Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9584052:


Goodbye forever 22 1, 5:34pm

@Theomniadept

"You're just mad your country was conquered by ISIS."

Since ISIS was created by Bush's war in Iraq and since it's terrorists have killed hundreds of Americans since, while they have killed exactly zero Swedes I have to say America is if not "conquered" at least exploited a lot more by ISIS then Sweden is.
I doubt ISIS even cares about Sweden frankly - and even less so when the US just elected it's first openly anti-Muslim president in living memory. The election of and actions of Trump is going to cost a lot of American lives.

"They've been doing nothing but making business deals. They haven't been sitting on their thumbs like leftists, they've been out there negotiating with those mall tiny insignificant countries that had to pay massive EU import tariffs that they couldn't trade with before. Little known countries like India, China, and the USA."

Actually there have been no negotiations at all. You're confusing business leaders with politicians - I guess out of ignorance. Business goes on as before but political negotiation are much, much slower and more complicated. There's an etiquette and a tried and tested way of doing these large trade deals and they take many, many years to complete. Canada just signed one with the EU - it took 7 years to negotiate and it's still not ratified by enough countries in the EU to take effect. It most likely will be, I'm just pointing that out to show these things take a LOT of time.

Now, when Britain looses ALL of the trade deals with the rest of the world it has now as a member of the EU and needs to renegotiate all these deals at once - that will take many, many years, probably decades before they are all done.

Speeding up the process will show desperation on Britain's part and any counterpart will of course use that desperation to it's own advantage. Because unlike what you and other Brexiters believe, Britain is not in a strong bargaining position at all in these negotiations.
You talk about India or China as if they would have an urgent interest in a deal with Britain - but why would they? The British market is a teeny tiny little sliver of the EU market. India and China have deals with the EU and the EU market represents about 450 million potential private customers and many thousand of corporations. The British market represent about 65 millions private customers and a lot fewer corporations then the entire EU of course - why would that much smaller market be so very interesting to India or China?
Especially when you consider the fact that the current British governments starting tactics before negotiations with the EU begins amounts to thinly veiled treats of becoming a tax-haven and starting trade wars with the EU if they don't get their way.

Now if Britain chose open conflict with the EU - which side do you think India or China will chose in that conflict? The stable trading partner they have longstanding agreements with that represent 450 million potential private customers, or the tiny little break-way that represent a tenth of that and that they have no agreements with at all?

Also note that I haven't mentioned the US yet. Now this is where it gets really complicated since Trump is a complete loose canon who don't know shit about anything and could do anything.
He began as president-elect by trying to get the British government to appoint the ambassador of HIS choice as their representative to the US. He continued in his inaugural address by dusting of the old "America First" slogan used in the 30's and 40's by antisemites opposed to US entry into the second world war who were rooting for Nazi Germany to beat Britain. America, he promised, will always come first for him.
Now anyone who have read anything about him knows that's of course another lie - Donald Trump will ALWAYS come first for Trump and everything else is a distant second.
But it's still a marked difference from previous administrations - even republican ones - that at least said they wanted to work with other countries whereas Trump says he wants to fuck other countries over.

The long negotiated US-EU trade deal TTIP is dead now. There was a lot of opposition to it in Europe but Trump will kill it completely. Note the irony here, since the opposition is Europe was that the deal was too pro-US interests while Trump sees it as too beneficial for the EU on the US expense.
This signal what kind of "great" trade deal Trump would be willing to sign with Britain - most likely a deal that is great for America, but not so great for Britain.

On the other hand Trump can of course be bribed and he has a golf course in Scotland he wants extended so maybe the British can give the Scots something for them to give Trump his golf course so Britain can get a better trade deal? I'm sure Trump is up to that kind of corruption - he's shown no interest in separating his business from his role as president so far.

Also, any deal Britain does with the US and Britain's relations with the US in general will also effects it's abilities to get any new trade deals with other nations at all. Trump is historically unpopular not only in the US but in the rest of the world as well and if Britain ties itself to close to the US it may well sink with it in the worlds eyes.
China for instance - which Trump is constantly picking fights with - most certainly won't feel any great need to rush to Britain's aid with any tread deals if Britain turns into Trumps little lap dog.

"But, of course, businesses *never* act on future prospects or information on what *will* happen in an economy, right? It's not like every business owner is getting ready for the day Britain is free from the EUSSR."

Now here we're talking about actual business as compared to the political process and that of course always runs and there are always deals made.
And of course business leaders factors in what they believe will happen in the future - but you fail to see that this is several years away.
The business that is being concluded now, the business that drives these good numbers for the UK, was mostly signed BEFORE the referendum - which nobody thought would end as it did.
The deal that are being made to day however, with a completion date further then two years away (the time exit negotiations are allowed to take according to EU rules) are definitely being effected by the knowledge we have so far of Brexit.
Business deal that will be concluded within two years are how ever not effected at all - so the major part of business will just roll on for now.

What's being effected is plans for long term investments.
As in: "Should the company build a new factory in two years or outsource it's production to another country then?". And to day the answer to that is easy - it depends on where the majority of your customers are. If the majority of them are in Britain - build the factory in Britain. If the majority are in the EU, you build the new factory in the EU. Because the British government has now signalled it wants s "hard Brexit" - that is they will leave the EU's open market and when they do tolls will be reintroduced between Britain and the EU.
And seeing since there is about 10 times as many potential customers in the EU then there is in Britain - in most cases that new factory will be built in the EU and not Britain.

So yes - business leaders are of course influenced by future prospects and that long term influence of Brexit is HURTING - not helping - Britain.

"Christ you'd think there'd be one liberal her or there with an actual business degree."

There are a lot of liberals and even socialists with business degrees - you probably never see them on Fox News though.
The overwhelming majority of all economical expert have consistently said Brexit is a terrible idea for Britain financially and there are plenty of both liberals and right-wingers amongst them. The difference is that they operate on fact while Brexit-enthusiasts like you operate on fiction. You really, really, REALLY want to believe that Brexit is a good idea so then it MUST be - in your imagination. The problem is that the real world doesn't care what you desperately want to believe.