are here to serve the EU market more than the UK and have little reason to remain here if they can shift manufacturing capacity elsewhere. A lot of UK exports are "on behalf" of companies headquartered elsewhere that have used the UK as a beachhead into the EU. If the UK is outside, suddenly the benefit is drastically reduced for them.
enraged_camel 10y ago
>>Can you imagine if US citizens had to get a visa to move from New York to California? That's categorically different. The US is united under one national identity, so the ties between states are much stronger. Whereas the EU consists of many different countries and cultures, and each one has a long history of nationalism and rivalry with neighbors.
- pmontra 10y ago
  You've been downvoted but as European I can say that the part of your comment about Europe is true and that's why we should be careful about taking the way of nationalism again. With the EU we fixed the major problem (wars), anything else is less important and can be fixed with some good will. Not that having to go through borders and possibly multiple currencies and tariffs every time we move and buy won't be a major pain in the ass, still a less major problem than others.
- vidarh 10y ago
  It is united under one national identity now because the US already went through this exercise. The US was just as fragmented for a very long time.
cm2187 10y ago
But the UK wants to keep the free market. And I doubt european countries will be ready to hurt their own exports by turning the UK down (most european countries really cannot afford that).
ausvisaissues 10y ago
I don’t have a horse in this race, but the language you use (‘bigoted’) is way too strong… The UK is a really popular immigration destination (perhaps due to it being a rich English-speaking economy and the legacy of its colonial empire). Let's say the British public is willing to accept a fixed amount of immigrants. The UK can easily fill this up with high-skilled immigrants (Masters/PhD’s in technical fields). Wouldn't that be better than accepting blue-collar workers from Eastern Europe? Are you ‘bigoted’ because I think a PhD from India would be better for the economy than a blue-collar worker from E-Europe? It is high-time that the UK start re-engaging with its own commonwealth. This includes closer trade and immigration.
- hjnilsson 10y ago
  The issue here is that polish workers are putting downwards price pressure on the construction industry. If Britain leaves, that will no longer be the case. Leading to increased prices for construction, which leads to less construction being done. Which will slow down the economy. It is not as simple as replacing blue-collar workers with white-collar and expecting things to turn out awesome. The demand for blue-collar workers will remain. People in Britian will in the future get less for their money (this will also make it a less attractive destination for foreign educated professionals)
  - ausvisaissues 10y ago
    > The issue here is that polish workers are putting downwards price pressure on the construction industry. It also puts downward price pressure on wages of blue-collar workers! Immigration should depend on jobs that are in demand. If construction jobs are in demand, I am sure that there would be thousands of people (from non-EU countries) willing to satisfy the demand.
    - CraigJPerry 10y ago
      What difference does it make if the workers come from eu or non eu countries? They're still foreign workers. The downward pressure on wages is fine - the polish guy says I'll work for half that, the British guy says OK I'll work for a bit less than the polish guy. The polish guy says I'll go cheaper, the British guy says that's no longer best for me, I can earn more by doing X instead. More work done, and now there's 2 taxpayers instead of just one. Presumably the British guy went to another job, didn't just turn up their nose and say 'I'm not working for that! I'm claiming benefits / going to crime instead'
darawk 10y ago
Ya I agree that that's a good thing. It just doesn't seem to me that you need such a powerful unelected institution overseeing it. Just make an agreement that people and goods can move freely.

by gakada 10y ago

imsofuture 10y ago

The US and the EU are really different entities.

guitarbill 10y ago
A lot of the same principles at play though. Single currency. No visas. Same norms and industry standards to make "exporting" from e.g. California to Texas painless. Etc.
- vsl 10y ago
  US: Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. EU: A mix of countries that don't share the language or the culture. Legislative body is not voted (Comission: bureaucrats in the literal sense of the word). The little bit of directly-voted part, European Parliament, has only limited power and is out of sight of the voters. There's no oversight, most people don't even have a chance to know what's cooking until it's the law and is too late to do anything about it. US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. Without it, there's no oversight. Without oversight, you get the current EU.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    > Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. All of which took about two hundred years to achieve. The starting point was a mix of languages, to the point it was not clear that English would become so dominant as it has become (and it's not clear it will remain so) and the majority of the adult population could not vote at all. The EU is at the point of trying to "work around" the type of problems the US had under the Articles of Confederation. A lot of the cumbersome messy structure of the EU basically comes down to not wanting to make those mistakes (leading e.g. Congress to vote for measures only for states to just ignore them and refuse to fund stuff they were against, with Congress having no means of enforcing decisions). It took a lot of time and problems before the US went fully federal. > US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. By that argument, the existence of the US is an impossibility. The US did not have a common language when it was first created. There are still millions of Americans that speak little English, though the proportion is much greater now tha it used to be.

m_mueller 10y ago

Switzerland has had trade and free movement agreements with the EU for a while now. This argument alone doesn't justify a full membership IMO. Being a member of the economical zone does just that.

danmaz74 10y ago
Yes but Switzerlan got a free trade agreement exactly BECAUSE they accepted free movement agreement too. Which is exactly what brexiters don't want - they want free trade, but no free movement. They're not going to get it.
- estefan 10y ago
  This is the biggest miscalculation of Cameron's career, letting the population of non-economists vote on our future like this. He'll be gone within the week. Every other country in the EEA has free movement of people as a condition. So we'll just have to have the same rules but not get a voice in making them. We've just cut off our nose to spite our face.
  - estefan 10y ago
    And yes, he's announced his resignation.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure. The UK has a huge trade deficit with the EU, which means that import taxes on goods mostly hurts the EU, not the other way round.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Watch that erode over the next two years as those businesses who can easily move does so. E.g. consider car manufacturers. Substantial interests in the EU would love to have tariffs on imports of cars from the UK, and the manufacturers here generally are here to serve the EU market more than the UK and have little reason to remain here if they can shift manufacturing capacity elsewhere. A lot of UK exports are "on behalf" of companies headquartered elsewhere that have used the UK as a beachhead into the EU. If the UK is outside, suddenly the benefit is drastically reduced for them.

enraged_camel 10y ago

>>Can you imagine if US citizens had to get a visa to move from New York to California? That's categorically different. The US is united under one national identity, so the ties between states are much stronger. Whereas the EU consists of many different countries and cultures, and each one has a long history of nationalism and rivalry with neighbors.

pmontra 10y ago
You've been downvoted but as European I can say that the part of your comment about Europe is true and that's why we should be careful about taking the way of nationalism again. With the EU we fixed the major problem (wars), anything else is less important and can be fixed with some good will. Not that having to go through borders and possibly multiple currencies and tariffs every time we move and buy won't be a major pain in the ass, still a less major problem than others.
vidarh 10y ago
It is united under one national identity now because the US already went through this exercise. The US was just as fragmented for a very long time.

cm2187 10y ago

But the UK wants to keep the free market. And I doubt european countries will be ready to hurt their own exports by turning the UK down (most european countries really cannot afford that).

ausvisaissues 10y ago

I don’t have a horse in this race, but the language you use (‘bigoted’) is way too strong… The UK is a really popular immigration destination (perhaps due to it being a rich English-speaking economy and the legacy of its colonial empire). Let's say the British public is willing to accept a fixed amount of immigrants. The UK can easily fill this up with high-skilled immigrants (Masters/PhD’s in technical fields). Wouldn't that be better than accepting blue-collar workers from Eastern Europe? Are you ‘bigoted’ because I think a PhD from India would be better for the economy than a blue-collar worker from E-Europe? It is high-time that the UK start re-engaging with its own commonwealth. This includes closer trade and immigration.

hjnilsson 10y ago
The issue here is that polish workers are putting downwards price pressure on the construction industry. If Britain leaves, that will no longer be the case. Leading to increased prices for construction, which leads to less construction being done. Which will slow down the economy. It is not as simple as replacing blue-collar workers with white-collar and expecting things to turn out awesome. The demand for blue-collar workers will remain. People in Britian will in the future get less for their money (this will also make it a less attractive destination for foreign educated professionals)
- ausvisaissues 10y ago
  > The issue here is that polish workers are putting downwards price pressure on the construction industry. It also puts downward price pressure on wages of blue-collar workers! Immigration should depend on jobs that are in demand. If construction jobs are in demand, I am sure that there would be thousands of people (from non-EU countries) willing to satisfy the demand.
  - CraigJPerry 10y ago
    What difference does it make if the workers come from eu or non eu countries? They're still foreign workers. The downward pressure on wages is fine - the polish guy says I'll work for half that, the British guy says OK I'll work for a bit less than the polish guy. The polish guy says I'll go cheaper, the British guy says that's no longer best for me, I can earn more by doing X instead. More work done, and now there's 2 taxpayers instead of just one. Presumably the British guy went to another job, didn't just turn up their nose and say 'I'm not working for that! I'm claiming benefits / going to crime instead'

darawk 10y ago

Ya I agree that that's a good thing. It just doesn't seem to me that you need such a powerful unelected institution overseeing it. Just make an agreement that people and goods can move freely.