EU Referendum - How will you vote?

[alchresearch]

Mobile charges go down all the time.

 

Not all.

 

Three mobile customers face a 100% price rise

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/06/three-mobile-customers-100-per-cent-price-rise

[tzijlstra]

So there is national legislation in each country capping the prices for domestic mobile services? Or the threat of such capping is the only thing keeping prices low?

If so, I had no idea. Why has competition failed to keep prices under control in this service when it has succeeded in so many others?

Is there evidence of illegal collusion and/or other anti-competitive activity in the industry?

 

Sometimes your inability to read is staggering.

[unbeliever]

This isn't rent control, this is an open market authority enforcing equal accessibility to the services provided by carriers throughout the EU because they were previously overcharging ridiculous amounts for a service that is no more expensive to deliver in Hungary than it is in the UK. It really is that simple.

 

I struggle with the use here of "open market" and "authority enforcing" right next to each other in the same sentence. Drop the "open" and it's fine.

 

I still don't understand why competition has failed here unless somehow as the result of either illegal activity or government manipulation of the market elsewhere.

[L00b]

So there is national legislation in each country capping the prices for domestic mobile services? Or the threat of such capping is the only thing keeping prices low?

There is?

 

Where did I post or even suggest that?

 

Another main issue many Brexiters seem to have: a complete inability to think transnationally and factor in the international context and premise of the EU.

[tzijlstra]

I struggle with the use here of "open market" and "authority enforcing" right next to each other in the same sentence. Drop the "open" and it's fine.

 

I still don't understand why competition has failed here unless somehow as the result of either illegal activity or government manipulation of the market elsewhere.

 

 

An open market isn't the same as a non-enforced market. Borders are antiquated barriers to openness of a market, yet here we have someone arguing that the EU enforcing law on this particular abuse of cross-border services is somehow not open market and indeed this is reasoned by someone who is keen to leave the EU.

 

The type of 'open market' you are talking about is in fact an anarchist market, no regulation and no interference. Ask children working their backsides off in sweatshops in Dhaka what that is like.

[JFKvsNixon]

I struggle with the use here of "open market" and "authority enforcing" right next to each other in the same sentence. Drop the "open" and it's fine.

 

I still don't understand why competition has failed here unless somehow as the result of either illegal activity or government manipulation of the market elsewhere.

 

I'm surprised that someone who's in such a favour of an open markets struggles to accept the EU and it's big open market.

[Berberis]

It seems to me, the generation that took all the best pensions, all the best houses and all the best jobs are wanting to ruin it for everyone else, again!

[L00b]

I'm surprised that someone who's in such a favour of an open markets struggles to accept the EU and it's big open market.

It's not surprising in the least from anyone who wants their cake (all of the rights -advantages- arising under EU membership) and eating it (none of the duties -disadvantages- arising under EU membership).

 

For any such person, I have news: in the EU, as in any other internationally-codified context, it takes all the parties to tango, not "the UK's way or the highway" (which is how the rest of the EU perceives the current Brexit noises, rightly so).

 

The UK doesn't rule the globe any more, it is economically dwarfed (including in the Commonwnealth context) by each of the US, China and the EU as a trading bloc of 27 (remaining) Member States.

 

In Darwinian terms, it's brutally simple: there's nothing we as a country have, produce, output or do, which they and others can't themselves if, as and when trading conditions would warrant it.

 

In any post-Brexit negotiations to come, that's the stark reality. Blinker it off at your peril.

Edited May 3, 2016 by L00b

[Zamo]

In order for a trade body to exert influence over big business (e.g. stopping extortionate roaming charges by mobile phone companies) is it necessary for sovereign member states to surrender non-trade related powers to it? Rhetorically question... of course not.

 

The EU is power grabbing. It is using the power entrusted to it as a trade organisation to coerce sovereign state members into ceding to its' authority. Loss of sovereignty regarding all matters non-trade is not the price we must pay for being part of an effective trade organisation. Loss of sovereignty is the price we must pay if we want to avoid the risk associated with saying 'no' to a bully. It is the price of abandoning principle and acting as cowards.

 

Even if we put aside the small matter of the principle of self-rule, we should be getting out of the EU as fast as possible because its' disastrous policies on immigration, free movement of people and multiculturalism are suicidal. It has created a perfect storm that isn't going to simply blow over. Far right and nationalist movement are now surging across Europe and this is going to continue as millions more migrants enter Europe. Tolerance is not going to suddenly win the day and this can only end in division, violence and economic disaster.

 

All this talk about roaming charges and whether our mobile phone bills would be higher outside of the EU is frankly embarrassing. There is so much more at stake and we are allowing ourselves to be distracted by irrelevant discussions about how much silver or lead there may be in or out of the EU. Staying in the EU is simply unprincipled, a betrayal of the sacrifices made by our ancestors who fought for self-rule and democracy and an act of pitiful selling out for false security because the EU is actually heading for disaster. We must vote to leave or our generation will forever carry the shame of it's unprincipled and disastrously cowardly act.

[L00b]

Even if we put aside the small matter of the principle of self-rule

Why do so?

 

Put aside the ample amount of earlier discussion in this thread about sovereignty, and as we are currently seeing aplenty in e.g. Hungary and Austria (on the particular topic of free movement and mass immigration), self-rule has not been diminished and there's no sign of it being diminished. Still less so now that the UK is out of the 'ever closer union' scope.

 

Have you missed Hungary's latest referendum development? Have a read.

Staying in the EU is simply unprincipled, a betrayal of the sacrifices made by our ancestors who fought for self-rule and democracy and an act of pitiful selling out for false security because the EU is actually heading for disaster. We must vote to leave or our generation will forever carry the shame of it's unprincipled and disastrously cowardly act.

Is branding Remainers as cowards the latest Brexiters' tactic?

 

Relative to the (core) fearmongering tactic of old, it's not elevating the debate much

Edited May 3, 2016 by L00b