Brexit

Factory orders slumped in May in the latest sign Europe's slow down is in a more serious downturn.
The latest survey showed factory activity shrank for a sixth month in June.
The continued gloom is increasing concern at the Central Bank and a growing number of economists are predicting it will add more monetary stimulus as soon as this month......this is adding pressure to all UK Bank shares, not to mention the 27 block members Banks.

The 2.2% overall drop on the month was far worse than Bloomberg survey 0.2% predicted fall. The year-on-year decline of 8.6% was the biggest in almost a decade.
JP Morgan now predicts that Germany may have contracted in the third quarter, if that happens it will be the third time in a year that Europe's largest economy posted no growth at all.
On Friday Commerzbank changed its forecast on ECB stimulus, predicting a 20 basis point cut in the deposit rate this month.

If the services sector weaken's, then this will prompt the relaunch of QE.
My guess is that Lloyds may push lower and rebound on more QE from the European Central Bank.
The sooner we leave this sink ship the better for Lloyds shares and our future.
This is BANK related and does affect Lloyds shares, please do not remove this post.

This article was taken from the Lloyd's share forum, the ball is in your court Boris, if you cant get a better deal that Maybot play your ace.

 

This actually sums it up perfectly. The suggestion that we go for No Deal on the basis it might reap rewards for Lloyds shareholders, without regard for the cost to the nation and the wider economy.

There will be plenty advocating No Deal, who have influence on Boris, because they will stand to profit hugely from it. We don't know to what extent the markets have priced in No Deal but I am sure there will be plenty who will be desperate for the £ to drop further or the stock market to take a tumble. Without any concern about how that impacts on the real economy.

 

North Korea

 

Unfortunatly it's the way of the world mate, similar to the austerity debate, austerity impacts far more on the less well off rather that the rich.

 

Have you been to Spain recently, or Italy or Greece. It ain't all coming up roses in EU land you know. Scratch the surface anywhere in the EU and there's a LOT of discontent. Visit the towns and villages in Spain where the majority of under 25s have either left or are jobless.

Funny how some people in the UK think the EU social chapter is the saviour. There's tens of millions of Europeans who would far prefer to be here than where they currently are. Oh, I forgot, hundreds of thousands of them already are here. Go figure! Why would they want to leave their EU utopia to come here?

 

Alas, I think austerity plays into the hands of the rich as it means people are willing to work for less out of desperation and guess what, that means more profit and the rich get richer.

 

The benefit freeze introduced in 2010 freezing most benefits since then has contributed massively to push people into poverty and homelessness, Take £40 a week off the poorest in society and they will really struggle to feed and clothe their families, Take the same amount from the wealthy and they will not only not miss it but complain about the benefits the poor receive

 

Where have I said that everything's rosy in mainland Europe?

What I said was that the EU Social Chapter prevents the Tories from dismantling protections like sick pay, paid maternity/paternity leave, redundancy pay, and minimum levels of annual leave. Brexit will remove those protections. Then the right wingers that will fill Johnson's cabinet will waste no time in stripping away as many worker rights as they possibly can.
If you think that's a good thing, well knock yourself out. I don't.

 

You really are paranoid aren't you, would you employ anybody with the benefits that are available today...? I wouldn't..
EVERYBODY should be self employed then lets see how many sick days/holidays/maternity leave etc days are taken then...

 

Maternity leave???

Jesus Christ.

 

Paranoid? Paranoia is the fear of something that's not real. It's far from paranoid to believe that Tory right wingers will strip away as many workers rights and protections as they can, when many of them have gone on record to say that they want to do exactly that.

These people have been telling us for 40 years that low taxes and labour market 'flexibility' (ie total job insecurity) will grow the economy and everyone will share in the largesse. Hasn't quite worked out like that. Because the rich don't reinvest their wealth into growing the economy (as right wing economic theory supposes). What will happen if they take away all those protections is that the rich will get richer and squirrel away even more of their wealth in tax havens, while ordinary people live from hand to mouth with no job security or guaranteed income. And wealth/income inequality will keep on getting bigger.

 

I honestly can't see these being reverted, every employer in the land works to these regulations. Can you imagine, 5 companies offer sick etc and one doesn't? The company that doesn't wouldn't get any staff, I can't see it happening.

 

Yeah, don't they get 12 months when a fortnight should suffice............................

 

That may be true when the economy is booming and employers are desperate for staff. But when the economy is tanking, as will happen if we get no deal Brexit, there will be a race to the bottom as people accept whatever jobs they can get, regardless of poor working terms and conditions.

 

Yeah, right. Don't know why they even let women take all these jobs. Surely they should be back in the kitchen getting hubby's tea on the table and looking after the kids.

 

Unless their company pays slightly more.
Companies used to pay sick from Day 1 but now a lot are cutting that to same rules as SSP, start on Day 4 But they don’t seem to have trouble recruiting

 

If they are paying more then surely that's not an issue if somebody knowingly takes a job knowing the terms of the contract?

 

I was giving you an example of when the absence of sick pay may not deter people. It is all about the overall package

 

I don't know how old you are, but I can tell you workers rights now are often way worse than when I started work in the 1970s.

Back then we got a break in a morning, an hour for lunch and a break in an afternoon and finished at 5. Now, the poor kids who work at Costa's and the like get 20 minutes if they work 6 hours.

Also, in real terms wages are lower now than they were 20 years ago.

And don't get me started on zero hours contracts and the slave labour conditions at Amazon and the like.

And all of this is happening whilst we are IN the EU.

Allowing uncontrolled immigration has messed up demand and supply exponentially and this has greatly benefited big business, which is why big business is desperate for us to stay in the EU.

Me, I want higher wages, better training and a total change in business culture and ethics. I want workers to be valued and not treat like disposable assets that are easily replaced if cheaper workers can be sourced from abroad.

I've not seen any of that whilst in the EU and it isn't just our workers who are fed up it is the workers in France, Spain, Italy, etc.

So my point is that the Social Chapter you speak of isn't worth the paper it is printed on. It isn't working for millions of working class folk who struggle to make ends meet. Look around you and tell me honestly that you think things are better for workers now than thirty years ago.

 

I'm 63 and, like you, started work in the 70s.

No, I'm not saying that conditions for workers are better than they were back then.
But that's not due to the EU. It's due to many things - multinational corporations, abolition of exchange controls, competition from non-western countries with much cheaper labour costs, the almost total collapse of trades union bargaining leaving individual workers isolated and powerless, etc etc.

The Social Chapter isn't a panacea. It doesn't change the global economic conditions in which we all operate. But it provides a floor below which EU member states can't drop certain conditions re working hours, sick pay, holidays and redundancy rights etc. Once we leave it our remaining employment rights will soon be decimated unless we get a less right wing government.

If we get a no deal Brexit we will have years of economic depression as we struggle along on WTO trade terms and take ages to negotiate hundreds of replacement trade deals, which will be far worse than those that the collective strength of the EU currently negotiates on our behalf. There will be high unemployment, which will provide the perfect circumstances for employers to remove employment rights and protections because, a) new workers will be so glad of any work they can get they will accept jobs on detrimental terms and b) there will be no laws to stop employers sacking existing employees who refuse to accept worse contracts and replacing them with new workers who will.
And make no mistake, this won't be an accident - it's precisely what the disaster capitalists on the right of the Tory Party want to happen. They know perfectly well that Brexit will be an economic disaster, but it gives them the opportunity they want to take us back to pre-war labour conditions when employment rights were non-existent and employers had workers over a barrel.
But turkeys keep voting for Christmas.