European Politics Thread.

[Baff1 0]

It is simply a fact that also non Europeans have discovered the use of roads and are maintaining and building them where there are large concentrations of people that need such infrastructure for various reasons - like trade.

The countries and areas with all the infrastructure aren't the ones with all the famines.

[scary 0]

You can tell me how in this advanced welfare state how Derek cannot be living in a halfway house and stealing sandwiches, and yet he still is. You can tell me they have education courses for the mentally handicapped.

What you tell me doesn't change anything.

The £80 he gets in rent and food money does not match the £250 he used to earn.

You are pulling numbers out of the air. There is very little difference in real terms between a low wage job and state benefits.

Quote[/b] ]Renting accomodation is not so easy for someone on welfare than for someone employed, let alone someone as challeneged as Delboy.

There is no reason for him to be looking for somewhere to live. He would presumably already had a home and the local council would pay either his rent or the interest on his mortgage.

Quote[/b] ]The problem with this advanced welfare state is that Derek is now having to use it, where previously he had no call to.

You feel that the state has no need to protect the weak? To favour it's own children over the children of others? Before the immigration explosion, Derek, though weak, was strong enough to live a good life on his own terms. Now he is not.

In the case, he state hasn't protected the weak, it has created them.

If Derek has lost his job it is his own fault. He should stop feeling sorry for himself, get off his arse and apply for one or more of the 600,000 vacancies that exist in this country every day. If those jobs didn't exist people wouldn't be coming from eastern Europe to do them. Net migration into the UK in 2005 was 185,000 - hardly an 'explosion'.

Quote[/b] ]I assume Derek is on incapacity benefit. It could be imcome support or Unemployment for all I know. He is perfectly capable fo work. But all the low paid jobs are taken.

For the record I have met countless people on incapacity benefit perfectly able to work.

The government prefers this than called unemployed people "unemployed". There are also people omn income support, and self employed benefit too. A benefits are benefits.

Unemployed and claiming stands at just under 1 million; unemployed is 1.7 million - we're a long way from wading through rivers of the great unwashed stealing sandwiches and living in halfway houses. The only place the low paid jobs have been taken is in the skewed reality of the tabloid press.

Quote[/b] ]The government does have a lot of say where immigrants go. It provides many of them social housing. Glasgow is a good example. (It's somewhere North of Peterborough, I've heard). They house them there, and they use their freedom of movement to head south.

Unless you can provide irrefutable proof of this I am going to have to assume you are making it all up. The Government have absolutely nothing to do with EU migrants, they can live wherever the hell they like but they have to be self-supporting. They are not entitled to social housing, to be eligible to use state welfare they have to have been paying NI contributions continually for twelve months.

Quote[/b] ]Immigrants do not pay the same taxes as everyone else. Helthcare is nominally provided by national insurance.

It's an insurance scheme. You have a car, you understand the principle. If too many people claim, the prices go up for everyone.

And again you are concocting nonsense. National Insurance is not an insurance scheme and has bugger all to do with the NHS. National Insurance pays for social security. The NHS is paid for out of general taxation.

Not that it makes the slightest difference anyway - immigrants pay NI. A NI number is required to get employment.

Quote[/b] ]Are you seriously trying to tell me that their home governments are footing the bill for the health care they recieve in the U.K. What utter nonsense. Their primary healthcare is paid for out of U.K. taxation. (not that we don't contribute to their healthcare systems in their own countries, mind, we do that too).

Read again:

"their education and primary healthcare has been paid for by another country."

The tense is most definitely past-perfect. The expensive parts of a person's life to the state are the beginning and the end. Their birth, childhood immunisations, many check-ups and their education have been paid for by another country. As most immigrants are short-stay and intend on returning whence they came, said country usually also pays for the end.

Quote[/b] ]Once again, lower paid people do not pay in the cost of the services they use. They are a drain on the resources not an equal participant and not a bonus asset.

Every immigrant that uses our already overstretched health service degrades the system as whole for the entire country.

Stop regurgitating the Daily chuffing Mail. None of this is vaguely true. Bearing in mind the demographic of these migrants being young, healthy and reasonably educated how many do you actually think are using the NHS?

An 18 year-old low wage worker from Poland contributes substantially more to the economy than an 18 year-old low wage worker from Plymouth simply because the state hasn't funded those expensive first 18 years of their life.

Quote[/b] ]Which doesn't change that 5 years ago before the big influx of immigrants, our low paid jobs were still all being done and our economy was stronger than it is today.

Britain's GDP has grown therefore the economy is stronger now than it was 5 years ago.

Quote[/b] ]N.B. your 2000 data of 4% immigrant populous of the U.K. only goes to show the scale of immigration we have had in the last 7 years. It is now 8%.

That's a lot over a short period of time. The bulk of that in the last 2 years.

More made-up figures. 8% of the UK population is of an ethnic minority. Ethnic minority !=immigrant. And that was from the 2001 census, before the accession.

Quote[/b] ]As previously noted GDP is Gross Domestic Produce. The majority of British profit is generated abroad.

Majoritively through investment banking, and also through outsourced production. (Actual cheap labour).

GDP gives a poor reflection on U.K. wealth generation. We are not a big industrialised producer in the same way as Germany and Japan. It does not make up the bulk of our national income.

Britain is driven by banking, and Japan and Germany by industrial production. Yes immigrants do the low paid work, but the profit in all these culures is being made from the very few high skilled only.

Britain's economy has its fingers in many pies, finance being just one of them. While manufacturing may be worth less as a percentage now than it was 50 years ago it is worth more in real terms. Finance in itself does not make any money, it requires other industries and most of Britain's economy is not generated abroad.

Quote[/b] ]No sources for that 90% Donne, loosely speaking only the top 5% pay more into the system than they take out.

This is pretty much common knowledge.

I gave a 5% "break/even/pay their way" allowance as an invention of my own, rather than try and present 5% as an exact figure.

This is pretty much nonsense. Median direct taxation is around 6,000 pounds p.a., indirect taxation is roughly the same. Who the crap is using 12,000 pounds of public money a year? Is it all those 20 year-old immigrants taking up all the hospital beds getting their arthritis and varicose veins treated while simultaneously taking everyone's jobs - the swines?

Quote[/b] ]In the U.K. If you use public transport, such as a bus, your fares are subsidised and you aren't paying road tax or fuel tax.

Car drivers are paying for the roads your bus drives on.

If you travel by train, the tracks are subsidsed. The tax payer is covering it.

What an absolute crock. Most public transport is not subsidised. Subsidised services are usually the little used rural ones. There is no such thing as road tax, it is a vehicle tax and buses pay it too. They also pay tax on their fuel as do trains, this is factored in to the price of tickets. No tax is ringfenced for anything, if it was both vehicle and fuel tax would have to be increased as they do not cover the cost of the transport network. Oddly enough roads did exist before cars.

Phrases like 'immigration explosion' and 'pensions crisis' but no credible accompanying numbers are typical tabloid fodder. As is blaming Johnny foreigner for every one of today's imaginary ills - 'immigrants coming over here, stealing our jobs, using our hospitals, sleeping with our women, eating our swans...'

Anyone would think they all have chaufeur driven Bentleys, live in castles and eat gold-plated caviar while the rest of the population rumages through their diamond encrusted bins looking for the scraps of food that they haven't fed to their unicorns.

EDIT- Board monged up the pound sign again. That really does need fixing. I blame the immigrants.

[fer 21]

Quote[/b] ]Phrases like 'immigration explosion' and 'pensions crisis' but no credible accompanying numbers are typical tabloid fodder. As is blaming Johnny foreigner for every one of today's imaginary ills - 'immigrants coming over here, stealing our jobs, using our hospitals, sleeping with our women, eating our swans...'

Anyone would think they all have chaufeur driven Bentleys, live in castles and eat gold-plated caviar while the rest of the population rumages through their diamond encrusted bins looking for the scraps of food that they haven't fed to their unicorns.

*tips hat to scary*

I might just have to print that out and stick it on my wall. Great, great post. Resounding 'hear hear' from over here.

- Fer <TZW>

PS Swans, it should be pointed out, are vicious and quite probably evil. More should be eaten. They come over here, steal our fish {continues}

[xawery 0]

Nice post Scary. I was going to write a lengthy reply to Baff's arguments, but your post has covered all the points. Instead, I would like to point Baff to the following article:

The Local Labour Market Effects of Immigration in the UK. It's a publication of the Home Office, so it should be freely available.

It's a long read, but well worth it. Allow me to quote a passage from the executive summary:

Quote[/b] ]We draw attention to many weaknesses in the available data and conceptual problems

in the empirical analysis all of which should urge caution before drawing strong conclusions.

Nonetheless it seems to be fair to conclude that on current evidence fear of large and nega-

tive employment and wage effects on the resident population are not easily justifable. The

perception that immigrants take away jobs from the existing population, thus contributing

to large increases in unemployment, or that immigrants depress wages of existing workers,

do not find confirmation in the analysis of data laid out in this report.

The data even contains evidence that immigration stimulates the growth of incumbants' wages. The authors, being the conscientous academics that they are, adopt a very tentative stance and warn against drawing strong conclusions from this research. Anyone who has ever done any research in the field of economics knows this is common practice. What we shouldn't forget however, is that any scientific research is better than the tabloid press.

I'm not saying anything new, but given the course this thread has taken I feel repeating the obvious is in order: we cannot base our conclusions on anecdotal evidence. I'm sure your mate Derek means a lot to you Baff, but his experiences are isolated and entirely irrelevant to the discussion. For each "Derek tearjerker scenario" I could post a story about how immigration changed someone's life for the better. You would have no way of verifying this story, nor would you be able to determine whether I'm not witholding some crucial aspects. The same holds true for your Derek anecdote.

In other words, my story would be as meaningless and statistically irrelevant as yours. If we don't want this discussion to degenerate into an "is so! is not!" slapfest, we must base our arguments on statistics which are actually representative for the entire country. Oh, and if at this point anyone feels the need to shout "ZOMG $tati$tic$ aRe LIEZ LOL!!11!", I would like to refer him/her to my earlier posts about the reliability of statistical research and its safeguards.

Regards,

Xawery

[Donnervogel 0]

The returns of foreign investment are measured as part of the national income, and I am taxed on them both in their host countries and in my own. They are not however measured as part of GDP.

Welcome back to Donner's new edition of Economy for beginners:

Quote[/b] ]Measures of national income and output are used in economics to estimate the value of goods and services produced in an economy. They use a system of national accounts or national accounting first developed during the 1940s. Some of the more common measures are Gross National Product (GNP), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Income (GNI), Net National Product (NNP), and Net National Income (NNI).

Wkipedia on national income

Quote[/b] ]The money I have removed from the British economy to invest abroad provides greater return than if invested domestically. That's why I (we) do it. This is better for the economy.

Yes this is why the income you get as part of your ROI is measured in the GDP. The initial (money) investment itself is not measured as it is only a transfer of ownership. Transfer of ownership alone does not create of destroy any value. Hence nothing gets "produced". And therefore it has nothing to do with GDP. The GDP will only measure what additional value (ROI) you create by investing, not the (money) investment itself.

Quote[/b] ]Banking services are measured as GDP. However we own foreign banks too. So their services are measured under their host nations GDP not ours.

Why on earth should their services be measured in British GDP? They are creating (or destroying) values for their domestic economy not the British one. Counting those values in the British GDP would just be plain wrong. However if British nationals are creditors (also Shareholders) of those banks then those banks have to pay for the "service" that they can use the money of those British people - hence they have to pay for importing "services" which has a negative effect on their GDP but a positive effect on the British GDP.

Quote[/b] ]GDP is GDP whatever country you are in.

While GDP is the same everywhere the measurement can vary greatly. The GDP is a formula with a set of values that add up. But it doesn't say anything about how those values are measured. For example. You can measure GDP completely indirectly if you like. You can measure what the population is spending to determine the national income for example (as everything they spent had to be earned at one point in time). You can also measure national income by measuring income directly. In theory those methods are equivalent in the long term but in reality they can lead to slightly different results and sometimes even big differences if compared in short term. Therefore it is important to consider how the GDP gets measured if you want to backtrack how certain actions affect the GDP in detail.

EDIT:

I'm getting pretty tired of going over this GDP thing over and over simply because you ignore facts.

If you want to criticise the GDP then do it for the real reasons. What I am explaining can simply be read on Wikipedia or in any economy book including the criticism of the GDP.

EDIT2:

Quote[/b] ]The countries and areas with all the infrastructure aren't the ones with all the famines.

Tell that to the people starving in the slums of Calcutta.

[Baff1 0]

It's a publication of the Home Office, so it should be freely available.

This would be the same Home office who's head of department publicly declared it as unfit for purpose. And as recently as yesterday re-admitted that it is still unfit for purpose.

The same Home office responsible for admitting and administering all immigration?

5 Pounds bets they say mass immigration is a really good thing.

Not exactly a quality indictment considering the source.

[Baff1 0]

[

Quote[/b] ]The countries and areas with all the infrastructure aren't the ones with all the famines.

Tell that to the people starving in the slums of Calcutta.

I'll tell it to the people of Switzerland instead. Who presumably aren't starving and don't live in slums.

I use banking services to invest my money abroad. I am not a bank. I do not provide a banking service.

Banks make money from my transaction. They take a cut or charge a fee. This is called a "banking service".

This is counted towards the GDP of the involved banks host nations.

That 1/3 of the U.K.'s national GDP is created from these transactions alone, might give you an insight into exactly how many transactions are being made.

GDP is short for Gross Domestic Product. Foreign investments and their returns are by their very nature, not domesticly produced.

You should be very wary of Wikipedia. I could have wrote it. Or as is more likely a student as part of their school project.

Please read this quote very carefully. (Unless you are still too tired to learn).

Quote[/b] ]Gross Domestic Product

Value of all final goods and services produced within a country within a given time period, usually one year. GDP thus includes the production of foreign-owned firms within the country, but excludes the income from domestically-owned firms located abroad.

Which just happens to be the primary source of income for the U.K.

So if you were to judge the national income of the U.K. by it's GDP alone, you would get a very imbalanced view of the economy indeed.

It is incorrect to do so.

[xawery 0]

It's a publication of the Home Office, so it should be freely available.

This would be the same Home office who's head of department publicly declared it as unfit for purpose. And as recently as yesterday re-admitted that it is still unfit for purpose.

The same Home office responsible for admitting and administering all immigration?

5 Pounds bets they say mass immigration is a really good thing.

Not exactly a quality indictment considering the source.

First of all, the Home Office was described as "unfit for purpose" by John Reid because of its inefficient managament structure, not because it was intrinsically flawed.

Second, the report was commissioned by the Home Office, not performed in-house.

However, if you insist on rejecting research a priori, then there is little sense in trying to present you with evidence.

[Donnervogel 0]

I use banking services to invest my money abroad. I am not a bank. I do not provide a banking service.

Banks make money from my transaction. They take a cut or charge a fee. This is called a "banking service".

This is counted towards the GDP of the involved banks host nations.

That 1/3 of the U.K.'s national GDP is created from these transactions alone, might give you an insight into exactly how many transactions are being made.

GDP is short for Gross Domestic Product. Foreign investments and their returns are by their very nature, not domesticly produced.

You should be very wary of Wikipedia. I could have wrote it. Or as is more likely a student as part of their school project.

Seriously. How much effort do you put into ignoring reality? You are welcome to read again what I wrote already because frankly - I covered all those areas already more than once. You also also welcome to pick up an economy book and read it there if you don't trust Wikipedia... but I am again repeating myself.

(on a sidenote, it is ok to me if you don't trust Wikipedia, but many Wikipedia articles - unlike you - provide their sources so they are checkable. And If you don't trust the Wikipedia article you are welcome to check the sources.)

Quote[/b] ]Gross Domestic Product

Value of all final goods and services produced within a country within a given time period, usually one year. GDP thus includes the production of foreign-owned firms within the country, but excludes the income from domestically-owned firms located abroad.

Lesson one: you need to provide your sources. (luckily it wasn't too hard to track down this one)

Lesson two: you need to read carefully.

Quote[/b] ]Gross Domestic Product

Value of all final goods and services produced within a country within a given time period, usually one year. GDP thus includes the production of foreign-owned firms within the country, but excludes the income from domestically-owned firms located abroad.

Gross Domestic Product as tiscali encyclopaedia

So I ask this again. Why on earth would the production of foreign firms be counted to the British economy? It's simply wrong. I explained this many times already. Is it so hard to understand what GDP means? If you count foreign production to your GDP you are counting a foreign economy to yours which would defeat the purpose of the GDP to show the state of the domestic economy.

BUT the GDP counts the the ROI individuals/companies get from investing in foreign companies (which is what the "income" of the UK in this sector consists of.)

Therefore I am not ignoring a large part of the UK economy by doing this. Actually I am not ignoring that part at all. You just need to distinguish between what belongs to what economy. And you investing money into a foreign economy primarily benefits the foreign economy. Because if they build machines/factories/whatever that is a direct contribution to the foreign economy. If they "produce" goods/services this also directly benefits the foreign economy. What benefits the UK economy is the service you are exporting by lending (right word? dunno the English terminology in that area well) money to foreigners. And the profits (values added) you have from it (ROI) is what counts to GDP, because as it says it measures the production (creation of values). Transferring ownership (of money of goods or rights etc.) alone is never creating any values so measuring that would not give you any valuable data on the productivity of an economy. There are such measures though and they have their uses in other areas.

[TrevorOfCrete 0]

I love the EU and its the best dam thing ever.

Its great to see for the first time ever a extended period of peace through europe, with little tension between countries.  The EU's has made a bright future for europe.  The next majore challenge is Russia and the Fuel row.  Hopefullly we can all go green to rub it in Putins face  

[Baff1 0]

So I ask this again. Why on earth would the production of foreign firms be counted to the British economy?

Same answer.

Because they are British owned and twice a year they send a slice of the profits back here in the form of a check. The profits enter the British economy.

Further more anu increase in the value of the company may be sold off and the money would be sent to the U.K.

[Baff1 0]

BUT the GDP counts the the ROI individuals/companies get from investing in foreign companies (which is what the "income" of the UK in this sector consists of.)

Incorrect.

Quote[/b] ]Gross Domestic Product

Value of all final goods and services produced within a country within a given time period, usually one year. GDP thus includes the production of foreign-owned firms within the country, but excludes the income from domestically-owned firms located abroad

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

I love the EU and its the best dam thing ever.

Its great to see for the first time ever a extended period of peace through europe, with little tension between countries.  The EU's has made a bright future for europe.  The next majore challenge is Russia and the Fuel row.  Hopefullly we can all go green to rub it in Putins face  

GREATEST A-MEN TO THAT!!!

Hydrogen/Biofuel cars for the win!!!

[Baff1 0]

Its great to see for the first time ever a extended period of peace through europe, with little tension between countries.  The EU's has made a bright future for europe.  The next major challenge is Russia and the Fuel row.

Assuming we overlook the revolutions in Poland and Hungry, the wars in Serbia, Croatia, Albania and Macedonia; the two wars in Cyprus.

Not to mention the armed struggles for seperation in Northern Ireland and the Basque country.

Sounds like someone is re-writing history to me.

The problem with Russian oil and gas supply, is that the countries that have seperated from Russia, are not prepared to pay the market rate for their fuel.

For the last 50 years they have been recieving it as a subsidy for their Soviet membership.

Consequently now that Russia is attempting to sell that energy in Europe at the market rate instead, the countries that the pipelines pass through, are feeling the pinch. for them energy prices have risen

Obviously Russia doesn't owe anybody it's oil. They are free to sell it for the market price to anyone they please.

Go Russia is what I say, sort them out.

If they can't pay you for it, sell it to us in Europe instead. We can and we want it.

I think they should lay a pipeline in the Baltic sea bed and bypass all those blaggers completely.

[EiZei 0]

BUZZARD @ Jan. 13 2007,03:26)]

I love the EU and its the best dam thing ever.

Its great to see for the first time ever a extended period of peace through europe, with little tension between countries.  The EU's has made a bright future for europe.  The next majore challenge is Russia and the Fuel row.  Hopefullly we can all go green to rub it in Putins face  

GREATEST A-MEN TO THAT!!!

Hydrogen/Biofuel cars for the win!!!  

Going to take a whole lot more to become energy independent of russia than a couple of expensive new hydrogen cars. Nuclear power, for example, is a proven technology.

[Donnervogel 0]

Same answer.

Because they are British owned and twice a year they send a slice of the profits back here in the form of a check. The profits enter the British economy.

Further more anu increase in the value of the company may be sold off and the money would be sent to the U.K.

1. the GDP is the gross domestic product and not the GNP (gross national product). It indicates how the British economy is going. The GNP indicates the value created by British nationals. But it is useless for comparing national economies because it includes many values that benefits foreign economies and exclude all the values that benefit the British economy but are "owned" by foreigners.

2. Also if the company value increases and your stocks are sold again you will gain money from it but that money is not a value generated by the UK economy. It is again only a transfer of ownership anyway. But where has the additional value been produced? It was generated by the firm for example because it invested it's earnings into new machinery (there are tons of other reasons why the value of a firm can go up and to explain them all I'd have to fill another 2 pages so I just use this one example because it's not as complicated). And there we are again. those investments are part of the GDP formula --> foreign GDP profits from the increased value of the firm because it is part of the foreign economy. There is more money however in the UK because of the transfer of ownership but that alone has no impact on the UK economy. It will have impact on the UK Economy though if the money is spent in the UK. And that is because that money in the UK will create a higher demand for UK products which will increase production of companies located in the UK. Don't confuse this with ROI from foreign investments which is added to UK GDP directly because it's coming from exporting UK services.

BUT the GDP counts the the ROI individuals/companies get from investing in foreign companies (which is what the "income" of the UK in this sector consists of.)

Incorrect.

Quote[/b] ]Gross Domestic Product

Value of all final goods and services produced within a country within a given time period, usually one year. GDP thus includes the production of foreign-owned firms within the country, but excludes the income from domestically-owned firms located abroad

You can emphasize it as much as you want. I pretty much explained it in every posting why this cannot be counted and why financial services are on a different level. You either start an argumentation of your own or I take it you are just being ignorant for the sake of it.

[TrevorOfCrete 0]

Its great to see for the first time ever a extended period of peace through europe, with little tension between countries.  The EU's has made a bright future for europe.  The next major challenge is Russia and the Fuel row.

Assuming we overlook the revolutions in Poland and Hungry, the wars in Serbia, Croatia, Albania and Macedonia; the two wars in Cyprus.

Not to mention the armed struggles for seperation in Northern Ireland and the Basque country.

Sounds like someone is re-writing history to me.

ok sure point taken.  but they were all really as a result of the collapse of communism (excluding Cyprus) rather than the failures of the European community.  Yugoslavia was indeed one war which was nasty and unfortunate, but since then there hasnt really been any notable fallout,  northern ireland is really not the problem it used to be, the IRA are really no longer a terrorist group.

But think of it this way,  look at the relations between France, Britian, Germany, Italy and Spain.  These are the major european powers and pre-EU how many conflicts did these countries get into with each other?  The EU has suchcessfully stopped this massive resentment between the countries.  Now instead of the odd war, we can settle things throught a good game of Football or rugby.  That is a lasting testament to new European relations,  and definatly is not recognised enough when you study western european history.

[Baff1 0]

Same answer.

2. Also if the company value increases and your stocks are sold again you will gain money from it but that money is not a value generated by the UK economy. It is again only a transfer of ownership anyway.

Transfers of money are great for the economy.

Money in = good.

Money in > Money out = Profit.

Bought it cheap sold it high. Yay!

Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter where it is. Just send me my check.  

For money to be in the U.K. economy, it doesn't have to be generated in the U.K., (and most of it isn't). It has to end up here.

As you righly say, spending it here spreads it around a bit. Even if I spent nothing, the taxman takes his cut.

N.B. I do not have to buy U.K. goods only for the money to remain in the economy. If I leave that money in a bank, it will generate income, (and also more tax on that income).

I may also use it to by services. My cleaning lady or handyman for example.

Also If I buy an import from a domestic shop, while a slice of that money leaves the country, a fair proportion goes to the retailer, the distributor and even the importer perhaps.

Nationally, we operate at a trade deficit. Again since our economy is not GDP dependant this isn't as big an issue as it may first sound.

Quote[/b] ]You can emphasize it as much as you want. I pretty much explained it in every posting why this cannot be counted and why financial services are on a different level.

As a teacher, one of the first things I learnt is that you have to learn yourself before you can teach.

About the second thing I learnt, is that there is always one child at the back of the class who knows it all already.

He knows it not because he has spent many years studying it and not because he has alot of actual life experience of the subject but because he is the certain kind of student, that type who was born with all knowledge.

With that in mind.....

Financial services, (banking services), are calculted in GDP. In the U.K. banking services make up about 1/3 of our GDP.

Foreign investments, and the returns of foreign investments are not counted towards GDP.

I think your mistake is to not understand what banking services are. You seem to think that foreign investment and banking services are one and the same thing, they are not.

As a foreign investor, I use banking/financial services to make a foreign investment.

They charge me a fee for that service.

I do not provide banking services or financial services of any kind.

[Baff1 0]

But think of it this way,  look at the relations between France, Britian, Germany, Italy and Spain.  These are the major european powers and pre-EU how many conflicts did these countries get into with each other?  The EU has suchcessfully stopped this massive resentment between the countries.  Now instead of the odd war, we can settle things throught a good game of Football or rugby.  That is a lasting testament to new European relations,  and definatly is not recognised enough when you study western european history.

This is exactly how I have been thinking of it. Faced with the greater and external threat of Communism those countries have been exceptionally united.

That threat is now gone, and once again the struggle for federalisation, a single government to rule them all has begun again.

The EU hasn't stopped resentment between countries at all.

It is the focus of much of it.

The British rebate, the French agricultural subsidies, the difference in contributions, workers rights, freedom of immigration, accession rights, free trade, supremacy of the high courts, defence, human rights.....Bla bla bla.

A trade association or federal political government with the aim of rivalling the U.S.A geo-politically?

The EU can only really unite in the face of a common enemy. They choose America as that rival. Or China.

The anti Americans will tell you the British make more money trading with the EU than we do America, and so Europe is important.

(Of course it is on our best intrests to trade with everyone. Not just the EU).

They will show you how more of our GDP is produced from EU trade than trans-atlantic trade,

This is why it is important to establish that GDP is only a (significant but relatively) minor part of this nations income and that our foreign investment is the primary driver of the U.K. economy.

(The Pound is strong).

We are the largest foreign investors in the U.S. and not far off it in China.

We make more money from the success of their industry, than the success of our own.

Any system with the primary goal of rivaling the U.S. or even China weakens Britain financially.

Others in the EU have their own agendas, their own economies are more GDP driven. The goods they produce rivaled by U.S. and Chinese made goods in the market place.

It's still the same old Europe. Our intrests are still diametrically opposed.

The EU keeps pushing. Constitution. Foreign minster. Legislation. Push, push, push.

The constitution has been vetoed, so lets make them all vote again. Or impliment loads of it anyway. Push, push, push.

When it misreads the signs and pushes too far, or our government is lead by a Churchill not an Asquith, appeasement will be over.

This is not a stable time for Europe. Borders are changing, people are moving en mass, military alliances decaying and re-aligning.  It hasn't been more uncertain in my life time.

[Donnervogel 0]

Money in = good.

Money in > Money out = Profit.

Bought it cheap sold it high. Yay!

[...]

dear god.

Money in = nothing of importance happened to the productivity of the UK Economy at that point in time. There is a dimension called time, you know? You need to consider that. As I explained all your explenations will only happen once this money is used for one or another thing. But at the moment it comes it it's simply a transfer of ownership. It has no direct effect on productivity of the UK economy. So simple. This is how GDP works.

(Now as I explained in reality this can be a bit more difficult because you can measure GDP in different ways and in some of the methods things get measured not where they affect GDP but where the opposite happens and the difference to the entire thing makes up the change of the GDP. But let's not go there since you don't even understand what GDP is.)

Quote[/b] ]For money to be in the U.K. economy, it doesn't have to be generated in the U.K., (and most of it isn't). It has to end up here.

Of course it doesn't have to but you were talking how it gets lost to your GDP and this is simply not true because the money never belonged to your GDP at this point in time. It will effect the GDP when it gets used in the UK (even if just stored in a bank for some time).

Quote[/b] ]Also If I buy an import from a domestic shop, while a slice of that money leaves the country, a fair proportion goes to the retailer, the distributor and even the importer perhaps.

Obviously. But it's all covered in the GDP. You argument is that the GDP is not reflecting the state of the UK economy correctly. But this is not true. Well you can argue the GDP has it's weaknesses of course because it has a good number of them but none of them is to important that it would ignore a major sector of the UK economy. Plus the weaknesses apply to most western countries in a similar way which means comparison is possible as all GDP values are deterred similarly. This is also why GDP is still used for comparisons even when there are better indexes to measure things like the development or the life conditions or the "wealth" (not in a financial sense only) of a nation. But for productivity comparisons the GDP is perfectly fine.

Quote[/b] ]Nationally, we operate at a trade deficit. Again since our economy is not GDP dependant this isn't as big an issue as it may first sound.

Most western nations operate on a trade deficit but since the tertiary sector is usually dominating the economy this is no big issue and only reflect the wealth of those countries. But obviously this has a bit a negative effect on the GDP and this is how it must be because a trade deficit means you are consuming more values that come from foreign economies than you are exporting your own values. But people that have an idea about economy know that this is not a bad sign usually (there are obviously extreme situations here as well as with everything in the world).

Quote[/b] ]As a teacher, one of the first things I learnt is that you have to learn yourself before you can teach.

Then you obviously got some things to catch up.

Quote[/b] ]He knows it not because he has spent many years studying it and not because he has alot of actual life experience of the subject but because he is the certain kind of student, that type who was born with all knowledge.

As a matter of fact you cannot "experience" GDP in real life because it's an imaginary number. The only way to understanding it is to study the subject. If you think your "experience" shows you how GDP is you run the big risk of confusing things that present a value to yourself (like money you know you own somewhere) with the things that present a value to your domestic economy.

Quote[/b] ]Foreign investments, and the returns of foreign investments are not counted towards GDP.

Indeed. But return on domestic financial services exported are in GDP. Not to confuse with the return the foreign investment creates (for example when buying new machinery with it which increases the efficiency and thus productivity of the company - this is not counted to UK GDP).

Again you didn't get what I was explaining all the time.

Quote[/b] ]I think your mistake is to not understand what banking services are. You seem to think that foreign investment and banking services are one and the same thing, they are not.

Obviously all my argumentation says it's not. I think your mistake is not understanding what others say.

Quote[/b] ]I do not provide banking services or financial services of any kind.

I used the term "banking service" not so literally. If you look how I used it first I said something along the lines "it is like a banking service". Because I couldn't be arsed to study English private law to explain you everything in detail. Since I still don't want to do that I'm going to assume it is similar as in Switzerland. Obviously banks have many special legal conditions as a "firm". But when they do contracts with people for their services those contracts are on the very same legal basis as when two private people make a contract. So basically if you are offering your money for others to use you are doing the same thing a bank would do in that case.

And I am aware that you are probably using services of a bank for your investments but this is only a complicating detail. It does not change that when you are offering money to foreigners (be it trough a banking service of another bank) you are offering a service.

[xawery 0]

Its great to see for the first time ever a extended period of peace through europe, with little tension between countries. The EU's has made a bright future for europe. The next major challenge is Russia and the Fuel row.

Assuming we overlook the revolutions in Poland and Hungry, the wars in Serbia, Croatia, Albania and Macedonia; the two wars in Cyprus.

Not to mention the armed struggles for seperation in Northern Ireland and the Basque country.

Sounds like someone is re-writing history to me.

Of course, you do realise that none of these countries were in the EU's zone of influence when these conflicts happened? The seperationist movements in Spain and Northern Ireland were, and still are internal issues. Oh, and I'd really like to know which war-like 'revolution' occured in Poland during the second half of the twentieth century. I must have missed it when I blinked.

The EU's success lies in the fact that it managed to reconcile countries which were at each others throats for centuries. The method was delightfully simple: creating economic interdependencies. The result? Unparalleled, unprecedented prosperity and peace.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

I'm still more for natural unlimited supply energy resources (water, sun, wind) than nucler, but if nuclear, then Fusion instead of Fission... and the world's first fusion reactor is going to be built in France!

[scary 0]

PS Swans, it should be pointed out, are vicious and quite probably evil. More should be eaten. They come over here, steal our fish {continues}

You do realise you are advocating treason, don't you?  

Going to take a whole lot more to become energy independent of russia than a couple of expensive new hydrogen cars. Nuclear power, for example, is a proven technology.

It is proven but: it is hugely expensive when de-commissioning costs are taken into account; there is a substantial security risk, both in the reactors themselves and in the storage of spent material; and, most importantly of all, there is only enough fissile material left in the world for one more generation of reactors.

Nuclear can only be a stop-gap, another solution will have to be found within the next 25 years and we are at least 50 years away from fusion. As it is, nuclear only provides 3.1% of the worlds electricity. My vote is for a huge CSP farm in the Sahara connected to a HVDC grid covering Europe and North Africa. It's cheap, proven, reliable, safe and clean, plus the land is pretty much useless for anything else.

For money to be in the U.K. economy, it doesn't have to be generated in the U.K., (and most of it isn't).

You keep repeating that yet you will find yourself unable to back it up with a source as it isn't true. Most of the UK's economy is generated in Britain, a significant slice (but by no means most) comes from foreign entities investing within the UK - not the other way around.

As for these arguments on what constitutes the UK's GDP, ask the people that calculate it.

Quote[/b] ]Just send me my check...

...As a teacher, one of the first things I learnt is that you have to learn yourself before you can teach.

As you are not American you could have started by learning how to spell cheque. Now, repeat after me:

Aluminium

Rumour

Humour

Colour

Defence

Tyre

Programme

Normally I wouldn't grammar police, but I can't abide the badstardisation of the language, especially by a teacher.

Quote[/b] ]Financial services, (banking services), are calculted in GDP. In the U.K. banking services make up about 1/3 of our GDP.

Foreign investments, and the returns of foreign investments are not counted towards GDP.

Banking is a sub-category of the 'Business services and Finance' category which, as a whole, provides almost 1/3 of GDP. Banking does not provide anywhere near that.

Quote[/b] ]The EU keeps pushing. Constitution. Foreign minster. Legislation. Push, push, push.

The constitution has been vetoed, so lets make them all vote again. Or impliment loads of it anyway. Push, push, push.

The EU doesn't push anything. The member nations, of which the UK is one of the three most powerful, operate a democratic system economic and social co-operation and interdependence. It is not 26 nations trying to take control of Britain.

The EU Constitution was poorly promoted and poorly named. It wasn't a constitution, it was a simplification of already existing laws that would have saved time and money. The newspapers that vilified the idea of the constitution were the same ones that complained about the bloatedness of the EU and its legislation, precisely what it was intended to combat.

The EU foreign minister was intended to save money by not having to send a group of ministers from each country when all were in agreement. The post was not intended to replace each nation's minister.

There is so much legislation because the Europhobes make any reform - e.g. the constitution - impossible. UKIP have stated that their sole intent is to disrupt the process.

The EU is by no means flawless, but those flaws are not the imaginary ones touted by certain elements of the press.

Quote[/b] ]When it misreads the signs and pushes too far, or our government is lead by a Churchill not an Asquith, appeasement will be over.

Of course, as a teacher you must be aware that Churchill was one of the earliest modern advocates of a united Europe and was actively promoting the unification of Britain and France as one country prior to WW2.

Quote[/b] ]This is not a stable time for Europe. Borders are changing, people are moving en mass, military alliances decaying and re-aligning.  It hasn't been more uncertain in my life time.

Perhaps you could provide examples of where these things are happening within the EU?

[EiZei 0]

and, most importantly of all, there is only enough fissile material left in the world for one more generation of reactors.

Nuclear can only be a stop-gap, another solution will have to be found within the next 25 years

Not if you start reprocessing the waste.

Quote[/b] ]

and we are at least 50 years away from fusion.

Would'nt count on it.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

The EU's success lies in the fact that it managed to reconcile countries which were at each others throats for centuries. The method was delightfully simple: creating economic interdependencies. The result? Unparalleled, unprecedented prosperity and peace.

Coming to think of it, it's rather heartwarming that it was the Cold War and not any "hot war" that seems to have been the "war to end all wars" between european countries (well, center and western european countries at least). I hope it holds true forever!