BREXIT BREXIT BREXIT

[Fat Cat]

Tories crushed Corbyn's communist, I mean "Labour" Party today. YAY. Liberal Democrats took a bath too, so it looks like Borisssss has a majority to finally see this thing through.

The Conservatives are set to win an overall majority of 86 in the general election, according to an exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky News.

The survey taken at UK polling stations suggests the Tories will get 368 MPs - 50 more than at the 2017 election - when all the results have been counted.

Labour would get 191, the Lib Dems 13, the Brexit Party none and the SNP 55.

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50765773

People want national strength, limits on immigration, and strong protections against the worst of globalism. And God bless them for it.

[vern]

[vern]

[nafod]

Most British don’t want to leave the EU, but I assume they also didn’t want Jeremy Corbin, to the point that they voted against their own wishes, policy-wise.

Based on polling, if they held the referendum again, they’d be staying in.

History of polling on the issue.
https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/i ... e/?removed

I bet Putin wants them to leave the EU. Why wouldn’t he want to split the bloc facing him?

Be interesting to see if this breaks up Great Britain.

[Fat Cat]

[Fat Cat]

https://greenwichmeantime.com/what-is-gmt/

17 minutes left! 23:00 GMT ends the reign of the EU!

[Grandpa's Spells]

FatCat, I haven't seen any upside for Britain on this that didn't appear to come from pro-Brexit Britons who aren't economists. Everything from the international community I see says the economics of this look grim. Aside from keeping immigrants out, what do you think is the benefit here?

[Fat Cat]

FatCat, I haven't seen any upside for Britain on this that didn't appear to come from pro-Brexit Britons who aren't economists. Everything from the international community I see says the economics of this look grim. Aside from keeping immigrants out, what do you think is the benefit here?

That's an impossible question to answer. You've framed out any real discourse.

First, if you saw a great economic upside, you would be pro-Brexit, thereby placing yourself in the "pro-Brexit Britons" camp you happily discount. Your phrasing is a catch-22.

Second, if the UK continues to do what is has been doing, it probably won't be economically robust in the short to midterm. However, the EU is one of the least competitive economic unions out there (Source: IMF's World Economic Outlook https://mises.org/wire/benefits-brexit). It's total economic output has been rising, but much more slowly than American and Asian economies. If Britain is aggressive and pursues a true free trade line, paying special attention to the areas where the EU's bureaucracy is cumbersome and anti-competitive, they could easily outperform and out-compete their continental neighbors. UK has amazing infrastructure and transport facilities, you can still drive to and from France, and yet they no longer have to abide by all of the reams of EU regulation. That in of itself is an opportunity.

Third, and finally for now. you brush off having control over its borders like that's something good people sniff at. It's not. The UK is for the people of Britain and Northern Ireland. It was their ancestors that made it, fought for it, died for it, and but the Great before the Britain. Social cohesion and trust is correlated with a massive number of positive social indicators that rather conclusively have shown that diversity is NOT strength, and is in fact a poison that undermind positive social engagement:

"a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings."

Source: https://archive.boston.com/news/globe/i ... diversity/

[nafod]

There is definitely a push back on globalization. One can argue whether it is in rational (economic) self interest or emotional, but there it is.

In some ways, I think it makes the "global system" more robust against things like global economic crashes if the states decouple a bit. Definitely also creates friction in trade and other movements, which results in less prosperity, but prosperity is trumped by emotion every day of the week, and robustness has its own value.

[Fat Cat]

There is definitely a push back on globalization. One can argue whether it is in rational (economic) self interest or emotional, but there it is.

Allow me to draw your attention to just how poisoned the well of free thought has become, that you equate reason and economics. There are dozens of reasons, including ecological, social, physiological, and spiritual reasons why globalization is objectionable, which have nothing to do with economics but are entirely reasonable. The equation of human welfare with economics is the triumph of Marxism that we must combat. We are so much more than economic units on a game board, to be shuffled around at will.

In some ways, I think it makes the "global system" more robust against things like global economic crashes if the states decouple a bit.

True, and worth considering as a pandemic spreads across the planet.

Definitely also creates friction in trade and other movements, which results in less prosperity, but prosperity is trumped by emotion every day of the week, and robustness has its own value.

Care to expand on that? I'm not sure I understood your wording.

[nafod]

If I have a million barrels of oil and no grain, and you have tons of grain and no oil, by trading we both gain. Trading is the ultimate win-win. Friction against trade reduces the win-win, ergo prosperity. That's the two sentence version.

But with huge highly intercoupled systems, like the global trading system (and the climate) once they get a certain level of intercoupled-ness, they are subject to potentially huge excursions in response to small impulses that can propagate through the whole system. They can blow up, in short. They do with alarming regularity.

Decoupled systems, when one guy blows up, everybody learns and gets smarter. Small failures improve the system.

I'm not arguing about your rational economic versus emotional. I volunteer as EMS, it pays nothing so has zero economic gain, yet I do it.

[Fat Cat]

If I have a million barrels of oil and no grain, and you have tons of grain and no oil, by trading we both gain. Trading is the ultimate win-win. Friction against trade reduces the win-win, ergo prosperity. That's the two sentence version.

But with huge highly intercoupled systems, like the global trading system (and the climate) once they get a certain level of intercoupled-ness, they are subject to potentially huge excursions in response to small impulses that can propagate through the whole system. They can blow up, in short. They do with alarming regularity.

Decoupled systems, when one guy blows up, everybody learns and gets smarter. Small failures improve the system.

I'm not arguing about your rational economic versus emotional. I volunteer as EMS, it pays nothing so has zero economic gain, yet I do it.

The first part I follow and, in broad strokes, agree with.

The second point (in bold) I would take a little issue with. In high-trust societies, people are more willing to do things like volunteer, and while you don't realize an immediate economic benefit, there's more to it than an emotional feeling of wellbeing or whatever. It actually creates an environment where people feel more interconnected, more involved, with higher levels of satisfaction, mobility, etc. that ultimately do have positive economic repercussions as well.

That's why maintaining sound borders and halting mass immigration is a must for any healthy society, and another reason why Brexit can be a very positive thing. Their society can begin to turn away from the lies of crushing globalism toward a truly healthy society capable of economic, ecologic, and spiritual renewal.

[Fat Cat]

Resuming the subject of our last paper we proceed to trace still farther, the consequences that must result from a too unqualified admission of foreigners, to an equal participation in our civil, and political rights.

The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.

The opinion advanced in the Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived, or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism? There may as to particular individuals, and at particular times, be occasional exceptions to these remarks, yet such is the general rule. The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.

The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils, by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others. It has been often likely to compromit the interests of our own country in favor of another. In times of great public danger there is always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone weakens the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader..

https://founders.archives.gov/documents ... 25-02-0282

[Turdacious]

Benefits to UK:
1. More border control and control of immigration flows/policy
2. Less exposure to fiscally weak EU states (like Greece)

Costs:
1. Possibly economic (which is hard to calculate, because there is nothing stopping the world's sixth largest economy from entering into free trade deals on its own which might be better/the same/worse than the EU)

[Turdacious]

Interesting pro-Brexit argument. https://www.politico.eu/article/europe- ... trazeneca/