Pound Falls Ahead Of Theresa May Brexit Speech

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38632140

And she hasn't even opened her mouth yet !

What an asset Mrs May is to Britain....the cause of a 20% drop in the value of Sterling.

[mikey4444]

Mush ...banana farming has never proved popular in Britain !

[naomi24]

Nor in Germany, which to the best of my knowledge isn't an island nation.

[mikey4444]

Cameras, TV, PC's, laptops, and almost everything that you need in your kitchen, etc, etc....all imported these days.

[Ninefingers]

It would great to think that our farmers could get back to producing everything they can instead of receiving massive subsidies to STOP producing certain products. Let them work the land as they did, subsidise them to produce what the country need till it properly establishes itself.

I fear some of you are living in a strange Marxist land where the collective good is all, didn't they try that somewhere before??

[dannyk13]

From where MIkey, mostly from Japan would bet.

[jim360]

I'm not totally sure that's fair, mushroom. Or, at least, if it really is true then the "successive governments" you speak of go back basically 150-odd years. We struggled for food in the Wars because all of that "Dig for Victory" stuff was great for morale but not exactly great at making up for the huge deficit of food that being blockaded brought on. To be fair, in the wars we also had to devote a lot of resources to munitions and war machines but still -- the fact is that the UK needs to import and has done for some time, and I don't think this can be pinned on any government instead of basic geography.

[Ninefingers]

//Cameras, TV, PC's, laptops, and almost everything that you need in your kitchen, etc, etc....all imported these days.//

Because we gave up all our industries in the late 60s /70s/80s when the left held the country to ransom making everything we did unaffordable.

Why wouldn't we be the best at cameras PCs etc etc simple no investment in science from various governments of all colours, no reward for innovation to move the country forward.

Our forefathers slit our own throats 30 + years ago, Britain needs the chance to fight back and be the nation we should be once again, as long as we are part of the Third Greater German Empire that won't happen!

[mikey4444]

Danny....and China, if my new electric kettle is anything to judge by.

I have just had a look at my desktop here ::::

PC..............Korea
Keyboard....China
Mouse........China
Monitor.......China
Laptop........Korea
DAB Radio...China
Stapler........Germany
Printer........China
IPhone.......China
Tea Bag......India
Fountain Pen...Germany
Tea Cup and saucer...England (!)

[mikey4444]

ninefingers....grow up....China exports to the world nowadays.

[jim360]

"Why wouldn't we be the best at cameras PCs etc etc simple no investment in science from various governments of all colours, no reward for innovation to move the country forward. "

It's a good thing then that membership of the EU has led to a large increase in funding for the Sciences.

Oh wait, never mind.

[mushroom25]

Mikey, I wrote //Britain could produce a lot more of its food requirements // and you then went on to describe all the impedimenta on your desk and that it's 100% imported.

well I don't know about you, but there's nothing on your list that I might want to eat. perhaps it's a living in Wales thing....

[Ninefingers]

//ninefingers....grow up....China exports to the world nowadays.//

I could retort similarly but I'll resist.

Why are China the biggest exporters? - because extreme leftist state pays all the cheap workers a pittance to produce copies of superior products. It was japan before that and anywhere else that's cheap. As long as their brand of communism keeps working it'll all toddle along nicely, that breaks down and folk want a living wage for a days work they can have a look at the history of Britain circa 1975 to 1985

[Ninefingers]

//It's a good thing then that membership of the EU has led to a large increase in funding for the Sciences.

Oh wait, never mind.//

Really? Where? some examples of where that investment has led to advances that benefit ordinary people would be beneficial.

[Ellipsis]

> a weak pound is good news for exporters, bad news for importers

It's a bit more complicated than that ...

[jim360]

Scientists are ordinary people, believe it or not. So that's one direct benefit right there (for the record, my own funding has come from the STFC, ie direct from the UK, so I don't have a personal vested interest).

Current research projects based in or connected to the UK funded (partly or wholly) through EU's Science budgets include developing new treatments for, among other conditions, Diabetes, Osteoarthritis, vision loss, cancer and AIDS. That should be enough to go along with for starters.

[Ninefingers]

//Current research projects based in or connected to the UK funded (partly or wholly) through EU's Science budgets include developing new treatments for, among other conditions, Diabetes, Osteoarthritis, vision loss, cancer and AIDS.//

All valuable contribution to society but, with respect, this thread has been banging on about the economy and the value of the pound. Every time I see innovation it quickly gets sold off to the highest bidder because that what they have to do.

We'll never agree on this, I want the country to have a chance to stand on it's own two feet again

[Khandro]

jim; //It's a good thing then that membership of the EU has led to a large increase in funding for the Sciences.//

It can't have escaped your notice (can it?) that the money given to UK science is money which the UK has already given to them and is being 'generously' returned.

[rockyroad]

ninefingers, you are way behind the times with farmers subsidies. Set Aside, the payments you are referring to that paid farmers not to use their land, was abolished in 2008.

[New Judge]

//Current research projects based in or connected to the UK funded (partly or wholly) through EU's Science budgets include developing new treatments for, among other conditions, Diabetes, Osteoarthritis, vision loss, cancer and AIDS.//

None of which would have been funded, of course, without the "generosity" (i.e. doling out other people's money) of the EU. As Khandro has pointed out, the EU in this respect is just a giant wealth distribution scheme. Money comes from the contributors (five out of twenty-eight) and is dolled out (after a suitable percentage has been deducted for "expenses", of course) to the recipients. In our case for every one pound we are charged we get just shy of 50p back to be spent as directed. Sounds like a good scheme.

Personally I'd prefer we kept the entire pound and spent it what we want.

[jim360]

In terms of R&D funding, at least, we get back more from the EU than we put in, proportionately. At any rate, I don't think anyone was proposing to turn the entire EU contribution into R&D funding.

Besides which, the relationship between the EU and science is measured in more than just the budget. Ninefingers is right that this particular discussion is a distraction from the current thread; I only brought it up because he made the initial (and demonstrably false) claim that the UK's R&D budget is stagnant because of our EU membership. Quite the opposite, in fact. How this will change when we are outside the EU is anyone's guess -- in the short term, at least, I believe the government is intending to guarantee continued funding of Science projects that get EU grants.