Posts by AndrewDH

Re: Another Illustration of the Fact...

Actually its not entirely true to suggest that Virgin Media won't be impacted. They are a licensed regulated service, they operate in Ireland. The regime for licensed regulated media services is similar to the Finance passports. When we leave the EU VM will probably require a passport to operate in Ireland. They could switch Country locations for the HQ which would solve the problem but that would also have an impact.

Re: Another Illustration of the Fact...

Do you ever drink in Wetherspoons or suck up dust with a Dyson. They both supported leaving. Personally I am boycotting Wetherspoons but thats not particularly hard.

Re: Another Illustration of the Fact...

True but the FX market and the Bond markets have reacted as if it has and they are the two markets that really count, the FTSE is largely irrelevant.

Re: Another Illustration of the Fact...

Unfortunately for that theory the EU's TTIP negociations with the US are collapsing as I type making it more likely that we will jump to the front of a non existent queue. Boris and the Brexiteers are TTIP fans.

But don't worry there is are two rather bigger issues to resolve first. Firstly we have to leave the EU, then secondly we have to re-establish our WTO quotas and tariffs, we have none at the moment and joy of joys that will require us to start negotiating with the EU immediately after having finished the first round. We will need to extract our share of the quota allocated to the EU as a whole from the EU. Oh and we will need to re-negotiate our tariffs with the WTO, who as a highly political consensus based organisation are tricky at best to to deal with. The "experts" dont expect us to get any change out of 5 years with a decade being a more likely timeline,

Then and only then can we start negotiating all those amazingly lucrative trade deals Fox and Davis want us to think are just around the corner. By that time most of the people who voted to leave will be dead anyway which will be some sort of delayed justice.

Re: They are a media company

On the other hand the Pound is trading at a record low against the Dollar adding about 12.5% to the cost of imports. Virgin Media should have hedged but that may have run out.

Re: So Stupid

Ahh but did you get it delivered for free!! Audio Quest very kindly supply these cables with "Free Delivery"

I am feeling the love already.

Re: So if I have this straight

Actually Putin is doubly guilty. Latterly he has fueled the conflict in Eastern Ukraine by supplying arms and men to support the rebels. Formerly the Putin economic and political model adopted by Viktor Yanukovych and supported by Putin ended badly for Viktor when, understandably Ukrainians rejected his Russian styled Kleptocracy and embraced closer links with a less corrupt more accountable EU model.

The Putin model where a Kleptocratic minority of super rich oligarchs embezzles vast amounts of money and the working and middle classes a bribed with some of the proceeds of Oil revenues to turn a blind eye failed in Ukraine because Viktor could not afford to bribe the electorate as Putin has done in Russia.

Putin is guilty twice firstly for exporting the Russian political and economic model to Ukraine which ultimately led to Ukraines rapid lurch to the West and secondly for fueling the resulting conflict by supplying men and arms to the rebels.

Re: Gulp!

Putin is already blaming the US and the West for Russia's financial woes. It will be interesting to see if Putin's deal with the electorate will survive. Putin's proposition can be summarized as "I will run the country as a centrally planned kleptocracy where my friends will get very rich but the working and middle classes will also see benefits driven by huge Oil revenues

The sad irony of Ukraine is that Putins erstwhile friend Viktor Yanukovych tried to run Ukraine along the same lines as Putin runs Russia. Yanukovych created a similar cadre of oligarchs who swiftly hovered vast amounts of money with at least $70 billion being misappropriated. But Ukraine doesn't have access to Oil revenues Russia had and so there was no trickle down benefit to the working and middle classes because there wasn't enough to go around particularly after Viktor and his pals had their share.

Closer alignment with the West in particular the EU which with some exceptions has much lower levels of corruption and much higher levels of control over the actions of the executive became more and more attractive as did distancing Ukraine from Russia which was the model on which Ukraine was being run.

Suddenly Putin lost a pal and ally and another country to the west of Russia and to the East of the EU lurched dramatically Westward. Putin predictably reacted like a scalded cat, he has always hated the expansion of the EU eastwards if only because it represents a rejection by former satellite countries of the economic and political model he has put in place in Russia.

The sad irony is that he only had himself to blame. His model only works when you have enough money floating around in the economy to bribe the masses to turn a blind eye to the crimes of the elite. It will be interesting to see how he fares when he like Viktor doesn't have the cash to pay the bribes.