La la la.

Not the point as well you know.

The point is that the EU is a far bigger share of our exports than we are of the EU exports.

There is no point, because firstly you acknowledge that's not going to happen; and secondly because it's Bad Maths, as usual.

Of course there is.

The EU is a far bigger share of our exports than we are of the theirs.

So any reduction in trade would hurt us more than them.

No, the point is you base your argument on us losing 44% of our export market. Would you like to look at that again?

The original argument was that the EU have more to lose than us as they export more by value to us than we do to them and so we have the stronger hand in negotiations.

I pointed out that we export a significantly higher percentage of our total exports to the EU than they do to us and therefore in fact they have a stronger negotiating position than we do.

Nah, this was your line:


We aren't going to lose either 44% or 17%.

This is nonsense, you cannot possibly know this simply by using Bad Maths, Project Fear-style.

Given I've worked on assorted pan European and global enterprise level projects this year you must be getting confused in your state of bitterness. Are you ever going to explain why the European move failed for you or was it a false statement made in anger?

Who is in a stronger position?

It is not bad maths - unlike the £350m for the NHS

Retained historic values, proportions of individual sectors, what is easily replaceable and the timespan required - those are the factors which will decide matters for both sides in the negotiations. No two all-encompassing simple percentages - which cannot be measured directly against each other - have any relevance.
It doesn't matter what numbers you put next to a % sign, they are not comparable.

So you agree that the Brexiteers argument that "they have more to lose than we do" is completely false.

That and the fact that so many banks had borrowed more on the bond market than they could repay. He said that simply looking at the banks Annual Reports showed this.

In some sectors, as it stands, they 'have more to lose', in others we are at the disadvantage.
But that's not overly important because what you call lose I call change.
Both sides will have to make adjustments, there will be swings and roundabouts, and then it's a case of how much value we can recoup from existing markets and, where needed, replace with new-grown trade and 'in-house' production, plus imports and exports.
I have confidence that the UK is strong, powerful and entrepreneurial enough to succeed overall, enhanced by the agility available from being outside turgid EU restraints for much of our trade.
That's why current % measurements of X or Y are not comparable. We are moving on.

That was not the cause of the problem.
The problem was banks bought triple A rated mortgage bank security derivatives combined with or alongside triple A rated insurance derivatives to cover the mortgage backed derivatives in the event mortgages were not paid. Triple A rated assists then used by banks as the basis for leveraging. The collapse occurred because mortgages were not paid triggering the insurance but it was then realised the insurance companies lacked the funds to honour their insurance that caused the panic and collapse.

The problem was the rating agencies giving triple A ratings to assets that were junk and banks buying them and using them as assets on which to base leveraging.

Try telling that to companies in the EU exporting to the UK. All this talk of "Mine is bigger than yours" is rubbish. The percentage difference doesn't matter. What matters is the money. The EU commission know plain well that if they were to put trade embargoes on the UK they'd have to contend with insurrection amongst their own electorate. The same way that our lot would.

I'm up late again and need to stop doing this, but in the meantime I'd like to try and put this in simple terms. Let's take the example of house insurance. Those of us fortunate enough to be buying our own properties have to take out building insurance. For an average house worth, let's say £250,000, you'd take out an insurance of around £250 per year which would guarantee that if, for whatever reason your house fell to bits, you'd get your house rebuilt. The £250 versus the £250,000 is a small amount to pay, but the insurance companies are happy to take this, safe in the knowledge that there's never been a situation where this has happened on a large scale. It's easy money for them and they spend it. And the cover for this insurance is spread around. Some people are even willing to take on the risk of the insurers, so long as the insurers pay for it. Within this brisk trading market, properties near coast or rivers are graded high risk and to be avoided, whereas those on high land are attractive. Fast forward to some imaginary point in time where there's a mass flood, and the insurers who thought they'd been insuring people on high land suddenly find they've been insuring people on low ground because they never actually took a good look at their books, and there you have it. They have no money and are faced with a financial position they can't cover. It's one of the main reasons that the world at large today has such a pessimistic view of Deutsche Bank, because this is exactly what they've done. They may wing it, or they may not, but they shouldn't be in a position where they're trying to wing it.

Monetarily, which is more? 44% of our countries exports or 17% of exports from countries in the EU that export to us?

Would you rather have a 17% pay cut or a 44% pay cut?

Do people not know what trade means? Some stuff goes one way, and other stuff goes the other way. Sometimes it's widgets, sometimes it's services, sometimes it's large bundles of green paper, which is odd because on the whole it's not the green paper that's unhappy.

This insane prospect of a complete stoppage to everything in either direction, whether it's 44% or 17% is very much the stuff of 'reductio ad retardum' and the blocking of stuff going out means the blocking of the money coming in and the pssing contest about whose is bigger is pointless when anybody with any sense - even grandstanding politicians - will try to avoid sudden chops of anything, or running off a cliff, or running into it from the other direction.

The collapse of the housing market in the USA was predictable. The USA housing market has always periodically crashed due to the economic cycle, when it does its not just a few houses that go down in value or a few people who lose their jobs its economy wide effects caused by a downturn in the economic cycle. In particular lending large numbers of people 100%+ home value mortgages and multiple mortgages and giving predatory mortgages to people with poor credit and employment histories was a recipe for disaster even if the economic cycle had not turned.

Not an answer to my question. I suspect you know that so you can't answer.

Are you seriously suggesting that there would be absolutely ZERO trade with the EU?

There's a number of factors, most of which are connected. The events in the US that you refer to were a major factor, and the trigger for problems elsewhere in the finance sector to strike. If you look at the British banks that fell over, you can see they made long term loans, i.e. mortgages. with short term borrowing, by selling bonds. And they lent to high risk speculators whose ability to repay depended on property prices not falling. It was, as the Commons Select Committee pointed out, inevitably going to end in tears.

When you combine all EU countries exports together, then compare it with a single country's imports from the entire EU, you are very likely to get a rather small percentage since the total sum of EU export will be huge numbers anyway.

Purposely picking either real value or percentage to own advantage is a common tactic in debate as well as daily life. I know this because I do this trick in my reports to the clients all the time.