There is a ton of contradictory stuff flying around about what @MichelBarnier says is the EU's bottom line for fair competition in any free trade agreement with the UK. As I understand it, what follows is the EU's position. For the "level playing field commitments" there...

should be "non regression" - ie on standards for working practices, environmental etc, the UK must stick to current EU rules, subject to tests and the risk of legal challenge if there is a perceived breach of the obligations. And the non-regression rules apply to the EU as...
well as to the UK. They are mutual symmetrical obligations in that sense. The requirements not to give unfair subsidies to businesses, the state aid rules, are different, and more complicated, because subsidies to businesses given out of EU funds (as opposed to national funds)...
are not subject to state aid rules. So Barnier is proposing a solution to that "UK problem", such that the state obligations would be seen to bind both the UK and the EU. The big point is that @MichelBarnier seems to be trying hard to create a framework in which the...
obligations to engage in fair competition bind both the UK and the EU, and are not simply the big bad EU imposing its will on the UK. The baseline for both at the start of any free trade agreement would be the same, and subject to the same processes to prevent unfair...
competition in the future. And just to be clear, the UK currently meets and follows all these standards, for the obvious reason we were members of the EU for 40 years, and actually and actively promoted these standards. What is more...
@BorisJohnson cannot name a single EU level-playing-field standard he currently wishes to weaken. If there is a power imbalance between a newly independent UK and the EU it is simply that the EU single market is vastly bigger than the UK's internal market...
Which in turn means that the EU will always have more clout when setting trading standards than does the UK. But that's just a basic economic fact. And to complain about it is the same as complaining that the sun will set or the tide will come in...
Almost final point, the EU has worked out it can rely on its disproportionate economic clout to shape whatever future trading standards it wants, and has backed off insisting that the European Court of Justice would have a role in determining whether UK companies are trading...
unfairly. Which looked like a significant political victory for @BorisJohnson and @DavidGHFrost, though for some reason they are ill-inclined to recognise their win. But here is the actual final point: the EU's disproportionate economic power won't vanish if there is...
no free trade agreement and the UK finds itself subject to tariffs and World Trade Organisation rules for its exports to and imports from the EU. And for UK businesses to make up for a loss of competitiveness in trade with the EU that would be the consequence of...
the imposition of no-deal tariffs, and the absence of trusted trader schemes, and so on, well it would require the government to slash environmental and employment burdens on those businesses - which is precisely the opposite of what the PM says he wants. Johnson...
tells us time and again the UK would thrive without an EU trade deal. Presumably one of these days he will present his detailed credible route map to those sunlit uplands.

More from Economy

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is analyzing damage due to COVID and projecting further severe consequences if current policies persist. They state “despite involving short term economic costs, lockdowns may lead to faster economic recovery by containing the virus”

1/


Note: This report doesn’t do a dynamic analysis that makes things much clearer, but it does a thoughtful statistical analysis based upon increasingly available data.

https://t.co/5Xmt8y7lCL

A few more quotes:

2/


“The analysis also finds that lockdowns are powerful instruments to reduce infections, especially when they are introduced early in a country’s epidemic and when they are sufficiently stringent.”

3/


“lockdowns become progressively more effective in reducing COVID-19 cases when they become sufficiently stringent. Mild lockdowns appear instead ineffective at curbing infections.”

4/

“The results suggest that to achieve a given reduction in infections, policymakers may want to opt for stringent lockdowns over a shorter period rather than prolonged mild lockdowns...

5/
1/ To add a little texture to @NickHanauer's thread, it's important to recognize that there's a good reason why orthodox economists (& economic cosplayers) so vehemently oppose a $15 min wage:

The min wage is a wedge that threatens to undermine all of orthodox economic theory.


2/ Orthodox economics is grounded in two fundamental models: a systems model that describes the market as a closed equilibrium system, and a behavioral model that describes humans as rational, self-interested utility-maximizers. The modern min wage debate undermines both models.

3/ The assertion that a min wage kills jobs is so central to orthodox economics that it is often used as the textbook example of the Supply/Demand curve. Raise the cost of labor and businesses will buy less of it. It's literally Econ 101!


4/ Econ 101 insists that markets automatically set an efficient "equilibrium price" for labor & everything else. Mess with this price and bad things happen. Yet decades of empirical research has persuaded a majority of economists that this just isn't

5/ How can this be? Well, either the market is not a closed equilibrium system in which if you raise the price of labor employers automatically purchase less of it... OR the market is not automatically setting an efficient and fair equilibrium wage. Or maybe both. #FAIL

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