Virgil Caine

Glad that has been sorted out otherwise I would have been losing sleep over it.

Wonder how much the So-Called BBC economic staff get paid for coming up with that nonsensical claim about sterling devaluation.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/11/the-cult-of-jess-phillips/

Presumably people are fleeing this hell on earth and no sane person would want to move there......

Brown probably did the most damage in term of policies enacted. May is doing more damage in terms of undermining the political fabric of the UK. Any sane PM in her position would have jacked it in months ago but Treason May appears to be unhinged so we may have to wait for the people in white coats to take her way.

The cost of administering the tax would be as great if not more than the money raised.

Agreed. This is more than just a Trump thing. Sooner or later Chinese and US interests were going to collide. Trump just brought the date forward

It probably is all distortion but if it comes to a geopolitical dust up I doubt that we will be given the luxury of an ‘opt out ‘ (the Swiss excepted as always). At the moment this is targeted at Huawei which has close ties to the CCP and the Chinese military.

That is rather the point is it not. Every Ithing is made in one country which just happens to be the hegemonic rival to the US. You wonder why US based companies which are supposedly ‘multinational’ did not apply that principle to sourcing their components from multiple sources.

It can be that too. The various aspects are not mutually exclusive.

I am sure it plays into Trumps re-election bid since it is going to put the Democratic candidates in a bind as their Russiagate ramblings are all rather thin while the Chinese are a very real threat to the US power particularly in the Pacific. However, I think it would have become an issue even if Clinton had won. Interesting that Google who I would have thought were hostile to Trump are on board. Presumably they see the CCP as much of a long term financial threat as do the US state department see it as a political threat. It’s not. This is about geopolitics not just about security .

The fact Cameron and Osborne thought it was a good idea says.it all really. I am not sure that the views of UK politicians and companies really means much here. The fact Microsoft and Google are potentially blacklisting devices with Huawei chips says it all. Presumably they have been leant on by the US State Department. Incidentally, I think this was going to happen eventually regardless of whether Trump won the 2016 election.

I dont know but China is still technically a one party state run by the CCP. It is a country that blocks access to Wikipedia. Would the UK have even contemplated buying chipsets from Putin's Russia ? You would have thought western countries and governments would have tried to geographically diversify where they purchased key components but as Lenin is supposed to have said the capitalists will sell the rope with which they will be hung.

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/16/5614258/the-best-defense-against-hackers-writer-your-passwords-down-on-paper

I did not know this particular 1970s youth subculture was still going