Is it much of a comfort?

They could form or vote for a party that makes better politics for them. It's not simple but not impossible either. That way they could topple the current master and improve their situation in the long run which may be much better than just voting to leave and nothing changes except that some people change jobs at the top.

But they could also leave and form or vote for parties that make better politics for them. So there is still some chance for that.

I found e.g. this by googling, which is about the same law:

http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/politics/13796-lifting-cabotage-restrictions-would-unleash-a-wave-of-bankruptcies.html

I asked before "can there be ramifications to Finland?", but the original Finnish article actually answered that already, pointing out that if Finland goes against the EU commission in the court and loses, there would be sanctions towards Finland. Not sure what those sanctions would be.

The English article though points out that e.g. Denmark chose to stay out of the EU cabotage rule, so... is there a way after all? Or was Denmark only a single exception and Finland couldn't have the same even if it wanted? Why has Finland been sued to court over this by the EU commission?

I agree with you that the agreement must be two way, so of course if Finland chose to stay out of the EU cabotage rule, then the Finnish truck drivers wouldn't get those benefits in other EU countries either. Not sure how Denmark handles it then.

This is true trickle-down economics in practice. While the trickle-down model as espoused by Thatcher and Reagan was obviously bullshit, there is an element of truth in that economic problems do tend to trickle down - benefits do not, because it is not a natural economic phenomenon but rather a strategic one, in which the wealthy deliberately seek to "offload" their problems onto an economically weaker party but retain the economic gains. That's not just a class warfare issue - bigger, more influential businesses also actively use their influence to offload problems onto smaller, less influential businesses.

Should we all be surprised by a thriving business environment, it's safe to say that the poor won't see much of it. Experience and simple economics have shown us that. But the businesses that are most likely to be affected by Brexit are the medium-sized and large enterprises that export goods and services to continental Europe. With such a huge trade deficit, a weak pound is definitely not in Britain's favour. I'm sure people would love to see these big businesses fail in an effort to "stick it to the establishment", but they also happen to be the UK's biggest employers. More expensive imports and greater difficulty in exporting would mean job and wage cuts.

i read Britain was 'allowed' by Merkel not to rush things and allow them some time, unlike 'bigmouth' Juncker said, he wanted to get it over with and wanted them to leave asap.

Best solution would be to remove those selfelected dinosaurs in Brussels and get control back again.
2017 elections again, best thing to do is to make sure the dutch dont elect VVD D66 PVDA and more leftwingers.

Allright, but why don't you buy it? There is no requirement to be any more informed than you want to be when you vote. I try to be informed when I vote, but I realize that I can't know everything and I can't cover every nuance or contingency before I cast my vote.

Even the politicians themselves don't need to be informed to vote, it just isn't a requirement in our style of democracy. Sure some kind of test could be implemented that potential voters needed to pass before being allowed to vote, but that's been regarded as a generally bad idea.

You may not buy this, but it is what it is. Bought or not.

Nope.

I don't recall ever seeing Danish trucks down here, so I don't know if the situation is equal there. But I assume Denmark's geographical situation has an effect in this case, given that it is almost impossible to reach Sweden, Norway or Finland without crossing Denmark first. LIke I said, I'm not familiar with the situation, so I can only guestimate based on the way the EU usually handles these things.

And when you say "read", I assume Breitbart, Daily Mail or something along those lines.

No EU politician or institution other than the British Prime Minister is permitted to act on this referendum. Juncker's an ill-tempered twat who seems to have some beef with the UK. His message was basically "If you want out, then fuck off out". Merkel was just saying that nobody should be rushing anything, and she's absolutely right.

(Funnily enough, her use of the word "hastig" was translated into English as "hasty", which is an accurate translation, but some people misquoted it from other English-language news sources as "nasty", which by concidence is probably a more apt description of Juncker's attitude)

The invoking of Article 50 is solely and wholly at Britain's leisure. If they choose to do it 20 years from now, it's still legal. If they choose to do it tomorrow, it's legal. There's nothing that any EU politician or any politician from any other member state can do to influence this other than make personal comments about it.

Perhaps I jumped to conclusions. I apologize.

Some houses need tearing down before rebuilding, that's true; it can be best. But the comparison does not fit: the Union is not a house. If you tear down the E.U. and rebuild it I wonder which occupants it will attract, if any, when the rebuilding is done. (I think it is more like a marriage. Once they are tore down they don't usually get rebuilded. If you want to save them you try to better them from the inside).

Now, when the *European House* stays empty afterwards, some might argue there's no need for this house, this ideal no more. I believe differently. I think history will repeat itself and Europe runs the risk of descending in bickering and argument - again. In my view one thing this failing Europe DID achieve is that our generation lives in the longest interbellum in Europe's history. One success that is put aside all to easily. Seems to me we have forgotten each generation before us experienced a European war at least once in a lifetime. Farage; Wilders; Le Pen; Grillo; these people do not hold the answers; their nostalgia longs for something that never was.

I like to address something you said about fear: it is a feeling; an emotion, One that has been used by both sides in the Brexit campaign, and one that in a way, sticks up its ugly head in this discussion too. It is time for us to understand that in these matters it is best to use our heads. The people in the U.K. who grudged against the Union will in a few years grudge against their own government - as they did before. Because that is what they do. They grudge. They feel. Thinking, as a fact of the matter, is deemed highly suspect.

We may ask ourselves: do we generally take our best decissions when we use emotion or when we use intellect, or a mix of both gently put together?

I apologize for being headstrong as well. I was too eager to reach a conclusion, somehow my emotions took the best of me . ;)

Thank you for you r reply... which I do not consider to be futile.

Actually...

This comes across as the owner of a town's crappiest house burning down said entire town so that at least all those stuck-up elitists will be homeless too from now on, but something tells me a that rather than possessing a self-destructive "cut off my nose to spite my face" attitude, a lot of these folks simply never realized the impact the EU was already having on their lives.

What you're basically saying is that every major party in the Netherlands is comprised of left-wingers except for the far-right Freedom Party, which I assume you believe to be located on the center of the spectrum, right? Ooookay...

I dont quite buy all of that.
A weak pound makes it also more atractive to import stuff from Great britian.
Its also more atractive for people to go on holliday there because not evrything is fucking expensive related to ones own currency.
At the same time yes it will be more expensive for brits that want to import or travel but i dont belive for a second that all big buisness woud leave just because great britain have left the EU.
Some migth leave but somone will always rise to meet the demand of the consumer.
And last time i checked there is 54,316,600 potential custommers in england alone.

Tauto wants to report me for use of "foul language".

No shit? :P

The problem with our whole discussion about meaningful national borders (Europe, UK, Scotland, Barcelona ... what is the best size?) is quite meaningless to the economy. The economy is global and wants the biggest size possible. It developes fastest if there are the same rules everywhere and no tarriffs and a single market, (possible a single currency) and free access to labour everywhere and political stability. That's all.

And in the last 30 years people in developing nations (China, Korea, other asian countries, Brasil, Mexico, Russia, India,...) profited from free trade a lot. They had hudge GDP growths and quite pronounced income increases for the working middle class there. They were the real winners.

The really poor African nations didn't profit and the industrialized nations (G7) kind of stalled although at a very high level. At least we got lots of cheap consumer products from Asia to consume...

Now can you fight all this by going back to nationalism? I think this is ridiculous. It may work for Norway (lots of oil) or Switzerland (lots of banks and immigration of specialists too) but in general it will fail spectacularly.

The best way out in my idea is strongly competing with China (hoping they become more expensive and less productive because of undemocratic structures) and cooperating with similar minded entities (something like the EU for example) and implementing social securities for your people.

Basically the right balance of free markets and social support in a rather large coherent area which is bound together by common values and democracy and federalism. A bit like the EU actually, only better.

That will do most good towards the poor people (just my opinion).
It's not sure what will happen. Usually a weak currency is seen as a sign of a weak economy and vice versa. Of course it is a stabilizing element (one that Greece didn't have when it needed it) but it means in general you are doing not good.

A weak currency is especially bad if you have lots of debt in a different currency (like Argentina had). Luckily for Britain this was not the case. But for sure big pension funds will be more careful investing in the pound from now on because it can be risky.

Oh, no, I'm not saying that all big business will leave. There's no doomsday scenario here that the economy will just deterioriate into some third-world bazaar. There are plenty of businesses that only do business domestically - they use domestic resources, denominate everything in sterling and don't export abroad. Aside from demand being affected by the likely increase in unemployment, they should largely be fine.

The biggest thing that is likely to deteriorate is the investment of foreign businesses in the UK for manufacturing and distribution to continental Europe. Brexit has made this business model completely unviable. Likewise, businesses that require imports from EU countries are likely to a struggle - I'm not talking engineering products, I'm talking simple stuff that can't be home-produced: foods in particular. It won't necessarily be more expensive, but it's likely to be mired in bureaucracy.

For European exports to the UK, it's not a matter of whether they want to serve that population - of course the UK is a desirable market, but the difficulty is in reaching terms. To account for the increased bureaucracy and possible tariffs, UK buyers may need to dig a bit deeper into their pockets. There may come a point where it's simply no longer cost effective. And British exporters to the continent will also face increased bureaucracy and possible tariffs.

You have to remember that 50% of British exports go to the EU, but just 10% of intra-EU exports go to the UK. A failure in negotiations will hurt Europe, but it'll hurt Britain much, much more.

Hmm, in essence you have it right, only I wouldn't use the same language probably because I do not share the same sentiment.

For a short moment, put yourself into the perspective of the EU: they know they lost and leave has won and they fear that the longer it takes the higher the negative impacts on the EU. Of course they want it to be over as fast as possible.

Juncker is totally right in that and Merkel backs him in that regard (but is more laid back and considerate). What is totally crazy is Johnson not celebrating and delaying the leave. Hell, it may never come. The referendum may go down in history as the referendum that didn't have any consequences. How would you feel about that? Or think about the 350million pound per week (minus all those which Britain got paid, so effectively not more than a 100 million pounds per week). Wouldn't it be better to have them asap?

I think from the EU side it is understandable to ask Britain to do it fast, especially when taking into account that it's Britain's decision to officially declare the leave. Unless this happens, nothing of legal importance has happened.

By the way, the uncertainty of the transition period also drags on the British economy and imposes costs which mean less wealth and the poor get poorer. So it would also be in the British interest to not wait to long, wouldn't it?

So now or until the end of the year probably doesn't make a big difference, but now or in three years maybe will mean a prolonged period of instability and increased costs for everyone. The clock is ticking since last thursday...
Not only manufacturing but also financial services. The British financial sector is larger than in many other places and probably exported many services to central Europe. It might be more difficult to continue that now. Also tax evasion by going through England might become more difficult. On the other hand I'm sure some other country in the EU will take over - no illusion about that here.

well, in our case.
Weaker krone has increased our exports but lowered our imports.
There has also been more tourists here that have taken advantage of our weak currency.
Not many dare to invest in our currency though and generally investments have slowed down a little
There is still a booming market or wild texas in our housing market with ever increasing prices except for a few areas.
Also alot of people in the oil industry lost their jobs due to this but i think this is actually a good thing.
Norway cant rely on oil forever and i think its good that its happened now than later before we got even more dependant on our oil.