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John Eucist

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I am neutral on brexit (not that I matter since I don't) but shouldn't a change from the status quo on such an important matter for the long term require a bit more than a simple majority to pass? (e.g. 55%, 60%, or two-thirds majority or something)

EDIT: My point is if it's just by simple majority, and "won" by such a NARROW margin, theoretically if a vote were to be held again tomorrow the result could easily be reversed.

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Seems that way to me as well. I'm not sure the people voting to exit realize the mess this will cause. For trade alone this now places the UK outside the EU and they will need to negotiate new deals, with the EU in no mood to give the UK any breaks. It wouldn't surprise me if Scotland and Ireland join the EU, further isolating the UK.

On the bright side, I was planning on visiting the UK later this year, and by then pound will have devalued to make the trip a lot less expensive. 

Every so often some state like Texas comes up with a similar crazy idea to leave the USA and become their own country. If it were as simple as a majority vote I am certain the people there would have done it too.

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23 minutes ago, dmethvin said:

On the bright side, I was planning on visiting the UK later this year, and by then pound will have devalued to make the trip a lot less expensive. 

Yeah I posted this in the Facebook euc group earlier with this caption.
Looks like it will cost a little more to buy a euc in the UK now :P

gbpgraph.jpg

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The UK was ever special in Europe. If someone wants to leave he should leave. The difference is small between remain/ leave. But the amount of people which wants to leave are too high anyway.

We could wish the best for the residents in the UK, that all happens as they was told.

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Kudos for (52% of) the Brits ! Interestingly, it's the +50 age group who decided; they still know how it was before the EU.

I'm just +50 myself, and just recently in discussion with jounger people who express doubt about the EU I've come to realise they have no clue about what we - the people (not the multinationals, bankers, or politicians) of the core members -have lost in the process and how little we have gained.

If you ask the newer poorer membership states exactly the same question the answer is probably the reverse.

 

Innovation = disruption; and people have a genetically built-in aversion towards risk

So requesting a 2/3 majority for any important decission is the surest way to kill innovation and change.

 

The UK can now sail its own course, and doesn't need to worry about being dragged down when the EU ship sinks. On the other hand, it's a big world out there for little Britain.

The UK will probably be going through a difficult but temporary dip (especially the bankers), but the EU is on a slippery slope and the end of the trouble is not in sight.

My main shortterm worry now, is how the relationship US-UK (which probably will become much stronger now) will impact the economical/military collaboration between the US and EU, and where the financial center of the EU now will be hosted.

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My point is if it's just by simple majority, and "won" by such a NARROW margin, theoretically if a vote were to be held again tomorrow the result could easily be reversed. But that wouldn't be true if it required say a two-thirds majority to change the status quo.

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2 hours ago, John Eucist said:

My point is if it's just by simple majority, and "won" by such a NARROW margin, theoretically if a vote were to be held again tomorrow the result could easily be reversed. But that wouldn't be true if it required say a two-thirds majority to change the status quo.

Agreed, and these decisions have far-reaching after effects. For example Scotland is likely to reverse their vote on secession now that they are being forced to leave the EU against their will. Northern Ireland may do the same. Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU. 

 

3 hours ago, Jurgen said:

I'm just +50 myself, and just recently in discussion with jounger people who express doubt about the EU I've come to realise they have no clue about what we - the people (not the multinationals, bankers, or politicians) of the core members -have lost in the process and how little we have gained.

If you ask the newer poorer membership states exactly the same question the answer is probably the reverse.

The entire world is a different place than it was back then. Leaving the EU will not restore the country's former glory and roll back the clock to so that now-obsolete jobs reappear, petrol is cheap, immigrants leave, terrorism is gone, and global warming is reversed. If this was about who has paid out the most to other countries you would expect the Germans to be voting to get out of the EU. 

The thing is, this same thing happens in the US as well. We are a union of 50 states, with different political leanings, natural resources, jobs, ethnic makeup, etc. What you find though is that the states that complain the most about the federal government are often the ones getting the most help from the federal government. It's just that the reality doesn't fit with their political narratives and they're more likely to blame the central government than their local one. 

Looking at the decisions the EU has made about things like human rights, data privacy, and intellectual property it seems like they are more protective of the people's rights than either the UK or US. I feel like large monied interests have a lot more influence on politicians in the US and UK, and that is where the average person ends up getting screwed. 

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I think it will take the UK 5 years to be stable again, I think it's awful news for me - I'm a new car salesman, I can't see my customers committing to such a large purchase with all of this uncertainty. 

Time will tell

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50 minutes ago, dmethvin said:

 

Looking at the decisions the EU has made about things like human rights, data privacy, and intellectual property it seems like they are more protective of the people's rights than either the UK or US. I feel like large monied interests have a lot more influence on politicians in the US and UK, and that is where the average person ends up getting screwed. 

That was the EU of old, the project had a fantastic humanitarian potential.

Unfortunately it didn't work out that way in the longterm, because multinational corpororations and corrupt politicians have found eachother in developing a high-tech legal robbing of the people. I feel this is no different in the EU than in the US, you guys just have a head start.

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I miss the old days when each country was different in it's own way and had a group of people who were similar in origin.  I don't like having a melting pot like we have in the US.  Tourism is great, but go home to your own country.  Unfortunately Britain has become a magnet for many less fortunate people and  ship is about to capsize and fall over anyway.

Ideally, everyone would be happy where they are, but that is not the way it is.

 

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13 minutes ago, steve454 said:

I miss the old days when each country was different in it's own way and had a group of people who were similar in origin.  I don't like having a melting pot like we have in the US.  Tourism is great, but go home to your own country.  Unfortunately Britain has become a magnet for many less fortunate people and  ship is about to capsize and fall over anyway.

Ideally, everyone would be happy where they are, but that is not the way it is.

 

I thought UK wanted to win the Euro(cup) .. :)  just kidding

Thank god the world is not like you wish, otherwise many of us wouldn't have an EUC today !

 

 

 

 

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Just now, Pagsy said:

I thought UK wanted to win the Euro(cup) .. :)  just kidding

Thank god the world is not like you wish, otherwise many of us wouldn't have an EUC today !

 

That was on sports radio today.  Win at all costs.

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Jurgen said:

Kudos for (52% of) the Brits ! Interestingly, it's the +50 age group who decided; they still know how it was before the EU.

I'm just +50 myself, and just recently in discussion with jounger people who express doubt about the EU I've come to realise they have no clue about what we - the people (not the multinationals, bankers, or politicians) of the core members -have lost in the process and how little we have gained.

If you ask the newer poorer membership states exactly the same question the answer is probably the reverse.

 

Innovation = disruption; and people have a genetically built-in aversion towards risk

So requesting a 2/3 majority for any important decission is the surest way to kill innovation and change.

 

The UK can now sail its own course, and doesn't need to worry about being dragged down when the EU ship sinks. On the other hand, it's a big world out there for little Britain.

The UK will probably be going through a difficult but temporary dip (especially the bankers), but the EU is on a slippery slope and the end of the trouble is not in sight.

My main shortterm worry now, is how the relationship US-UK (which probably will become much stronger now) will impact the economical/military collaboration between the US and EU, and where the financial center of the EU now will be hosted.

And what really annoys me, is that the pessimists say it is bad for everybody which is virtually impossible, there has to be upside for someone or some countries. The truth is  nobody can predict how this will play out.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Jurgen said:

That was the EU of old, the project had a fantastic humanitarian potential.

Unfortunately it didn't work out that way in the longterm, because multinational corpororations and corrupt politicians have found eachother in developing a high-tech legal robbing of the people. I feel this is no different in the EU than in the US, you guys just have a head start.

It's hard to see why people would want to stay in the EU with what is happening in Germany, you have people being arrested over political speech, Merkel appointing former Stasi members to censor social media and arrest people over social media posts. Then you have the refugee issue, EU members helped destabilize Libya and Syria while encouraging mass migration from the region, letting anyone claiming to be a refugee in. There doesn't appear to be plan to integrate them or any measures to prevent people lying about where they came from. They have had years to address the issue now and did nothing instead accusing anyone that objects as racist.

I don't understand what their plan was. Did they hope to gain access to cheap labour  or gain political power by changing demographics, it's difficult to believe they were simply too inept to predict the issues it would cause. 

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1 hour ago, lizardmech said:

It's hard to see why people would want to stay in the EU with what is happening in Germany, you have people being arrested over political speech, Merkel appointing former Stasi members to censor social media and arrest people over social media posts. Then you have the refugee issue, EU members helped destabilize Libya and Syria while encouraging mass migration from the region, letting anyone claiming to be a refugee in. There doesn't appear to be plan to integrate them or any measures to prevent people lying about where they came from. They have had years to address the issue now and did nothing instead accusing anyone that objects as racist.

I don't understand what their plan was. Did they hope to gain access to cheap labour  or gain political power by changing demographics, it's difficult to believe they were simply too inept to predict the issues it would cause. 

Don't mix things up. The "political speech" you're talking about it the Erdogan stuff? It's based on an old national German law.

The positive on the European Union is that we've a process leverage laws, regulations, no tax with selling goods inside European Union. Data privacy was leveraged in Europe. The most European Union countries introduced the EURO. I've two wallets: One with Swiss franc and one with EUR if I'm in Germany/ France/ Luxembourg..

Dealing with companies in other EU countries has become much easier. An European Union resident can live and work anywhere in the European Union. Schengen made travelling inside the European Union much easier.

Maybe we need some improvements in the EU gov. But the EU is not bad at all. Maybe the Brexit some improvements/ evolutions.

 

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34 minutes ago, OliverH said:

Don't mix things up. The "political speech" you're talking about it the Erdogan stuff? It's based on an old national German law.

No it's much worse, they have been censoring social media heavily, technically facebook, twitter and others voluntarily gave them the power to do it under the guise of stopping hate speech. However it appears that it is being abused to censor political opponents, political parties, media critical of EU policy. Brexit supporters were complaining of bans and deleted posts. There's no way to appeal or even find out why you have been banned in many cases. There's little reason to believe they are interested in preventing hate speech as you can easily find ISIS supporters, people calling for gays to be killed etc. even if people report them nothing happens most of the time.

Most people think it's mostly germany doing it but no one really knows for sure, so it is creating paranoia about the EU and creating a risk of social unrest as people feel they have lost their ability to influence governments via democracy.

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The brits might be onto something by leaving...

1421948120ECB%20Balance%20Sheet.png

Euro3.png?w=660&fit=max&auto=format

 

I'll just leave these here, with one question: the ECB has been for a while, and still is "printing" 60 billion euros a month, yet the inflation is near zero/negative (as well as interest rates). Whose pockets are those 60B/month lining? Remember, central banks are not government controlled, but private institutions...

EDIt: Actually, another question: if and when all that money starts to enter the real economy, how will the inflation be contained? Sure, they'll pump up interest rates, but that will bankrupt a lot of people. Fiat currencies have come and gone all over the history, starting from somewhere around the Roman empire, usually destroyed by hyperinflation...

 

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1 minute ago, esaj said:

I'll just leave these here, with one question: the ECB is "printing" 60 billion euros a month, yet the inflation is negative. Whose pockets are those 60B/month lining? Remember, central banks are not government controlled, but private institutions...

Negative inflation (deflation) scares the crap out of politicians. If people think their money will be worth more next week because of deflation, they will sit on it and not spend. That in turn causes businesses to get less business, lay off employees, those people stop spending because of uncertainty, and the economy spirals down. In that case, printing more money and basically giving it away doesn't help because the majority of that new money doesn't circulate--people or businesses take it and hoard it out of fear.

The best an economy has historically done to fix this is to drive lending rates to zero, which is basically where we are. In some countries deposit rates (the rate they pay you for keeping your money at the bank) are now NEGATIVE so that it costs you to keep it unless you put bills under your mattress at home or business. That way people aren't tempted to hoard their money at the bank and will instead spend it. With so much money being "held" electronically now, this is a more viable option than it was 100 years ago when a lot more money was held as a tangible asset.

The role of modern banks in this process of running the economy has given them a lot of power over politicians. The cozy relationship between governments and financial institutions is a problem in just about every country. I think it's one of the reasons the general population of the UK was mad enough to do something like leave the EU, although IMO the anger was misdirected. A small number of powerful people control the economy (and thus the money) yet many people are without good jobs. 

In the US you see that corruption as well. With our mortgage crisis in 2008, lots of Wall Street types were knowingly doing stupid things, sometimes illegal things, yet the government stepped in and bailed them out because they were "too big to fail". Then the companies gave the execs bonuses with the bailout money. Nobody went to jail. Lots of people who were suckered into bad mortgages lost their houses. Our economy is increasingly polarized into haves and have-nots, the middle class is shrinking. This is made worse because people take out huge loans ($200,000 and more) to get an education and the government has passed laws making those loans not dismissable by bankruptcy.  Many of those loans are guaranteed by the government so the bank's risk is low in any case, they're happy to make the loan because they, not the government, make money on the interest.

 

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1 hour ago, dmethvin said:

Our economy is increasingly polarized into haves and have-nots, the middle class is shrinking.

gini-index-usa.jpg

Seems worse in the 1930s (Great Depression) but it's crawling back up.

figure-10-3-international-gini-coefficie

"Internationally" seems no clear trend up or down since the 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

 

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5 hours ago, esaj said:

The brits might be onto something by leaving...

1421948120ECB%20Balance%20Sheet.png

Euro3.png?w=660&fit=max&auto=format

 

I'll just leave these here, with one question: the ECB has been for a while, and still is "printing" 60 billion euros a month, yet the inflation is near zero/negative (as well as interest rates). Whose pockets are those 60B/month lining? Remember, central banks are not government controlled, but private institutions...

EDIt: Actually, another question: if and when all that money starts to enter the real economy, how will the inflation be contained? Sure, they'll pump up interest rates, but that will bankrupt a lot of people. Fiat currencies have come and gone all over the history, starting from somewhere around the Roman empire, usually destroyed by hyperinflation...

 

Almost all the money Super Mario prints and the EU gives to Greece flows back to the banks, not to the people, that's why inflation doesn't go up: it's used for speculation  not for spending.

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