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Comment by jayalpha | Hacker News Reader

Dyson, a big Brexit supporter, plans also to build an electric car, in Singapore: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/23/dyson-to-...

By the way, Singapore has an EU free trade agreement.

I respect engineering and entrepreneurship. But he sounds like a hypocrite. I don't consider buying any of his products.

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This is not an isolated incident when it comes to vocal supporters of Brexit. For example, Jacob Rees-Mogg's financial services company recently set up a fund in the Republic of Ireland to ensure continuing access to the European Market [1].

A simple look into Dyson's past (particularly with regards to the "Dyson Academy" in Bath) should tell you all you need to know about the man. His products are mostly garbage too - not a screw to be found.

[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jacob-...

I fail to see the proported hypocrisy with Rees-Mogg, of course Somerset Capital would establish an EEA entity, dont forget they have BVI, US and Asian based funds too. have you seen the Dyson hair dryer? Phenomenal product. Who said you need a screw for anything (See the Mathematical Bridge in Cambridge).

If Brexit was great for Britain, he would clearly be investing more in Britain. But he isn't. Hence the hypocrisy.

They have multiple UK oriented funds already, who is to say they wont be shorting EU listed assets from the Dublin fund? Also its Somersets investors who decide to invest in Funds, the fund manager merely provide the oppurtunity for investment. Your analysis between opening a offshore fund and Rees-Moggs Brexit motivations are tenuous at best.

The man reeks of self interest. That should tell you most of what you need to know.

I guess that means "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst" is or is close to hypocritical advice.

It seems to me that a lot of those Brexiters were claiming to sell something a lot more concrete than hope, if only Britain could somehow free itself from the shackles of the EU.

The other thing I find interesting (ironic?) is how many Brexit leaders/campaigners have dual citizenship or residences in EU countries.

It seems more like, "hey, not even we believe this stuff, as evidenced by our actions." :)

Pretty sure the bridge has bolts. Before the rebuild it hidden spikes hense the myth.

Still spikes not screws :)

"Not a screw in sight" refers to the fact that Dyson products are mostly plastic glued together so as to be completely non-reparable. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there is simply _no_ comparison to German products.

JRM is gunning for Tory leadership, so saying he's pro-Brexit is necessary to pre-empt another Farage-style provocateur from crying "open borders".

Of course they behave differently when it's their own money on the line.

I own at 5 Dyson products, most of them from manufacturer refurbished programs (otherwise it's way out of my expenditure range for appliances). They are at best overrated. Take an example of Cyclone Vacuum, the brand newer Hoover cyclone vacs sold at HomeDepot I got last Black Friday for $70 is working as good but it's at least 4x cheaper.

Their air circulation fan/heater isn't as great as 5x of the price tag than competitors. Same with their blowdryers.

In short, they are hugely overpriced. Oh and, they use cheap plastic too - the air vent stand got cracked on winter and again the replacement parts are a fortune to buy.

Product pricing isn't linear with features/abilities. If you want the best X per $ spent you'll almost always arrive at lower quality version. There are premiums to be paid for even minor improvements.

Truth of the matter is, Dyson doesn't have any major feature ability their competitor cannot copy. Sure their patented electric motor design might be more advanced 10 years ago, but not any more! IMO, Tesla makes most advanced electric motors in the planet, since Tesla open their patent portfolio, many Taiwanese ODMs are making them cheaply available. I am not even not talking about knockoffs. Dyson lost their edges.

> IMO, Tesla makes most advanced electric motors in the planet

I'd say BMW's Formula E motor is better than Tesla's motors today:

https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T028842...

It's not a completely valid comparison because it's a racing motor, but it will be the basis of the motor used in BMW's future production cars. We'll have to wait to see how good the production version is. And by the time it comes out Tesla may also have improved their motor.

In this case its $ paid for marketing.

> They are at best overrated.

Maybe now they are, but at the time Dyson started getting popular, most vacuum cleaners (Hoovers included) were bag based. The Dyson performance felt revolutionary in comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if the Hoover design was based somewhat off Dyson's. I do know that Shark and Dyson had a IP fight a few years back

After you bought your first Dyson product, and realized all this, why did you buy 4 others? It appears like their branding and marketing worked as designed, if you bought 4 more of their products, despite the pricing.

BTW - everything you said about Dyson applies to Apple. There's more to branding, pricing & sales than the bill-of-materials and quality

I don't see the hypocrisy. Does the Singapore-EU trade agreement give EU citizens the right to vote on laws that will be binding upon Singaporeans? Or give EU citizens the right to reside and work in Singapore? If not, there is no hypocrisy in supporting Brexit while relocating to Singapore.

It is disingenuous to portray the EU as merely a trade organization. It may have started out that way, but today it is a supra-national government, capable of binding the citizens of member states to laws those citizens oppose (just as, e.g., the United States federal government can bind citizens of Alabama to laws those citizens oppose). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_(European_Union)

That seems the wrong question. The better question is: why did he stay in britain while it was in the EU, and why is he leaving now that the UK is leaving the EU? Especially as he advocated that leaving would improve trade and industry.

The answer might be as simple as: "Signapore was the right place and we were planning this move before Brexit was on the horizon"

But it certainly gives the appearance that Brexit is bad for business and he doesn't want to operate with the consequences of the policy he advocated.

Not to be a pedant, and it it doesn't invalidate your comment, and probably for the benefit of others, but the UK is still in the EU.

Thanks, fixed it. Had meant to write leaving and not in.

In the short run, Brexit will be bad for business, especially if it happens as uncoordinated as it looks now. In the long run, nobody knows, but at least there's potential to negotiate favorable deals without dealing with the EU.

Out of curiosity, what kind of "undiscovered territory" were you thinking about?

As posted by me before:

a) USA. Very little taxes in trade with the EU already. Little to gain with FTA.

b) Canada? Okay, but the UK has this Free trade agreement (FTA) already via the EU.

c) Mersocur? FTA to be signed with the EU soon.

d) Japan und Korea? Have FTAs with EU

e) India? Very demanding. Also want easier immigration to the UK in a FTA. Prediction: Will fail.

f) Australia? Ok, easy to get. Point for the UK

g) China? Possible. But only goods, since China loves to export goods. Financial services? Forget about it. Also, trust me, the Chinese have not forgotten the Opium war. Also the recent Ship of the Royal Navy in disputed waters did not help.

h) Africa. Many (economically) small countries. Not all countries have ties to the UK.

i) Russia/CIS. This the UK could get but this they don't want.

So?

e) is particularly egregious, as it is given as an example of how the EU is hobbling the UK. In fact the EU-India FTA negotiations failed because of British intransigence on the Indian demand for streamlined (non-immigrant) visas, vetoed by the then UK Home Secretary,... Theresa May.

> "how the EU is hobbling the UK"

Sorry if I'm misreading, but do you mean "how the EU is being hobbled by the UK"? In the sentence above it sounds like the EU wanted the agreement but the UK (and May's veto) prevented the EU from doing it.

They mean people in the uk say that the eu hobbled the uk's ability to trade with the eu.

But actually, the uk hobbled the eu. So the example is wrong.

For employees, collective bargaining is often much better than individual negotiation. I upped my salary for example by joining a unionized company, before I was at a non-unionized company and felt that I was better at negotiations than my peers.

Maybe there is a point for states to collectively bargain in trade agreements.

When businesses move to Singapore, the reason is usually "they offered us an enormous tax break and/or subsidies".

In Dyson's case they probably got a sweetheart deal due to their brand.

FTAs aren’t magically more democratic. The loss of control of our own law was a major issue for New Zealand signing the Trans Pacific Partnership.

FTAs also bind countries to laws the citizens may oppose and even if changing a law is OK, it might still result in an expensive investor state dispute at a court of arbitration.

I don't know how FTA's work in New Zealand, but in the U.S., any treaty must be "implemented" by domestic legislation (except for in narrow cases where the subject matter falls within executive discretion to begin with). In the EU, by contrast, a regulation can be imposed on the citizens of a particular member nation even if those citizens' representatives oppose it.

To give an example, if the U.S. entered into an FTA requiring a $15 minimum wage, that provision would be ineffective until Congress passed a law making that the minimum wage. But Congress could impose a $15 minimum wage effective in Alabama, even if every Alabama Senator and Congressman opposed it. EU regulations are like the latter.

That's just false. CETA, the recent EU-Canada FTA had to be ratified by all national parliaments, and in the case of Belgium, by provincial parliaments as well.

The EU has multiple forms of laws, some of which require ratification by the national parliaments and some of which don't. EU Regulations are the equivalent of Acts of the United States Congress--they have automatic effect in all member states and override any conflicting national law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_(European_Union).

Treaties have their own intricacies, but they do not necessarily require ratification either. The EC initially asserted that CETA did not require ratification by the national governments, but backed down citing the "political situation": http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7... (page 13).

I think many EU supporters really don't understand the sweeping powers of the EU. All the legal underpinnings are in place to turn the EU member countries into demi-sovereigns inferior to an EU government, just as happened to the U.S. states. They may be used sparingly now, but Brussels is getting bolder all the time.

> The loss of control of our own law was a major issue for New Zealand signing the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Can I have a citation for this?

Sure, I'll keep it tech related since it's HNews but: "...raises serious concerns about other countries’ sovereignty and the ability of national governments to set laws and policies to meet their domestic priorities."

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

Thanks!

What if I added that the original reason Dyson cited for moving to Singapore was the failure of Britain to join the euro?

That sounds like hypocrisy to me

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/05/theobserver...

I wish I could locate it now, but Dyson has penned a number of op-eds in the Guardian about the "skills gap" and how it's hard to hire in the UK because there aren't enough programmers, engineers etc.

In the comments, people were asking, "Have you considered increasing employee compensation?" I think we all know the answer to that.

> By the way, Singapore has an EU free trade agreement

this would seem to be irrelevant to today's decision as Dyson ceased EU manufacturing in 2003

today they're moving the legal HQ, with two jobs being relocated

Did you read about the car? Why not build it in China?

It's hard to own 100% of a company in china. Plus IP theft is huge.

It's very easy to advocate for something when you are not sticking around to suffer the consequences.

> I respect engineering and entrepreneurship. But he sounds like a hypocrite. I don't consider buying any of his products.

I've got one of his products, but I had no idea then that he was like this.

From what I know, even most of the Brexit supporters are supportive of the economic benefits of the EU and would like to keep those, they are wary of the "ever closer integration" with things like the ideas for European Military, which, surprise surprise, popped up today [1]. So favouring Brexit is not the same as wanting to discontinue all relationships or economic incentives; they just don't want to be pulled closer into what the EU could become in the near future.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46908205

Where exactly is the hypocrisy? Singapore has been touted as a model on how to organize trade after Brexit.

Of course you want a trade deal with the EU after Brexit. One major problem with being in the EU is that it forces the UK to uphold tariffs and tariff-like restrictions on imports from non-EU countries. Singapore itself has little to no tariffs.

With a hard Brexit, those deals simply won't exist yet, so it's wise to move to place where they do exist.

The hypocrisy is based on the fact he loudly supported Brexit saying that we would be better off outside the EU because of how awesome the UK could do by itself, before moving everything to Singapore.

He clearly cares not in the least about the UK. I will never buy any of his products ever again.

If he didn't care about the UK then why would he vocally support a Brexit? That's a clear contradiction.

To put it another way, I can argue for a better business environment in my home country while simultaneously having all my business in a country that actually has such an environment.

Your argument proves my point. He's doing it entirely for his own selfish reasons and not for the good of the country.

Virtually anybody who runs a successful business believes that a good business environment is also good for the country.

you've got your sequence of events wrong there:

- 2003: moves his manufacturing base of the UK/EU

- 2016: says we'd be better off outside (like his manufacturing base is currently)

- 2019: moves legal HQ (and two jobs) outside of the UK

So if he's basically based in Singapore, why get involved in the Brexit argument at all? Or at least if he did, why wasn't his argument, "I had to move all my manufacturing out of the UK because it's not like Singapore". Don't remember him saying that during the campaign.

he's been upset for a while at the EU's regulatory standards on vacuum cleaners, which he said were mostly written by his German competitors

he contested them in court and was ultimately victorious, but it took 5 years (and presumably millions of pounds) to win that victory

to me that seems like a valid reason to be upset

It's a reason to be upset, it's not a reason to back a brexit campaign.

presumably you have little problem with the majority of the UK business establishment expressing their view that leaving will disadvantage their businesses

Mr Dyson's business has been systematically disadvantaged for years by corruption that seems to be endemic to the political institution that's membership is currently under debate

so why is it acceptable for the UK business establishment to campaign for what their believe to be in their best interests, but not for Mr Dyson to campaign for his?

It's fine for him to campaign for his own company, as long as he's clear it's all about his self-interest in the world of vacuum cleaner regulation.

It's not ok to say that Brexit will be great for all the other companies in the UK, whilst clearly demonstrating he couldn't care less. It's immoral. That's what I'm complaining about.

> Mr Dyson's business has been systematically disadvantaged for years by corruption that seems to be endemic to the political institution that's membership is currently under debate

You're going to have provide substantial evidence of that "corruption" vs Mr Dyson not get his own way and getting all upset.

> It's not ok to say that Brexit will be great for all the other companies in the UK, whilst clearly demonstrating he couldn't care less. It's immoral. That's what I'm complaining about.

did he say that though?

Googled "brexit dyson quotes":

http://www.cityam.com/265756/james-dyson-car-makers-complain...

where did he specifically say exactly what you've accused him of saying?

because it's not on that page

Oh come on this is getting ridiculous. On that page he said,

"Taxes or delays at the customs, it is not important compared to the manufacturing costs. Car manufacturers complain all the time. But there is no problem without [a] solution."

So he reckons it's all going to be unicorns and roses despite all warnings to the contrary. And you still haven't provided evidence of the much stronger allegation of EU corruption.

that's not what you accused him of saying, and you've appeared to have gone back and edited your previous posts after I responded

I'm done here

It seems like he first ensured chaos for his competitors, and then executed well on that chaos by having a backup plan. Seems like a great capitalist. Lacking in ethics, as a human, but a great capitalist.

I don't see this as hypocrisy any more than someone accepting a tax cut via policy from a politician they voted against.

In fact, if anything, what Brexit has shown me is that there is one side that only sees things in black and white. You can be against something as a whole but in favor of some parts of it. The EU is a great example where many who champion Brexit may be in favor of shared economic benefits and against not-strictly-economic political costs.

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