Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

That's a very complicated theory that would take up a lot of words and your time to write !

No Jimbo, it's a no-brainer theory that protectionism leads to inflation, a smaller economy, and the firms that the government are trying to protect end up going out of business.

Economists disagree on many things, but they agree universally that free trade is a good thing.

Is dumping free trade? Is manipulating your currency to lower your exports costs a valid component of free trade? A level playing field is not easy to achieve when you are up against command economies where profit is not the primary aim of production.
Does the EU practice free trade???

The nerve gas that poisoned those poor people in Salisbury might have been delivered by a latest tech remote controlled flying drone......

re: 80329

Well said, allowing another to destroy your industries on the back of bogus free trade is stupid.

hilary i would need a 250,000 word essay from you to be convinced !

there is a difference between dumping like the chinese do - eg selling at below cost - and genuine free trade
coal mining in uk was an example of a local industry being unable to produce at a world-economic price

What's your poison

Iturama, cyners, Max,

We've all heard about Chinese steel dumping and how China pegs the yuan to the greenback, but seeing as the US only imports somewhere between 1% and 4% of its steel from China (depending upon which report you read), I'm not sure what that's got to do with anything??!!??

YTD figures as at Q3 2017:

Canada accounted for the largest share of U.S. steel imports by source country at 16 percent (4.3 mmt), followed by Brazil at 13 percent (3.6 mmt), South Korea at 10 percent (2.7 mmt), Mexico at 9 percent (2.4 mmt), and Russia at 9 percent (2.4 mmt).

i was merely making an observation about china in general and its dumping of all sorts of things, not just steel

hilly.

It's a good move politically. However, it was not only China in the frame, Trumpo is having a go at all importers. He wants jobs to go back to the USA, and who can blame him?

His support is the working class, and he is looking after his base:

Something the elites seem to have forgotten.

Trumpo is having a go at all importers

Therein lies the problem, Max. I could totally understand it if Trump were specifically having a go at China (whose trade balance accounts for nearly half the total US trade deficit), or the EU (which accounts for nearly a quarter of the deficit), but he's not doing that. Instead, through the steel import tarifs, he's targeting countries with whom the US enjoys generally good two-way trade, and relatively minimal deficits (in the case of Brazil, I think the US have a surplus!).

What happens when Canada and co say 'stuff you', and retaliate by putting tarifs on imports from the US? If Trump thinks that trade wars are easy to win, he might have a shock coming.

It leads to overpricing of USA's own products and trickle-on effects.

Morning hilly.

I didn't realise the trade balances were that far out with China and €urope. But your point about Brazil is well taken..no idea what that is all about.



This could get interesting if the story has any legs to it.





EU threatens to sue Britain if it negotiates UK exemption from Trump tariffs



By James Crisp, Brussels Correspondent
9 March 2018 • 3:30pm


President Trump signs the tariffs into law, watched on by steel workers



Britain faces huge fines in an EU legal battle that would poison the Brexit negotiations, if Liam Fox secures a UK-only exemption from Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.

The British Trade Secretary, who on Thursday accused the EU of acting like a gang in Brexit talks, said he would use a trip to Washington next week to secure a British carve-out from the US President’s levy of 25pc tariffs on steel and 10pc on aluminium.



More if you sign up: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/03/09/eu-threatens-sue-britain-negotiates-uk-exemption-trump-tariffs/

I can't say I knew this until I read it earlier today. Does anyone else know about this?

From Facebook



A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago. It was raining, though not excessively when her car suddenly began to hydro-plane and literally flew through the air. She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden occurrence! When she explained to the Police Officer what had happened, he told her something that every driver should know -

NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON..

She thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain....

But the Police Officer told her that if the cruise control is on, your car will begin to hydro-plane when the tires lose contact with the road and because the car is trying to find a tyre grip and can't, your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed trying to do so, making you take off like an airplane. She told the Officer that was exactly what had occurred. The Officer said this warning should be listed, on the driver's seat sun-visor -

NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE ROAD IS WET OR ICY

Along with the airbag warning. We often tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive at a safe speed – but we don't tell them to use the cruise control only when the road is dry.

The only person the accident victim found who knew this, (besides the Officer), was a man who'd had a similar accident, totalled his car and sustained severe injuries..

NOTE: Some vehicles (like the Toyota Sienna Limited XLE) will not allow you to set the cruise control when the windshield wipers are on.

I wish I could find a stretch of road where I could use cruise control. But if I could, I would never use it anyway in hazardous weather or road conditions. That includes urban driving. The feature was really designed for long journeys on the endless highways, with light traffic, that you can find anywhere but the UK, unless you regularly drive betweem midnight and 5am.
For speed control, look at your speedo. I have a heads up display which I reckon should be a must on every car, especially Audis since they seems to attract a particular type of speeding nut. After Brexit every new Audi entering the country should require automatic speed regulation and P plates.
But going back to that case EL, it was years ago and that car would have qualified for a scrappage scheme by now. The problem with the old cruise control was that the wheels would spin faster if they hit snow, ice or deep water and the car would naturally accelerate once the tyres had grip again. That is not an issue with the traction and stability controls in most modern cars. If a new car doesn't have traction control, it won't have cruise control either.

The trots are coming..


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/a-red-hot-civil-war-is-raging-for-control-of-jeremy-corbyns-no-10-rmb7gh2xv

"Ken Dodd's dad's dog's died."

Sorry. I won't say that again. It's not really so funny now.

Comedy legend Sir Ken Dodd has died aged 90 and just two days after getting married, his publicist has announced.

His publicist Robert Holmes told the Press Association: “To my mind, he was one of the last music hall greats. There is no-one else that comes close. He passed away in the home that he was born in over 90 years ago. He’s never lived anywhere else. It’s absolutely amazing. With Ken gone, the lights have been turned out in the world of variety. He was a comedy legend and a genius.”

He said of his marriage: “He asked Anne if she wanted to marry. They got the registrar and were married in the house on Friday.


The star with his partner Anne Jones (Yui Mok/PA)

“He died two days later on Mother’s Day. Anne is obviously very upset. They had been together for 40 years. It’s a love story to beat them all.”

Sir Ken, known for his unruly hair and teeth, performed his very last show just months ago, at The Auditorium in the Liverpool Echo Arena, in his native city, on December 28.

But all 2018 dates had to be cancelled due to his illness and subsequent hospital stay.

Holmes said: “He’s not been well this year. Anne was in the process of cancelling all of his dates because when Ken goes on stage he’s up there for about four hours.”

He said: “It’s been my privilege to have looked after him for 47 years. I’m privileged to have been there for him and he for me. This time last year I was by his side when he got his knighthood and he was so very proud then. I shall really miss him.”


Ken Dodd is made a Knight Bachelor of the British Empire (PA)

Brandishing a tickling stick and greeted by his Diddy Men, the star had vowed to carry on with his tattyfilarious comedy when he left hospital last month.

“I’m going to teach my legs how to work again, they’ve forgotten you know, and once I’ve recovered myself I’ll get back to doing the job, which is the only job I’ve ever had,” he said at the time. While I was in here, I wrote some new jokes, so it should be all right.”

Over the 1960s, he entered the Guinness Book of Records for the longest joke-telling session ever – 1,500 jokes in three-and-a-half hours.

His TV shows included The Ken Dodd Show, Beyond Our Ken and Ken Dodd’s Laughter Show, and he entered the big time in 1965 with the longest-ever run at the London Palladium – 42 weeks.

In 1994, his Ken Dodd: An Audience With Ken Dodd show was filmed and released on video, followed in 1996 by the Ken Dodd: Live Laughter Tour and then Another Audience With Ken Dodd in 2002.

Also a well-known singer, in 1964 the star released his first single, Happiness, followed by smash hit Tears in 1965, and then Promises.

The veteran comic was knighted in honour of his decades-long showbiz career and charity work in March last year.

He was acquitted following a five-week trial, accused of tax fraud, in 1989 and would later joke about the case, which had transformed Liverpool Crown Court into a sell-out theatre, with fellow comics Eric Sykes and Roy Hudd called as character witnesses.

His first fiancee, Anita Boutin, died of a brain tumour in 1977 aged 45 after 24 years together.

Met Ken Dodd on a few occasions in the 80's and was a really nice guy.

RIP Ken