ALB
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He seems to be assuming some sort of hard Brexit, which is jumping the gun since what happens after the end of the transition period in December 2020 has yet to be negotiated. The sort of Brexit that is likely to happen (and always was) is one in which the British economy will still be closely aligned to the EU, i.e a withdrawal from the EU’s political, decision-making institutions while remaining linked economically. This will be the case anyway until the end of 2020. If this continues after that, as seems likely, the effect on the destitute and the rest of us will be neutral.
The effect of the fall in the value of the pound, due to the vote for Brexit and uncertainty about what kind of Brexit, is a different matter. In the past this would have been a formal devaluation and Hatold Wilson could have returned to re-assure the destitute (and the rest of us) that the “pound in their pocket” was unaffected. True, except that a devaluation/fall in value increases the prices of the imported goods which we buy. This is presumably what the UN expert means and has calculated. Of course if the value of the pound goes up again, as it did for a while until the uncertainty returned and may well do when there’s a final settlement, then this would be reversed. Imcidentally, some of the hard Brexiteers are arguing that with “free” trade the prices of certain food and clothing items would fall as the current EU tariffs on importing them would go.
The point I was making was about the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal. That would temporarily disrupt the lives of nearly everybody, just because capitalism’s political representatives had messed things up. I was coming as close as I could to agreeing that “any deal would be better than no deal”, literally any as we don’t need to care which since the capitalists’ trading arrangements don’t concern us. It’s their problem but we don’t want to be victims if their politicians fail to agree anything. Having said this, I think they will agree something, anything.
Despite all the shenanigans at Westminster yesterday and to come, I am prepared to bet that there will still be a deal, i.e, there won’t be no deal. It might not be all that different from what’s being negotiated. I heard a Rolls Royce executive say on the radio this morning that “any deal is better than no deal”.
If there is no deal the capitalist class (except for the hedge fund managers and other dodgy dealers who financed the Brexit campaign) will be furious with their political representatives. I imagine that the working class too will not look kindly on those who would be responsible for an unnecessary disruption of their lives (as they weren’t with Heath in 1974 after the 3-day week). The trading arrangements of the capitalist class don’t concern us, but we don’t want to be the innocent victims of the failure of their political representatives to come to some agreement whatever it might be.
Of course a shrinking population is only a problem under capitalism. First, because it means that more of the surplus value produced has to be devoted to maintaining a growing non-working section of the population and so diverted from being re-invested for profit and capital accumulation. Second, because a labour shortage puts workers in a stronger bargaining position over their wages so putting profits under pressure there too.
In describing a shrinking population as a “threat to Earth” rather than as a threat to capitalism, even though this is meant as a riposte to Sir David Attenborough’s overpopulation-mongering, Mortished is one of those who find it “easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.”
Here’s a new one I’d not heard of before:
Found something (but not in the famous 585-pager):
So, yes, EU citizens already here will be able to continue to vote in local elections until 31 December 2020. It has not yet been decided what will happen after that.
That’s ok. I had thought of submitting a version it to the blog. Just one thing. I need to check whether EU citizens already established in Britain will retain the right to vote in local elections. I know the UK offered this to the EU at one point but think the EU was reluctant to reciprocate. European countries are stricter on who can vote than Britain. For instance, even before Britain joined the EU it allowed Irish and Commonwealth citizens to vote. I hope the 585 page document has an index ! But it might not be in it anyway as Britain might just have unilaterally decided to allow EU citizens here now to vote (and stand) in local and regional elections. But don’t tell the bigoted Brexiteers.
I suppose we should say something about what everybody else is talking about — the 585 page document on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. I’ve not read it myself of course but listening to some politicians you would think it was the final trade agreement with the EU. In fact the provisions regarding trading are only temporary till the end of 2020. During this period the UK, while no longer in the EU, will still be in the customs union and single market while a longer-term permanent trading deal is negotiated. Boris and the others cry “vassal state” but this temporary transition period was agreed months ago while he was still Foreign Secretary. Even the famous Northern Ireland backstop would only come into being if no trading agreement is concluded by the end of 2020.
So, from a capitalist point of view, all the options are still open. During the transition period the brexiteers’ Canada-style free trade agreement could be negotiated as could a Norway-style arrangement. The transition period can even be extended (once) for a given period.
If they play their hand right the government should be able to convince the politicians to go along with it.
If the document goes through it’s not going to make much difference to ordinary people. As one of the panellists said on Loose Women on ITV yesterday (as I said everyone’s discussing it, but don’t ask me how I came to be watching it), that on 31 March next year, which is the day after Britain formally withdraws from the EU’s political institutions, it will be the same as the day before: people will still go to work as usual and still go shopping in supermarkets as usual. Nobody will notice any difference, so why get worked up about it.
Having said that, our fellow workers from other EU countries will know that they are not going to be kicked out or lose what legal entitlements they now have, including the right to vote in local elections (need to check that with the 585 page document).
Of course if the document is rejected daily life will be disrupted for a while but what are the chances of that? I suppose that depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist.
The other valid point that came up, one already made by Richard Dawkins in relation to the previous referendum, is how can you expect people to vote on a 585 page document. This of course is the general case against referendums for deciding matters even in socialism since there’s rarely a yes or a no answer but always something in between.
Is Soros actually a practitioner of Judaism, the religion? If not, I think we should be careful about calling him “Jewish”, otherwise we would be going along with a definition of being Jewish whose implications we wouldn’t agree with. I would hate to be called a Christian just because that’s my family’s religious background.
Sussex wrote:
I love coming in here! I think to myself I’ve had a bad day, then I come here and read Alan’s posts on climate change, dog food and the looming crash and I feel better!
In view of the unremitting diet of pessimism that Alan serves every day, I propose that the title of this thread be changed to the Daily Gloom. But I suppose that we should be grateful that it doesn’t need to be changed to the Daily Panic or the Daily Doom.
You could be right, Alan, since it’s such a crackpot concept the term “zero carbon economy” is probably bad editing or subediting by the BBC reporter or maybe he simply quoted it from the Extinction Rebellion people being reported on.
Not all greenhouse gas emissions are harmful of course. Just the opposite:
Without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earth’s surface would be about −18 °C, rather than the present average of 15 °C.
So, let’s not overdo it or we’ll end up with the “nuclear winter” people used to be scared of in the 1980s.
But experts say achieving a zero-emissions economy by 2025 isn’t in any scenario. It would need a revolution in transport, home insulation, energy efficiency, agriculture and more.
Who are these so-called “experts” who are entertaining the impossible aim of “a zero-emissions economy”?
That would mean that no electricity at all would be generated by burning any fossil fuel or any wood, and that no cars, trains, ships or planes would be powered by burning any. And that’s only zero emissions of CO2, but there are also the other greenhouse gases as methane, water vapour, ozone and nitrous oxide. Common sense suggests that it would be impossible to produce the wealth needed to feed, clothe, house, etc the world’s population without emitting ANY green house gas.
It is not necessary to go that far to deal with the problem anyway (even in socialism), only to cut emissions fairly substantially. In fact, is it even desirable? A “zero-emissions economy” that is.
The idea of capturing Co2 and burying is a load of bollocks when you look into it.
Yes, it does seem an odd thing to do. Isn’t there anything else that can be done with CO2? And of course we don’t want to completely eliminate CO2 emissions, otherwise what would plants “breathe” in? To do that we would have to suppress us and other animals as that is what we emit, i.e. breathe out. Just need to keep it down to a level that’s not going to lead to a too rapid global warming, i.e to a level that the rest of Nature can absorb.
Yes, there does seem to be an attempt to get a bandwagon rolling that nuclear power is the obvious immediate alternative to burning fossil fuels so as to reduce CO2 emissions. There’s an article in the latest issue (November/December) of the Skeptical Inquirer on the “ecomodernists”, a group which argues that embracing, not criticising, modern technology is the way to deal with the threat of too rapid global warming.
The article says of Germany:
In 2011, Germany made the rash political decision to phase out its seventeen emission-free nuclear power plants, which at the time accounted for 25 percent of the country’s electricity generation, In doing so, Germany has remained strongly dependent on some of the dirtiest coal power plants in the world for more than 40 percent of its electricity.
If true, this would mean that the Greens, who were at the forefront of the anti-nuclear campaign, would have made things worse.
Of the US, it says that fracking
lowered the cost of generating electricity from cleaner burning natural gas power plants, putting many dirtier and more expensive coal power plants out of business.
So generating electricity from burning natural gas from fracking is a “lesser evil” than generating it from burning coal. Nuclear power is a “lesser evil” than burning natural gas, but
A glut of cheap natural gas also threatens the country’s 100 emission-free nuclear power stations, which generate 20 percent of U.S. electricity.
This shows once again that, since what method is adopted to generate electricity is a matter of changing, relative prices, capitalism is incapable of implementing a rational energy policy.
For the record, what the “ecomodernists” advocate is a combination of nuclear and natural gas (but whose plants have effective means of capturing CO2 and burying it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere — not sure that this technolog exists yet, does it?) See: http://www.ecomodernism.org for their manifesto.
I note that one of the signatories is Mark Lynas who in 2007 published Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet which raised the rather alarmist prospect of Earth ending up like Venus, i.e the extinction of all life. It was reviewed in the August 2007 <i>Socialist Standard</i> (scroll down):
Perhaps he has scared himself into supporting nuclear as the only alternative.
It seems that “Anglo-Saxons” are not so keen to train to be hired killers and/or cannon fodder and that more of those General Sir Nick presumably considers “lesser races” are to be recruited from the “colonies”. The racist bonehead himself is one himself — a “settler” from Kenya.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/foreign-legion-join-british-army-13535813
Here’s what the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, told the Sun in an interview yesterday:
General Sir Nick also warned history may be repeating itself – drawing parallels today with the beginning of last century – when powerful nations vied for supremacy. He added: “It’s particularly important in the world in which we live today where we have this return to what I call great power competition. That is very similar I would suggest to the first decade of the last century and it’s pretty important therefore that people understand what war is about and why it needs to be avoided at all costs.”
Fortunately, “we” are prepared for war:
he said today’s generation of troops still boast the “fighting spirit” of their comrades of a century ago, who the nation will silently remember tomorrow. He said: “We’re Anglo-Saxons, and Anglo-Saxons stand up and are counted for what they believe in. If people can see the value in the cause then I think that Anglo-Saxon desire to do the right thing and to fight if you have to fight is still there and will always be there.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7706217/stop-treating-veterans-like-victims/
