Welcome to London, 2020. You’re in the former Battersea Power Station where the British International Motor Show is being held this week!
Artist rendering of the renovated Battersea Power Station in London, UK — Apple’s UK & Commonwealth HQ. Business Insider
Apple Inc’s new UK & Commonwealth HQ is full of Alan Turing-esqe brilliant people glad to be hosting the show in their auric new building — and for the first time anywhere, iDrive (Apple’s shiny new hydrogen powered car) is on public display.
Aside from its obviously stunning design, the best thing about this car is that it can’t be stolen because unless the owner of the car is within a few feet of the car with his/her iPhone on and logged-in to the iDrive app, it is just a piece of aluminum, glass and plastic that can’t go anywhere. There’s no computer or operating system to allow the car do anything at all, save for the iDrive app in your iPhone or iPad.
Early Apple iCar concept.
No iPhone or iPad? Then you’re not the owner of the car. Because a matching serial number iPhone & iPad is provided with each Apple Car, with thumbprint security and as many passwords or login captchas as you want. It’s up to you.
Even if someone steals your iPhone and manages to locate your car, you can always “Log out of all devices and apps” remotely from any computer or smart phone on the planet — including the app that drives your beautiful new Apple Car. (Stolen car coasts to side of road, wholly inactive)
Now, that’s what I call a user-friendly car ownership experience.
And Brexit, You Ask? Pshaw!
Brexit came and went a long time ago. Neither Project Fear or the extreme Brexiteers were right; The UK coasted through 2019, Brexiting on March 29 as scheduled and other than a temporary blip in the markets things continued as normal. Yes, even the Sun rose in the sky the next day. Astonishing!
But not really. For all the hype, compared to other events taking place in the world Brexit turned out to be a sideshow. Only hyperventilating European politicians on both sides of the English Channel noticed Brexit.
After dipping to 1.2% GDP growth in 2019, the UK recovered and is now looking at 2% growth for 2021 — not due to Brexit — but due to the fact that Remainers are no longer sabotaging the UK economy hoping for it to fail so they could get their way.
Since the summer of 2019, the UK joined the USMCA (the new NAFTA agreement) and the CPTPP, and the new Commonwealth of Nations Free Trade Accord (CNFTA). In 2020, the UK has signed trade agreements with countries that have a combined population of 5 billion+ people.
A free trade deal with the EU (based on the excellent CETA agreement the EU has with Canada) is expected to be signed by the end of 2020 and go into effect on January 1, 2021.
Food shortages, rioting, family strife, civil war? Not a bit of it.
Every politician who tried to make a career out of Brexit is gone. Whether extreme Brexiteer, extreme Remainer, whether continental European or Briton; Every politician who held an extreme Brexit position was invited by their respective parties (and voters, hehehe) to leave politics.
Enjoy the day Britons, legal migrants to the UK, and visitors! You’ve earned it.
Oh, and the UK and the EU signed a modified Withdrawal Agreement on the 11th-hour of March 28th, 2019. But you knew that.
Letter to Britain 
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I can imagine a reversion to the name “NAFTA” with the inclusion of the Central American countries.
Hi Tim,
I agree. However, that might only happen post-Trump.
Nevertheless, great opportunities abound for UK trade with the NAFTA/USMCA countries and Central American countries.
I always put in a plug for the Pacific Alliance in these type of conversations:
Overview of the Pacific Alliance
“The Pacific Alliance is not only a platform of commercial integration: it also develops common objectives and shares best practices in a number of areas, such as tourism, intellectual property, regulatory frameworks, gender, innovation, mining and climate change.
With a combined GDP of $2.5 trillion and 223 million inhabitants, the alliance constitutes an important market for Canada.
Of the 55 observers of the Pacific Alliance, Canada is considered one of the most active in developing dynamic and productive ties with the alliance. Canada has deepened its engagement with the alliance since becoming the first non-Latin American observer, in 2012, and the first observer to sign a joint declaration on a partnership with the alliance, in 2016.
In June 2017, along with Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, Canada became an associated state of the alliance.”
https://international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/pacific_alliance-alliance_pacifique/index.aspx?lang=eng
Best regards, JBS
Trade between UK and USA.
https://cei.org/blog/brexit-britain-provides-opportunity-new-style-us-trade-agreement
Thank you for the link, Tim.
An excerpt from that site:
“Despite its reliance on raising tariff barriers as a weapon in trade negotiation, the U.S. will soon have the opportunity to negotiate a new free trade deal based around some of the principles Ryan Young and I outline in our recent study “Traders of the Lost Ark.” Assuming it does not arrange to stay within the European Union’s customs union, the UK will regain full power to negotiate trade deals when it leaves the EU in March 2019. The administration should jump at the chance to create a new model for future trade deals.
“A trade deal with the UK would be popular in both countries. According to a recent opinion poll by British firm Public First conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, 67 percent of British respondents and 64 percent of Americans would support a free trade agreement between the two countries. Fewer than 10 percent of respondents in both countries opposed the idea of a free trade deal.”
Interesting article about “continuity” agreements.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47213842
Thank you, Tim!
Best regards, JBS
I looked at the wiki articles regarding the economies of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), Chile, and Madagascar. They appear to fit Martin Hutchinson’s criteria
Chile, of course, is one of the founding members of the Pacific Alliance.
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