GDPR and the EU-US Privacy Shield

It's interesting that the US-EU Privacy Shield has now been completely invalidated (which isn't a complete surprise).

The link in the email takes you to this PDF, which summarises the courts' decision.

Given that the UK is now separate (but still the same) regarding European Law it will be interesting to see how this decision is incorporated into UK law.

My money is on a US-UK trade agreement re-writing GDPR to become "what the US says and does is fine".

Germany vs UK Exports

So I just noticed that thanks to Brexit, we are now a full $1 trillion behind Germany in annual exports. A trillion. Well, almost, we are at $412.2 billion while Germany, from within the EU, is at $1,401 trillion. What's a few billion between friends?

The data for Germany is here, and for the UK is here.

It isn't just trading exports, Germany has a budget surplus, we have a deficit. Germany public debt stands at 65% of GDP, the UK at 85%. Credit rating is AAA (Stable) in Germany across the board, the UK mostly at AA and negative.

Wow. There's a massive reckoning coming ...

European political maps from 1950's

I was going through the boxes in my cupboard and stumbled upon my dad's school books. One of them, geography, had this fascinating map;

A European political map - from the mid-1950's, you'll notice Germany (pre-East/West split), Jugoslavia, and some east-European states (Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Estonia, etc.) absorbed into Russia.

It's not a second referendum ...

... it's a third. We've had two already, the next one will be the third.

That's just for the record.

And also, I think I can safely predict we'll be "getting over it" about as quickly as the Eurosceptics did in 1975. That was 67% to 32% and they still didn't "get over it" so I don't think with a 52% to 48% split we're going to be getting over it anytime soon.

On the plus side sometime in the latter half of this century we'll be good. Of course by then $1 will make you a £ millionaire ...