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

$600/wk Unemployment Insurance cannot deliver the benefits of a $600/wk Job Guarantee. From the outset, I should say JG is not a replacement for UI, no matter what you may have heard. I’ll get to this later, but read this long 🧶 w/ that in mind.


Automatic stabilization: Both $600/wk UI and JG will provide counter cyclical spending. But UI will be weaker. Counter-cyclical stabilization is not just about the absence of income. It is also about the transmission and structure of economy

Firms don't like to hire the unemployed. Mass and long-term unemployment make the problem worse. JG would recover labor markets much faster than a UI of the same amount, both b/c of the higher direct, induced & tertiary employment effects & b/c of private firm hiring preferences.

JG stabilizes spending patterns better. Uncertain job prospects may mean more cautious spending from the unemployed compared to those w/ guaranteed jobs.
UI is temporary, which makes matters worse. Even if it were permanent, it still won't resolve the problem of job scarcity.

Nations who once achieved tight full employment through active labor market policies demonstrate that unemployment does NOT fluctuate the same way it does w/o them. Direct employment, ELR type policies diminish drastically/even eliminate these amplitudes (eg postwar Japan/Sweden)

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“We don’t negotiate salaries” is a negotiation tactic.

Always. No, your company is not an exception.

A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.

Listen to Aditya


And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.

I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.

You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.

Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
First update to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL since the challenge ended – Medium links!! Go add your Medium profile now 👀📝 (thanks @diannamallen for the suggestion 😁)


Just added Telegram links to
https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL too! Now you can provide a nice easy way for people to message you :)


Less than 1 hour since I started adding stuff to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL again, and profile pages are now responsive!!! 🥳 Check it out -> https://t.co/fVkEL4fu0L


Accounts page is now also responsive!! 📱✨


💪 I managed to make the whole site responsive in about an hour. On my roadmap I had it down as 4-5 hours!!! 🤘🤠🤘