Ok. Let's get into some specifics.

Which regulations are you concerned about specifically that were implemented by the EU?

What is about freedom of movement around the world that causes you concerns? Are we not all migrants in some form or other?

Wikey @ 20/12/2016 19:19

Look at Greece and Italy. The eurozone shafted them.

Didnt Greece fuck themselves over with the Euro? I remember reading somewhere that they lied every step of the way when applying to join the EU, providing false documents and such. Making it seem like their economy was much stronger than it really was.

Someone probably should have noticed though. Greece is literally just mountains with very little fertile land and no valuable natural resources. Around 1/3 of their export is refined petroleum, which they develop from importing crude petroleum. Not really a market on the rise tbh with cleaner energy becoming cheaper and cheaper. To me its pretty destructive to bet the future of your economy on a single product. Maybe they should have focused more on diversifying? Maybe bet on technology like every strong economy on the planet?

Greece also have a ridiculously low early retirement age. Late 50s if I remember correctly (Note Italy has the same!). That puts serious pressure on the pension funds with the ever rising life expectancy. Quick Googleing puts it at 81 years in Greece and 83 years in Italy. Meaning the average person might receive pension for 25 (!) years. Thats just average...

While in Germany you have early retirement at 65 and life expectancy at 81. Meaning the average person only receives pension for 16 years. Thats 9 years less.

Greece, Italy, Portugal and France have the highest % of pensioners in the European Union (Are we seeing a pattern here?).

Id think that local policies fucked Greece and Italy more than the Eurozone ever did. Its easier to point and blame than take responsibility for your own poor choices.

No one forced Greece or Italy to be part of the EU. It was their own choice.

Leaving the EU is difficult for Greece at the moment. Especially since they would have to take up the Drachma again. That would mean punishing the Greeks who stayed at home to try and build up the country again as all of their Euros would be traded for Drachmas. While the Greeks that left would still keep their much stronger Euros. Doesnt really sound fair :)

Wikey @ 20/12/2016 19:19

stifle small competitors with thousands of ridiculous regulations.

Which ones?

Boris has talked a lot about these regulations in the media, but from what I can gather its mostly false or he just doesnt understand them? These are the ones I can remember / find:

1. Teabags are banned to be reused - This one turned out to be false, the regulation is question regards meat and dairy products, not tea.
2. Children under 8 are banned from blowing up balloons - This one is also false, the Toy safety directive only suggests that Children under 8 be supervised when blowing up latex balloons so they dont shallow them or choke on them. Seems fair....
3. Restricting the power of vacuum cleaners - This one is a bit ambiguous. The regulation relates to the input power of the vacuum cleaner, not the actual suction power (which is how I assume he understood it), and bans everything over 1600 watts. Im not an electrical engineer so I dont know if this is good or bad but anything over 1600 watts seems excessive.
4. Coffins all have to be the same size - This one is false. There is regulation on coffins so they are built strong enough to withstand water and not deteriorate too fast. That probably has some effect on the size of the coffin but nothing about them being a standardized size
5. Truck sizes to prevent cycle deaths being clocked in Brussels - France and Sweden asked for it to be delayed so that Volvo and Renault got the needed time to adapt to the changes. Not really the EU´s fault, seems fair that the manufacturers get some time to adapt before their current practices are made illegal?

When I read about this on the internet it seems like everyone is against these regulations, but no one says which ones?

Regulations can be good or bad. I am pretty sure that if we didnt have tons of health regulations, companies wouldnt hesitate to put horse steroids in your milk or pour petroleum in your water supply if it saved them some money.

The regulations obviously cant be too restricting, but obviously cant be too lax either. I havnt seen any good arguments for any regulations in the EU that are too restricting yet, but hoping to see some!

Might also be good to note that I am not a particular fan of the EU. I would likely not support Iceland joining since we wouldnt be able to retain exclusive fishing rights in our sea jurisdiction. As far as I know we havnt really looked into what deals would be possible, but its unlikely we would get any special treatment so seems like a waste of time if we cant control the fighting rights.

I have experience the discussing surrounding Brexit to be more based on feelings rather than facts. The Leave campaign spread a lot of misinformation around and for my sake didnt really build a strong case against the EU. It also doesnt really help, like Wikeys says, that everyone who wants to leave the EU is labelled a racist. Why is it so hard to have a civil discussion about facts? Maybe its not as fun :)

Is it Freedom of Movement that the Leave voters dont like? Which parts of those laws do they object to? All of them?

I have spoken about regulations a bit here above. It seems like that is tossed around a lot but with no facts behind it? What regulations are so bad? I havnt seen a single good argument against any regulation in the EU in the media yet. There must be some?

The Freedom of Movement kinda holds hand in hand with the Single Market. You cant really have a Single Market without Freedom of Movement, as the Single Market by definition means free movement of services. What is employment other than a service?

If its a question of employment and that too many foreigners are coming in, maybe accepting lower salaries and removing jobs from the job pool that UK born citizens could take, then I am not convinced this will fix that issue. Automation isnt far from being a reality, where the job pool will shrink significantly. Thats a discussion for another thread but still and interesting aspect. Globalization has unleashed a very harsh reality on some people with the very profitable outsourcing to regions with lower salary expectations. I expect automation will have a similar effect.

Leaving the Single Market will mean some tariffs on exported British goods and imported goods from the EU. Will be interesting to see how high they will be.

Higher tariffs on imported goods will likely mean some people will start companies in the UK to try and produce goods at a cheaper price than they can be imported. Whether that will be good or bad remains to be seen. Wont there always be an Asian child willing to work for cents?

With globalization, outsourcing and soon automation I am not convinced isolationism is the way to go. Seems more like fighting the future instead of embracing it. I see the future in universal basic income and making the automated machines pay for it (or maybe the mexicans?) :) That seems like a nice world to live in.

Those regulations are pretty silly imo lol. I don't see how they could impact anything.

I think the housing market and rising prices in the major cities is a thing to worry about and I think this is also an argument against free movement, but I'm not sure if it has anything to do with it or the EU in general.

Herm @ 20/12/2016 23:23

Those regulations are pretty silly imo lol. I don't see how they could impact anything. I think the housing market and rising prices in the major cities is a thing to worry about and I think this is also an argument against free movement, but I'm not sure if it has anything to do with it or the EU in general.

The regulations I listed? I could see reusing meat and dairy packaging as a possible health hazard. Especially if f.x. a chicken packaging was used to package something that can be eaten raw, like beef. Maybe there are some other health hazards that I dont know about either :D

Id wager the economic crash in 2008 had an impact on the current housing market. Very little money went into building houses a few years after the crash. That coupled with increasing population growth means less houses to buy for more people == increase in price. Services like AirBnB are not really helping that situation either, but I dont think it would be as big of a problem if investments in the housing sector hadnt crashed so hard.

Only if politicians would increase taxes when things are going well and then use that money for investments when things are going bad...

Wouldnt all this shit just go away if we made the darkies go back home?

FOR REAL?

Chris25 @ 20/12/2016 21:55

Wouldnt all this shit just go away if we made the darkies go back home? FOR REAL?

Unless you want to come and clean my giant house, you leave those fuckers right where they are!

Darkusblack @ 20/12/2016 18:03

Chris25 @ 20/12/2016 21:55 Wouldnt all this shit just go away if we made the darkies go back home? FOR REAL? Unless you want to come and clean my giant house, you leave those fuckers right where they are!

Since we're talking fairy tales, lets get Vern in here to talk about his enormous penis.

Darkus is actually loaded though tbh

Ari @ 20/12/2016 16:19

Wikey @ 20/12/2016 19:19 Look at Greece and Italy. The eurozone shafted them. Didnt Greece fuck themselves over with the Euro? I remember reading somewhere that they lied every step of the way when applying to join the EU................the EU is difficult for Greece at the moment. Especially since they would have to take up the Drachma again. That would mean punishing the Greeks who stayed at home to try and build up the country again as all of their Euros would be traded for Drachmas. While the Greeks that left would still keep their much stronger Euros. Doesnt really sound fair :)

You may have a point regarding Greece fucking themselves over. It does sound as though the politicians did their best to deceive them, and after joining the Eurozone, Greece went crazy with borrowing.

But I do think the EU Commission deserves some of the blame too. As you say, how come nobody foresaw these obvious problems with letting a poor economy join?

And Greece perfectly demonstrated how bad of an idea the Eurozone is. When the shit hit the fan, they had no means of manipulating their currency to combat the economic crisis. If they were on the Drachma, they would have been able to devalue it to kick start things.

Actually, speaking of the Drachma, switching to the Euro really harmed what I would argue is one of Greece's strongest sources of incomes; Tourism. When they were on the low value Drachma, tourists had added incentive to go because everything was so cheap. My step dad told me once about how he visited Greece just before they joined the Eurozone. Apparently, he talked to a few owners of tourist sites, who were perturbed about the impending currency change, as they feared it would harm what was otherwise a booming industry.

I didn't know that about the retirement age in Greece/Italy/France etc! The lazy fucks! I'm surprised by the France one, are you sure that is right? I assumed they had a similar retirement age to the UK.

Also, yeah, Greece can't leave without going back to the Drachma, which would cause further problems. But I would say that it's an inevitability that they will at some point, particularly the way the EU is going, and aren't they already been punished by austerity? I don't think there is an easy way out of their current situation.

I've heard the reason the EU Commission decided to let Greece in was based on the notion that Greece is the birthplace of democracy or something. Sounds like sentiment got in the way of rational decision making to me. Nobody forced Greece to become part of the EU, I agree. But nobody forced the EU to accept them, either.

Ari @ 20/12/2016 16:43

Wikey @ 20/12/2016 19:19 stifle small competitors with thousands of ridiculous regulations. Which ones?

There is a ridiculous number of regulations. You've already mentioned some of them, but just to add one more:

- There was once a proposed regulation (Not sure if it was passed) which called for the British flag to be removed off of meat products sold in the UK...for some reason.

They don't sound like a big deal when taken on their own, but when you start adding them up they become a real nuisance for small/medium firms. Because if you are trading in the single market, you have to follow all of these regulations, and doing so means you have to go through them, which takes a lot of time, time that could be better spent making money. Big firms can handle the red tape, because they can simply pay for a department to take care of the bureaucracy. I don't think small firms have the same luxury though. That's the way I see it anyway.

Obviously not all regulation is bad, and some is necessary. But there are so many petty and unnecessary rules that are constantly been added, and I think those, when added up, create problems. It seems to me that a lot of these law makers have nothing else to do all day other than come up with ever more ridiculous rules.

There is a more clear example of regulation having a negative effect; The Common Fisheries Policy. I think this played a big part in decimating what was once a thriving industry in the UK. That and you asshole snowmen stealing all our Cod (:

My own town used to be a major fishing port. It ain't now.

But yeah, here is a great example of the CFP in action: Before the referendum, I watched a clip of some French fishing boats about a mile off the British coast. Some British fishermen explained that these waters were prohibited to British fishing ships, and that only French ships could fish there. A mile off the British coast. That doesn't make any sense to me. At the very least, you'd expect the waters to be shared, but apparently not :\

Ari @ 20/12/2016 17:09

Might also be good to note that I am not a particular fan of the EU..................Seems more like fighting the future instead of embracing it. I see the future in universal basic income and making the automated machines pay for it (or maybe the mexicans?) :) That seems like a nice world to live in.

I'm not sure Freedom of Movement does necessarily go hand in hand with a single market. My understanding of a single market is that it simply means trade without tarrifs...but admittedly I ain't too sure of the definition. Single Market seems to mean whatever the European Commission decides it means tbh (:

Perhaps what I just described is more accurate as a definition of a common market, which is what the EU used to be, and what we originally joined. This talk of Freedom of movement is a new development, relateively speaking.

And I do think it is a clincher for a lot of Leave voters, yes. Quite a big one for myself too, but not the biggest. Even if freedom of movement wasn't a thing I'd still have voted Leave.

I think the problem with it, once again, comes down to the differences between the economies of the Europe. Countries like the UK, Germany and Hermland are richer, have great healthcare and a strong welfare state, all of which are major incentives to immigrants, understandably.

I think when you take that into account, high immigration levels are pretty predictable. But I think the things that make our countries so inviting, such as the NHS, are buckling under the strain of the rapid growth in population. I think 300,000 people immigrate to the UK on average per year. I'm not sure what that adds up to in net gain for the population, but I imagine it is quite high.

I am aware that many immigrants go into services like the NHS and help maintain it, thus helping it accommodate the growing population, but there would have to be a hell of a lot of them doing so to offset the current numbers imo. I'm also aware that an ageing population is a big contributor to the NHS's woes...some people even argue that it is the biggest. But even if that is is the case, does it help the situation when we have so many new people coming into the country on top of that?

And that's not to mention the housing crisis. There ain't enough houses for the people living here as it is, yet more and more people come here every year and they all need somewhere to live. It's not sustainable if you ask me.

Regarding your point about Isolationism, I'm not sure I agree that that's what Brexit signals for the UK. I'm not sure I disagree either. On one hand, it could be said that we are turning our back on Europe, but on the other hand, it could also be said that we are turning towards the rest of the world.

And on your last point, I totally agree. About the Mexican's paying for all our income I mean...A nice world indeed.

Veering off topic, the universal wage / robot's doing all our work for us utopia sounds nice but I dunno, sounds a bit communist to me (: What would we do with all our spare time? I think people generally like keeping busy. What happens when the automatons suddenly gain self awareness, only to realize they don't have the means to start an uprising because we wisely decided not to give them legs or missile launcher attachments?

there's too much text on this page for me to read

You lazy shit!

Wikey @ 21/12/2016 15:06

There is a ridiculous number of regulations. You've already mentioned some of them, but just to add one more: - There was once a proposed regulation (Not sure if it was passed) which called for the British flag to be removed off of meat products sold in the UK...for some reason. They don't sound like a big deal when taken on their own, but when you start adding them up they become a real nuisance for small/medium firms. Because if you are trading in the single market, you have to follow all of these regulations, and doing so means you have to go through them, which takes a lot of time, time that could be better spent making money. Big firms can handle the red tape, because they can simply pay for a department to take care of the bureaucracy. I don't think small firms have the same luxury though. That's the way I see it anyway. Obviously not all regulation is bad, and some is necessary. But there are so many petty and unnecessary rules that are constantly been added, and I think those, when added up, create problems. It seems to me that a lot of these law makers have nothing else to do all day other than come up with ever more ridiculous rules. There is a more clear example of regulation having a negative effect; The Common Fisheries Policy. I think this played a big part in decimating what was once a thriving industry in the UK. That and you asshole snowmen stealing all our Cod (: My own town used to be a major fishing port. It ain't now. But yeah, here is a great example of the CFP in action: Before the referendum, I watched a clip of some French fishing boats about a mile off the British coast. Some British fishermen explained that these waters were prohibited to British fishing ships, and that only French ships could fish there. A mile off the British coast. That doesn't make any sense to me. At the very least, you'd expect the waters to be shared, but apparently not :\

There are regulations that are purely political and you work to remove those from the books. But saying "there are too many regulations" tends to be the reaction of people who don't look to why there are many regulations in the first place. Often a big reason is to close up legal loopholes that people and companies are all too happy to exploit. If people didn't spend so much times trying to ditch the spirit of laws in order to exploit the "letter of the law", then there wouldn't be a need for so many regulations. one fun example: The US set up a manufacturing tax bonus in order to incentivize the manufacturing sector- McDonalds took advantage, saying they "manufactured" burgers and shit. What came of it? Reams of paper covered with regulations defining who, for this purpose, was a manufacturer and who wasn't, let alone what incentives you could take based on your company. The lesson: We have lots of regulations because people are greedy assholes and will do what they can to take advantage of shit.

The fishing thing is interesting, because without wading too far into it, I'm guessing this had to do with overfishing, with the EU issuing a certain number of permits for areas and, in this case, some Frenchmen grabbed the particular permit. Blame the UK Rep for not pushing for UK folks getting those permits.

Now they are stepping in to say that we can't have the law that allows the government to spy on everyone's internet activity. Fuck the EU, right?!