It's also why I shake my head at the Alberta separatist types who look at Brexit and think "Yeah let's have some of that". Though I suppose fuel would be one thing we wouldn't have a shortage of here.
We import far more fuel than we produce domestically due to refinery capacity AFAIK
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We import far more fuel than we produce domestically due to refinery capacity AFAIK
That isn't true, I don't think. We export refined products, and have about 500,000 bbl/d of refining capacity, which is way more than our fuel demand. We may import some specialty refined products (lubricants and things like that) but alberta is definitely self sufficient in the major refined products.
They've also been dumping raw sewage (such as human excrement) into their waterways the whole year because they've run out of the chemicals to treat their sewage.
The Tory MP's recently voted to block a measure that would have put an end to it, likely because they effectively had no other choice.
There are a lot of signs that things are going to get a lot worse. There's tons of stories of people having to wait months to get pretty basic stuff like microphones or office desks. It's essentially getting really soviet out there... in more ways than one.
There's also a pretty big effort to not admit it's really all Brexit, to the point that for example the BBC has been caught editing out negative commentary about the topic.
A lot of people in Britain are trying to convince themselves and others that their supply problems are not actually Brexit related, which obviously just makes it harder to fix anything.
There are a lot of people suggesting that even all this is possibly (probably?) only the start of their problems, as European companies are getting tired of waiting for things to get better and are just stopping to do business with UK, as it's just not worth the trouble anymore.
UK has managed to patch up the hit they took in international trade by increasing trade with countries like Brazil, Columbia and Mexico... which is obviously not as practical as cost-effective as trading with countries that are geographically closer, but also makes the UK economy a lot more fragile as it's more dependent on countries that themselves are not as stable or frankly advanced as their traditional European trading partners.
...And even with all the increased effort to find new trading partners, their total trade with non-EU countries is still down.
As a whole their international trade has taken something like a 17% hit from pre-Brexit times.
Their power in the global political stage is also in an rather obvious slide down. Their two main trade partners are US for exports and China for imports, and without EU's political and economic backing this is putting UK in the third world camp in global politics, a country that can be pushed around by others but one that can't do a lot of pushing back.
As another example, Germany is still one of UK's main trading partners, second in imports after China, but UK is no longer even in the top 10 as a trade partner for Germany.
A recent Scottish poll said the majority of Scots now believe Scotland will leave the UK within the next decade. In Northern Ireland the majority is now supporting a referendum on whether they should rejoin Ireland, even though the "remain" faction in those polls still has about a 5 percentage point lead.
(Wales is not showing any signs of leaving.)
A lot of history books will be written about the next decade.
Last edited by Itse; 10-26-2021 at 01:52 PM.
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I get the no drivers bit being Brexit related but why is Brexit causing shortages of goods? Is it all just they can't transport it?
The UK has relied on cheap migrant labour since 1948 when they first started shipping in West Indians to keep the health service and transport sector running, people voted for Brexit because they were told the millions of East Europeans that were in the UK were scrounging welfare cheats living off their taxes, turns out they weren't, like all migrants they were incredibly hard working productive members of society that kept the lower level jobs running, they were the ones picking the crops, driving the trucks, stocking the shelves, pretty much keeping the country running, now the country doesnt run properly, if I didnt have friends and family over there I am worried about (and I mean really worried, the country is falling apart) I would laugh at the ignorant numpties and consider this all well deserved.
Last edited by afc wimbledon; 10-26-2021 at 02:26 PM.
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I get the no drivers bit being Brexit related but why is Brexit causing shortages of goods? Is it all just they can't transport it?
There's multiple reasons. Transport is a massive issue, and that's not just about truck drivers.
The UK was just not in any way prepared to have border controls, tariffs and bureaucracy added to their trade. This has caused massive jams at the borders, and also bureaucratic jams in, well, where ever they handle the red tape relating to imports and exports.
Those jams are quite expensive, as is the bureaucracy. If a truck sits at customs for a week you have to pay that trucker enough to cover that extra week or he won't do it, and you need to hire someone else to do that paperwork, and obviously you also have to pay the tariffs and fees. If the deal you're making doesn't have the profit margin to cover that, the trade just doesn't happen. For smaller companies it might not even be about the price, it's just that why sell to Bob if it's a massive hassle when you can just do business with literally everyone else with no hassle.
Also, you can't have perishable food items sit at the border for a week or more.
UK's trade deals were mostly negotiated when they were part of the EU, and all those deals also just blew up in the air.
Lack of a trade deal can mean many things, for example that you're last when there's a shortage of supply. If country X only has a finite number of test tubes for export and they've made a deal with the US and EU and China and Japan to sell them test tubes, and then there's a global pandemic and everyone wants to buy all the test tubes, then all the test tubes go there.
There's no amount of money UK can offer which would make it worthwhile for country X to go back on a signed international trade treaty, especially not with a major power.
A lot of all this is just incompetence and unpreparedness. The UK government basically made no preparations. They would have needed to re-establish whole government departments to handle trade now that EU isn't handling it for them, but they didn't, and AFAIK still haven't. I get the impression that their current government is just so ridiculously clueless. I'm not sure they understand trade enough to know how to fix their problems.
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The UK has relied on cheap migrant labour since 1948 when they first started shipping in West Indians to keep the health service and transport sector running, people voted for Brexit because they were told the millions of East Europeans that were in the UK were scrounging welfare cheats living off their taxes, turns out they weren't, like all migrants they were incredibly hard working productive members of society that kept the lower level jobs running, they were the ones picking the crops, driving the trucks, stocking the shelves, pretty much keeping the country running, now the country doesnt run properly, if I didnt have friends and family over there I am worried about (and I mean really worried, the country is falling apart) I would laugh at the ignorant numpties and consider this all well deserved.
Reminds me of when Idi Amin booted out the Indians from Uganda in the 70's and the economy basically cratered because they were the glue that held the street-level economies in line. Just short-term, discriminatory, myopic thinking.
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There's multiple reasons. Transport is a massive issue, and that's not just about truck drivers.
The UK was just not in any way prepared to have border controls, tariffs and bureaucracy added to their trade. This has caused massive jams at the borders, and also bureaucratic jams in, well, where ever they handle the red tape relating to imports and exports.
Those jams are quite expensive, as is the bureaucracy. If a truck sits at customs for a week you have to pay that trucker enough to cover that extra week or he won't do it, and you need to hire someone else to do that paperwork, and obviously you also have to pay the tariffs and fees. If the deal you're making doesn't have the profit margin to cover that, the trade just doesn't happen. For smaller companies it might not even be about the price, it's just that why sell to Bob if it's a massive hassle when you can just do business with literally everyone else with no hassle.
Also, you can't have perishable food items sit at the border for a week or more.
UK's trade deals were mostly negotiated when they were part of the EU, and all those deals also just blew up in the air.
Lack of a trade deal can mean many things, for example that you're last when there's a shortage of supply. If country X only has a finite number of test tubes for export and they've made a deal with the US and EU and China and Japan to sell them test tubes, and then there's a global pandemic and everyone wants to buy all the test tubes, then all the test tubes go there.
There's no amount of money UK can offer which would make it worthwhile for country X to go back on a signed international trade treaty, especially not with a major power.
A lot of all this is just incompetence and unpreparedness. The UK government basically made no preparations. They would have needed to re-establish whole government departments to handle trade now that EU isn't handling it for them, but they didn't, and AFAIK still haven't. I get the impression that their current government is just so ridiculously clueless. I'm not sure they understand trade enough to know how to fix their problems.
This is really the crux of the matter.
It is baffling to me that an island that should have desired free-trade more than anyone are the ones attempting to stop it.
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The Tories are at fault for never developing a Brexit plan or BSing only the positives while sweeping any negatives under the rug.
The problem with leaving an economic union is that you need to erect borders and your former free trading partners need to erect borders too.
Now all the ships and trucks that used to freely come across the channel have to go to a designated border checkpoint and every single vehicle inspected as per any border.
Additionally, standards, packaging, labelling, etc. has to change as well and now its no-longer economical to trade with the UK as you cannot use a common product (think Canadian labels vs US labels and why some products just are not available here in Canada). The logistics instantly become a nightmare and business is not worth doing.
Pre-Brexit, it was cheaper to ferry goods from Europe to the UK, drive across the land, and then ferry to Ireland. Now, despite the longer journey and cost, most routes are bypassing the UK by sea to avoid the customs red tape and to ensure the products always remain in the common market.
The Tories are at fault for never developing a Brexit plan or BSing only the positives while sweeping any negatives under the rug.
The problem with leaving an economic union is that you need to erect borders and your former free trading partners need to erect borders too.
Now all the ships and trucks that used to freely come across the channel have to go to a designated border checkpoint and every single vehicle inspected as per any border.
Additionally, standards, packaging, labelling, etc. has to change as well and now its no-longer economical to trade with the UK as you cannot use a common product (think Canadian labels vs US labels and why some products just are not available here in Canada). The logistics instantly become a nightmare and business is not worth doing.
Pre-Brexit, it was cheaper to ferry goods from Europe to the UK, drive across the land, and then ferry to Ireland. Now, despite the longer journey and cost, most routes are bypassing the UK by sea to avoid the customs red tape and to ensure the products always remain in the common market.
The UK has relied on cheap migrant labour since 1948 when they first started shipping in West Indians to keep the health service and transport sector running, people voted for Brexit because they were told the millions of East Europeans that were in the UK were scrounging welfare cheats living off their taxes, turns out they weren't, like all migrants they were incredibly hard working productive members of society that kept the lower level jobs running, they were the ones picking the crops, driving the trucks, stocking the shelves, pretty much keeping the country running, now the country doesnt run properly, if I didnt have friends and family over there I am worried about (and I mean really worried, the country is falling apart) I would laugh at the ignorant numpties and consider this all well deserved.
I thought the just solution to labour shortages caused by the pandemic (or any other reason, really) is to pay people more. That’s certainly a widely held opinion here when it comes to workers not going back to work in restaurants, etc.
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I thought the just solution to labour shortages caused by the pandemic (or any other reason, really) is to pay people more. That’s certainly a widely held opinion here when it comes to workers not going back to work in restaurants, etc.
Actually that's only step one The idea is to pay people more = charge more = soften demand for services, which address labour shortages.
It's pretty much intro level supply demand curves, I'm not saying its a good thing, but maybe if society can't afford to have an army of delivery drivers, or instance service dine in restaurants at our beck and call, then we shouldn't have those things. I assure you we can all survive without them
I thought the just solution to labour shortages caused by the pandemic (or any other reason, really) is to pay people more. That’s certainly a widely held opinion here when it comes to workers not going back to work in restaurants, etc.
Well to a degree this is happening everywhere, the problem for the UK is the scale they have inflicted on themselves and the total dependence on migrant labour they fell into pre Brex/covid.
You never see 'English' kids working in restaurants or coffee shops the way you do here, its all Polish or Romanian, my mums care home's staff was almost totally Polish except management, crop picking, all agricultural work is migrant, the country is wholly reliant on migrant labour and the effect of covid and the massive racist unpleasantness of half the UK to 'foreigners' these days means most of the workers have just gone home.
The UK is now short about 100,000 truck drivers, the pay has gone up massively, so all the bus drivers have quit transit to pick up truck work so the bus system is grinding to a halt now but it's still not nearly enough, it will take a couple of years to train the drivers needed and companies just cant wait that long, they are close to bankruptcy because of Covid as it is.
Yes wages will go up but the massive rapid damage this is doing to the economy is also going to 'fix' the labour shortage and not in a good way for the UK, companies are going to close or just relocate into the EU
It is still baffling and disappointing that the UK didn't abort Brexit when it had the chance.
I still don't understand the motivations behind the Brexiteers and I was a Political Science major (switched to tech for a paycheque) who visited the EU and sat in the European Parliament as a student and I watched the UK House of Commons regularly during the Brexit debates.
The best I can surmise is its all led by a hidden cabal of elitist business interests and public school Conservatives with political power and economic incentives all getting rich out of this somehow while the UK decays into a failed state and the buying power of the average citizen crumbles.
