[Potemkin]

The questions asked were asked directly about Brexit so the point is mute, people feel it is brexits fault. It literally had because of brexit in every question.

Moot, @JohnRawls. The word is “moot”.

[Patrickov]

The questions asked were asked directly about Brexit so the point is (moot), people feel it is brexits fault. It literally had because of brexit in every question.

That's still perception, and I can even argue the questionnaire in concern is biased.

[ingliz]

That's still perception

Esse est percipi

To be is to be perceived.

Nothing exists independently of its perception by a mind except minds themselves.

[JohnRawls]

That's still perception, and I can even argue the questionnaire in concern is biased.

As Ingliz said, our subjective understanding is reality for us even if it is wrong. Since our perception and opinion is the basis of our actions sadly. We can't do something that we don't understand or perceive. (Very generally lets say)

[Rich]

I'm not one of these extremists whose unwilling to compromise. If we can agree to try and rejoin the customs union and the single market within the next year, start negotiations on whether we can have some form of re-entry into free movement then I'm happy to drop the question of rejoining for the time being. Note on that free movement, I see that Germany has started talking about sending Asylum seekers to Africa. Germany's demand for unlimited Muslim immigration into the EU was an important reason in why some people felt we needed to get out of the "mad house".

[Patrickov]

As Ingliz said, our subjective understanding is reality for us even if it is wrong. Since our perception and opinion is the basis of our actions sadly. We can't do something that we don't understand or perceive. (Very generally lets say)

The problem is you actually use that perception as a basis of an argument which requires more factual relation between two given phenomenons.

[JohnRawls]

The problem is you actually use that perception as a basis of an argument which requires more factual relation between two given phenomenons.

My point is that if you THINK that Brexit is the cause of the problems then it might as well be the cause that you will concentrate about and want to be fixed. I understand that the current situation is much more complicated and am not denying it but for the purpose of politics and sociology/statistics this is more relevant compared to explaining the full cause.

[Patrickov]

My point is that if you THINK that Brexit is the cause of the problems then it might as well be the cause that you will concentrate about and want to be fixed.

I understand that the current situation is much more complicated and am not denying it but for the purpose of politics and sociology/statistics this is more relevant compared to explaining the full cause.

I am not to "explain the full cause" here.

What you are doing is effectively demonizing Brexit.

[JohnRawls]

I am not to "explain the full cause" here.

What you are doing is effectively demonizing Brexit.

How is checking polls on Brexit and its subtopics after it happened is me demonizing Brexit considering those polls were fair, had Brexit as the cause in the question and people from UK answered them? It is literally replies of UK citizens on the topic with no coercion on the matter while the question was crystal clear.

[Patrickov]

How is checking polls on Brexit and its subtopics after it happened is me demonizing Brexit considering those polls were fair, had Brexit as the cause in the question and people from UK answered them? It is literally replies of UK citizens on the topic with no coercion on the matter while the question was crystal clear.

Of course they have the freedom to express as such, but for factual discussion we cannot take it as the actual cause.

The only thing that is certain now is that you actually share these views, while admittedly I don't.

[Robert Urbanek]

Brexit put a wall between Britain and France, so keep the "deux" out of it.

[MadMonk]

Brexit put a wall between Britain and France, so keep the "deux" out of it.

Non, monsieur! With Brexit, we are also in the early stages of ditching English as the lingua franca. Henceforth, only French, Spanish and Italian are acceptable cross-cultural means of communication starting in 2025. I included Italian because I love it and its 70% hand gestures anyway.

[Steve_American]

Sound money is neither 'neo-liberal' nor a 'myth'.
Debasing your currency to infinityresults to having to carry millions in your pocket to buy a loaf of bread. That's just an undeniable & observable fact with millions of examples, a fact that MMTers simply cannot run away from.

The same way MMTers were wrong about their assumptions on Brexit, are also wrong about everything they say.

Truss's plan was okay, the problems with her budget were not the budget but its implementation:

1) She did not say where the money would come from and she excluded the Office of Budget Responsibility from authorising her Budget, for the first time in history since its creation.
2) The budget did not promote productivity which is where the UK is lacking, so plenty of people concluded that her splurge would be a band aid that would exacerbate things later on and not without merit.

IMHO, sound money is a myth, because the US has never had a sound money system.
In the 1800s we had maany bank panics which prove the money system was not sound.
In 1913 the Fed res. Bank was formed by an act of Congress. As a result banks were allowed to create dollars every time they made a loan. This was also unsound because private debt that this allowed to grow massively would always someday stop growing becaause the people could not aford to make a larger payment. Whenever this happened the growth of spending would stop, this means incomes would stop growing which means people would spend less because they were repaying their debts (which destroys dollars). This would cause the GDP to drop for 6 months, so a recession or depression would start.
. . MMTes assert that their system would actually be more sound than the current system that depends on bank lending to grow the money supply.


No MMTer has ever said that it is pssible to grow the money supply to infinity. They just assert that no matter how much money there is, it can grow more, but if the nation is using all its labor and all the real resources it can obtain already, then growing the money supply by Gov. spending or bank lending will cause high inflation.

The current high inflation was caused by a reduction in the supply of things, caused in part by people not buying services and risk getting ccovid, so they bought more things. Also by suply chain breakdowns, and by corps with monopoly pricing power gouging the people, which can be seen in their reports of their profits being much higher.
.

[noemon]

@Tainari88 @JohnRawls

The problem is, there are others things happened over the past few years. Do people actually get poorer because of Brexit, or is it other matters like Wuhan pneumonia that caused the recession?

It should also be noted that there's a large influx of rich people into the UK recently, mostly Hongkongers escaping tyranny of China. A second wave is coming from Taiwan because those Hongkongers going there found Taiwan less desirable than they first perceive. These Hongkongers should bring quite some prosperity that Britain very much deserves.

EDIT: One more thing, being in EU means you are more vulnerable to threats on the continent, as countries like Germany now face in the war in Ukraine.

The UK is among the top 10 losers of rich people despite receiving all the rich people from Hong Kong. It is actually sitting at no 7 just after Ukraine at number 6, in company with China, Russia, Hong Kong and Brazil:

https://www.henleyglobal.com/publicatio ... rends-2022

Without the people from Hong Kong it could potentially even overtake Ukraine in losing rich people.

We produce less than half the cars we were producing while inside the EU and have lost only a few trillion in market capitalization as the Paris stock exchange has overtaken London.

We have lost several points of productivity as successful Europeans have fled, feeding into the wage-price inflation. We have lost the power of our currency and have also lost thousands(actually more than half) of all foreign high-net worth individuals.

We have entered stagflation, have higher taxes than the EU average and a lot less sovereignty as we take rules rather than make rules.

The UK Union itself is in peril by consistently ignoring the wishes of the Scots and N.Irish and we have nothing to show for it!

Well done Brexiteers.

Even Rees Mogg's fund has fled to Ireland.

And let us not forget that Ukrainians are literally fighting and dying in a war for the mere right to become EU members.

Telling the truth about Brexit is the very least rational people can do.

[Potemkin]

We’re losing rich people? Oh noes! Who’s going to sneer at us and condescend to us now?! We’s are doomed!

[noemon]

When politicians talk of "industrial policy", they generally mean some form of protectionism.

So it is with the US's inappropriately named "Inflation Reduction Act" (IRA), arguably the most overt and wide-ranging piece of protectionism since the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

The difference is that the IRA delivers its protectionist agenda largely through subsidies and tax breaks, rather than the time honoured method of tariffs and outright bans. Yet the effect is much the same. It also masquerades under the catch-all justification of net zero. Climate change has given governments new licence for interventions of this sort.

Nor is it just the IRA, which specifically targets "green energy"; there are also major incentives for "made in America" producers covering infrastructure renewal and micro-chip capacity.

Collectively, these programmes are reckoned to be worth an astonishing $2 trillion in handouts and tax breaks. Yet you don't get to qualify unless fully committed to American jobs and production.

President Joe Biden has taken his predecessor's protectionist rhetoric and, using the excuse of saving the planet, turned it into a living and breathing reality.

To be fair, he almost certainly couldn't have sold his green energy policies to a substantially sceptical Congress in the first place without the promise of a tsunami of American jobs. Persuading the public demands that any economic benefit is internalised.

European Commission President Ursula presents a "communication" detailing the EU's "Green Deal Industrial Plan" to ensure the bloc plays a leading role in clean tech production, partly in EU's response to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which will provide $369 billion of subsidies for electric vehicles and other green products, in Brussels, Belgium February 1, 2023.

There is also a large element of geopolitics in what the White House is doing. Having finally accepted the net zero objective, the US is not about to leave the field to China, which as things stand enjoys market dominant positions in a number of these industries, including solar panels and batteries.

China as a kind of green Opec, with control over the energy sources of the 21st century, is not an inviting prospect.

But this is all somewhat unfortunate for the UK, with its Global Britain mantra, free trade pretensions, and what up until now has been cutting edge expertise in many of the green technologies that all of a sudden are so much in demand.

Denied the spending power of the US, EU and China – all of whom now target self-sufficiency across virtually all industries – the UK is in imminent danger of being squeezed out.

We can protest all we like about the unfairness of it all, and the ruinous demise of the post-war contract; we can stamp our feet and cite the unarguable sense of Adam Smith and David Ricardo on free and open markets, but it won't do any good if the rest of the world is moving in a different direction.

Across the spectrum of industries involved in the mooted energy transition, almost everyone is now beating a path to the US, attracted both by subsidies that can reduce capital costs by as much as a half and by the potentially mouth-watering size of America's internal market.

On the "if you cannot beat them, join them" principle, Europe has initiated its own €806.9bn NextGenerationEU plan, aimed at creating a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.

More significantly still, it now proposes to dismantle the restrictions on state aid for industry currently enshrined – at Britain's insistence while still a member of the EU – in EU competition law. Now that we are out, and America is leading by way of example, the EU is free to pursue its protectionist leanings without restraint.

There may be some merit in today's green arms race if it leads to a more rapid energy transition globally, but if it shuts us out and denies Britain meaningful participation in the growth industries of the future, then for us at least it will have been deeply damaging.

Part of the justification for pursuing an unapologetically aggressive approach to Net Zero was the promise of new opportunities for Britain in the industries of the future; climate change targets are very much part of the Government's separate levelling up goals.

But in terms of cost-benefit, those targets always did look pretty questionable. Britain is just 2pc of global emissions, meaning that whatever we do to eliminate them will make only a marginal difference to the overall picture. Instead, this is now almost wholly dictated by what happens in the developing world.

Britain may have a moral responsibility, given its accumulated emissions since the start of the industrial revolution, but whether it is best discharged by spending hundreds of billions of pounds on an outcome we are powerless to determine, looks ever more debatable. If we are to be denied any export dividend from the transition, then it's harder still to justify.

Whether it wants to or not, Britain cannot join the arms race. Our domestic market is not by itself big enough, and even if it was, there is nothing left in the tank to do it with. The overriding lesson of Trussonomics is that there is a limit to how much the markets are prepared to lend.


Britain still has choices but when presented with one, we invariably choose badly.

Coming out of the disaster of last autumn's mini-Budget, something had to give. The public finances were in no condition to deliver both a cut in National Insurance contributions and a freeze in the rate of corporation tax.

It was one or the other. Inevitably, the Government chose short term vote buying over investment in the future – consumption over business investment.

I await with interest to see what comes out of next month's Budget; the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, promises a plan for growth.

Yet if current signalling is to be believed, there is no scope for subsidies or tax breaks, or anything else for that matter that might help turbo-charge the energy transition. The flame of British leadership in these industries still just about flickers, but it is dying fast.

Neither AstraZeneca's decision to site a new factory in the Republic of Ireland rather than the UK, nor Ford's announcement that it is cutting a further UK 1,300 jobs to focus production of electric vehicles in the US, are going to break the British economy. Yet they are important straws in the wind.

Together with Nissan's warning that manufacturing in Britain was becoming more and more challenging, they should set alarm bells ringing.

On tax, regulation, planning controls, training and much else besides – all key to a successful enterprise economy – Britain is falling behind.

We may not be able to match the vast subsidies of the big trading blocks. But smarter, and nimbler regulation, as well as targeted support for promising technologies, is eminently possible.

Instead, Britain remains stuck in a quagmire of welfare dependence and stifling planning constraints. Industrial policy doesn't have to be synonymous with protectionism. New freedoms in leaving the EU were bitterly won, yet such as they are, we seem determined not to use them.

We’re losing rich people? Oh noes! Who’s going to sneer at us and condescend to us now?! We’s are doomed!

Losing foreign mainly European rich people, the type of people that look good, spend well, treat others a lot better than Brits and contribute the most.

You are instead stuck with WAG's with inflated lips and broken chins.

Losing high-net worth individuals is more of an indicator of the dire straits that this country has put itself in, like rats fleeing a sinking ship, than anything else.

Barely beating Ukraine, a country at war is even more indicative of the situation.

While Greece, Portugal, Israel, New Zealand are growing their rich foreign ranks by the droves.

[noemon]

Keith Mclachlan
1 HR AGO
The inevitable Warner anti Brexit diatribe disguised as victimhood, despair, and outrage at other countries self protection.
The UK is fully able to compete internationally if it addresses and uses the benefits available from its new found ability to make its own decisions.
The vast benefits ridden welfare state and vanity project mentality has to be curtailed, with immediate and harsh action on illegal immigration, a total reset of the governance structure and a reversion to self reliance and responsibility enforced on the population.
This needs to be followed and supported by a taxation and debt structure that generates growth and international competitiveness.
Sadly it is not likely to occur with any of the political options on offer.


Keith Mclachlan
51 MIN AGO
Reply to
Optimism?, my concluding view was totally pessimistic but not because of the reforming trading blocks. Biden and before him Trump are both focused on buttressing the position of the USA versus China and possibly the wider emerging Asian block; the difference between them is that Trump was inclined to carry the UK along as a passenger whilst Biden is antagonistic and pro EU/Ireland.


Keith Mclachlan
49 MIN AGO
Reply to Nick Matheson
Patronizing condescension does not really constitute a rational argument.


Nick Matheson
49 MIN AGO
Reply to Keith Mclachlan
Message Actions
I am merely responding to your own argument about JW.
Real is real.


M Oro
46 MIN AGO
Reply to
I see we left the EU for all the disadvantages. Never saw that on the Bus.

REPLY
2
FLAG

KM

Keith Mclachlan
45 MIN AGO
Reply to Nick Matheson
Warner’s long term pro EU position had always been abundantly clear , for a supposedly impartial economics scribbler it damages his views even when they have merit.


Nick Matheson
43 MIN AGO
Reply to Keith Mclachlan
Message Actions
I see, his arguments dismissed because you don't like him despite his arguments being painfully obvious but we should all listen to you. Brexiteer extraordinaire who believes our problems lie with 40k illegal immigrants, the lowest amount in Europe by far.
JW is using nationalism to appeal to your lot as nothing else is working.
There used to be a meme for you guys:
https://www.politicsforum.org/ferrous-cranus/ EDITED


Keith Mclachlan
40 MIN AGO
Reply to Nick Matheson
My only knowledge of Warner is from his articles , he may be a very pleasant individual but his projected viewpoint is biased to the point of absurdity.

Nick Matheson
39 MIN AGO
Reply to Keith Mclachlan
Message Actions
You have not demonstrated anything of the sort.


Keith Mclachlan
7 MIN AGO
Reply to Nick Matheson
I am not an economics scribbler and at my advanced years am entitled to be biased from long experience.


Nick Matheson
JUST NOW
Reply to Keith Mclachlan - view message
Message Actions
I'm a grump old fart is not an argument but thanks for your candour. EDITED

[Potemkin]

Losing foreign mainly European rich people, the type of people that look good, spend well, treat others a lot better than Brits and contribute the most.

You are instead stuck with WAG's with inflated lips and broken chins.

Losing high-net worth individuals is more of an indicator of the dire straits that this country has put itself in, like rats fleeing a sinking ship, than anything else.

Barely beating Ukraine, a country at war is even more indicative of the situation.

While Greece, Portugal, Israel, New Zealand are growing their rich foreign ranks by the droves.

In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, rich people are a bunch of sneering, chinless dickheads. One of their female ancestors bonked Charles II back in 1678, so they inherited a title and an investment portfolio. Lol.

[noemon]

In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, rich people are a bunch of sneering, chinless dickheads. One of their female ancestors bonked Charles II back in 1678, so they inherited a title and an investment portfolio. Lol.

'Rich' people are now measured as anyone worth more than 1 million according to Henley Global.

With 2 beds in Cambridge now worth around 600k, almost every home-owner in town is a high-net-worth-individual.

All my mates are Portuguese, Italians, Spanish and Serbs, dentists, doctors & academics and almost all of them have moved back to their countries since Brexit. These are all simple people, with no arrogance or entitlement but quite the opposite actually(very down-to-earth) living pretty normal lives but would all possibly be considered "rich" according to the definition used in that index.

Brits on the other hand are a different matter altogether, entitlement and arrogance are a thing even for the not-so-well-off.

My job brings me into contact with people all day long either as customers, staff or suppliers, and my experiences with the Brits is becoming more and more overwhelmingly negative as they complain and create mountains out of molehills, constantly lying and overplaying their hand while trying to abuse any situation to become victims and thus entitled to free stuff. Poor Greeks are a bit over the top with that as well trying to build a case to get freebies, but no comparison with the Brits.

Brits are also the only people who are lazy enough to refuse trade and actually block it even if they get commission out of it!!!

It's surreal. I sacked 3 Brits, 2 males and a female, between 30-40 years old for doing exactly that, this past week alone. Caught red-handed refusing trade in separate locations and independent to each other!! Fuck me, dude.

Like honestly. Even though aside from their salaries, they also get 10% out of every sale they had unashamedly refused.

It's quite unreal actually the difference of entitlement, you only see this kind of entitlement among southern europeans only if they are some uber rich posh idiots or some poor sods trying to get away with freebies, while among Brits you see it across the board consistently and repeatedly.

In all fairness though, you do not see that the northern you move along the country where more salt of the earth people are found.

Whenever I go to Birmingham even, I find a breath of fresh of air.

In all honesty, I am growing extremely exacerbated here. And I don't know where to move to. I am starting to dislike this country with the same passion I was hating Greece back in the noughties when I left it with no regrets as a provincial backwater that I wanted nothing to do with. I have also left my brothers in you know where for the same. I just can't stand some people anymore.

All these mates of mine that have gone, are serious losses for this country, both economically but mainly culturally, regardless if you want to register them as "rich" or not.

[Tainari88]

'Rich' people are now measured as anyone worth more than 1 million according to Henley Global.

With 2 beds in Cambridge now worth around 600k, almost every home-owner in town is a high-net-worth-individual.

All my mates are Portuguese, Italians, Spanish and Serbs, dentists, doctors & academics and almost all of them have moved back to their countries since Brexit. These are all simple people, with no arrogance or entitlement but quite the opposite actually(very down-to-earth) living pretty normal lives but would all possibly be considered "rich" according to the definition used in that index.

Brits on the other hand are a different matter altogether, entitlement and arrogance are a thing even for the not-so-well-off.

My job brings me into contact with people all day long either as customers, staff or suppliers, and my experiences with the Brits is becoming more and more overwhelmingly negative as they complain and create mountains out of molehills, constantly lying and overplaying their hand while trying to abuse any situation to become victims and thus entitled to free stuff. Poor Greeks are a bit over the top with that as well trying to build a case to get freebies, but no comparison with the Brits.

Brits are also the only people who are lazy enough to refuse trade and actually block it even if they get commission out of it!!!

It's surreal. I sacked 3 Brits, 2 males and a female, between 30-40 years old for doing exactly that, this past week alone. Caught red-handed refusing trade in separate locations and independent to each other!! Fuck me, dude.

Like honestly. Even though aside from their salaries, they also get 10% out of every sale they had unashamedly refused.

It's quite unreal actually the difference of entitlement, you only see this kind of entitlement among southern europeans only if they are some uber rich posh idiots or some poor sods trying to get away with freebies, while among Brits you see it across the board consistently and repeatedly.

In all fairness though, you do not see that the northern you move along the country where more salt of the earth people are found.

Whenever I go to Birmingham even, I find a breath of fresh of air.

In all honesty, I am growing extremely exacerbated here. And I don't know where to move to. I am starting to dislike this country with the same passion I was hating Greece back in the noughties when I left it with no regrets as a provincial backwater that I wanted nothing to do with. I have also left my brothers in you know where for the same. I just can't stand some people anymore.

All these mates of mine that have gone, are serious losses for this country, both economically but mainly culturally, regardless if you want to register them as "rich" or not.

@noemon I do not presume to know how it is in Cambridge or Southern England. What worries me about @Potemkin's descriptions of Scotland and Edinburgh is that people are depressed. They are not socially and civically engaged in life and with each other.

Being well off is not the critical part of being happy. I think what makes most humans happy is being engaged in something that is significant for them and building really rewarding social relationships. Not being seen as outsiders in that society but being accepted and cared about and having their voices heard and listened to. Being included and being loved and respected for their contributions.

What I love the most about Latin American societies has always been the sense of community and acceptance of family being the center of life. I was surprised that my neighbors stopped me the other day and knew who I was (I never was introduced to some of them at all personally), and they said to me in Spanish, [Oh you are the Puerto Rican woman. The one who is with that little boy....the handsome one. The one who loves to help the baker in the corner. I like the way you painted your house on the outside....] Who are these folks? They talk about you. With each other. I had no idea. They care about what is going on in the street all the time.

I love this city. It is an old culture, and family oriented, and traditional. But also modern, and that like technology. It is peaceful here. But also dynamic. No one is afraid of hard work and also they enjoy a good time. Very well balanced. How I love it!