[HN Gopher] Amsterdam displaces London as Europe's top stocks ce...
___________________________________________________________________
Amsterdam displaces London as Europe's top stocks centre after
Brexit
Author : Someone
Score : 187 points
Date : 2021-02-11 20:33 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| dogma1138 wrote:
| My employer moved trading clearing and EU reporting to Amsterdam
| in 2019 and early 2020 that couldn't be done through the US via
| equivalence.
|
| It however did not move any jobs or even opened new positions in
| Amsterdam, we did grew out London headcount by about 800 people
| through both hiring and acquisitions.
| gropius wrote:
| Brexiteers have nothing but disdain for the City and finance.
| They're a know-nothing movement unswayed by economic research and
| proudly ignorant concerning, among a myriad of hard truths, the
| realities of operating in the modern global economy.
|
| They think with a simple wave of their plastic sovereignty wand,
| Britain will be magically restored to some fictional past where a
| dominant UK thrived in an economic self-sufficiency bubble. No
| banking sector or stock brokers required.
|
| Good bloody luck with that, mates.
| krona wrote:
| All the London traders I know are pro Brexit. 100%. People in
| compliance, 100% remain.
| specialist wrote:
| Huh. Given that the City will lose its preeminent spot in the
| world of finance, I assumed traders would be anti-Brexit.
| What's the (typical) trader's reasoning?
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| One would assume lack of oversight and regulation.
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Traders are gamblers, the city might not lose it's place,
| and they'll be riding a massive wave if that happens. Not a
| bad calculated risk.
| addicted wrote:
| That does not align with how London, which was ridiculously
| pro Remain, voted.
| nly wrote:
| It's not just finance though. The trade agreement between the
| EU and the UK only covers goods, but the UK economy is 80a%
| services...
| zx14 wrote:
| How many of those services are cross-border though? Does
| "services" include real estate agents and IT contractors?
| specialist wrote:
| I've not yet heard what the pro-Brexit faction gets from this?
| I mean who are the people who stand to gain? Based on the
| theory that people are motivated by self-interest.
|
| Putin financed the campaign to sow chaos (just like w/ Trump).
| Murdock monetizes outrage (again, just like w/ Trump).
| Neoreactionaries such as the Mercers are against any power
| apart from their own. Boris and maybe the Tories have longed
| been anti EU, Brexit is just a bludgeon (wedge issue) for
| elections.
|
| But I don't understand which stakeholders will actually
| materially benefit from Brexit.
|
| Especially once Scotland leaves the UK and rejoins the EU on
| their own.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Scotland needs independence, badly.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I concur with that assessment 100%. It's quite shaming how it's
| all been handled. Even worse, I've had to take German
| citizenship to keep my European internet domains.
| neximo64 wrote:
| At least theres good reason for London to reform a bit more &
| become competitive, like stamp duty on stocks is a bit silly.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Isn't this probably good news for everyone that doesn't work in
| finance? London has become essentially unaffordable for regular
| Britons, partially because of finance salaries driving up living
| costs (similar situation to SF, from what I understand.)
| gman83 wrote:
| Amsterdam housing prices are going through the roof with all
| the expats moving in.
| redisman wrote:
| Amsterdam seems pretty ill-suited for a large population
| increase. Like San Francisco but worse because you have much
| stricter restrictions for almost all of the downtown area.
| enaaem wrote:
| Note that Netherlands is small and has pretty good public
| transport. You can live in the neighbouring towns and be in
| the centre of Amsterdam in 15 minutes by train.
| wyuenho wrote:
| I think in general, a nation not overly reliant on just one
| industry that doesn't actually produce anything tangible is
| probably a healthy thing in the long run. To a very similar
| extent, Hong Kong is largely the same as London, the city
| doesn't even know how to make anything other than ramen
| anymore. 25 years ago, that city made CPUs, not it's completely
| beholden by mainland capital.
| harperlee wrote:
| Funny that everybody was guessing Paris or Frankfurt and
| Amsterdam won.
| alexpotato wrote:
| I would be curious to get the opinion of someone Dutch on the
| below:
|
| I was once chatting with a co-worker about why English is so
| prevalent in the Netherlands and, particularly, why Dutch people
| tend to speak English with American accents.
|
| My co-workers theory: it's because American English was heavily
| influenced by Dutch speakers in colonial times. e.g. New York was
| once New Amsterdam
|
| My theory: in the Netherlands (at least in the 1990s), American
| TV shows were not dubbed but had subtitles instead. This allowed
| teenagers who watched American shows to learn English but with an
| American accent.
|
| Open to other thoughts and suggestions.
| Vinnl wrote:
| The accent is really usually more of a Dutch accent than it is
| an American one, though I guess that's closer to the American
| one than to the British one [1]. I'm not sure if it's been
| researched, but what would seem to be the obvious reason is
| that we just hear a lot more spoken American English than
| British English, on TV, on the radio, and online.
|
| [1] If you don't mind TikTok, this is an interesting
| comparison:
| https://www.tiktok.com/@rogierbakcomedy/video/69224330661409...
| gerdesj wrote:
| American English is frankly archaic! The English accents of the
| modern US are far closer to the English accent of the 1700s
| than modern en_GB.
|
| I am a British army brat and we used to watch a fair bit of
| Dutch TV when stationed in West Germany back in the '70s/'80s
| for that reason - subtitled. Mmmm ... Vara!
|
| The accent thing is very complicated. The US has had a lot of
| inputs over the last few centuries and don't forget the locals
| who were already there. I suggest that the Dutch accent
| informed the American one accents rather than the other way
| around. Belgium of course also contributes there. English
| spoken by a Belgian also sounds more left pondian than right.
| That said, I have met folk from both the Netherlands and
| Belgium who can deploy pretty convincing generic en_GB or en_US
| sounding accents as required. My dad's driver at our last
| posting in Bracht in Germany near to Roermond in the
| Netherlands was able to speak German, Dutch and English well
| enough to fool native speakers of all of them. We are still in
| touch nearly 40 years later 8)
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| It's my understanding (and if I'm wrong it looks like I'll be
| corrected) but Dutch English classes teach en_GB and you have
| to be an expat American child to have your en_US ways
| tolerated. So if Dutch people sound American they must not be
| getting it in class.
| jstsch wrote:
| You are right. Back in the early 90ies, in primary and high
| school, I often got in conflict about this with my English
| teachers. Distinctly remember being around 10 years old,
| and arguing with my poor teacher, that US English would be
| a much more useful standard for Dutch students to learn :)
|
| PS: So starting age 8 I learned English from adventure
| games and a bit later from shows like Star Trek TNG (BBC!).
| Starting written versus verbal (often using a dictionary to
| find the right words to type with those Sierra text
| interfaces) did mean that some of my pronunciation was
| totally off -- I'd simply never heard most words spoken
| before :)
| nemoniac wrote:
| Dutch speaker here (but without such an American accent).
|
| Dutch people tend to speak English with American accents
| because they hear most of their English from American TV,
| movies and Netflix series. I'll leave it to the linguists to
| debunk any suggestion that Dutch speakers had more than a
| marginal influence on American English.
| 6510 wrote:
| Yankees Jan Kees?
| nemoniac wrote:
| If you can think of another couple of examples, you'll
| persuade me to change the word 'marginal' to 'minimal' ;-)
| WJW wrote:
| Pretty easy if you look at nautical lingo: captain is
| taken from kapitein, also anker/anchor and lijn/line,
| etc. My favorite etymological explanation:
|
| Back in the day the rudder had not yet been invented, so
| they used a slightly oversized oar to steer (dutch:
| stuur) the ship. It was not practical to fasten it
| exactly in the middle, so it would have to be either on
| the right or the left side of the ship. Because most
| helmsmen were right-handed, the oar usually got fastened
| to the right side, which was henceforth known as the
| stuur-boord, literally the board of the ship that the
| steering oar was fastened to. Because the uu-vowel
| doesn't do too well in English, it got turned into
| starboard, which is still used today. Coincidentally,
| because the steering oar was in the way when mooring the
| ship it became customary to moor the ship on the 'left'
| side. This then became known as the 'port' side because
| the port was always on that side.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| presumably these are Dutch influences on English, not
| specifically American English? We've been interacting
| with our Dutch neighbours for hundreds of years,
| especially at sea.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| Reasonable.
|
| Jag styr min bat. Jag styr pa styrbord. I steer my boat.
| I steer on starboard.
|
| The Swedish styr is pretty much like the English steer
| but rounded instead of flat, if that makes sense, and
| means the same. And bord can be a board.
|
| So, steering board.
| yread wrote:
| bakkerij -> bakery (instead of bakers)
| [deleted]
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I think there are two big reasons.
|
| First, the American accent is actually how English was spoken
| in England until the 1800's. What you have with American
| English is the US retaining the older style of English while
| British English evolved differently.
|
| Now, with Netherlands, England and Netherland were very closely
| linked throughout the late 1600's and especially the early
| 1700's. They were both Protestant powers, fighting various wars
| against Louis XIV and his Catholic France. In addition, at one
| point, they even shared a leader, William of Orange who became
| King William of England in 1688. Later in the century, they
| diverged.
|
| Thus, you have the same phenomenon that you had with the United
| States, they both retain the old English pronunciation from the
| time when both were much closer to England. British English
| evolved differently, leaving both Dutch English and American
| English much closer to each other than British English.
| u678u wrote:
| I have a Dutch side to my family. The Netherlands has always
| been a very outward-looking, global, trading nation. It was a
| global colonial power and has large multi-national companies.
| My uncles told me the government always recognized that to be
| prosperous it needed to interact with other countries and it
| always encouraged multi-linguism and language education in
| schools. I'm sure having foreign movies without dubbing is
| deliberate. (And efficient too!)
| bitsoda wrote:
| Your theory jibes with my own account at the Heineken
| Experience in Amsterdam. I asked one of the tour guides if he
| was an American expat, and told me he just watched a lot of
| "Full House" growing up as a kid.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| It's the latter.
|
| Source: Dutch person who grew up on Ricky Lake, Jerry Springer,
| Dr Phil, Bevery Hills 90210 & much much more in the 90's.
| ketzo wrote:
| They're also just very phonetically similar languages; as an
| American who visited Amsterdam, hearing other people having
| conversations in Dutch was incredibly disorienting, because
| from a distance it sounded _just_ like American English, except
| that I would try to focus on their conversation and realize
| that I didn 't understand any of the individual words they were
| saying!
|
| Basically, in my (very limited) experience, a Dutch accent was
| bizarrely similar to an American accent.
| johncessna wrote:
| Based off the way New Yorkers and folks from Boston talk, I
| don't think the 'American Accent' is close to what it was back
| when NY was still New Amsterdam.
| thijsvandien wrote:
| I'm not sure about the accent--it's not strongly American but
| definitely not British either (comes off a little posh around
| here)--but I did learn most of my English through Cartoon
| Network with subs.
| BjoernKW wrote:
| Apart from and emphasising what others have already mentioned:
| American English (AE) is a rhotic English, essentially meaning
| that the letter 'r' is pronounced when it occurs at the end of
| a syllable (whereas with many British English or Southern
| hemisphere accents it isn't).
|
| The Dutch 'r' phoneme sounds similar to the AE one. Hence,
| Dutch English speakers will naturally sound more American even
| if they don't have an American accent (which might indeed very
| well be the case due to said influence from American TV shows).
| diroussel wrote:
| French, Spanish and italian speakers find it hard to pronounce
| English words as English contains sounds not present in their
| languages. But Flemish/Dutch languages have a superset of the
| English sounds. So it's hard for an English speaker to
| pronounce Flemish sounds, but easy for Flemish/Dutch speakers
| to pronounce English words.
|
| So they start from a position of strength, and then there is
| plentiful expose to English from a young age as a bonus.
| u678u wrote:
| This is meaningless, the algos and traders are still in London &
| NY, just the server is in Amsterdam.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| For how long are the traders going to be in London though?
| u678u wrote:
| Why would they move? Sure things are getting less centralized
| just like big financials are slowly moving from NY, but the
| heart of the city has no reason to move.
| abbadadda wrote:
| Firms move. Then people move. Check out MiFID2
| (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mifid-ii.asp). Firms
| used to be able to satisfy ~~German~~ EU regulations to
| trade on Eurex, German futures exchange, with HQs in
| London. Not so after Brexit leaves the UK no longer in the
| EU.
| u678u wrote:
| Yes mifid was implemented 3 years ago. How many firms
| moved because of it? zero.
| blibble wrote:
| the servers haven't moved here either, they're all still in the
| UK
|
| they're now simply operated by a different legal entity
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Not even that. I believe the servers for the Amsterdam stock
| exchange are in Basildon.
| u678u wrote:
| Lol that doesn't surprised me, classic.
| krona wrote:
| Once The UK lifts the Swiss share trading ban (due to EU
| restrictions) I can see this 'trend' reversing pretty quickly.
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-09/u-k-to-li...
|
| It remains the case that the 4 most competitive financial centres
| in Europe aren't in the EU (Global Financial Centres Index).
| That's likely to continue once London and Zurich form closer
| ties.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > The EU has shown no sign of reversing its position that euro-
| denominated shares must be traded in the EU - whose internal
| market Britain left on Jan. 1.
|
| Was that ever a possibility ?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| In brexiteer quarters, the expectation was that the whole EU
| would have collapsed by now and they'd be begging us (I'm a
| brit) to take their money and thanking us for being right all
| along and agreeing to work in pounds and furlongs...
| jjgreen wrote:
| Pounds, _shillings_ and furlongs ...
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Pounds, shillings and pennies if you please. A furlong is a
| unit of distance, not monetary.
| [deleted]
| secondcoming wrote:
| Could London invent an equivalent of a ADR?
| tcldr wrote:
| Will be interesting to see how this plays out for London long-
| term.
|
| Obviously there's been massive fallout, businesses decimated, and
| I'd personally have preferred we stayed in the EU - but it seems
| to me we're yet to see what the ultimate result for London will
| be.
|
| The touted 'Singapore of the West' idea is what many say Brexit
| was all about, and if that takes place it could even strengthen
| London's position as a global financial hub and playground of the
| rich and famous.
|
| In any case, the losers of Brexit will be many of the very people
| who voted for it who will see public services further cut to pay
| for ultra low corporation tax.
|
| We'll find out soon enough.
| splintercell wrote:
| > In any case, the losers of Brexit will be many of the very
| people who voted for it who will see public services further
| cut to pay for ultra low corporation tax.
|
| This is a very traditionally left view of the society. The
| problem with it isn't that its leftist, but that it is blind
| towards the opposing side (i.e. most people saying these things
| would fail ideological Turing test).
|
| Believe it or not, but people may care more than "who's getting
| rich". EU seems to erode their (Brexit supporters) national
| identity.
|
| If you ask, "but why do they care about their national identity
| MORE than them benefiting from things individually", well its
| for the same reason why from the same group people join the
| military.
| tcldr wrote:
| > Believe it or not, but people may care more than "who's
| getting rich". EU seems to erode their (Brexit supporters)
| national identity.
|
| I'm still not sure I'd call them winners - but if that's what
| they want who am I to tell them otherwise.
| abbadadda wrote:
| Who is touting a "Singapore of the West" idea?
| tcldr wrote:
| https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/08/12/boris-johnsons-
| rea...
| TobyBrull wrote:
| Actually, we'll never find out who the winners and losers of
| Brexit were.
| tcldr wrote:
| Yes, I suppose you're right! But we'll certainly see which
| predictions were closest to the mark.
| lostlogin wrote:
| What do you mean by this? That'll take a long time to play
| out?
| TobyBrull wrote:
| I believe that things like this are simply unknowable by
| any rational take because we're dealing with an
| extraordinary complex system.
|
| To make a statement like "These were the winners or losers
| of Brexit" you'd have to clone the universe at the point of
| the Brexit vote, change the outcome of the vote, and let
| this parallel universe run forward in time. Then you could
| compare that parallel universe to our universe and see who
| is better off and who not. This is, of course, not possible
| as far as we know and probably never will be.
|
| Going in after some number of years and observing that
| certain parts of the population are better or worse off
| conflates a ridiculous number of things.
|
| So, in conclusion, statements like "Brexit was bad/good for
| low/high income households in the UK" are always and
| exclusively made for political purposes. Which is OK. But
| let's not pretend this has anything to do with science.
| f430 wrote:
| I still struggle to see the positives of Brexit, this seems like
| a major setback for Britain's economy, how could they have not
| seen this coming and still had the political determination to
| follow through with something against their economic interests?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Some people would rather be a big fish in a small pond than a
| small fish in a big one.
| bsd44 wrote:
| Are you really that naive to believe none of this had been
| calculated? The decision to leave didn't come on a whim, it's
| been in the works for a decade if not longer. The British are
| probably the most cunning of all nations and they know very
| well what they are doing. There will be setbacks in the short-
| term, but the UK as a whole will be much better off outside EU.
| I am European before people start accusing me of being a
| Brexiteer.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| As a British person I think you are giving us far too much
| credit. The whole thing has been driven by an unpleasant
| cocktail of ignorance, xenophobia, nostalgia for a lost
| empire and a sprinkle of disaster capitalism. There is no
| cunning masterplan.
| bsd44 wrote:
| There is a plan and you will see the results of it as soon
| as in the next 10-15 years. European Union is a failed
| experiment and the British have realised that. It acts as a
| union only on paper, in reality it's a complete disaster
| and sooner rather than later it will collapse like
| Yugoslavia. The British saw through that and decided to
| leave the sinking ship. Good for them, I wish my country
| never joined the EU in the first place.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| There hasn't been a war between Britain, France and
| Germany in 75 years. That is quite a success in my book.
| Jefff8 wrote:
| There are several prevailing schools of thought:
|
| - True hard-core Brexiteers really do care about sovereignty.
| They are nationalists.They want nobody but themselves to have
| any element of control. If that means the destruction of the
| economy, they are fine with that, like nationalists everywhere.
|
| - The Conservative party has been interested in the idea of the
| UK as Singapore-upon-Thames. Partly this is about reducing the
| role of the state (and thus taxes, one might think) and partly
| about re-introducing a vibrant manufacturing economy. Many of
| the people who punted this idea are also Brexiteers. Being a
| member of the EU was a barrier to establishing a low-wage
| economy that can compete with the East. They view the EU as
| outdated because it's a rule-based organisation. There are
| rules on social standards, product safety, animal health and a
| huge array of other matters. These people will tolerate
| temporary economic setbacks (ten years?) in the pursuit of jam
| in the future.
|
| - Opportunists. People who are motivated by power, and will be
| wherever there's the opportunity to be in control. They will
| sacrifice anybody else in its pursuit.
| prewett wrote:
| If the Conservatives think Singapore's state plays a small
| role, they must be thinking about some mythical Singapore,
| because the real one is pretty authoritarian (although it
| seems to act for the public good) and fairly involved. Also,
| I think it is easier to have "good" government of a city-
| state size with a homogeneous population than for something
| an order of magnitude more people and with a non-homogenous
| population.
|
| Based on my British Brexit friend, I suggest another school
| of thought: concern for sovereignty but not nationalist. The
| EU rules requiring free movement result in people from poorer
| countries willing to work for lower wages depress wages for
| British people. Also, the free movement is essentially
| unlimited immigration and the society can't absorb as many
| immigrants as have been coming.
| dekervin wrote:
| Thanks for putting those points in a very coherent framework.
| Looked at it this way, it's quite an asymmetric gamble.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| why do there need to be "schools of thought" about the
| opposition when people could just ask them? Seems to me to be
| another instance of the political echo-chambers around
| contentious issues like Brexit. We'd have much better
| political perspectives if both sides talked to each other
| instead of theorising about the other side in their own
| bubbles.
|
| Ironic given that Corbyn was also Eurosceptic - Brexit was a
| bipartisan issue with pro/con arguments on both sides of the
| aisle.
| detaro wrote:
| I think it's more "schools of thought" inside the pro-
| Brexit groups? (although missing any pro-closely-aligned-
| Brexit groups, since those got pretty pushed out the
| solution space in the last years)
| beaconstudios wrote:
| If that's meant to be the schools of thought for pro-
| Brexit groups, it's sorely lacking. Though it goes
| unsurprisingly under-reported, there were many different
| reasons I heard when talking to people about their
| support for Brexit, ranging from critiques of EU's
| fundamentally neoliberal nature, to its bureaucratic
| inefficiency, to issues of decentralisation of power,
| issues of tall hierarchies being too one-size-fits-all,
| the EU's future if the federalist factions take power,
| and so on. And that's just the handful of people I spoke
| to at the time, plus some casual listening to
| campaigners.
|
| Even the idea that Brexit was driven by nationalism,
| while at least partially true, doesn't really dive into
| what nationalism means in this context - it's usually
| just used as a no-no word.
| detaro wrote:
| I think there's also a mechanism of the extremist positions
| driving politics. E.g. Brexiteers that e.g. opposed the trend
| towards further centralization in the EU wanted out of some
| of the political influence sphere, but were in favor of e.g.
| strong alignment on industry and goods (I think Grayling at
| some point said that he "didn't campaign for Brexit for the
| right to produce motors slightly differently"). But May
| didn't get that done (and put herself in a bad spot in many
| ways by putting out statements then having to walk them
| back), and lost out to more hardliner positions. And the
| opposition was also quite useless in helping a closely-
| aligned Brexit along (or even having a clear position at all,
| since it was also split between positions). Some argue that
| if the energy that went into trying to re- or undo the
| referendum had gone into getting a closer-aligned Brexit done
| during Mays time, that could have happened. But it didn't,
| and everyone looked bad while Boris promised whatever he
| wanted.
| iguy wrote:
| I think some would argue that sovereignty allows better
| decisions. There are those that want it solely for its own
| symbolic sake, as you say, but there are also those who think
| local democracy is the right level to make most decisions.
|
| They are the ones currently pointing at the vaccination
| story, where the UK has done much better than the EU, and
| would argue that this isn't an accident, that local
| accountability helps.
| f430 wrote:
| > Singapore-upon-Thames
|
| what does this mean?
| detaro wrote:
| There is the idea of Singapore as a small plucky low-tax,
| small-government country that's extremely high growth and
| well-off by being at "the gates to Asia" as a trade and
| manufacturing hub.
|
| And the idea is that an independent UK could be the same
| for the (slow, inflexible) EU. Which ignores that Singapore
| actually has high government investments in industries and
| does the hub role so well because it has good trade
| integration with its neighbors. Which the UK had in the EU,
| but could only expect to keep in a Brexit that strongly
| aligns it with EU policy (which would stop it from giving
| too much preferential treatment to its own industries etc)
| float4 wrote:
| For starters the British have a decent vaccination rate at the
| moment. Vaccination in the EU is quite abysmal so far.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It was put to a popular referendum. For better or worse, those
| don't always result in the best (for themselves) outcome as
| many people (maybe even most) vote more on emotion than reason.
| If it had been left to the government to establish this policy,
| they likely wouldn't have followed through _or_ they would have
| had a further out deadline, to allow the transition to new
| treaties and agreements that would 've helped preserve the
| positive aspects of their pre-Brexit relationship with the EU.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Well, The EU has played a blinder here.
|
| They managed to take a massive leap towards a banking union _and_
| almost certainly wrestle financial power away from london.
|
| The EU managed to force the swiss to accept freedom of movement
| in exchange for market access, we know that the EU drives a hard
| price for market access.
|
| We also know that the UK is too fucking proud to admit that its
| just lost 10% of its tax base. It'll certainly not openly accept
| any "loss of sovereignty" to get access to the EU's market.
|
| Not only this, but the EU have managed to make the UK pay to
| annex Northern Ireland. All without a war (yet)
| [deleted]
| noncoml wrote:
| IMHO one of the main reasons London was so popular with the rest
| of the Europeans, was the language. So I am not surprised to see
| Amsterdam picking up, as you can get away pretty well with just
| English in Netherlands.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Same applies to Scandinavia yet Copenhagen or Stockholm are not
| Amsterdam.
|
| The reason Amsterdam took the spot was it has been historically
| very _" tax friendly"_ to corporations, shall we say, to the
| point where most foreign conglomerates and even the French
| Airbus and the Swedish IKEA have set up their holding companies
| there.
| foepys wrote:
| Dutch people don't want to hear this but the Netherlands are
| a tax haven just like Ireland. Luxembourg and Switzerland
| aren't actually that attractive for tax avoidance anymore.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| That's why they call the big tax avoidance move "Double
| Irish With a Dutch Sandwich"
| float4 wrote:
| Most Dutch left-wing voters have been acknowledging this
| for many years now. It's very often been publicly
| criticised in Dutch media as well.
|
| Google "Nederland belastingparadijs" and you'll find a lot
| of Dutch articles about it.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Yeah, I guess it's not fair that the Dutch taxpayers and
| the small/medium sized companies there have to foot the
| bill for running the country while the trillion+ dollar
| Apples of the world pay next to nothing.
| tw20212021 wrote:
| It's not. Actually the government will bend backwards
| just to keep the big companies in the country, while
| hunting down regular tax payers - https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand... . The tax laws
| here are ambiguous so that the tax man can judge to his
| liking whether you are friend or foe.
| gerdesj wrote:
| The UK has only just Brexited. There's a fair chance that
| tax rates will be looked at. Bear in mind that there's now
| an economy roughly the same size as France parked up off
| the coast of mainland Europe which has just had the safety
| catch taken off.
|
| I wonder if the "Double Dutch Irish sandwich" or whatever
| it's called will get a British tinge soon enough.
|
| I voted Remain FWIW. That seems an awfully long time ago.
| nly wrote:
| If Britain attempts this, the deal struck on goods with
| the EU will be unilaterally pulled. Any hope for
| agreement on financial services will always vaporise
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| Why they don't want to hear this ? Isn't it something the
| Dutch people should be very proud of ?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I guess, if you're a citizen and a taxpayer there trying
| to make a living and you see your government letting the
| big corps pay nothing in taxes but you gotta pay your
| taxes to keep the lights on in the country then it's a
| tough pill to swallow.
| ragebol wrote:
| Am Dutch, not proud of this at all.
|
| We just had our cabinet fall over a huge scandal in which
| the tax authority incorrectly reclaimed thousands of
| euro's from quite vulnerable people and ruined lives. But
| also wanted to cut dividend tax for ~<billion euro/year.
| Worst thing is, the same parties that are responsible for
| this mess are likely to be reelected.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Why don't they want to hear this? It's not really a secret,
| I'm pretty sure they know it.
|
| I'm not Dutch, but a near zero-tax policy (for the big
| players), with a stable low-corruption government, easy
| bureaucracy, EU and NATO member, a huge harbor, top
| infrastructure plus a highly skilled workforce and easy
| immigration policy is bound to attract every company out
| there.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Knowing something and wanting to acknowledge it are two
| entirely different things.
| yulaow wrote:
| Dutch economists in EU institutions typically ask for
| higher taxes and austerity for the rest of the eu nations
| while trying to not talk about the zero-tax policy they
| themselves apply to corporation + laws that help in tax
| avoidance for corps with legal hq there.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Why don't they want to hear this? It's not really a
| secret, I'm pretty sure they know it.
|
| This is like the EU version of a Californian saying those
| dastardly Texans should be ashamed of their low taxes
| when BigCo announces they're moving to Texas.
|
| It's a backhanded way of implying that it's not a good
| thing or that they should be ashamed or whatever.
| dep_b wrote:
| Because for the plebs it's anything but a tax haven
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Ireland is English-speaking and tax-friendly but it is not
| Amsterdam.
| [deleted]
| sebmellen wrote:
| Yes, an important point. This is one thing the Netherlands is
| far better at than Germany (Frankfurt). I think it's because
| Dutch is spoken by rather few people globally, whereas German
| has ~100m speakers, so the pressure to learn English there
| isn't as strong.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| It's also because Dutch is closer to English. Frisian is the
| closest language to Old English.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Unfortunately modern English is rather different to Old
| English. I can read later Middle English (Chaucer to
| Shakespear) with some difficulty but Old English is very
| hard.
|
| The WP page on Frisian Languages has this to say early on:
| "However, modern English and Frisian are not mutually
| intelligible, nor are Frisian languages intelligible among
| themselves, due to independent linguistic innovations and
| foreign influences."
|
| To give you a tiny idea of what we are up against here
| consider the name of the town I live in: Yeovil. When I
| first came here I thought - French obvs! Yeo-ville ie the
| town on the river Yeo. Hmm how wrong can I get: actually it
| was called Gifle in the 500s or so, which means "bend in
| the river" in a Saxonish language long gone - that's your
| old Frisian/German/Dutch/Angle thing. Morph the G into a Y
| and the f into a v, throw in a vowel shift and squint a bit
| and there you go. There are over 60 spellings recorded for
| this little town, including Euwell, Evill, Ivel and
| Gevelle. The local rugby team is called the Ivel
| Barbarians. The river is actually named after the town,
| which is named for a feature in the river! In Germany there
| is a town called Wegburg (I had my ears operated on in the
| hospital there in the '70s) and in England there is a town
| called Weybury - that one is easy to work out.
|
| Now pull back and look at modern English, Dutch, the
| Frisian collection of languages, German etc ie all the
| languages that are collected together as "Germanic". They
| are all rather different these days. I can't even pronounce
| van Gogh properly despite having a Dutchman repeatedly
| telling me how (something like "fan hoch"). I can say
| Moenchengladbach well enough but lets face it the name is
| pretty obvious even if you ignore the umlaut and the ch
| sound at the end - both sounds don't exist in modern
| English. I failed German O level but on the bright side I
| also failed French too.
| smcl wrote:
| I don't know how correct this is linguistically, but it
| rings true for me anecdotally. The company I work for is
| headquartered in Amsterdam and when I hear my Dutch
| colleagues talking to each other some snippets have an
| eerily English feel in terms of their rhythm, tone and
| sound[0]. The best way I can describe it is by reference to
| this image:
| https://twitter.com/melip0ne/status/1120503955526750208 -
| it's composed of familiar looking blobs, but after a few
| seconds you know you don't recognise it at all and your
| pattern-matching circuits are just being a bit over-eager.
| That's the feeling I often get when I hear Dutch.
|
| [0] - of course the "gh" sound is not present in English so
| when that pops up you are immediately jolted back to
| reality. It's not even like the Scots "ch", it's further
| down the throat.
| [deleted]
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| I think another reason is that kids tv shows used to be
| broadcasted with English dubs and Dutch subs. That's how many
| kids learned English, myself included.
|
| Sadly they've moved away from that practice. Everything's
| Dutch dubbed now.
| taurath wrote:
| A crazy stat for me is that as a percentage of population
| more people in the Netherlands speak English than do in the
| US. When people in the US ask me for recommendations as to
| where to go in Europe I suggest the Netherlands first
| because it's so incredibly easy to get around with just
| English.
| Fnoord wrote:
| They were dubbed for the very young back 30 years ago, and
| still are.
|
| I prefer to watch in original language (often means English
| though I am quite fond of German cinema) with English subs.
| But my mother (~70) would prefer Dutch subs, Dutch dub, or
| Dutch movie.
|
| Its fantastic we got so much choice. Perfect to practice
| another language, dabble into it. As already mentioned
| though, defaults matter.
| actuator wrote:
| I would imagine that now English content would be even more
| easy to obtain as most mediums now support multiple
| languages flawlessly.
| jakub_g wrote:
| Defaults matter.
| kazen44 wrote:
| Also, video games tended to not be translated into dutch.
| Mainly because it is suchs a small language. Me and most of
| my peers learned most english from playing video games and
| watching movies and tv shows with subtitels, mostly because
| spoken dutch was not available.
| mamon wrote:
| 100m of German speakers are concentrated in three neighbor
| countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland. It's not like a
| German can go to a different continent and find people
| speaking their language (like a Spanish or French person
| would). I don't really understand their unwillingness to
| learn foreign languages - is it just their pride? :)
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| They definitely learn, it is Europe after all, they just
| don't use it as much for business.
| kazen44 wrote:
| Also, in my experience, learning english to do bussiness
| with other european who also learn english mainly for
| bussiness purposes gives a different kind of language
| then learning english for everyday use. see also "euro
| english"[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English
| orange_tee wrote:
| No, it has nothing to do with that. It's policy driven. The
| Dutch realized they can get in on what the UK was getting if
| they swallowed their pride and started speaking more English
| and allowing English as a language of business.
|
| Germans are too proud and expect the world to start speaking
| German instead.
|
| I lived in both countries, Germans have equally good English,
| but you would struggle to use English in official capacity in
| Germany. Whereas in the Netherlands they are very
| accommodating, and not because they are kinder. They do this
| on purpose, cause they know they can (and did in fact)
| attract a lot of foreign money that way.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Dutch language is relatively close to English.
|
| Dutch people learn English at young age. British English at
| school.
|
| Tech industry practically has English as main language. It
| is not like that in Germany or French.
|
| Dutch people are used to focus on trade with foreign
| countries. Helps if you speak the language. Youth learn
| Dutch, English, French and German at school.
|
| Finally, Allies liberated us from the Germans. We remained
| on friendly terms with each other, though NL is not part of
| FVEY.
|
| Contrast to French and Germsn, which are both still
| important languages in both Europe and the World; Dutch is
| irrelevant...
| [deleted]
| arkitaip wrote:
| The quality of spoken English in Germany is mediocre at
| best and often non-existing or terrible with adults. At
| least it was two years ago when I visited.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Hmmm, I haven't found it to be true that Germans and Dutch
| people speak English equally well. There really is a
| pronounced difference, especially in the older generations,
| but also in younger generations. I speak German when in
| Germany, so of course I have some bias, but there is
| evidence to back this up [1].
|
| As for how intentional it is, your theory seems plausible.
| That said, I don't know of any real evidence for it -- even
| if it is an organized conspiracy, most normal Dutch
| citizens aren't aware of it.
|
| [1]: https://www.wittenborg.eu/netherlands-top-english-
| speaking-c...
| Tarsul wrote:
| If you were using the same arguments about the French
| instead of the Germans, I'd agree. However, for (us)
| Germans I wouldn't say it's so much proudness as it is
| about having a huge market by itself (like GP said) and
| also its industries are very strong, meaning Germany
| doesn't have to rely on being a tax haven or its financial
| services as much as other countries. I do agree that
| Germans have a certain proudness but arguably since WW2 we
| are also more humbled than we probably were before and it
| still shows (also because of how much we are being humbled
| by our education and also by our media culture. Not as much
| as the Japanese, though :)).
| m00dy wrote:
| I spent considerable amount of time in both countries and I
| can clearly say that Germans are not even close to Dutch in
| their english or willingness to learn english. I don't even
| want to talk about technology adoption in Germany. That is
| another discussion.
|
| Top best english speakers are either Dutch or Swedish in
| mainland Europe.
| [deleted]
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's actually the Danes, without question, but they seem
| to rate themselves poorly in the self-surveys that
| produce these "No. 1 in English" rankings.
|
| Office-job professionals in all three countries are very
| good, but for the best chance of the bus driver, kiosk
| owner, refuse collector, window cleaner, passing
| pensioner and drunk punk to speak English, head to
| Denmark.
| m00dy wrote:
| I live in Copenhagen at this moment :)
| addicted wrote:
| That's an argument for Dublin. Not only do you get English, you
| also have a simple transition because the ROI has easy access
| to both the EU and the UK even post Brexit.
|
| While English may be an advantage in other areas, I suspect the
| main reason the financial industry will gravitate towards
| Amsterdam is its history and therefore presence of skill in
| financial areas.
|
| The Netherlands is after all the birthplace of capitalism,
| corporations and free markets.
| thijsvandien wrote:
| That's true for the country as a whole, but in Amsterdam lots
| of people don't even speak Dutch at all. It was a rather
| bizarre experience for me to go to a coffee place and order in
| my native language, only to get frowned upon--English only!
| dep_b wrote:
| Especially given the words for the coffee you order are
| exactly the same.
|
| Koffie <-> coffee
|
| And the rest is Italian, French or English anyway
|
| "Mag ik een >koffie< en een >croissant<?" - why do I have to
| repeat myself in English to ask for a >coffee< and a
| >croissant<?
| sgt wrote:
| Also, the availability of fries with mayo must count for
| something.
| ourcat wrote:
| Also very popular in Belgium.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| But Belgium is not a country.
| raphaelj wrote:
| Ok
| m00dy wrote:
| For the record: French fries are from Belgium
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Oh the hilarity of that one... French people like to joke
| about belgian people being fries eater: anytime I hear
| that kind of joke I ask the french person "Do you know
| what 'frites' are called in most of the world and how
| they'll be called for posterity?".
|
| The irony (as in "ironie du sort" / twist of fate) and
| the poetic justice of that one is plain delicious: the
| french have long made fun of the belgian for being fries
| eater, but the fate of the french is that fries in
| english are forever going to be known as french fries.
|
| It cracks me up to no end : )
| ourcat wrote:
| Over here in the UK, "French Fries" came over from
| America with fast food restaurants in the 80s.
|
| Outside of those places, we call them "Chips" - though
| they tend to be a lot fatter than 'fries'.
|
| And then 'Chips' is the American name for what we call
| 'Crisps'.
|
| You say potato, I say potato, etc. ;)
| sebmellen wrote:
| Wow, overtaking Frankfurt... Can't fault the traders, it is a
| much nicer city.
| guerby wrote:
| Bike power :)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aESqrP3hfi8
|
| "Why Dutch Bikes are Better (and why you should want one)"
|
| By "Not Just bikes" (excellent as usual).
| sebmellen wrote:
| Haha -- as a German, whenever I visit the Netherlands I'm
| verbally assaulted by Dutch friends asking for their bikes
| back (an artefact of WW2, when Nazi forces stole Dutch bikes
| for metal).
|
| I do like Dutch bikes quite a lot...
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| You could swap Dutch with Danish and the video would be
| mostly the same. I still need to learn how to bike and
| Copenhagen isn't really kind to newbs.
| redisman wrote:
| I do wonder how they'll cope with a large migration there. It's
| a very short and restricted building area.
| secondcoming wrote:
| I spent a weekend in Frankfurt. It was soulless, just like
| Canary Wharf. I don't know why anyone would voluntarily live
| there.
| float4 wrote:
| What is, for a nation / union, the benefit of having a "top
| stocks centre"? Why does the EU care about EU company stock being
| traded on an EU-based stock exchange?
|
| Is this somehow tax related? Or does it give the EU power over
| those companies in a way?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| If you rely on someone else to run your capital markets, at
| best their crises become your crises. At worse they actively
| create crises either because that country sanctions you or
| because they're incentivised to under regulate (since they keep
| the profit but you suffer from the crash).
|
| Sanctions preventing Iran from working in USD or accessing
| Western banks have been 100 times more effective than sanctions
| on weapons or oil at bringing them to the negotiating table.
| That's why you don't want to rely on foreign Financial
| Services...
|
| There is tax revenue, jobs and the ability to sanction others.
| But it's the reliance on something you cannot control angle
| that makes this a MUST issue instead of a Would Be Nice issue.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is this somehow tax related? Or does it give the EU power
| over those companies in a way?_
|
| Yes.
|
| New York law is dominant in finance because New York City is a
| financial nerve centre. This gives high-tax paying persons like
| bankers and lawyers and investors an incentive for being
| nearby.
| raesene9 wrote:
| Having a vibrant banking sector has been a point of pride for
| London for a long time.
|
| It's got benefits in terms of bringing in tax money, both
| directly from the companies and indirectly from their
| employees.
|
| If you're known as a top location for a given service, it can
| also make companies want to open up there, if they want to
| attract talent from their competitors (although this may change
| as more companies move to remote-first employment)
| tt433 wrote:
| I don't think it's necessarily union control related at all.
| From an industry standpoint it makes some sense to have a
| geographic center so that companies who serve the industry have
| a place to go and find customers, network, etc. I think in this
| regard it's largely a spontaneous phenomenon more than a
| coordinated decision. "Birds of a feather."
|
| The other replies to this are interesting though and it's not
| all one thing, distributed decision making can be rationalized
| after the fact any number of ways
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Tax and control
|
| You'll get some level of capital gains from profits, along with
| any corporation taxes.
|
| But crucially you get control over what gets credit and what
| rules are attached to it.
|
| the EU doesn't really have a banking union, which means that
| rules money markets are country dependent. As long as london
| was the EU trading centre, then there would be no banking
| union, as it would cause london to loose money.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| This went exactly as predicted and we'll hear many more Brexit
| stories like this in the next 5 years.
| raesene9 wrote:
| This kind of news really isn't that surprising. What's concerning
| (if you're from the UK) is that unfortunately the current
| government don't seem keen to admit the reality of the impact to
| trade that brexit will have.
|
| Without that admission, it's hard for them to come up with
| strategies to mitigate it.
|
| You see this lack of acknowledgement of the inevitable here and
| also on the situation with Northern Ireland and the impact on
| export businesses in the UK
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The current government made the mess. Politically, it's hard
| for them to admit that it _is_ a mess. "Everything is
| proceeding well and according to plan, citizen. There is no
| need for you to be concerned..."
| addicted wrote:
| Brexit, by its very nature was always going to be damaging to
| the UK both financially and otherwise.
|
| But it really did not need to be this bad.
|
| The UK government's lack of acknowledgment of reality and
| absolutely no efforts to prepare for the impacts of Brexit or
| focus on the industries that actually matter as opposed to
| those that are just symbolic has made a much bigger mess than
| it ever needed to be.
| guerby wrote:
| "The ICE exchange announced this week that trading in EU carbon
| emissions worth a billion euros daily will move from London to
| the Dutch city during the second quarter."
|
| Lots of billions and then some ...
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