Poll: The EU Referendum: How Will You Vote? (June Poll)

[Six6siX]

For the same reason "free trade" lowers the price of goods. If you can buy X from all over the world/continent competition to win your business will mean you get a lower price compared to just being restricted to buying from the smaller selection of businesses in your host nation.

So we are talking about having more buying power in a larger market? Like we do as part of the EU?

Likewise, being able to employee people from anywhere means you get more people interested and they compete for the job by asking for lower wages.

The concept that wages are driven by availability of people to do it is pretty common knowledge isn't it? It's why nurses get paid less than footballers or why a driver with an HGV license can demand more than one with a standard one.

Yes, of course this makes sense in your average salaried position but in the context of the original post talking about making the poor suffer, implying low end, minimum wage jobs, it doesn't hold true. This is what I was specifically getting at.

Put it another way, if you restrict immigration and people willing to work in jobs at the low end because their pay expectations are too high, it would just force companies to outsource to foreign manufacturing or foreign call centers etc. more so than they do now.

 

[estebanrey]

Not off the top of my head but i am sure there is a large list of out there with companies who have their European headquarters based in the UK. Within 1km of me there is the Samsung EU headquarters.

Land and building costs a hell of a lot in the UK compared to many other EU countries and we have one of the highest minimum wages, so I would suspect that whilst being in the EU maybe a 'bonus' for a lot of these companies, it certainly wasn't their main driver for locating here, otherwise you'd set your HQ in Poland or something where you still get all the benefits of being in the EU without the much higher day-to-day costs of locating in the UK.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Land and building costs a hell of a lot in the UK compared to many other EU countries and we have one of the highest minimum wages, so I would suspect that whilst being in the EU maybe a 'bonus' for a lot of these companies, it certainly wasn't their main driver for locating here, otherwise you'd set your HQ in Poland or something where you still get all the benefits of being in the EU without the much higher day-to-day costs of locating in the UK.

Locating in the UK gives you the dual benefit of access to the EU *and* a presence in a world top 5 economy with the benefits that brings.

Poland doesn't offer this - but potentially France would as an alternative.

 

[scorza]

Not off the top of my head but i am sure there is a large list of out there with companies who have their European headquarters based in the UK. Within 1km of me there is the Samsung EU headquarters.

Ireland will certainly look more attractive if we leave, regardless of trade deals the UK make, since they have free trade with the EU and the UK.

I am not saying it makes up for x cost or y cost, just that nothing definitive can be said in terms of employment.

Look where global businesses put their Asia-Pac HQs - usually Hong Kong or Singapore despite neither of these being in the same jurisdiction as the largest and most important Asian country - China. Now before you all start getting excited, I'm not saying the EU is like China, I'm just saying that the decision where to locate your business is a lot more complex than you're making out.

I doubt Ireland will gain much from Brexit - they hate the idea of Britain Leaving the EU as they'd be completely cut off from the rest of the EU (one Irish correspondent even said it would be a hostile act lol). Luxembourg seems to be the favoured HQ location for the mega-corps, but they can't do much actual work there because there aren't enough people. By leaving the EU we're in theory better positioned to take action against the kind of aggressive tax avoidance we've seen from US corporations as it's the free movement of capital that facilitates this.

 

[Tefal]

Hungary can't block anything.

err yes it can,.

when the vote comes "do we remove Polands right to vote"

Hungary goes "no"


that's 1 against its not unanimous the move is blocked.

 

[delta0]

My postal vote arrived this morning.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Look where global businesses put their Asia-Pac HQs - usually Hong Kong or Singapore despite neither of these being in the same jurisdiction as the largest and most important Asian country - China.

Please tell us more about how Hong Kong isn't in China.

 

[kitkat2015]

Merkel wants us to stay.

Reason enough to go, she's looking for somewhere to dump all the migrants. You can bet your life its the UK if we stay.

No matter what the deals we have now it'll all change if we stay.

 

[[TW]Fox]

she's looking for somewhere to dump all the migrants. You can bet your life its the UK if we stay.

You are doing the Leave side of the debate absolutely no favours with this sort of rubbish.

There are various rational and sensible reasons why leaving the EU might be beneficial. Why not focus on those rather than making up rubbish?

 

[Zethor]

err yes it can,.

when the vote comes "do we remove Polands right to vote"

Hungary goes "no"


that's 1 against its not unanimous the move is blocked.

No.

According to Article 7, on the proposal of one third of EU countries, or of the Commission or of the European Parliament, the Council, acting by a majority of four fifths of its members, having obtained the European Parliament’s consent, may determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach of these fundamental principles by an EU country, and address appropriate recommendations to it.

 

[Tefal]

No.

According to Article 7, on the proposal of one third of EU countries, or of the Commission or of the European Parliament, the Council, acting by a majority of four fifths of its members, having obtained the European Parliament’s consent, may determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach of these fundamental principles by an EU country, and address appropriate recommendations to it.

that's for the warning.

anything more requires unanimous voting

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-hungary-sanctions-idUSKBN0UM0L220160108

 

[estebanrey]

Yes, of course this makes sense in your average salaried position but in the context of the original post talking about making the poor suffer, implying low end, minimum wage jobs, it doesn't hold true. This is what I was specifically getting at.

Put it another way, if you restrict immigration and people willing to work in jobs at the low end because their pay expectations are too high, it would just force companies to outsource to foreign manufacturing or foreign call centers etc. more so than they do now.

You can't outsource cleaners, builders, bin men, shelf stackers etc to abroad can you? The vast majority of minimum wage jobs cannot physically be relocated out of the country so no, they can't just do that.

But why is it that Supply & Demand law, which is accepted in every area of business magically doesn't apply to opening up low paid jobs to more potentiality applicants? Supply and Demand is a fundamental part of business theology yet you are saying in this one specific instance it's not true, you can in fact increase the availability (no of workers to pick from) and the price (their wages) for some counter-intuitive reason stays the same???

Lets use a small scenario to show what I mean.

Let's imagine you live in a village of 1,000 people. There is no freedom of movement allowed from the surrounding county and you can only employ people from within the village.

Now, Mr Jones creates a cleaning business and he needs 10 cleaners to work for him. Let's say 2% of the people of the village would be willing and are able to take the job, so 20 people. Great, but those people all have different wage expectations ranging from minimum wage to twice the minimum wage, fairly distributed amongst the candidates.

So to get the full 10 workers you'd have to meet the 10th lowest expectation which is around £3 over minimum wage, and would have to offer that to all. So the cleaners get over £10 an hour.

Now the government says, you can now employ anyone in the county and they are free to move around the villages to work.

Well now Mr Jones can easily find 10 people who'll work for the minimum out of the 200 potential people he has to fill the 10 spaces he has. So the cleaners get minimum wage.


So why when you scale that up to the UK and t's relationship with the EU why does that quite basic maths stop working? It makes no sense to claim giving businesses a much bigger pool of works to offer to wouldn't see a drop in wages.

 

[scorza]

Please tell us more about how Hong Kong isn't in China.

Please point out where I said Hong Kong wasn't in China? I said it was a separate jurisdiction to China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong

Under the principle of one country, two systems,[15][16] other than that the State Council of China is responsible for military defense and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its own executive, legislative and judiciary powers, including an independent legal system, public security force, monetary system, customs policy, and immigration policy.

 

[delta0]

Please tell us more about how Hong Kong isn't in China.

In business terms they aren't. They have their own laws and regulations. However these days Singapore is more popular as China has been exerting itself increasingly in the last few years.

 

[delta0]

You can't outsource cleaners, builders, bin men, shelf stackers etc to abroad can you? The vast majority of minimum wage jobs cannot physically be relocated out of the country so no, they can't just do that.

But why is it that Supply & Demand law, which is accepted in every area of business magically doesn't apply to opening up low paid jobs to more potentiality applicants? Supply and Demand is a fundamental part of business theology yet you are saying in this one specific instance it's not true, you can in fact increase the availability (no of workers to pick from) and the price (their wages) for some counter-intuitive reason stays the same???

Lets use a small scenario to show what I mean.

Let's imagine you live in a village of 1,000 people. There is no freedom of movement allowed from the surrounding county and you can only employ people from within the village.

Now, Mr Jones creates a cleaning business and he needs 10 cleaners to work for him. Let's say 2% of the people of the village would be willing and are able to take the job, so 20 people. Great, but those people all have different wage expectations ranging from minimum wage to twice the minimum wage, fairly distributed amongst the candidates.

So to get the full 10 workers you'd have to meet the 10th lowest expectation which is around £3 over minimum wage, and would have to offer that to all. So the cleaners get over £10 an hour.

Now the government says, you can now employ anyone in the county and they are free to move around the villages to work.

Well now Mr Jones can easily find 10 people who'll work for the minimum out of the 200 potential people he has to fill the 10 spaces he has. So the cleaners get minimum wage.


So why when you scale that up to the UK and t's relationship with the EU why does that quite basic maths stop working? It makes no sense to claim giving businesses a much bigger pool of works to offer to wouldn't see a drop in wages.

I tend to employ the people that can actually do the job well not the ones that will take the lowest pay. I can see the temptation for businesses to try and suppress salaries though and that is easier with those coming from low living cost countries and have low salary expectations.

 

[XeNoN89]

Dave hasnt started this interview well!

 

[John40]

Dave rattled big time.

 

[b0redj0rd]

Dave is looking sweaty and unconvinced by his own arguments on Sky News.

 

[John40]

Not Dave's finest hour.

 

[scorza]

Note to Jeremy Corbyn - maybe tap up Faisal Islam to give you some lessons on asking questions to the Prime Minister.