UK Trade Balance 2019

Overall, the UK imports more than it exports meaning that it runs a trade deficit. A deficit of £138 billion on trade in goods was partially offset by a surplus of £107 billion on trade in services in 2018. The overall trade deficit was £31 billion in 2018 - Published Aug 9, 2019.

In 2018, the UK’s exports of goods and services totaled £634 billion and imports totaled £665 billion. The EU accounted for 46% of UK exports of goods and services and 53% of imports in 2018.

Overall, the UK imports more than it exports meaning that it runs a trade deficit. A deficit of £138 billion on trade in goods was partially offset by a surplus of £107 billion on trade in services in 2018. The overall trade deficit was £31 billion in 2018.

The UK had a trade deficit with the EU of £64 billion in 2018 and a trade surplus of £33 billion with non-EU countries.

The trade deficit with all countries was £4.3 billion in the three months to June 2019 compared with £20.3 billion in the previous three months. The deficit in the three months to March was exceptionally large due to the large volume of imports of ‘erratics’. Erratics include ships, aircraft and non-monetary gold and can mask the underlying trade trends.

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN02815#targetText=Overall%2C%20the%20UK%20imports%20more,%C2%A331%20billion%20in%202018.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

UK Trade 2019

If the UK implements a “Hard Exit” from the EU in October 2019, it is likely that the US will increase trade with the UK to cover its back. US energy exports will buttress costs and increase US exports. This leaves room to import more UK goods.

The annual nominal GDP of the UK for 2019 is $2.8 trillion, the 7^th largest economy. http://statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-ranking.php#targetText=In%202019%2C%20Top%20ten%20countries,Brazil%2C%20United%20Kingdom%20and%20France.

UK Main Industries 2019 - Aerospace, Agriculture, Automotive, Business and Professional Services, Chemicals, Construction, Consumer Goods, Defense Equipment, Education, Electronics, Energy, Entertainment, Financial Services, Food and Beverages, Healthcare, Hospitality and Leisure, Industrial Equipment, Information Technology, Media, Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology, Processed Metals, Real Estate, Retailing, Scientific Equipment, Telecommunications, Tourism, Transportation, Logistics, Utilities.  Ease of doing business 9^th.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom

The UK has all the industries required to be a stand-alone economic trading partner. Some detail on their Aerospace industry is below.

UK Aerospace - With the UK exiting the European Union, there is uncertainty around the impact of Brexit on the aerospace and defense (A&D) sector.  The relationships between the UK and other countries, especially the U.S., coupled with the future renegotiation of trade agreements, will play a major role in the challenges and opportunities facing the UK’s A&D industry.  UK defense spending is expected to remain steady, with a slight impact on certain defense programs due to economic uncertainty.  Since the Brexit vote in June 2016, the pound sterling has depreciated in value, which is expected to boost the UK’s exports as they become more cost-competitive.  

More than 3,000 aerospace companies operate in the UK, and the aerospace sector has the largest number of SME companies in Europe, providing over 282,000 jobs directly and indirectly.  Domestic companies include BAE Systems, Cobham, GKN, Meggitt, QinetiQ, Rolls-Royce, and Ultra Electronics. 
Airbus UK in Broughton assembles the wings for all Airbus civil aircraft, including the new A350 XWB.  Bombardier in Belfast designs, develops and manufactures lightweight composite wings for the C Series. 

The UK government has demonstrated significant interest in developing and increasing the domestic supply chain. In 2010, UK industry and government established the Aerospace Growth Partnership (AGP), which develops initiatives to encourage UK companies to cooperate closely and to address gaps and problems that affect the sector, tackle barriers to growth, and boost both UK exports and high value jobs.  

Non-domestic companies with a major presence include Boeing, Bombardier, Airbus Group, Leonardo (including its AgustaWestland and Selex ES subsidiaries), General Electric (including its GE Aviation Systems subsidiary), Lockheed Martin, MBDA, Safran, and Thales Group.

In October 2018, Boeing opened a production facility in Sheffield, Boeing’s first manufacturing site in Europe. The $50 million facility is located near the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing (AMRC). GKN Aerospace will also produce the new Advanced Technology Winglet for the Boeing 737 MAX.  Rolls-Royce-manufactured engines power more than 35 types of commercial aircraft. 

https://www.export.gov/article?id=United-Kingdom-Aerospace

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Bandwagon Scams

Every economic disaster in the past 50 years has resulted from a planned, orchestrated push by saboteurs lobbying for support. These scams call for everybody to jump on the bandwagon. This includes blatant violations of the US Constitution by Congress and rogue Presidents and other Federal overreach.

Bandwagon Scams were active with the unconstitutional land grab of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. If Congress and President US Grant had presented an Amendment to the States for ratification to amend federal enumerated powers, the States would have rejected national parks.

The “Managed Economy” Scam in 1913 included Marxist revenge on private property with inheritance tax, income tax and the abandonment of free market economics that allows consumers to control the price of goods and services through the law of supply and demand.

The Socialism Bandwagon began in the 1930s with the creation of Social Security, a government Ponzi scheme that forced retirement “deposits” to go to the US Treasury in exchange for a “defined benefit” old age insurance plan.  It would have been better if this had created individually owned retirement accounts. It was a government “money grab” to force redistribution of wealth and allow Congress to spend whatever it wants.

The government take-over of healthcare and hand-outs began in the 1960s with Medicare, Medicaid and Welfare.

The Diversity Bandwagon was driven by anti-discrimination laws in the 1960s and created “identity politics”.

NAFTA required a Bandwagon full of bribe and threat recipients to ignore all penetrating questions about their proposed “Information Age”. At the time, I found that the “information” wasn’t good.  We were about to off-shore all our manufacturing jobs to third world, low wage, low skill, high corruption countries with no regulations. We were able to reduce the oppressive control exerted by the Labor Unions, but we had already created a non-union electronics manufacturing empire.

The next Bandwagon Scam was UN Agenda 21. GHW Bush signed on, Clinton ordered its implementation, Bush II ignored it and Obama implemented it with a vengeance. This was “Smart Growth” based on the global warming hoax.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Government Priorities Needed

City government is responsible for building and maintaining adequate roads, bridges and storm sewers. These are the most important and most expensive pieces of infrastructure cities have and should have priority status, but they don’t.

County government is responsible for building and maintaining a clean water supply and sanitary sewer systems. They are also responsible for building and maintaining adequate roads, bridges and storm sewers in unincorporated areas of the county. These are the most important and most expensive pieces of infrastructure counties have and should have priority status, but they don’t.

State government is responsible for maintaining an adequate water supply by building and maintaining water reservoirs to store clean water and mitigate flooding.  These are the most important and most expensive pieces of infrastructure States have and should have priority status, but they don’t.

States could require that cities and counties build and maintain these most important and most expensive pieces of infrastructure as priority items, but they don’t.

Cities and counties have aging, broken, inadequate and dysfunctional water, sewer, highway and road systems. After 2010, the cost of building and maintaining these systems quietly doubled. Governments no longer take the lowest bidder with a “performance bond”. Instead, they cater to crony engineering and consulting firms. Cities and counties have City Managers and County Managers who are cronies with the Engineering Consulting Firms, “Smart Growth” consultants and States Municipal Associations and that’s how costs doubled.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Qualifications for Elective Office

We do better electing Presidents who come from the private sector, especially if they had to contend with government bureaucracies. Often, we elect people who don’t know economics or any of the things they need to know in order to develop good judgment.

President Dwight Eisenhower was a career US soldier, whose diplomatic skills and good judgment qualified him to lead the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. He knew all foreign leaders and was elected as a hero. His administration delivered 8 years of peace and prosperity in the US. His Presidency didn’t require direct private sector experience. The US was the only industrial power coming out of WW II.

Ronald Reagan was an actor who became Governor of California and got a good look at the California Legislature and the Federal Government. He also learned economics from his association with Conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Milton Friedman. Reagan won the Cold War and set the US economy on a course to prosperity.

Donald Trump was a real-estate developer and builder who dealt with labor unions, building permits, ordinances and land use laws. He did work in the US and overseas and was a seasoned international business owner and a tough but fair negotiator. He was a billionaire and was not beholden to campaign contributors or special interest groups. His work as a builder gave him a unique appreciation for skilled labor.

There is a need for Job Descriptions and Qualifications for all elective offices that reflect their authorized responsibilities. There is also a need for the current metrics on these authorized responsibilities. These should be required postings on candidate websites.

To get politicians to work for the voters, there is a need to reform campaign finance to emphasize individual voter contributions and use these to limit the amounts of all other special interest contributions. Polls on issues can be rigged, but total dollar amounts of individual voter contributions are auditable.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Preventing Disasters

Don’t elect Democrats. Replace 80% of all elected officials. Drown out Socialist blather with laughter.

The Civil War could have been avoided by creating an investment bank in Southern slave states so that wealthy plantation owners had a viable alternative to invest their cash in something other than slaves. Their best investment would have been to design and build tractors using steam engines. Slaves could advance to becoming indentured servants for 5 years and then advance to becoming share-croppers. They would have mechanized farming 100 years earlier.

World War I could have been avoided by freezing assets, bank accounts and credit to Austro-Hungary when it invaded Serbia and doing the same to Germany and the Ottoman Empire when they joined the Austro-Hungarian side.

World War II could have been avoided by freezing assets, bank accounts and credit to Germany in 1936, when it became clear that Germany was building its military to pursue land grabs.

The Korean War and the Vietnam War could have been avoided by the US if we had refused to come to their rescue. The same is true of the Communist takeovers in South America, Africa and other places. All we had to do is freeze them out of investment and trade and these economies would have failed.

We would have escaped the expense of bailing out the starving post-Communist countries by ignoring them.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

CWA Strike

AT&T Inc. pays its employees an average of $83,244 a year. Salaries at AT&T Inc. range from an average of $49,347 to $131,730 a year -.Jan 31, 2019.

 

AT&T has been closing its “call centers” and CWA didn’t like losing these union jobs.  Consumers are grateful to find their daily Customer Service Rep (telemarketer) calls are diminishing. These are the calls that want us to “bundle” phone, internet and TV services most of us ignore.

AT&T wage ranges are as follows:

Retail Sales Associate    $8.38-$10.60–14.97

Retail Sales Consultant  $9.35-$12.56-$17.13

Customer Service Rep   $9.81-$13.85-$18.88

Field Service Tech          $14.33-$20.05-$29.28

Electronics Tech             $13.84-$20.50-$31.02

Telecom Tech                 $14.89-$21.75-$33.09

AT&T pays more than Comcast and Century Link, but less than Verizon.

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=AT%26T_Inc./Hourly_Rate

5G is stalling. T-Mobil and Sprint are merging. Phone and Cable rates are too high and consumers are unplugging. This is not a good time for a labor union strike. Consumers believe these services are overpriced and under-performing.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader