You will never find a one armed economist they always say on the one hand but on the other hand it could be completely different.Its just that we are only being fed half the story line.Its not a science but part of the predictive arts like the laying on of hands. What concerns me is that the paymasters are expending a great deal of palm greaser to get such a common response from such a disperate, disagreeable group
A well-reasoned and accessible Remain argument. I would have benefited from being able to refer to this in the pub yesterday. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/2...-is-why-i-will-vote-remain-in-the-referendum/
Hamilton is indeed a sleaze bag. Love cheat, yes, but at least Boris isn't coming on like Mother Theresa
Here in Oz, ( l trust you know that an election is to happen early July ) ........ When Labor was in government, the boats came by the bucketload and monies for aid were thrown in all directions. Since the Liberal government has been in, they stopped the boats, cut the aid ............. and started whittling away at the massive debt left by Labor. Now that we are in election mode again, the Labor party, bless them, have promised to re-issue all the aid that was cut. History shows that although the dates change, the Labor party does not. It got me thinking ...........If you lot can ship out a country load of people 200 odd years ago, surely you can offer a single semi decent, halfwit of a politician with a few marbles more than your average beer swilling, dole bludging, temple worshippering Aussie whose surname is not Wang, Abdulla or Redknapp , who can provide a real alternative to the current leader / government. Are the people of Oz stupid enough to allow Labor back in ? It recently happened in Queensland State politics. Stay tuned.
Indeed. As I inferred in an earlier post on this thread, economists are very good at talking with such authority about events that have happened, even if they'd forecast quite the opposite in the first place. As an accountant myself of some 30+ years, whenever I work with managers to derive budgets or forecasts, one of the first things that I tell them is that the only guarantee in the exercise is that they'll be wrong.
But we can judge the accuracy of their predictions in the event of a Leave vote, in terms of job losses, inflation, value of the pound, trade figures etc. Let's keep an eye on it. I'd like to do the same with the Brexit economists forecasts in the event of stay or leave, but they haven't been very well publicised.
all judgements by definition are retrospective this is why emotion, nationality, sovereignty & decency has been card played by Brexit people can make a personal decision on these while we have learnt by experience that economists are no more accurate than the rest of us.I like the predictive value of seaweed in weather forecasting but the only element i trust is 'if its wet its raining'
The emotion, nationality and sovereignty card has been played - not sure about decency though Iain. (that goes both sides). It's also why the Remain side play on people's emotions for fear of an exit, because they have something tangible to hang it on. Leaving the single market will affect tax revenues - a five year old can see that. I also don't need an economist to tell me my job is more under threat with a Brexit, the best I can hope for is it's unchanged. As for ignoring economists, if nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
A good article. The main weapon of the Brexiters appears to be immigration. However, Britain has high levels of migration because of 3 factors - firstly language. The language is Britain's biggest and best export, taught as a second language in most European countries and it is logical that people would want to go to a place where they can communicate - even if they don't already speak it then learning English in England is of tremendous benefit to them in the future (possibly as a stepping stone to moving to the USA. or Australia). The second reason is that people think that the possibilities of gaining semi legal, casual work, are higher in England than in eg. Germany, which still has a strong manufacturing base. The third is obviously the Commonwealth connection (EU. migrants are still less than half of the yearly intake). All of these factors would remain if Britain withdrew from the EU. Brexit spouts on about 'controlling our borders' - we do this anyway. We have an effective opt out on both Schengen and asylum, and all passports are controlled coming into the country. The Brexiters are allowing the themes of immigration, asylum seakers, terrorism and the EU. to become interchangable themes, which they are not. Are they suggesting introducing a visa requirement for all EU. visitors to Britain ? - for all German, French, Dutch language students etc. If not then EU. citizens would be crossing into Britain just as before (and any attempt at applying a visa requirement to some EU. citizens, Poland, Rumania etc. but not to others, would surely cause a reciprocal reaction from the EU. as a block). If you say 'yes you can come' as before, but deny them the right to work legally (or at least for longer than 3 months), or start handing out work permits to those considered 'desirable' then you will see a further rise in 'illegal' employment and casual labour. Britain's biggest problem, in relation to immigration, is the grey area of illegal immigration (estimated as up to a million) and denying East Europeans the right to 'legal' work would swell this number. The only way to control immigration is to ensure that all jobs are 'real jobs', that all are paying national insurance, tax etc. and to control those employment agencies which are operating on the boundaries of legality. The Brexiters should maybe remember that Switzerland is outside the EU. but has the largest immigration in Europe.
Andrew Marr's simile for the UK in 10 years time if we Remain and 26 of the 28 states are in the Euro is apt. To paraphrase, he said the UK will then be a rather rackety trailer being towed by a ****ing great Mercedes
At least you are going somewhere tied to a Mercedes. Would you prefer a rackety trailer abandoned in a layby on the A45 near Nuneaton? We have different definitions of judgement. I use emotion, experience, and what passes as evidence when I can find some prospectively, to help me decide what to do. You can have the emotion, sovereignty and nationality cards (never been one for blood and flag myself, figments), but I don't think either Brexit or Remain can claim decency, whatever that is. Of course, I agree in general about economists. If a consensus of them had ever accurately predicted a recession (they never have according to the FT) then presumably we would have avoided a couple. And of course markets, especially stock and financial markets, those temples of pseudo rationality, are entirely emotional, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, because they only exist in our collective head, and are driven by inhuman algorithms.
Mercedes reliability is near the bottom of the table these days, and repairs are monumentally expensive, sounds very EU...
