The Day Has arrived for The UK

[Harry_BKK]

I disagree.
The EU is a failed project and it had to be stopped, or reformed in a critical way (especially free movement of people).
I'm hoping that Brexit will be the catalyst for other countries to follow suit - then maybe the UK can get together with them and form a new and much better cooperation which does not have such a negative impact on the individual countries.

KK

With all due respect KK, why are you and others always claiming that the EU is a failed project? It is certainly not.

Oh yes, the UK will create something better, just like the cock-up with the Brexit. That is the best joke of 2016 KK. Your politicians can't get it right for their own country, let alone for something larger.

Please elaborate on the negative impact with real examples. I can list you pages full of positive ones.

 

[Harry_BKK]

You need to consider that the UK is a net importer, a lot from the Europe. Take Germany as an example, where the UK during April 2016 exported £2.7bn and imported £5.2bn. Same for France - exports worth £1.5bn and imports worth £2.8bn

If Europe were to put obstacles in the way they may well cut their nose to spite their face.

The free movement of people was just one of the issues that led to the vote by the majority of the UK population to leave the EU.

Perhaps it is worth considering that Europe may need the UK more than the UK needs Europe. Look at the Financial Markets immediately after the votes were counted. The European markets suffered more than the FTSE.

You do think you still are the Great British Empire, do you? ....Well, that is how you come across when i read your post. In my view the world is going global, or better has gone already, and the UK decided to go national.

The percentage of exports/imports from/to Germany to/from the UK is only 7.5% of the total annual German exports and 4% of their total annual imports. Do you really think it will bring Germany, or in fact any other country, down if that is reduced even by 50%???

Further, German companies employ 7x more people in the UK than British companies in Germany. Hmmm, let's see what would happen if 50% of those decide to close their factories/offices in the UK. I bet the workers and their families would not be happy or better off because they are now outside the EU.

In fact the EU is more important to the UK as vice versa as appr. 45% of your exports go to the EU. Cut that off and you are toast.

The European markets suffered initially more because the Brexit brought uncertainty to 27 countries, not 1 as it is for the UK. They have all meanwhile recovered to near pre-vote levels. The shocking part is that you sound happy that the EU markets suffered more, like: "YES, we beat them again".

You always talk about the majority of the British people that voted LEAVE as if the vote was won by a massive margin...no, it was barely won with 52/48%. And it was won on the back of false promises and lies by your politicians:

- saved EU contributions go to the NHS - NO
- immigration/migration cut drastically - NO
- more jobs for the British, higher wages - NO
- ...list not complete

In fact your politicians did not have a plan at all on how to proceed in case the vote was LEAVE. They look now like the laughing stock of the planet.

The best joke is that you will have to negotiate a deal with the EU to have access to the EEA. You will end up still paying a contribution, you will end up still having to accept free movement of goods, capital, services and people - and have NO say in all of it. Great outlook!

 

[geordiecolin]

With all due respect KK, why are you and others always claiming that the EU is a failed project? It is certainly not.

Oh yes, the UK will create something better, just like the cock-up with the Brexit. That is the best joke of 2016 KK. Your politicians can't get it right for their own country, let alone for something larger.

Please elaborate on the negative impact with real examples. I can list you pages full of positive ones.

There was always going to be chaos after this referendum no matter which way it went. Of course the Government,its machine and the establishment have compounded the chaos by not having any contingency plan in the event of exit.
Cameraman got such a none deal from his pre referendum negotiations that it was obvious that junker et al never expected us to vote leave. If Brussels could treat us to contempiously prior to a referendum then imagine how they would have treat us after we voted to stay and what rules they could impose on us and the rest of Europe.
The more I think about the EU the more I hate it

 

[Harry_BKK]

There was always going to be chaos after this referendum no matter which way it went. Of course the Government,its machine and the establishment have compounded the chaos by not having any contingency plan in the event of exit.
Cameraman got such a none deal from his pre referendum negotiations that it was obvious that junker et al never expected us to vote leave. If Brussels could treat us to contempiously prior to a referendum then imagine how they would have treat us after we voted to stay and what rules they could impose on us and the rest of Europe.
The more I think about the EU the more I hate it

Always the evil EU, easy to use as a scapegoat

I think it is time for a reality check.

The UK is, or better said was, the only country in the EU that cried for and got a rebate on its contributions for the EU, all the while fully benefiting from all other aspects of the EU, EEA and EFTA.

The problems you have in the UK originated when the coal/steel boom ended. Back then plenty of work, low taxes, well funded NHS, decent pensions ....all looked pretty good. However, in more than 3 decades none of your leaders/governments managed to replace the losses from that with something that would take the country into the 21st century. Result is that your country's deficit kept growing and growing.

Instead of focusing on "modernizing" the economy, they started cutting back on all aspects of a normal British worker and family, be it NHS, pensions, increased taxes on wages, property etc.

THAT is not the result of the EU or the latest increase in migrants, it is your own or rather your government's making!!

 

[vinylweatherman]

Always the evil EU, easy to use as a scapegoat

I think it is time for a reality check.

The UK is, or better said was, the only country in the EU that cried for and got a rebate on its contributions for the EU, all the while fully benefiting from all other aspects of the EU, EEA and EFTA.

The problems you have in the UK originated when the coal/steel boom ended. Back then plenty of work, low taxes, well funded NHS, decent pensions ....all looked pretty good. However, in more than 3 decades none of your leaders/governments managed to replace the losses from that with something that would take the country into the 21st century. Result is that your country's deficit kept growing and growing.

Instead of focusing on "modernizing" the economy, they started cutting back on all aspects of a normal British worker and family, be it NHS, pensions, increased taxes on wages, property etc.
THAT is not the result of the EU or the latest increase in migrants, it is your own or rather your government's making!!

.... and then they would blame EU regulations for it all, even the Tories did in the past, yet all of a sudden they were supporting remain and more of the same for ordinary working people. Did they seriously expect turkeys to vote for Christmas for ever more?

It is certainly accepted that the EU is in dire need of reform, and that the best way to achieve this would be from within. Then, barely a day before the vote, Juncker opened his big mouth and gave his "There will be no further reform, ever", really ramming home the point that the leave camp had not only failed to make much progress in the earlier negotiations for reform, but that this was a permanent state of affairs, and that there was no option to "reform from within".

It's more surprising that despite all of this, the margin to leave was so small. Given the largely negative view of the EU and it's unelected committees churning out thousands of new, mostly petty, rules and regulations each year, it should have been a landslide victory for leave. It wasn't because I expect many people saw that the EU also did a great deal of good among the bad things that came out of it, and that not having the EU around would be even worse than the thousands of regulations it churns out.

I think that had we remained, Juncker would have been forced to back down because the UK was not alone in saying that the EU needed to reform or it would implode. The UK is also not the first country to vote OUT, Greece did earlier, but it's politicians didn't press ahead under extreme pressure from the other members and the banks. The UK has not actually left either, it seems that the formal step of triggering Article 50 is not that easy. It will have to first win a majority in parliament, so regardless of the referendum result, there may not be a parliamentary vote to invoke article 50, and the process of Brexit will stall indefinitely. We already see it being stalled till October, even though this means a summer of uncertainty for the economy that risks further damage and loss of confidence.

Given the gravity of the decision, it would have been prudent to legislate that the vote for change over the status quo had to be significant, not a mere 52/48 split.

 

[KasinoKing]

Please elaborate on the negative impact with real examples.

I don't want to go on repeating myself, but it is immigration, immigration and immigration.
Everyone I've spoken to here who voted leave said that was their main reason for voting too.

I don't know why some of you from other countries can't see what's happening in the UK - it's in the news often enough.
We are FULL. In fact we are over-full. It's not just standing room only, it's people sleeping in gutters and living in hovvels.
Even people with good jobs earning reasonable wages can't afford decent housing here - it's chaos
We can't carry on taking in huge uncontrolled numbers of immigrants. It MUST be reduced and controlled by the UK government - not the EU.
Without any controls (as it is now), our 330,000 net immigration per year could easily rise to 500,000?, 1 million? More? It's insane.

Anyway, I'm not going to keep banging on about it - we can have different opinions, that's OK.
I'm a patient person and time will tell.
My prediction though, is that the UK won't be the last country to leave the EU before 2020 (for the exact same reasons).
I could be right, I could be wrong - we will all just have to wait & see...

KK

 

[geordiecolin]

Always the evil EU, easy to use as a scapegoat

I think it is time for a reality check.

The UK is, or better said was, the only country in the EU that cried for and got a rebate on its contributions for the EU, all the while fully benefiting from all other aspects of the EU, EEA and EFTA.

The problems you have in the UK originated when the coal/steel boom ended. Back then plenty of work, low taxes, well funded NHS, decent pensions ....all looked pretty good. However, in more than 3 decades none of your leaders/governments managed to replace the losses from that with something that would take the country into the 21st century. Result is that your country's deficit kept growing and growing.

Instead of focusing on "modernizing" the economy, they started cutting back on all aspects of a normal British worker and family, be it NHS, pensions, increased taxes on wages, property etc.

THAT is not the result of the EU or the latest increase in migrants, it is your own or rather your government's making!!

Yes Harry I agree with what you say regarding investment in industry. I am not defending our Countries previous governments at all.
But none of that takes away from the EU being a none elected faceless bunch of corrupt establishment cronies

 

[Harry_BKK]

I don't want to go on repeating myself, but it is immigration, immigration and immigration.
Everyone I've spoken to here who voted leave said that was their main reason for voting too.

I don't know why some of you from other countries can't see what's happening in the UK - it's in the news often enough.
We are FULL. In fact we are over-full. It's not just standing room only, it's people sleeping in gutters and living in hovvels.
Even people with good jobs earning reasonable wages can't afford decent housing here - it's chaos
We can't carry on taking in huge uncontrolled numbers of immigrants. It MUST be reduced and controlled by the UK government - not the EU.
Without any controls (as it is now), our 330,000 net immigration per year could easily rise to 500,000?, 1 million? More? It's insane.

Anyway, I'm not going to keep banging on about it - we can have different opinions, that's OK.
I'm a patient person and time will tell.
My prediction though, is that the UK won't be the last country to leave the EU before 2020 (for the exact same reasons).
I could be right, I could be wrong - we will all just have to wait & see...

KK

I suppose we will agree that we disagree

The net immigration from EU countries was 184.000 in 2015, the other chunk were mostly from your ex-colonies and China.

I think this analysis about sums it up and shows that the EU is not your problem!!

UK Immigration Statistics from International Passenger Survey

The International Passenger Survey is used by the ONS to measure levels of immigration into the UK. The survey is run 365 days per year, every year. The survey questions people arriving and leaving Britain at the country's various airports, ferry terminals and the Channel Tunnel. The ONS then uses the information collected to estimate migration for the whole of Britain.

The Independent's analysis further reveals that migrants from Poland – which represents the fourth most popular host country since 1990 behind India, China and Pakistan – are arriving on UK shores far less than they did during the mid-2000s. Interestingly, there has been an increase in Polish migrants in the UK returning to their homeland.

27,000 and 34,000 Poles migrated to the UK each year in the period 2009-2014, which represents a 50 percent drop compared with the number that came between 2005 and 2008. The analysis also identified that an average of 17,000 per year have departed the UK for Poland in the six years since 2009.

Immigrants arriving from India, China and Pakistan

The Independent's analysis of ONS data appears to show a high volume of immigrants arriving in the UK from India, China and Pakistan. In contrast to Eastern European countries, people from these non-EU nations are less likely to leave the UK in future.

In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, net migration numbers from India reached double the number of migrants arriving from Poland; an average of 49,000 Indians have come to the UK every year for the past 10 years, with just 12,000 per year leaving.

Since 2005, the UK has apparently become more Chinese than Polish, with an average of 30,000 migrants arriving from China every year, with about 11,000 leaving each year. The data also captures immigrant numbers for less publicized, English-speaking countries including Australia, where 18,000 arrive in Britain each year, with 15,000 leaving each year.

Data for the USA also features in the analysis, with 19,000 immigrants arriving each year and 11,000 exiting.

Eastern European nations

Despite many UK immigration headlines honing in on Eastern European nations such as Poland, Lithuania and Romania over the past 10 years, ONS data shows that despite not featuring in the top ten host countries for immigrants in 2013 or 2014, Pakistan has in fact contributed more net migrants to the UK than Poland since 1990.

Pakistani nationals once they arrive in the UK tend not to leave. Most remain in the UK.

The Independent's analysis concludes by stating that: "Regardless of one's views about immigration into the UK, and ignoring any of its potential cultural, economic or psychological benefits, the numbers tell a clear story: Brexit will not bring net migration down into the 'tens of thousands'."

In order for Britain to bring net migration numbers down to the 'tens of thousands', a review of non-EU immigration would be needed. However, as many of those non-EU citizens are arriving from India and China, funding much of the UK's higher education sector and subsidizing British students, this leaves the UK with a problem.

The Independent reports that without Chinese and Indian students, domestic tuition fees would have to increase substantially;88 per cent of Chinese immigrants in 2014 were aged 15-29, while 56 per cent of Indian immigrants were in the same age bracket.

The data suggests that exiting the EU would in fact not do much to reduce net migration numbers.

 

[asm]

Using the NHS as some magical be-all-end-all is absolute rubbish and loathsome is the person who campaigned over that. Now excuse me since I am not english/scottish/welsh/irish/anything of the kind but that is such nonsense and it's in display in every country where populists are unfortunately given time and thought, including mine. We just occasionally substitute our equivalent of NHS to war veterans, or the elderly, and sometimes instead of the EU or bureaucracy we blame the immigrants.

Is anyone under the impression maintaining a government is a zero sum game and someone flips a coin that says yes/no, and there is no substitution? Ok, this week we are funding the NHS or paying EU expenditure. Someone flip a coin and lets get it over with. Jesus.

If there is a problem with funding the NHS or education, I guess you could go around blaming the EU, or anything else you can decide. Why not the eurovision song contest or the national olympic team too? Let's stop funding anything that is fun. Because it's a zero sum game. Those things are not very important are they? You have to choose!

Social/health policy funding and problems are not really caused by government spending in other areas per say, but rather supposedly "neoliberal" governments we elect that don't really give two $hits about your health or your education. Health and education are an expenditure, nothing else, when it comes to governments in the western world these days. Your government (and mine) would pony up the money if it saw it as important.

But no, this is why you have diminishing service and quality (not the direct fault of the workers though), brought to you by workers who are educated but underpaid, hired to perform tasks that require responsibility and a thorough education.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Regardless of whether or not migrants are a net positive contribution to the economy, there is a finite supply of housing, school places, GP places on patient lists, hospital beds, etc. When demand for these very basic services outstrips supply "Britain is full" regardless of how much land mass we have available, or how much POTENTIAL additional housing we could build to meet demand. Until the services and infrastructure are in place, there is no more room. The problem of being "full" in this respect is that every migrant that is let in bumps someone already here out of their place in the system because there are no new places in the system ready and waiting to receive the migrant. When most of the ordinary people see this happening in their own lives, they are not going to be impressed by the macro economic arguments in favour of immigration. Instead, they see this as the government having lost control of the situation, and the government seem keen to deflect the blame away from their own long term failings and dump it at the feet of Brussels. With the EU getting the blame for all these problems, it's no wonder many people have seen Brexit as the only viable solution. The EU is no better, it has failed as an institution to see this problem building up and doing something about it. Rather than worrying about our toaster, hairdryers, and hoovers, they should have worried about the systemic under provision of the most basic services in some EU countries, and produced something like "The EU housing provision directive" which would force member states to ensure that sufficient housing was available for the population of the country, and that no one should be sleeping in gutters, shop doorways, and park benches due to a lack of affordable shelter. They could also have produced healthcare directives aimed as ensuring that people didn't suffer needlessly due to a lack of capacity in healthcare. When combined, such directives would have lessened the burden of accepting new migrants into existing communities, and although there would always be cultural tensions, there would be no physical detriment such as people being told they are getting evicted in order to give their home to newly arrived migrants, or seeing their GP write to them to say they have been removed from the list and have to find another surgery because their surgery has had to prioritise the registration of newly arrived migrants above it's long standing patients. This kind of thing has happened in a number of towns and cities, and not just in the UK. If you live in one of these affected areas, your view of migrants will tend to be negative, and the more you have been adversely affected, the more negative your view will be. This has translated into votes to leave, and is why so many people are saying that it was their own experiences of the effects of migration, rather than the other arguments, that most strongly influenced their vote.


I also think that another thing that has taken the government by surprise is that they have been fooled by their own political correctness social engineering project into believing it has succeeded in engineering racist thoughts out of the population as a whole. Instead, it seems it has merely suppressed the expression of such views, rather than the views themselves, and Brexit seems to have unleashed a renewed confidence in once again expressing such views, perhaps because the Brexit vote has made it feel as though such views are held by a slim majority, most of whom simply suppressed these views from public gaze to give the appearance that it was only a lingering far right minority that thought migrants should all be rounded up and thrown out.

In all this chaos, government has imploded, there is no PM, no credible cabinet, and no shadow cabinet, and instead of taking urgent action, parliament will close for the summer and deal with the problems in October by electing a new Tory leader and PM.

 

[Matti]

I don't want to go on repeating myself, but it is immigration, immigration and immigration.
Everyone I've spoken to here who voted leave said that was their main reason for voting too.

I don't know why some of you from other countries can't see what's happening in the UK - it's in the news often enough.
We are FULL. In fact we are over-full. It's not just standing room only, it's people sleeping in gutters and living in hovvels.
Even people with good jobs earning reasonable wages can't afford decent housing here - it's chaos
We can't carry on taking in huge uncontrolled numbers of immigrants. It MUST be reduced and controlled by the UK government - not the EU.
Without any controls (as it is now), our 330,000 net immigration per year could easily rise to 500,000?, 1 million? More? It's insane.

Anyway, I'm not going to keep banging on about it - we can have different opinions, that's OK.
I'm a patient person and time will tell.
My prediction though, is that the UK won't be the last country to leave the EU before 2020 (for the exact same reasons).
I could be right, I could be wrong - we will all just have to wait & see...

KK

If you had stayed within the EU you might have been able to influence and join forces with other member states. You also would have had the opportunity to veto new member states etc.

Now you will have to live with what is decided by others. Congrats

 

[Matti]

There was always going to be chaos after this referendum no matter which way it went. Of course the Government,its machine and the establishment have compounded the chaos by not having any contingency plan in the event of exit.
Cameraman got such a none deal from his pre referendum negotiations that it was obvious that junker et al never expected us to vote leave. If Brussels could treat us to contempiously prior to a referendum then imagine how they would have treat us after we voted to stay and what rules they could impose on us and the rest of Europe.
The more I think about the EU the more I hate it

Please ask yourself this. Why should the UK be treated different than the rest of the 27 member states in the first place?

 

[Matti]

Perhaps it is worth considering that Europe may need the UK more than the UK needs Europe.

No it is not worth considering. Do you really believe that yourself!!!!????

 

[MightyDuck]

No it's no surprise so many people of from other countries in Europe give their opinions.

The EU needs the UK? Ha ha ha.

 

[Casinomeister]

Here's a thread about how the Brexit may affect punters:
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/the-brexit-how-it-may-affect-you.74190/?t=74190

It's not so political

 

[Steviedoo]

as weatherman and Harry have said.......years in the making....and totally unprepared for the leave vote...as well as misleading info from both sides.

And now it seems no one wants to take responsibility and actually go thru with this...
...I mean.... what is a referendum....is it really binding? and do we really have to go thru with it ...can it be shut down in parliament.....This is being kicked around in the media....

 

[geordiecolin]

Please ask yourself this. Why should the UK be treated different than the rest of the 27 member states in the first place?

We where tricked into joining the EMS in the first place and I do not think that wwe should be treat any differently. We should not be in it and we will not be soon

 

[geordiecolin]

No it's no surprise so many people of from other countries in Europe give their opinions.

The EU needs the UK? Ha ha ha.

Let us see if Junker and the EU states are laughing in 6 months time when the UK are seen to be doing well which will pave the way for others to leave the EU.

 

[geordiecolin]

as weatherman and Harry have said.......years in the making....and totally unprepared for the leave vote...as well as misleading info from both sides.

And now it seems no one wants to take responsibility and actually go thru with this...
...I mean.... what is a referendum....is it really binding? and do we really have to go thru with it ...can it be shut down in parliament.....This is being kicked around in the media....

Theresa May said out means out and I suspect she is a closet euro sceptic anyhoo. As she is most likely to be our next PM I think the chance is zero on another referendum

 

[Harry_BKK]

Let us see if Junker and the EU states are laughing in 6 months time when the UK are seen to be doing well which will pave the way for others to leave the EU.

In 6 months you will be still in the EU. I'd give it 4-5 years to see significant changes if any

as weatherman and Harry have said.......years in the making....and totally unprepared for the leave vote...as well as misleading info from both sides.

And now it seems no one wants to take responsibility and actually go thru with this...
...I mean.... what is a referendum....is it really binding? and do we really have to go thru with it ...can it be shut down in parliament.....This is being kicked around in the media....

Theresa May said out means out and I suspect she is a closet euro sceptic anyhoo. As she is most likely to be our next PM I think the chance is zero on another referendum

The vote is legally not binding, because Cameron set it up like that. It needs to go through Parliament before it is official.

However, it is unlikely that it will fail that as in the current situation it would be political suicide for any MP that would vote against it.

 

[geordiecolin]

In 6 months you will be still in the EU. I'd give it 4-5 years to see significant changes if any






The vote is legally not binding, because Cameron set it up like that. It needs to go through Parliament before it is official.

However, it is unlikely that it will fail that as in the current situation it would be political suicide for any MP that would vote against it.

It would be political suicide to ignore the will of the people. And it is not really the long term effects that would be the immediate concern of a member state thinking of leaving but the short to medium term. The UK has already got over the first hurdle in reasonable shape with the economy doing much better than expected.

 

[Harry_BKK]

We where tricked into joining the EMS in the first place and I do not think that wwe should be treat any differently. We should not be in it and we will not be soon

You applied twice not once for your EEC membership after being rejected the first time.

And you joined the EMS much later than anybody else and left it after 2 years again, mainly because the GBP was not stable enough.

So are you sure you were tricked?

 

[Steviedoo]

If I'd voted for the exit....id be pretty pissed right now....campaign promises from the exit side not less than 24 hours have been retracted, denied.....

Immigration being the biggest issue as we are seeing here on the forum...and yet not 24 hours later it was denied that they could actually claw it back....


Does it even feel like you won....honestly.

 

[interlog]

You do think you still are the Great British Empire, do you? ....Well, that is how you come across when i read your post. In my view the world is going global, or better has gone already, and the UK decided to go national.

The percentage of exports/imports from/to Germany to/from the UK is only 7.5% of the total annual German exports and 4% of their total annual imports. Do you really think it will bring Germany, or in fact any other country, down if that is reduced even by 50%???

Further, German companies employ 7x more people in the UK than British companies in Germany. Hmmm, let's see what would happen if 50% of those decide to close their factories/offices in the UK. I bet the workers and their families would not be happy or better off because they are now outside the EU.

In fact the EU is more important to the UK as vice versa as appr. 45% of your exports go to the EU. Cut that off and you are toast.

The European markets suffered initially more because the Brexit brought uncertainty to 27 countries, not 1 as it is for the UK. They have all meanwhile recovered to near pre-vote levels. The shocking part is that you sound happy that the EU markets suffered more, like: "YES, we beat them again".

You always talk about the majority of the British people that voted LEAVE as if the vote was won by a massive margin...no, it was barely won with 52/48%. And it was won on the back of false promises and lies by your politicians:

- saved EU contributions go to the NHS - NO
- immigration/migration cut drastically - NO
- more jobs for the British, higher wages - NO
- ...list not complete

In fact your politicians did not have a plan at all on how to proceed in case the vote was LEAVE. They look now like the laughing stock of the planet.

The best joke is that you will have to negotiate a deal with the EU to have access to the EEA. You will end up still paying a contribution, you will end up still having to accept free movement of goods, capital, services and people - and have NO say in all of it. Great outlook!

Although I may live in the UK, I am not British, heck I even didn't have the opportunity to vote in the referendum.

Euro scepticism in not only alive in the UK, citizens of other European countries feel the same as the British people felt.

As to your point I was happy that the European markets suffered more than the FTSE did, that is certainly not the case. It is in nobodies interest for any market to collapse so I am not sure how you drew that conclusion. I was merely making the point that investors must have been thinking that Brexit would have a bigger impact on the continental European countries than that it had on the UK.

Exit from the EU doesn't mean that the UK suddenly becomes national rather than global.

 

[geordiecolin]

You applied twice not once for your EEC membership after being rejected the first time.

And you joined the EMS much later than anybody else and left it after 2 years again, mainly because the GBP was not stable enough.

So are you sure you were tricked?

All true. But during that time the public was assured that it was a purely economic venture