[Oldmanmatt]

How long until Automation and AI replace the political class... Imagine,  decisions based on fact and logic.  Hahaha ha.

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Roll on the day...


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[JohnM]

Its use in law has already been discussed:

https://www.ft.com/content/5d96dd72-83eb-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5

[stone]

Yep, and all of this ignores the reality of impending automation of huge swathes of the labour market...

We're doomed, I tell you, DOOOOOMMEDD!

It's one of those things, I guess. If you're a reader of the likes of New Scientist, The Economist et al; you know that all those jobs at Nissan are likely to vanish within a decade. You also realise that even massive investment and a whole raft new factories constructed here, still wouldn't bring the jobs people imagine. Who's going to build a new factory without the latest automation?
Some people think that's what they've voted for, I've heard it repeatedly "more factories, more jobs!" As if it's EU regs that closed the mines, caused production to move East and brought all that automation.

How do you explain to people that coal isn't coming back?
There's no point digging Tin from a Cornish hard rock mine, when some South American can scoop it up with a JCB?

All around, academics, futurists and economists are talking about the urgency of redesigning our society for the very real prospect of advanced AI and automation making most of us, frankly, surplus to requirements.

I think it is important that we don't over-look the growing phenomenon of "excess labour / labour underutilisation" leading to substitution of machines by cheap / exploited workers. In the 1970s, a car wash was a fancy machine, today it is a bunch of people on poverty wages http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37499241. Making, instaling and maintaining machines creates good jobs and furthermore allows better and better machines to develop. Hand car washes from exploited, economically displaced people are not just socially destructive but a technological dead end. We won't get fancy machines if we have too much inequality. What we need IMO is a system that uses people for service and creative roles that can't be done so well by machines (eg caring well for elderly and children) AND ensures that the profits gathered from ownership of machines feed back around to everyone so that we can all afford what the machines can provide and so ensure that all those wonderful machines do actually get invented and  installed.

[Fultonius]

UBI... UBI... UBI. Sing it! UBI!

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[tomtom]

Some sort of automaton tax?

You're right about automation and new (to us) tech methods also creating jobs - but they shift where the jobs are created.

Ok - lets pretend that in 10-15 years time taxis are replaced by driverless Ubers. This will crest jobs for software people, those running the company, those building the cars, batteries etc.. those doing the mapping for the driverless cars etc.. etc.. etc...  but these jobs will likely be mostly made where the tech is developed (USA?) and even then only in certain areas - whereas 300000 cab drivers will lose their work in the U.K.  I'm sure history is full of examples of this sort of thing happening throughout industrialisation..

[mrjonathanr]

What we need IMO is a system that..... ensures that the profits gathered from ownership of machines feed back around to everyone

What we need and what we get may not match.

[i.munro]

I think it is important that we don't over-look the growing phenomenon of "excess labour / labour underutilisation" leading to substitution of machines by cheap / exploited workers. In the 1970s, a car wash was a fancy machine, today it is a bunch of people on poverty wages

That was the point of the aricle I linked, I think. In a low-wage economy you can do stuff like this whereas in Europe  they can't employ people at poverty wages so they have to invest in a better car-wash machine creating good hi-tech jobs and the potential for export.

[Oldmanmatt]

Keep it classy people.




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[seankenny]

Some cheery reading:

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/time-challenge-brexit-pollyannas/

[Oldmanmatt]

Now, now Mr Kenny; you're sailing close to the treason wind there.
Big smile please and a rousing chorus of "White cliffs of Dover" (don't forget to well up at the last line).


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[seankenny]

 I'm sure a wall is already being selected.

[slackline]

Brexit Secretary suggests UK would consider paying for single market access


What exactly is the benefit of leaving the EU then? 

Would the companies that benefit financially make any contribution towards these payments?  Unlikely as it would then a 'hidden tax' on them.

Ah, yes, it would mean we'd be free of all the pesky legalese, things like the European Convention on Human Rights (which might yet challenge the IPBill), working time directives and so forth. 

[largeruk]

Brexit Secretary suggests UK would consider paying for single market access


What exactly is the benefit of leaving the EU then? 

Would the companies that benefit financially make any contribution towards these payments?  Unlikely as it would then a 'hidden tax' on them.

Ah, yes, it would mean we'd be free of all the pesky legalese, things like the European Convention on Human Rights (which might yet challenge the IPBill), working time directives and so forth. 

Or, to put it another way, UK wants to have access to single market, for which Davis proposes we pay but have no influence over its regulation...

Boris: Free Movement
Davis: Contributions
Once Fox admits we'll have to abide by regulations it'll be the unholy trinity...

[Evil]

Brexit Secretary suggests UK would consider paying for single market access

Or as I just read on Twitter...

David Davis wanted to leave Netflix but then secured a special deal where he pays them £7.49 a month in return for access to their content.

https://twitter.com/carlmaxim/status/804281650230231040

[petejh]

Brexit Secretary suggests UK would consider paying for single market access


What exactly is the benefit of leaving the EU then? 

Would the companies that benefit financially make any contribution towards these payments?  Unlikely as it would then a 'hidden tax' on them.

Ah, yes, it would mean we'd be free of all the pesky legalese, things like the European Convention on Human Rights (which might yet challenge the IPBill), working time directives and so forth. 

There is another side to the story as usual, not that you'd know about it from the filter bubble of talking to climbers or reading ukb threads.


A trade tariff is, in effect, the same as 'paying to access the single market'.

And one benefit of leaving the EU is it opens up the freedom to set up trade deals with anyone we want to globally. Currently as a member of the EU, we can't.

[slackline]

A trade tariff is, in effect, the same as 'paying to access the single market'.

Yes I understand that.

And one benefit of leaving the EU is it opens up the freedom to set up trade deals with anyone we want to globally. Currently as a member of the EU, we can't.

How easy are these to negotiate?  I've read that its somewhat contingent on your economy and how powerful it is, in terms of global imports, which if this is accurate (Bloomberg seems a reliable source) suggests the UK is lacking in on a global scale and would therefore struggle to have much bargaining power when they get round the table with countrys X, Y, Z, A1, A2, Z180



There is then the pragmatic issue of having the staff to negotiate these trade deals which I believe has already been covered in this thread but the UK lacks such staff.  That they seem to take years to negotiate too is a rather tricky confounder to achieving a nice custom trade deal (albeit likely governed by WTO regulations)

Employing them and also the wealth of lawyers required to disentangle existing laws in a country that is ostensibly still under 'measures of austerity' doesn't really cast a very rosy tint on prospects, even after searching outside the 'filter bubble' you suggest everyone else is living in (for the record I've taken to reading the Financial Times of late for information on Brexit as it seems fairly balanced).

Add into the mix the devaluation of the pound and the contraction of the economy its not looking that rosy really, regardless of the benefits of being able to negotiate your own trad deal.

I would really like to see some more positive estimates of the consequences but am reading very little because of my filter bubble the vast majority of supposed benefits appear to be heavily offset by costs and weakened position in the global economy.

[galpinos]

And one benefit of leaving the EU is it opens up the freedom to set up trade deals with anyone we want to globally. Currently as a member of the EU, we can't.

But we have global trade deals via the EU. We can't negotiate our own deals, but we can(could) influence the EU deals. I'm always a bit baffled by the Brexiteers 'we can know look to the rest of the world' rhetoric as we always could. Our biggest export market is the US (if you take Europe as countries, not as 'the EU'), only 50% of our exports go to the EU. It's not like suddenly all these opportunities will open up and I really can't believe that we are going to be able to negotiate much better terms.

Slight aside but I was also listening to an interesting podcast (Times Red Box or one of the FT ones so not exactly left liberal though probably remain biased) that pointed out that we will probably fail to get our trade deals sorted pout in time. This didn't come as a surprise but what did was the fact that we can't just drop onto WTO terms, there's actually quite a bit of work to be done in order to trade under the WTO terms and we'd need to start pretty soon in order to get it all in place. Baring in mind we don't have enough civil servants for any of this, that seems unlikely to happen.

[petejh]

The eu doesn't have trade deals with a great many countries.

[erm]

The eu doesn't have trade deals with a great many countries.

50 as of 2013 (http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2012/november/tradoc_150129.pdf)

Approximately 1/3 of the world market by value (http://www.cbi.org.uk/business-issues/uk-and-the-european-union/eu-business-facts/10-facts-about-eu-trade-deals-pdf/)

All of which we go if we exit.

[rich d]

The eu doesn't have trade deals with a great many countries.

All the colours look quite similar but there do seem to be a few in place or being currently negotiated.

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2012/june/tradoc_149622.pdf

[slackline]

The eu doesn't have trade deals with a great many countries.

It has trade deals with 50 countries.

Thats a good head start (of around 50) on the position the UK would be in should this go ahead.  Given the lack of trained negotiators in this country and the length of time such negotiations take when there are people who can do the job how do you (or anyone else) propose the UK is going to catch up?

[i.munro]

A trade tariff is, in effect, the same as 'paying to access the single market'.

Is this true?   seems to say that it isn't.
If I understand correctly the U.K. could have a free-trade agreement with the EU but still lose most of the advantages of the single market.

[i.munro]

Ooops!

[petejh]

The eu doesn't have trade deals with a great many countries.

It has trade deals with 50 countries.

Thats a good head start (of around 50) on the position the UK would be in should this go ahead.  Given the lack of trained negotiators in this country and the length of time such negotiations take when there are people who can do the job how do you (or anyone else) propose the UK is going to catch up?

That's a question that I couldn't possibly answer so why ask it?

Not that I'd frame it in the same way ('catch up').

[petejh]

You're also ignoring the obvious point that a block of 28 countries each with their own self-interests makes negotiating *anything* a torturous exercise (Belgium/Canada e.g.) compared to one country negotiating with another. That point shouldn't be overlooked, but no doubt it will be every time someone on here talks about negotiations.