Well what a win that is!

[Workingman]

Later this year the UK will formally join the trading block CPTPP half way round the world.

It will "boost" the UK economy by 0.08% in ten years, yes, eight hundredths of one percent. Ah well, I suppose it will add to all the other crap deals we have made in cutting te 4% loss with countries just over the channel due to the madness of Brexit.

Those are official government figures btw.

I think I'll crack open a bottle of Bolly.

[Kaz]

Crackers, isn't it?

[Suff]

Erm, now back to reality.

The EU GDP is just over $17tn.
The CPTPP GDP, when the UK joins, will be just under $17tn.

OK the EU would be a lot bigger with the UK, but it doesn't have the UK.

Now who has applied to join CPTPP?

China. And what is the Chinese GDP? It is now $18tn. Big jump, the last I saw it was $14tn and less than the EU.
Taiwan. Half the GDP of the UK
Followed by Ecuador, costa rica and Uruguay

Who is making noises about joining?

Sourth Korea.
Thailand
The Philipines

Those three have a GDP about 2/3 of the UK.

It will not make that much of a change today. But over the next few decades more and more of our trade will flow that way. Making a far larger dent than 0.08%. I also believe these estimates are way off. If you follow GDP, the UK has grown faster than either Germany or France. Nearly twice the GDP growth of Germany and 3x the GDP growth of France.

All the nations of CPTPP are running higher growth than the EU. To which we will fit in nicely. If things continue the way they are going, by 2030 the GDP of the UK will be larger than the GDP of Germany. Making it the largest economy in Europe. It is already more than $1tn larger than Russia.

Remind me again, what was going to happen to our economy when we completed Brexit????

Yes we could do with a trade deal with the US and yes the US has pulled away from CPTPP with some fantasy wet dream of Biden's of creating a pan pacific trade zone which is the largest in the world. I suspect he doesn't have a hope in hell. So will come back down to earth some time soon. Leaving him with a decade of negotiations with the EU or 1-2 years with the UK and opening a wide trade deal with around 1/5th of the EU trade but also a country which may morph into 1/4 of EU trade.

This journey is Far from over.

[Workingman]

0.08% "boost" in ten years.

That's the reality. Your Tory government says so.

Fantasy figures about GDP, possibilities and whataboutery do not count.

[cruiser2]

I have sent a smal gift to America.
Does that increase the figure by a percentage point?

[cromwell]

One benefit of joining the CPTPP is that their laws are not automatically above ours, and we don't have to pay them billions a year for membership. Just saying.

[Workingman]

Ah the old "EU laws" chestnut.

You mean the rules and regulations pertaining to the operation of the single market and customs union. The ones we signed up to as a member of the club, some of which we proposed / instigated. The ones we had a say in. The ones we still have to abide by in order to trade with the EU, even though we have now left and have no say. Those "laws"?

The EU had little or no say in our Acts of parliament or statutory instruments for civil or common law - the real laws that govern us.

And you don't think that the CPTPP has rules? No, it's a free-for-all, anyone can do what they want!. And we already have bilateral trade deals with 9 of the 11 members. We are only missing out with that giant of an economy, Burundi, and the deforestation masters and Orang-utang killers of Malaysia.

I also wonder how it fits with the net zero fantasy now that we will be ding more trade half way round the world instead of just over the channel.

[cromwell]

Net zero is just getting worse.
There's a story in the Telegraph today about cows being fed methane suppressant to help meet net zero.

So now saving the planet rests on our ability to cure farting Fresians.

It's like being in the loony bin.

[Workingman]

I think it's burps not farts, but I get the drift.

I saw on one of those country or foodie programmes that they were going to be feeding cows on seaweed to reduce the burps. But cows live in fields miles from the sea so the seaweed has to be harvested and then processed in 50% gas powered, energy intense, factories before being transported in diesel lorries to the farms.

Hmm, I see a slight problem...

[Suff]

Hmm, I see a slight problem...

Well they can't turn us all into vegetarians so they want this sop.

Also there is the inconvenient truth.

A single cow will expel an average of 220 pounds of methane per year, according to the University of California, Davis.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency reports that a typical car will emit an average of 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Methane gas is nearly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to contributing to climate change, UC Davis reports.

Despite methane's potency, it only lasts for about 12 years in the atmosphere before a majority of it is removed through oxidation. Experts at UC Davis theorize that it’s possible the amount of methane that cows emit into the atmosphere is the same as the amount that breaks down..

This gets a bit complicated but bear with me.

There are 5.1m cows in the UK and each cow produces 100kg of methane per year. Which equates to 15.3m tonnes of CO2 per year. But only for the first 12 years. It then breaks down into .51m tonnes of CO2.

The cars however, 32m of them, emit 147.2m tonnes of CO2 and because that is CO2 and no breakdown is required, continues at the impact of 147.2m tonnes of CO2 for the next 1,000 years.

Of course the fix is to "reduce" 15m tonnes of CO2 by going god knows where and harvesting kelp then trucking it with these hugely emitting vehicles, to the cows so that we can feel good about ourselves.

That is the reality of this insanity. It is always good to know when someone is leading you up the garden path.

After all if we reduced the cars to Zero direct emissions and reduced the power production to 10% of existing emissions, we could then go get the kelp and feed it to the cows which would reduce emissions even further without a massive impact on the transport.

But, of course, that would be a bit of common sense wouldn't it? When I used to be in the ARMY in the REME we said that the REME was like manure. Spread it around and it did an amazing amount of good. But stick it in a heap and it just stinks. Our armoured workshops were just like that pile of manure and so are governments. The bigger the government, the bigger the pile.