Brexit Encore

[jeremyrh]

Not.

Expats of less than 15 years could vote. So we are both right. And wrong

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Expats of less than 15 years could vote. So we are both right. And wrong

Something like that. I remember Jeremy Roussak explained it in more legal terms, but it boils down to this (if my memory serves me right): if you didn't bother to vote on other issues in the last 15 years, it is presumed (rightly or wrongly) you lost your interest in voting. Just another "use it or lose it" example.

[Rob C]

Don't cut your nose off to spite your face.   America might be the only friend you have after Brexit.  If you want fair play, let's get rid of tariffs on all sides.

That is breathtakingly simplistic. About tariffs, I mean. The first bit could wll be true: why would Oz, New Zealand and others feel kindly towards GB? Memory is long - even if not always for names.

I heard a good one today on the France 24 network: it was a quotation from somebody I knew about but whose name I can't summon right now (lifelong problem): "America is the vulture waiting for Britain to collapse in order to eat it." It came during the regular Friday evening slot where they run through the big stories of the week, and was with reference to the US stance - and current encouragement - for GB to disown its best market - Europe - for the never never promises of you-know-who. Assisted suicide; kinda fits the quotation, don't you think?

Once upon a time, people would have thought very different thoughts about the transatlantic cousins.

A shame what leading political personalities can do to countries and their international relationships.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... One Irish Times columnist concluded that the vice-president, a “much-anticipated visitor”, turned out to have “shat on the … carpet”...

In other words, he pissed off the Irish. How is that even possible!? Aren't the Irish in a constant pissed-off state? 

[Alan Klein]

That is breathtakingly simplistic. About tariffs, I mean. The first bit could wll be true: why would Oz, New Zealand and others feel kindly towards GB? Memory is long - even if not always for names.

I heard a good one today on the France 24 network: it was a quotation from somebody I knew about but whose name I can't summon right now (lifelong problem): "America is the vulture waiting for Britain to collapse in order to eat it." It came during the regular Friday evening slot where they run through the big stories of the week, and was with reference to the US stance - and current encouragement - for GB to disown its best market - Europe - for the never never promises of you-know-who. Assisted suicide; kinda fits the quotation, don't you think?

Once upon a time, people would have thought very different thoughts about the transatlantic cousins.

A shame what leading political personalities can do to countries and their international relationships.

Trump is a tough negotiator and will squeeze out the best he can, that's true. I don't envy your position.   

[Alan Klein]

However, the mess you have with your health insurance, something I don't envy either, is not America's or Trump's doing, but rather your own government's policies.  You can't blame us. 

[Robert Roaldi]

Trump is a tough negotiator and will squeeze out the best he can, that's true. I don't envy your position.

Trump is a tough negotiator?  What? Not sure the North Koreans think so.

"I don't envy your position."  They're in the position BECAUSE of Brexit, of which you were in favour. And please don't repeat the silly homilies about other countries controlling your laws, it was never true, it's just your fake news.

[Alan Klein]

Trump is a tough negotiator?  What? Not sure the North Koreans think so.

"I don't envy your position."  They're in the position BECAUSE of Brexit, of which you were in favour. And please don't repeat the silly homilies about other countries controlling your laws, it was never true, it's just your fake news.

If you feel that way, you should be ready to start trade negotiations immediately.

[Alan Klein]

Unfortunately there is a short term effect where people buy cheap crap which results in higher quality local producers going bust and removal of choice. Thus the market needs correction in This case with tariffs.

So you agree with Trump?

[jeremyrh]

So you agree with Trump?

Errr no - that doesn't  follow from what i said. I said that the failure of the market requires intervention from the state. 

[Rob C]

Are you telling me expats, being British citizens, could not vote in the Brexit referendum?

Exactly.

[Rob C]

However, the mess you have with your health insurance, something I don't envy either, is not America's or Trump's doing, but rather your own government's policies.  You can't blame us.

Nobody is blaming anyobody except some British politicians and some very short-sighted, unimaginative voters in said country.

That said, if Boris survives this, and goes ahead with his Americanisation of our health services, then we will do just that. I'll tell you something else: if he goes ahead with that, there will be blood running on British streets. It is the single thing upon which we all agree upon because we all have benefitted from it and had services we could not afford, individually, to buy. Private health insurance is prohibitively expensive. Only a relatively small section of the land can buy it in a form that would be worth having. Consult your own story.

[jeremyrh]

Well, seen from afar (I'm sitting in the sunshine listening to the wind in the trees in Greece) it's all got quite interesting. Bozo's latest threat to break the law by not requesting an extension. His ckeeky chappy comedy mask seems to have slipped a bit and the ugly disaster capitalist peeped out!

[James Clark]

Well, seen from afar (I'm sitting in the sunshine listening to the wind in the trees in Greece) it's all got quite interesting. Bozo's latest threat to break the law by not requesting an extension. His ckeeky chappy comedy mask seems to have slipped a bit and the ugly disaster capitalist peeped out!

“Disaster Capitalist.”   That’s quite good, and altogether accurate, at least for our guy in the States. 

[Alan Klein]

Errr no - that doesn't  follow from what i said. I said that the failure of the market requires intervention from the state. 

Well the free market failed. So Trump, the State,  intervened with tariffs.  So Trump is doing what you recommended.

[Alan Klein]

Nobody is blaming anyobody except some British politicians and some very short-sighted, unimaginative voters in said country.

That said, if Boris survives this, and goes ahead with his Americanisation of our health services, then we will do just that. I'll tell you something else: if he goes ahead with that, there will be blood running on British streets. It is the single thing upon which we all agree upon because we all have benefitted from it and had services we could not afford, individually, to buy. Private health insurance is prohibitively expensive. Only a relatively small section of the land can buy it in a form that would be worth having. Consult your own story.

Well, I hope you keep your health care.  I couldn't afford to buy 100% private health care now that I am on Medicare.  I pay for a small secondary insurance that subsidizes Medicare coverage.  But it's pretty cheap. 

Once the government takes over, it's pretty hard to go back to private.  What exactly is Boris wanting to do with health care?  I'm not familiar with the issue over there.  I know you're going to be hurt because you live in Spain out of GB.  What else?  As a side note, my friend, now passed, had to move back to the US from Brazil where he married a local from Sao Paulo.  He couldn't afford the $3000 in prescriptions he needed for his heart that it cost him there.  He owned an apartment and everything there, was very well situated.  So he moved back to NY to get back on Medicare or private insurance through his wife who got a job with a bank here.  His wife, a really nice lady, became an American citizen and still lives here.

[Alan Klein]

That was $3000 in prescriptions, per month!!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Are you telling me expats, being British citizens, could not vote in the Brexit referendum?

Only a certain category of expats couldn’t:

[Rob C]

That was $3000 in prescriptions, per month!!

I don't know the cost of my pills; as of the first of this year, the Spanish state removed all charges for pensioners, and we only paid a miniscule, token fogue anyway. They look after family and still value their old. They do have a serious problem with male violence towards women. First, I guess, you have to wean them off bullfighting, which I think is happening.

That monthly cost, plus any hospital visits - which seem to be becoming regular events - explains the why of my state of mild personal panic if this mess turns out as a no-dealer. The harm to the younger generations is something else over which I apoarently have no say.

Regarding the point Slobodan has been making about us expats not getting to vote on Brexit: many of us are pensioners with the de rigueur health problems that time of life signifies. Living elsewhere than within the UK saves that country a small fortune, even though I believe there is/was going to be, in the case of an exit with an agreed deal, a UK annual contribution to health to whichever member country within which Brit expats found themselves in residence at the time of separation. I think it was to be around £3000 per skull, which probably wouldn't have paid for the cost of one cataract operation, never mind the set of two. Pretty much everyone of any venerable age hits that one.

Regarding the voting rights in UK elections after fifteen years of absence: I can see a certain sense in that measure, if only because the local scene about which one usually casts the vote, changes, and you can lose touch. Equally, though I have the right to vote on local Spanish elections, I never exercise that right: I have never felt that it's my moral right to do so, regardless of the legality. Also, local issues are probably only half-understood at best.

However, you never lose your nationality. Things such as Brexit are not local or temporary matters, where the staus quo can be changed after five years. It's a unique event that radically alters your entire life for as far ahead as anyone can reasonably see - or certainly longer than people of my age expect to live. Folks go ballistic about terrorists being stripped of their UK nationality if they have a double one; yet, yet, people like myself who have paid all their taxes and national insurance contributions in full, can get kicked into limbo. Cool.

[Alan Klein]

This is why we should stop giving government power over our lives. Instead of we being in charge of making life and death decisions over our health,  we've turned it off st to bureaucrats who don't care a whit deciding.   

Next loss is a cutback in Social Security and national pension payments as the government runs out of money.  Or they'll print more just devaluing the value of the currency they give you.   You would have been better off keeping more money,  having lower taxes,  and then investing for yourself.   Also when you die,  you could leave that money to your children.   Now the government keeps it. This is Democratic Socialism at work.  You can keep it.