BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.

Subject: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Stanron
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 04:17 AM

Red herring or Straw Scarecrow?

Does the UK have a trade agreement with the US? It would seem that the EU does not have one yet. I'm presuming that the UK does not have one either.

Does the UK trade with the US? You bet it does. Millions, if not billions, of trade both ways every year.

A trade deal could change this, or parts of this, but if we are at the back of the queue and waiting ten years to move up, presumably that means ten years of uninterrupted trade.

What's all the fuss about?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 07:28 AM

Even the expression "the back of the queue" sounds more English than American (the back of the line.
Who's writing his speeches?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Stanron
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 07:41 AM

Nigel Parsons wrote: Who's writing his speeches?

I imagine this time it was David Cameron.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 08:13 AM

Whatever negotiations are going on between the US and other countries about trade, they are underway. If we leave the EU there will be no negotiations already underway between us and the US. The UK has no automatic right to butt in and jump the queue in order to negotiate trade deals. That's what he meant. Simple and accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: akenaton
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 11:47 AM

What about the fucking "Special Relationship" that we were supposed to be having for the last fifty years? When we followed Bush into Iraq and gave them cover to subvert the UN?

"Get to the back of the queue for ten years if you don't do what my masters want you to do"........simple and accurate. They call it "Project Fear".
It's all about global economics we continue to be America's poodle even after Blair has left the stage.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 12:08 PM

Take a pill, Ake. Wait 30-45 minutes. Then re-read 26 Apr 16 - 08:13 AM.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 12:10 PM

the expression "the back of the queue" sounds more English than American

You mean it's the sort of language you'd expect from someone who doesn't have a US birth certificate? (American far-right loonies have been all over this one for a week or so).

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 12:27 PM

Here's a list of the countries that have free trade agreements with the U.S.:

https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements

The UK is included in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) as long as the UK remains part of the European Union.
Free trade agreements are a relatively new phenomenon. Most of them appear to have been concluded during the regime of George W. Bush. See this list (click)

Free trade agreements have been the source of many conservative conspiracy theories in the U.S. Many people think that if we negotiate a trade agreement with another country, we somehow cede our sovereignty to them. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama met with a lot of opposition to their efforts to join free trade agreements because the Republicans didn't trust either Clinton or Obama. Bush met no such opposition.

Note that these are free trade agreements. Other trade agreements go back centuries, and I'm sure the U.K. has made many, more limited trade agreements with the U.S. in the past.

Here (click) is an article from The Guardian about Obama's "back of the queue" speech. No doubt, some fussy person would have been offended if he'd used the more American expression, "back of the line." And I'm sure that many American conservatives were offended by Obama's attempt to honor the UK by using a British expression. Sometimes, you just can't win.

No doubt, the next U.S. President will not be as wise or intelligent as Barack Obama. Listen to what the man says, and don't get fussy about the "queue." There is strong disagreement among American conservatives to free trade agreements, and negotiating such agreements is close to political suicide for Democrats. So, yeah, if the UK withdraws from the EU, it also withdraws from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. And it will take twenty years to negotiate a separate US-UK agreement. Those are the facts. Consider them when you face the vote to withdraw from the EU.

This American thinks it would be a mistake for the UK to withdraw.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 01:36 PM

No doubt, the next U.S. President will not be as wise or intelligent as Barack Obama.

Now Joe, we've had our differences & disagreemants over the years, but on this you've nailed it in one!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Stanron
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 01:43 PM

Joe Offer wrote: This American thinks it would be a mistake for the UK to withdraw.

There is considerable opposition to TTIP in the UK. If the UK leaves the EU then TTIP won't apply to us. Presumably we would just keep trading as we do already. Again, what's the problem?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 02:29 PM

For the TTIP to get approval by the EU 27 countries have to agree, 28 if the UK remains part of the EU. Which is easier to get the agreement of one sovereign government or get the collective unanimous agreement of 27 sovereign governments. I'd say it would be the former wouldn't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 02:38 PM

Another "Back of the Queue" factor Any POTUS has to field is the effect any deliberate US discrimination might have on NATO. The UK is currently one if not the only European NATO country meeting the 2% GDP spend on defence, that might go and the US would be left either to abandon NATO or make good the difference and convince the EU member NATO states to cough up and start putting their hands in their pockets.

World markets might be slowing but there is still growth there, the EU has been stagnant for years and behind that there is the prospect of future financial crises in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. Our best prospects are to be found trading world wide without us being shackled to Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 07:02 PM

Trading world wide? Well, your hero Maggie made sure we didn't actually have stuff to trade any more, just insurance, banking and other dodgy financial services. We buy a hell of a lot more from the EU than we sell to it, yet you want us out of the single market with no tariff barriers and in which we have a say. This world wide trade of yours will have us at the back of the queue behind India and China, who make cheap stuff that we can't compete with. Maybe you'd like sweatshops to be brought back, along with those zero-hours contracts that you love so much. Yeah, that would make us "competitive" all right. Are you Bradley 'Ardacre in disguise?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 02:43 AM

Ah yes Shaw - all Maggies fault - how predictable, how pathetic. We do more trade with the world now than we do with the EU. But those halcyon days that you so fondly and lovingly remember never actually existed our balance of payments showed that, just to prop up the jobs for life irrespective of whether people wanted the product or not was ruining the country. The most expensive coal in the world, poor management, idiotically irresponsible trades unions - that was Britain before Maggie and it was going to hell in a hand-cart.

The fact that we DO buy more from the EU than we sell to them is exactly the reason we will be able to get a far better deal with them outside than the EU than in it.

Tell me Shaw what are the predicted growth figures for Europe for the coming year compared to those of the UK? How much does a trading block whose individual members economies are stagnant, and whose currency is under threat buy?

That old hobby horse of yours - zero hours contracts - come on Steve tell us how many people are on them out of the 30-odd million people who are in work in the UK at present.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 04:22 AM

Matt's take on it LOL.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 09:25 AM

People on zero hours contracts, up almost fivefold since 2010 to over 800,000. UK growth spluttering again. Read today's news. This in spite of "millions more in work than ever before." Know why? Because the unemployment figures are a fraud. Those 800,000 don't count, even if they're not working, which is often. Apprenticeships are proliferating, basically a way of getting workers on half the minimum wage and offering them no prospects beyond sweeping the floor and making the tea. Millions forced into "self-employment," a way of keeping workers off the unemployment stats and making them pay their own stamps and pension contributions. None so blind, Teribus. Hooray for free enterprise, flexible labour and Tory Britain, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 11:05 AM

As if all governments didn't fix the stats. Unemployment is an issue, if you can't fix the issue, fix the perception thereof. And they try.
You forgot the "education wheeze" - send 'em on courses, they are not then unemployed. Put them on "pension credits" because no-one will employ them if they are within 5 years of retirement (ie not unemployed) but other rules still apply. Pension credits when they have already got their full quota of pension credits!
Add in a few more wheezes like work experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 11:54 AM

Quite so. I could also have mentioned the millions who can't get enough hours. Of course all governments try to massage the jobless figures downward, but this lot are past masters at it. Just like Maggie, who put hundreds of thousands of the people she ideologically threw out of industry on to incapacity benefit rather than unemployment benefit. The same Maggie who got in under a "Labour isn't working" programme, promptly almost tripled unemployment and never got it back down to 1979 levels. It's a Tory speciality, this statistical fraud.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 12:33 PM

"As if all governments didn't fix the stats."

That include Labour as well as Tory right Mr Red? And wasn't the country in such great shape under Wilson, Callaghan and Healey - ask the IMF they'll tell you. Mind you they were paragons compared to Blair and Brown.

Another reality, there is no such thing as a quick fix.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 12:57 PM

Maggie fixed Pinochet pretty quick.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's 'To the back of the queue'.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 01:19 PM

Both Mr Red and I acknowledged that, so what's your point, Teribus? Any explanation why economic growth is still spluttering along in spite of those millions of jobs the Tories tell us they've created? Gonna do an Osborne and claim that it's all down to fears of the referendum?