EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

They got caught out and laws were reformed from lessons learnt

They did?

Erm, The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act of 2013.

The UK has actually LOWERED its social mobility compared to other EU countries. Little USA eh? (sorry we've mocked the UK like this in The Netherlands for years and I'm afraid some of the mocking is a little true...)

(this annoys me greatly btw I think you need to be given a chance, and maybe more than 1 cos life can happen)

But I can't fault the Open University great institution! Perhaps we all need to volunteer more in education.

It's no where near as bad as it was in 1970's. At least now people in poverty do have a chance to be socially mobile.

Ironic because the general consensus is that where I live (and I'm hearing no different when chatting to peers) is that immigrants were the main reason to vote out. Yet these same people brag about how cheap they can get immigrants to rewire a house or certified gas work or decorating etc etc.

It's that kind of inconsistency that does your nut in. It's similar with people getting more and more from terrible companies like Amazon, ordering on-line even when they could get perfectly good stuff locally and 'cutting out their middle(wo)men'/getting everything delivered to their house, etc. Well, at some not too distant point in the future, the person who will lose their job will be them, and the only jobs left will be unskilled delivery jobs, until those are replaced by automation.

Erm, The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act of 2013.

... in which Osbourne signed up the biggest banks to a rainy-day fund for next time and broke up the FSA.

Everything is fine now ;-)

Nobody would dare trade bad debt now ..... right?

Easy to say. Difficult when there are sod all jobs in the local area, very few training opportunities for someone who's worked in a factory for 20 years and your mobility is limited by the fact that the property you own is worth a quarter of the price of anywhere you could move to where there are plenty of jobs going.

Moving may not be too difficult if you're young and can doss on a mate's floor whilst getting things together. If you have a family and your house is only worth £40k, it's a bit trickier.

Well (here we go) I HATE shopping in town. I hate crowds and I hate people.

So, does that mean there is no solution?
There is! hive.co.uk is a local bookshop co-op, I found local farm food (which I need to get once a month of pay £10) but there are Costs involved.

Costs can be economic (some people need the cheap stuff) or, the biggest one, information costs. Small local alternatives don't have the marketing budget to throw at things Amazon has. I don't think you can blame ppl for not knowing.

(but yes on getting cheap immigrant work! at least pay people the going rate and don't drop wages for others...)

I have heard of savvy local-ish businesses who have installed on-line ordering and local deliveries, too. In my experience, though, it only works for some--keeping up the expenses of both maintaining a physical presence, e.g. on a high street, and the delivery service, can be too costly if you don't already have a certain size.

Also, I don't believe it is likely to be worth anyone's while if the other local competitors then start the same--you'll soon be left with fewer businesses in a certain sector, as some will be more successful than others in extending their reach (which arranging for home delivery tends to do).

My big obsession is with proper locality--having small, locally-defined (not artificially by protectionism) markets wherever possible. That's obviously a bit of a Canute's quest with today's Net of the Inter and the ability to bypass (in tandem with transport and planning policies that continually increase the need to travel) geographical barriers, but in a sense the Internet has brought the issue to the fore like few other developments, even of pre-Internet multinationals, has done.

(And I'm well aware that Amazon et al. are merely being propped up by venture capitalists aiming to help it expand until it has largely eliminated more local competition, and that if companies like it paid their fair share of taxes, theirs would be a far less attractive proposition to venture capital.)

I personally love going shopping locally. I could imagine that your issues with crowds and people may to some extent be caused by the experience in large supermarket chain branches? I haven't shopped there for about twenty years and can't imagine having such issues in small local shops. Obviously, there's more limited stock, you have to go to several shops and can't just do everything in one go, but I've come to appreciate those aspects as advantages, too. You're also not a hostage to fortune when it comes to 'loss leaders' and higher prices for other goods, and you can always do part of your shop somewhere else if you know you get something there that you like more or that it's cheaper.

Also, perhaps this is somewhat reassuring:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/03/theresa-may-europeans-uk-brexit-brits-abroad

Oliver please check your 'following' tags and respond!

Er?

You've been tagged again in the relevant thread. Please check your following threads and reply there.

I enjoy going to town it occasionally when it's quiet, nothing beats a good book shop. A 40 hour job and OU studies means shopping is a low priority. Bear in mind the old small shops model still works in some cities, like Paris. But here I think both people working may perhaps have caused issues also. Time, or money, or local...

A regeneration with kids entertainment like IKEA has and parking may work. Maybe. But who is going to invest in a dying area?

But I do sometimes visit the local food shop which is £££ but lovely. They survived by filling a luxury niche market and are still ran by local people. I also go to my local Spar. Where nearly all food is still imported... bar leeks/scallions/onions/comber taytoes. Rents in town are too high, I was talking to a new business owner (the cookie box shops) and he says it's very hard due to this. They're doing OK which is nice to see! The problem runs deep.

You are right that it's hard to set up and run online services. It could be done as a co-op eg the Belfast Towns co-op ran with government assistance. (that also leaves the parking issues as public transport is £££ and awful).

I'm not so worried about myself, if needed I can leave and go back. My son was also born here.

I'm more worried about you guys... we joke about class issues in The Netherlands but it's bound to get worse. And my son grows up here. So whatever goes wrong for the UK, goes wrong for him too. It's too simple to say immigrants don't care about the UK but we were good to use as a political football. That's not pleasant. But if it all goes to pot, I can leave and leave you to it.

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/theresa-may-35000-deportation.html hmmmm...

£35.000? Hah, good one. Why not introduce Soylent Green...

Brexit plan

(soz if re)

If Amazon had to pay corp tax at the same rate your average corner shop did then they wouldn't be able to dominate in the way they do. The entire tax system is broken, The concept of making no money from a business turning over millions or billions because they've reinvested it in growth to make more money is so unbelievably fucked as to be laughable.

Until this changes the bigger you are the bigger your competitive advantage.

Also, cheap books what come real fast.

^this should be the most important issue, imo

Also, their way to avoid tax by using the IOM.

What is however worrying is that Amazon is struggling. Despite being inventive and using all tricks in the book, they're having a hard time. [now I am not saying they're the most ethical company but if they are one of the few to survive the .com bubble and still have to fight, it means it's not easy out there]

All so depressing. I wish I had something intelligent to add...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36419815

The Dutch PM who is from a party not too different from the Tories even says this immigration thing is bollox.

I just found out I can't hold UK nationality and Dutch nationality so thanks Dutch gov! I know the reason, some people were abuse it to claim benefits for NL while living abroad, but FFS.

Oi, Leave us out of it.

^^ no double dutch sandwiches for you, that's strictly for our capitalist overlords

No pass for you I don't get one either 😛

No bad feelings btw! :)
The Netherlands is also used for tax evasion.

Or U2.

Bono told the people of ROI to pay their taxes, as you can imagine that went down just fine 😂

A whole town is legally avoiding tax perhaps worth a try for more areas?