This Ex-Pat Dislikes The EU And Wants To Leave, Despite Living In France

Beyond me how someone could hate the European Union? Its not a country, its not some sort of empire, its simply a union of 28 states.

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Maybe he was listening/reading: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/figure-of-the-week-45000/

I find it all amazing how people in this day and age can still be so easily manipulated, can’t be bothered to find stuff out and simply accept whatever as fact.

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Somebody said:
Propaganda is more effective in a democracy, or something to that effect.

Probably Trump. Fancy having a chap in charge of the worlds second biggest nuclear arsenal, who can also easily be swayed one way or the other by faked up info. He can’t even be bothered to check out if its fact or fiction.

I hope someone recognises him and makes his life as difficult as he is making ours!

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I don’t know about the quote above but the phrase

is usually attributed to Goebbels.

It is actually quite worrying to see some of the coments he made about propaganda and also those in Mein Kampf and then making comparisons with the world of today.

Unfortunately he is not alone in his beliefs. The last time I went food shopping I had to go round and round in circles so I could overhear a loud conversation between two like minded British couples. The point they repeated over and over again was, ‘THEY need us more than we need THEM’. The two men involved actually joked that Germany would have to bow down to them as they will still want to buy Mercedes and BMW cars in the future. Such arrogance.
BMW and Mercedes cars will still be avaliable in Britain in the future but I can’t see how anyone without a high income would be able to justify buying one. They will become more exclusive as the prices are forced up but where is the money going to come from for anyone in middle England to buy them? Not one leave voter has been able to answer that question. I see the situation as being good news for the UK based car Japanese car manufacturers while the prestige European manufacturers will look to China and other parts of Asia where their future, non EU, customer base will be.

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Don’t understand all this fixation with cars, ten percent on a Beemer is certainly not going to put a buyer off, but as 70% of vehicles assembled by Japanese companies in the UK are exported into the EU 27, ten percent on these will certainly put buyers off. Doesn’t stop at 10% though, Nissan for example import 70% of their components, 50% from within the EU 27, all will carry tariffs, VAT, extra admin, border holdups. Cars are very rarely exported all over the world now, car companies tend to move the whole assembly business into the new market. Nissan in partnership with Renault are now making inroads into the Indian car market, they assemble the vehicles in India mostly from components now sourced within India.
Amazes me how some people seem to have absolutely no idea on how the EU has become one vast supply chain for companies based throughout the EU. All this has become possible because of the single market and customs Union. Car companies like Nissan, Honda, Tata, are in the UK simply because the UK is in the EU.
Going to be very very interesting to see exactly how all this eventually pans out.

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‘Ten percent on a Beemer is not going to put a buyer off.’
Which planet do you live on if you believe that? Some buyers won’t notice but the majority will walk away.

That’s a complex one.

For the sort of people who can afford to buy their beemers, 10% extra possibly won’t sway them not to - especially as the likely competition for their hard earned £s will be predominantly other European marques (Audi, Mercedes etc) which will, presumably also be up 10%.

In fact it will probably be 10% across the board because, as pointed out above, vehicle manufacturing is very much a cross boarder business in the EU these days.

So, chances are that people will either swallow the increase or go down spec/trim levels rather than change brand.

Let’s face it though most people cannot actually afford to buy their beemers (or Mercs or Audis) outright and buy on a modern personal contract hire contract where, essentially, you just pay the depreciation. Assuming that the hike in new car prices also causes a hike in used car prices then the monthly repayments will just go up by 10% - say £350 to £385 which might not be that significant at the end of the day.

I have finally listened to the phone in - wow, all I can say is that is one confused/deluded individual - but it illustrates the point that has been made. People bought into the Leave campaign claim that everything would continue as before, we would just be in control and not paying for it.

90% of the new car owning public lease, don’t buy, lease, borrow the cash for the deposit, pay monthly on a 36 month contract with the option to buy at the end of the contract. Anyway its 10% on the imported price, not the retail price including dealers mark up. Overall it will make very little difference to German car sales in the UK, what will make all the difference is the lack of cash that the British public will have. BMW own Rolls Royce cars, BMW own Mini, most of the components for these vehicles are sourced within the EU 27.
French company down south casts the crank shafts for the mini engines, shipped to the UK and machined, shipped to Bavaria, fitted into an engine which is then shipped over to the UK to be fitted into a Mini that is then exported back to Germany. A Mini that could just as easily be assembled in Bavaria. Cars in the big picture are irrelevant, services is all that matters, 100 billion trade surplus with the EU 27 in services, an awful lot to lose if the UK loses the financial passporting rights.

Prices going up, wages not so fewer in the marketplace. The car market works within very small profit margins.

Profit margins can, indeed be thin but up market models tend to be higher (we were talking about BMW, after all).

Things like personal contract hire effectively lock people into an upgrade cycle so they have to change for a new model whether the price is 10% higher or not - they’ll probably go down spec though which will hurt profits (because option packs are profitable).

Those who have bought outright probably won’t be affected as much - by definition they have the cash available - but thinking about it I bet a few will hang onto their existing cars a bit longer.

Do you shop at Lidl?

Not usually.

Audi, BMW, Mercedes or Nissan? Its all quite interesting. I’ve lived through full employment, no investment, watched companies shut down all their apprentice schools, down the swany, twenty years of disputes, power cuts, three day weeks, three million unemployed, turn the UK into a financial services centre. Still no investment in infrastructure, housing, healthcare, education, further education and skills training. Totally reliant on the services sector and a home market powered by borrow and spend. Not exactly the best time to consider cutting the cord and heading off to the new world. Singapore built its economy on cheap labour and by forcing the general public to save with the state saving scheme, this gave the state a big sovereign wealth fund which they invested all over the world. Singaporeans still have to save a percentage of their incomes every month, its a legal requirement, absolutely no way the UK could ever become like Singapore.

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How come my local garage offers , on a monthly basis , between 18 and 35 % discount on new cars - I would not consider that a particularly " a very small profit margin " , especially as I suspect they have left themselves " a little something " to keep going !!

Cars are a bit like Gillette razors these days - they sell you the car at a loss and then make their money on the servicing.