E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Yep, it was Norway.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...oliticians-reject-uks-norway-plus-brexit-plan

 

Norway says No way.

 

Which is rather funny since a diet EU made up of UK, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland would have made at least some sense (not saying it would be perfect, but we all know no option is).

 

At least I'm not drunk on the news sites again I suppose.

 

It would, but obviously the UK's behaviour while a EU member is causing them some concern about how it might behave as a EEA member. Something the UK may want to reflect on...

Meanwhile... Brexit campaign donors feel betrayed.

Should have had a Brexit plan, losers!

 

Lest us not forget the UK, until relatively recently, was one of the major advocates of EU enlargement.

 

I thought the locust bit might flag this as a post containing humour but I guess I should have make it a bit more obvious.

 

Or perhaps, should have put someone capable of making a coherent one in charge after the vote.

 

One of the main reasons I voted remain was that the UK was, when engaged with it, a force pushing the EU in a more open, positive direction. Without the UK, France has too much influence and it will likely turn more closed and protectionist.

 

Three men at risk of being dead before Brexit affects them. Shocker. I guess they've been hampered in the building of their wealth by all those immigrants who took their jo.. oh. Wait a moment.

 

My thoughts too. What with France as it's going, Spanish far right getting seats and all Merkel's successors having a thin element of AfD in their outlook I think now is exactly the time we should be more involved.

 

Too late by then. Expectations were already set. Leaving was going to be quick and easy; it was just a matter of "getting on with it". Planning would have been seen as just delaying tactics by a sabotaging Remainer establishment that wouldn't accept the Will of the People™.

The time for a plan, and for getting people behind it, was before the vote.

 

The problem is the leave vote wasn't coherent to start with, it wasn't logical and/or consistent because it lumped millions of people with differing ideas of what leaving meant into a single group, you can't get a logical and/or consistent answer to an illogical and/or inconsistent question.

When people say leave voter didn't know what they voted for they don't mean someone who voted to leave didn't know what their own mind was, they mean leave voter A's idea of what Brexit should be is probably different than person B's idea and C's and so on, they mean there wasn't a consistent or logical center to coalesce around and say this is what leaving means.

That will probably become less so in the coming years, typically increased support for closing things down and protectionism (aka:Nationalism & far-right policies) always follows an economic shock and in the past it normally reached a peak around a decade afterwards.

It's been a decade since the 08 crash so support for closed and protectionist policies may start to wane in the coming years, although what with the idea that you address a fall in private sector spending by reducing public spending at the same time (aka:Austerity) having taken hold in the UK and across the EU people may continue to believe isolation, protectionism, and blaming others is the solution for some time yet.

 

I like your optimism.

The US Bond yield just inverted for the first time in 10 years and this usually indicates a recession is on the way in the next few years. The ECB is only just talking about ending quantitative easing and yet countries are spending more than they did 10 years ago even with that in effect.

I know only a little of economics and there are many variables but I can't say i'm optimistic. If anything I fear protectionism will get worse before it gets better.

 

Contrary to popular belief, there were at least six highly reputable economists who saw the 2008 Credit Crunch coming from as far away as 2005, and predicted its arrival within a year's accuracy.

Two of them have recently said that another Crunch is on its way and will happen around 2020.

"In the 21st Century, everything is going to change. Better get ready" --Captain Jack Harkness

 

Ah they probably were ridiculed at the time and described as fear mongers... I mean what do experts know?

 

Esther McVey will run for PM if asked.

No. Just no.

 

And it'll be coming from the tech industry:

Product shortages at Intel
AMD and Nvidia (among others) having taken a battering at the stock market recently
The legal troubles of Huawei and Google
The regulatory trouble of data kraken social media companies
The shenanigans of the Five Eyes countries in regards to encryption
The slow down in smart phone sales due to market saturation
All that on top of the Trump trade war...

 

...all added to the that the fact precisely 0 lessons were learned from the last one.

 

^^^ That one. The two economists say that the same conditions are re-emerging in the subprime loans market.