Fenland_Flyer wrote:
I am an exporter of our own manufactured goods and our growth has been better since we had the referendum, noticeably so.
That is not very surprising considering the fall in value of the pound caused by the Brexit vote.
My exports have gone up 3x since the £ fall. Imports have gone up a bit but a tiny fraction of the benefit of the extra business.
Greece could not have been allowed to leave the Eurozone. The risk of an export-led recovery was too great… would have created an unacceptable example for the rest of southern Europe 
Peter wrote:
The risk of an export-led recovery was too great…
That only works if you have something to export. Which is either a lot cheaper or a lot better than what others have.
Tourism, olives… a friend has a firm of a few hundred people making steel bars, etc… Greece has lots of export potential. Some realised (like tourism) and some unrealised (due to lack of organisation). Turkey was undercutting Greece on the tourism front, for the lower end of the cheap holiday market. The Euro has made the whole Eurozone relatively expensive.
Peter wrote:
Tourism, olives
Olives: Spain produces 4 times as much olives, Italy twice as much as Greece. Both are Euro countries since day one. So it can’t be the Euros fault if Greece doesn’t sell as many olives.
Tourism: (figures for 2015): Spain: 68 million, Italy 45 million, Greece 23 million. Interestingly almost the same factors as with olives, again Spain and Italy being Euro founding members…
So it can not be the currency that is to blame.
Indeed, but – as with present-day Germany, and anywhere else that exports – a lower value currency helps with exports 
That your exports could be even better if you got yourself organised, is another thing…
There are countless reasons why Spain has a much bigger tourism business than Greece. Size, for a start. Immigration history (half the UK over the age of 60 lives there ). Greece, which except for Zakyntos and Corfu has not really supported the fish-and-chips tourist market dominated (of that list) by Spain, has always been much more “exclusive” and with a very special appeal.
So what do the Brits here make of the election results?
Peter, is it really true that Theresa radioed last Thursday " Mayday, Mayday, Mayday " ?
Peter wrote:
Greece, which has not really supported the fish-and-chips tourist market dominated (of that list) by Spain, has always been much more “exclusive” and with a very special appeal.
Again, I am pretty much certain that both Spain and Italy have a lot more “exclusive” tourists than Greece. Usually the culturally interested tourists go to visit cities. Athens is not even among the top 100 most visited cities in the world, but both Italy and Spain have 3 to 5 cities each in that list…
And another tourism statistics (this from 2014): https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/ST.INT.ARVL/rankings Five Euro countries (including Germany and Austria which are not really famous for attracting fish&chips cheapo tourists) rank before Greece. I stand my point that the Euro is not the cause for the suboptimal Greek tourist ranking.
Peter wrote:
Indeed, but – as with present-day Germany, and anywhere else that exports – a lower value currency helps with exports
That’s as clear as day if you look at the Italian motorcycle industry. In the 90s, producing in Lira and selling for US dollars the Italian industry underwent a dramatic renaissance and resurgence in sales. One manufacturer in the mid-90s sold half its annual production into the state of California. As soon as Italy adopted the Euro that reversed with the product being progressively cheapened to maintain competitive pricing, and manufacturers going steadily out of business or being taken over by foreign companies, mostly German. My newest was not coincidentally built in 2001
The German auto industry has backed into reliance on two factors to survive: for ‘premium’ German produced cars, reliance on the name as a saleable asset while simultaneously cheapening quality, and for lower cost products (i.e. VW) offshore production for export sales supplementing domestic production for sales within the tariff protected Euro zone. The Japanese have taken much of their former worldwide market regardless.
What’s really sad is how many people reduce the idea of the EU to money. Most of all the EU was a great idealistic idea to bring us all closer together.
Is everything about the EU good? Of course not. Was the EU only invented to torture the poor Brits? No. England first has to get rid of clowns like Johnson (and Farrage), and they should first get their act together before always accusing the bad EU bureaucrats. The UK always had one of the best deals in the whole EU.
UKIP has 0 seats now. Why, if the Brexit was such a great idea?
