Price Increases of Some Electricals Double following Brexit - news discussion

Yeah, 'isolationism' is controlling your borders like most countries around the world.
And which nation flourished economically under the ideology?
 
Some would say that false ideas of importance based on fictional nostalgia are more dangerous to world security. How many enlightened countries feel the need to put "Great" in their nations name. There is a song called "Anthem" from the musical "Chess" which explains this perfectly
Some would say that, they'd be entirely wrong of course.
 
The drop in the pound will benefit big multi nationals whose worldwide earnings become worth more in sterling, whereas people on low incomes who want to buy food or electricals pay the price. Is that fair?
 
Some would say that, they'd be entirely wrong of course.
There is no such thing as right or wrong, there is only opinion
 
I am not sure everyone will agree with that.

To me, not having access to the free market (and most importantly the loss of passporting rights for services) is too high a price to pay for having control of borders, powers of the supreme court.

Having the price of gadgets go up in the UK is the worst possible kind of disaster - the kind that negatively affects me! :)

Given most of the electronic goods you buy in terms of AV kit are produced outside of the single market, being a member of the EU means tariffs are slapped on non-EU producers to protect inferior European made products from external competition. Theoretically, if the UK can negotiate a FTA with, say, South Korea - which it cannot do as a member of the EU - then your Samsung TV's will decrease in price as they won't be subject to import tariffs.

Currency fluctuations are a separate issue. Sterling has been slowing down against the dollar and Euro long before the Brexit vote took place, the market just got jittery when it happened and accelerated it. What a weaker pound gives is a boost to exporters and makes tourists money go further.

It will recover, or other nations will devalue their currency to stimulate imports, particularly to the UK as we are one of the most important consumer driven economies on the planet.
 
We knew this would happen, but we don't really care. There should be no price on having our own government making our laws and us controlling our borders and territorial waters, as well as our Supreme Court actually being supreme.
Which laws exactly are those?

Without googling now, I bet you have no idea.
 
Given most of the electronic goods you buy in terms of AV kit are produced outside of the single market, being a member of the EU means tariffs are slapped on non-EU producers to protect inferior European made products from external competition. Theoretically, if the UK can negotiate a FTA with, say, South Korea - which it cannot do as a member of the EU - then your Samsung TV's will decrease in price as they won't be subject to import tariffs.

Currency fluctuations are a separate issue. Sterling has been slowing down against the dollar and Euro long before the Brexit vote took place, the market just got jittery when it happened and accelerated it. What a weaker pound gives is a boost to exporters and makes tourists money go further.

It will recover, or other nations will devalue their currency to stimulate imports, particularly to the UK as we are one of the most important consumer driven economies on the planet.
South Korea is one of many countries with which the EU already has a Free Trade Agreement. I doubt that the UK will negotiate a better deal than than the existing FTA.

In the 18 months from the start of 2013 until the middle of 2014 sterling rose against the dollar fairly continuously - from about $1.50 to $1.70. For the next 18 months to the start of 2016 sterling fell fairly continuously to around $1.45. For the 6 months prior to Brexit the $/£ exchange rate had been fairly constant at around $1.45. So there is no evidence that Brexit simply accelerated a currency fall that would have occurred anyway.

Markets have simply reduced their demand for sterling denominated assets because there is great uncertainty over what will happen now following the Brexit vote.

Devaluing a currency only gives a country a temporary boost to exports. In the longer term the affect will be to increase inflation as the price of imported goods and services rise. The resulting inflation then erodes a countries competitiveness as it forces export prices to rise again - counteracting the effect of the currency devaluation.

As to other nations devaluing their currencies to stimulate their exports to us which countries are you referring to? Almost all the major currencies such as the Dollar, Yen, Swiss Franc and Euro are free floating. They are not managed by their governments in order to hit specific rates. (The Chinese renminbi is not a free floating currency.)

My main concern about Brexit is still around passporting for services. The trade of goods (e.g. us importing/exporting cars to/from Europe) should be pretty straight forward. Around the world there are many trade agreements on the trade of goods. If it comes to it we can fall back on the WTO agreements on the trade of goods with Europe. However, WTO rules do not cover services as the trade of services such as banking are far more complex.

The key point is that the UK is an importer of goods from Europe and an exporter of services. So falling back on WTO rules would be very damaging to the UK.

Remember too that although the UK is a net importer from Europe trade between the UK and Europe is far more important to the UK than it is to Europe. The EU accounts for almost half of our trade and exports - whereas the UK only accounts for around 10% of the trade and exports of Europe. (This is simply because the EU block is a far, far larger economy than that of the UK.)

The UK's official position now appears to be that we want free movement of goods, capital and freedom of establishment but we don't want the free movement of people. I really don't see why it would be in Europe's interest to allow the UK to get 3 of the 4 freedoms without accepting all 4. It seems reasonable to say that it is all 4 or nothing.

Losing the freedom of establishment would hit the UK hard. Under this freedom you cannot treat countries differently within the EU. In recent years the European Central Bank has been trying to force the "clearing" of Euro denominated assets out of London and into a Eurozone country. (Up to 80,000 jobs in London are dependent upon "clearing".) The EU court has ruled in the UKs favour that such business cannot be forced to be within a Eurozone country because the UK is a member of the EU and is therefore protected by the Freedom of Establishment. However, once the UK leaves the EU then the ECB will be free to force clearing to take place within an EU country and the City will lose those 10s of thousands of jobs. From what I have seen in the City though, that won't be the end of it. Many companies are discussing this and don't like the idea of only moving the part of their business that the have to move to the EU as that would result in splitting their business between London and the EU. If you have to move a large proportion of your business to the EU then it makes more sense to move the whole operation to the EU and have everyone together. Fortunately for City firms they are pretty mobile so moving everything from London to say Paris or Frankfurt isn't that much of an issue. Interestingly, from what I have seen the main thing stopping many firms leaving London now is that there is no consensus on where to go. Not many people want to live in Paris (which surprises me as I like it there) and nobody seems to want to move to Frankfurt. Geneva - the biggest financial centre in Europe after London - isn't in the EU either so isn't a good choice. Dublin is a popular choice though. If one centre does emerge as a viable new base then I think firms will move there very quickly.

I also wouldn't want to be a citizen of Gibraltar once the UK leaves the EU as the Freedom of Establishment has been used against Spain to stop them forcing extra border controls on UK citizens there. Once the UK leaves the EU then again there will be no such rules protecting them and Spain can impose whatever extra controls they want on Gibraltar.

(Then again the loss of the City jobs and the impact on Gibraltar is what the country voted for - nobody can claim they were not warned of these specific effects prior to the vote.)

It is also important to note that the UK is not the only country that has requested to control immigration while maintaining EU trade. In 2014 Switzerland also had a referendum. Theirs was specifically about being able to impose limits on the numbers of immigrants from the EU. Switzerland then tried to agree a deal with the EU to be able to impose such limits (in violation of the freedom of movement) while maintaining access to the EU free markets. The EU flatly refused and talks ended. This appears to have been kicked into the long grass for now as the referendum didn't commit the Swiss government to impose the new immigration rules till some time is 2017 or 2018.

I cannot see any reason for the EU to treat the UK any differently to Switzerland in this.
 
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Black Friday and the Xmas/Boxing day sales could provide even greater value this year before the price hikes fully kick in.

This is going to play into the retailers hands over the next 2 months as people will more than likely be panic buying items (they in all honesty don't need) in the belief that they are getting a massive bargain that may never be repeated.

I fully expect more shock tactics where they raise prices across the board in December and then discount them massively in the sales.
 
That referendum was a bananas decision and it reminds me of the last line in season 4 of "House of Cards". Frank says "We make the terror". To me that was saying that by making people afraid they'd do what he wants them to do - ie. re-elect him as people are only puppets. Same thing happened here - frighten people enough about migrants and they'll look past everything else.

From the outside looking in it seems that historically the UK always needs someone to hate from back in the 60's to the 20-teens.... the Irish, French, coloured's, miners, hippys/crusties, ravers, teenagers/"hoodies" and unfortunately the trend seems to be immigrants in the 20-teens. Someone who voted to leave the EU told me they wanted to make Britain great again. When was Britain previously "great"? Within anyone currently living's lifetime? Or is that just another bullsh!t slogan that caught on?

In Ireland we're going to get hit hard I suspect. Manufacturing will fall as the UK is our biggest trade partner. We can't devalue the currency like we did before as we're in the Euro. I can see some manufacturing moving to Northern Ireland while the rest will have to adapt or shut down. Our financial services will sky rocket I suspect and we're ramping up construction in Dublin. As the only native English speaking country in the open market we'll get a lot of jobs and will balance out the drop in manufacturing or in fact be a bigger boost to the economy. We've already seen a absolutely massive spike in applications for Irish passports from UK citizens. That tells a lot...... People are coming here or want freedom of movement in the EU, funnily enough which is exactly what the UK voted to prevent with migrants. So exactly that is going to happen. There will be a migration of people but now it's a migration away from the UK of skilled workers. The UK will now be a feeder country to Europe. Can't see that making Britain "great".

On a personal level it's been strangely amusing watching Sterling fall to pieces as anyone with an ounce of intelligence saw it as a bad move and this is the "I told you so". Whats more, the UK has not even invoked article 50 yet. When that happens and if the UK is denied access to the open market it'll be carnage. I'm enjoying all the rhetoric from May that the UK will negotiate a great deal. Not entirely sure where that will come from as the EU will definitely be out to make an example and fire a warning shot at any other countries even considering it. It took Canada 7 years to negotiate a free trade agreement and it won't be as easy for the UK. 7 years is a long recession....

As for prices of good. Of course.... Pound drops against the dollar where most goods are priced in Asia so the prices go up. it's very very simple math. As soon as fixed pricing contracts ends or currency hedges expire the price of all goods are going up 20% from AV kit to onions, garlic, cars petrol and so on. Sure you can create a free trade agreement with China but how many years will that take? I can't see salaries going up to match the price of goods and if anything salaries will contract. A lot of companies in the UK will be buttoning down the hatches for the next 10 years to see how this all plays out. Prices of good go up so benefits need to go up to match. People lose their jobs so there are more people on benefits. To counteract this, taxes must rise but with skilled people leaving the country there's less of a tax base. I can see this being a grim 10-15 years until the country stabilises and any free trade agreements can be signed.

In the short term I'll be buying the kids Christmas presents off Amazon UK or taking a spin up to Belfast...... Might as well enjoy it while I can!
 
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Like the house of cards example, sadly so believable. If politicians can create a "THEM" for the masses to fear then they're home and dry. The masses love to blame "THEM" for all their problems as they can then abdicate any responsibility for their own lives. The remain campaign may have over egged the pudding in the fear department but the leave campaign was a shameful, national disgrace.
 
What does this actually mean?

"Borders" and "territories" are fabricated concepts, they don't actually exist. But that's alright because ignorance and stupidity is okay and Leavers don't care anyway.

I'm pretty sure you have a front door with a big lock on your house. Why don't you remove it so anyone can walk inside :) You just tell yourself it's a fabricated concept when some bloke knicks your tv :p Sovereignthy and borders are such a basic concept in human life.

It's not like the UK will turn into an isolated island like N-Korea. You'll join 3rd world countries like Norway and Switzerland. Good leadership can turn the UK into an independant powerhouse :smashin:
 
It's all gone bad even before we have Brexited.

The referendum is one of the worst decisions the government has ever made. Putting that sort of decision in he hands of the UK public was a disaster. Look what happened when we were asked to name a boat.

We will end up paying the same fees to the EU and having open borders just like before.

With Brexit and the real possibility of Trump getting elected it's a scary world we currently live in.
 
It's funny how we all take the freedom of travel for granted. I believe the U.K has the freest movement of any citizenship globally.
We all want to travel and see places, but in turn we want to put borders up?
Whether we like it or not there's only two options for this world to move forward and hopefully have a more peaceful society.
Every country in the world either puts up borders and doesn't let anyone in or out, or we take them all down and let people move freely.
Isn't that what progress is all about?

As for the cost of Electricals, the majority of components needed are supplied from Asia, and as anyone would know, they only trade in the dollar for these. As the exchange rate has moved then the cost must be passed on down the line. It was inevitable that the cost of goods to retail would increase as a result. The only plus side is that our export prices for home manufactured goods are more attractive, at the moment. Until that is, that even UK manufacturing has to increase its prices due to raised purchase costs of components.

This is what happens when an ill informed society is given the right to vote on something they know little to nothing about.
 
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Good leadership can turn the UK into an independent powerhouse :smashin:
With Boris and David Davis leading the negotiations I am sure that we have nothing to worry about then. :eek:
 
The best example I can find is the NVidia Shield TV, basically nowhere sells it for less than around £200..
 
I'm pretty sure you have a front door with a big lock on your house. Why don't you remove it so anyone can walk inside :) You just tell yourself it's a fabricated concept when some bloke knicks your tv :p Sovereignthy and borders are such a basic concept in human life.

It's not like the UK will turn into an isolated island like N-Korea. You'll join 3rd world countries like Norway and Switzerland. Good leadership can turn the UK into an independant powerhouse :smashin:

I agree that we are an instinctively territorial species, but to what degree is open to debate and manipulation.

A lot of the posts here talk about fear - of "them", of "invasion" - as if other human beings are not like "us". Why do some people think like this?

People like Farage and Trump seem to think going backwards is the answer, Leavers seem to think isolationism is a good thing, both for society and politics.

Personally, I think this fear stuff is a learned response. I don't think any of us pop out of the womb fearing our fellow human beings, if anything we embrace difference and variety.

Beyond all this trade and goods and costs stuff, there is a bigger picture and a greater human cost, which is why I voted Remain. Everything that was predicted to happen if we left the EU is now playing out and I have little to no faith that our glorious leaders will persuade anyone to look upon us favourably.

They remind me of swans - all surface gloss talking up our national importance, whilst underneath they are paddling furiously desperately trying to negotiate anything.

This really could have all been avoided, it's all rather sad.
 
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South Korea is one of many countries with which the EU already has a Free Trade Agreement. I doubt that the UK will negotiate a better deal than than the existing FTA.

In the 18 months from the start of 2013 until the middle of 2014 sterling rose against the dollar fairly continuously - from about $1.50 to $1.70. For the next 18 months to the start of 2016 sterling fell fairly continuously to around $1.45. For the 6 months prior to Brexit the $/£ exchange rate had been fairly constant at around $1.45. So there is no evidence that Brexit simply accelerated a currency fall that would have occurred anyway.

Markets have simply reduced their demand for sterling denominated assets because there is great uncertainty over what will happen now following the Brexit vote.

Devaluing a currency only gives a country a temporary boost to exports. In the longer term the affect will be to increase inflation as the price of imported goods and services rise. The resulting inflation then erodes a countries competitiveness as it forces export prices to rise again - counteracting the effect of the currency devaluation.

As to other nations devaluing their currencies to stimulate their exports to us which countries are you referring to? Almost all the major currencies such as the Dollar, Yen, Swiss Franc and Euro are free floating. They are not managed by their governments in order to hit specific rates. (The Chinese renminbi is not a free floating currency.)

My main concern about Brexit is still around passporting for services. The trade of goods (e.g. us importing/exporting cars to/from Europe) should be pretty straight forward. Around the world there are many trade agreements on the trade of goods. If it comes to it we can fall back on the WTO agreements on the trade of goods with Europe. However, WTO rules do not cover services as the trade of services such as banking are far more complex.

The key point is that the UK is an importer of goods from Europe and an exporter of services. So falling back on WTO rules would be very damaging to the UK.

Remember too that although the UK is a net importer from Europe trade between the UK and Europe is far more important to the UK than it is to Europe. The EU accounts for almost half of our trade and exports - whereas the UK only accounts for around 10% of the trade and exports of Europe. (This is simply because the EU block is a far, far larger economy than that of the UK.)

The UK's official position now appears to be that we want free movement of goods, capital and freedom of establishment but we don't want the free movement of people. I really don't see why it would be in Europe's interest to allow the UK to get 3 of the 4 freedoms without accepting all 4. It seems reasonable to say that it is all 4 or nothing.

Losing the freedom of establishment would hit the UK hard. Under this freedom you cannot treat countries differently within the EU. In recent years the European Central Bank has been trying to force the "clearing" of Euro denominated assets out of London and into a Eurozone country. (Up to 80,000 jobs in London are dependent upon "clearing".) The EU court has ruled in the UKs favour that such business cannot be forced to be within a Eurozone country because the UK is a member of the EU and is therefore protected by the Freedom of Establishment. However, once the UK leaves the EU then the ECB will be free to force clearing to take place within an EU country and the City will lose those 10s of thousands of jobs. From what I have seen in the City though, that won't be the end of it. Many companies are discussing this and don't like the idea of only moving the part of their business that the have to move to the EU as that would result in splitting their business between London and the EU. If you have to move a large proportion of your business to the EU then it makes more sense to move the whole operation to the EU and have everyone together. Fortunately for City firms they are pretty mobile so moving everything from London to say Paris or Frankfurt isn't that much of an issue. Interestingly, from what I have seen the main thing stopping many firms leaving London now is that there is no consensus on where to go. Not many people want to live in Paris (which surprises me as I like it there) and nobody seems to want to move to Frankfurt. Geneva - the biggest financial centre in Europe after London - isn't in the EU either so isn't a good choice. Dublin is a popular choice though. If one centre does emerge as a viable new base then I think firms will move there very quickly.

I also wouldn't want to be a citizen of Gibraltar once the UK leaves the EU as the Freedom of Establishment has been used against Spain to stop them forcing extra border controls on UK citizens there. Once the UK leaves the EU then again there will be no such rules protecting them and Spain can impose whatever extra controls they want on Gibraltar.

(Then again the loss of the City jobs and the impact on Gibraltar is what the country voted for - nobody can claim they were not warned of these specific effects prior to the vote.)

It is also important to note that the UK is not the only country that has requested to control immigration while maintaining EU trade. In 2014 Switzerland also had a referendum. Theirs was specifically about being able to impose limits on the numbers of immigrants from the EU. Switzerland then tried to agree a deal with the EU to be able to impose such limits (in violation of the freedom of movement) while maintaining access to the EU free markets. The EU flatly refused and talks ended. This appears to have been kicked into the long grass for now as the referendum didn't commit the Swiss government to impose the new immigration rules till some time is 2017 or 2018.

I cannot see any reason for the EU to treat the UK any differently to Switzerland in this.
The power of the global Toblerone brand just wasn't enough for the Swiss. The Curly Wurly will do better, have no fear :clap:
 
We knew this would happen, but we don't really care. There should be no price on having our own government making our laws and us controlling our borders and territorial waters, as well as our Supreme Court actually being supreme.

What does that even mean? We weren't India, we weren't colonised by a foreign entity, when were we not a sovereign nation? Control of our borders? We're not part of the Schengen area so saying we don't have control of our borders is disingenuous. Which laws are we talking about here? The same EU laws which have been part of our country for generations and are practically intertwined with centuries old British legislation anyway? What's going to change there?

What happens when we're going to have to agree to freedom of movement anyway as it's not looking likely we'll leave the biggest single market in the world, we'll truly be idiots then since we'll have to listen to the EU without having any input as we'll lose our seat in the Parliament. Taxation without representation. Oh and our £ is worth about 30% less now, so pretty much everybody but the upper class will be hit the hardest.

But muh freedom and sovereignty
 
Yes the world is very strange at the moment. It is the year of the demagogues and post-truth politics. But talking from a remoaner stronghold in North London I personally believe it is impossible to predict what is going on. Prices for AV kit will go up next year but strangely I have assets in Euros/Dollars that have increased, so classic swings and roundabouts.
I suppose it is human nature not to want to pay more for the same item and with that in mind I probably will pull forward an AV purchase to this year as the same item will cost more next year.
 
It is odd reading what Leavers have to say because they pretty much sound like they're just parroting back what they've been told by Right Wing commentators. And even if they do concede the point, like Simsini, they still won't accept the consequences.

We may or may not have made a massive mistake socially and economically, but the underlying motivations for Leaving still seem unclear to me other than nebulous concepts of "freedom", "self-determination" and "taking back control".

Will it all make any difference in the long run? Probably not - we'll still continue to be governed by a small, distant elite who'll never keep us fully informed nor be completely transparent. But hey, at least they're OUR small, distant elite!
 
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