Is it really the fault of the economist that politicians hijack their forecasts and the public are too stupid to see through it?

its the economists fault when they tell us that we will be voting ourselves into a recession, and then we vote for it and nothing happens.

have always suspected that economics is overwhelmingly bollocks when on pretty much any issue you'll get one nobel prize winning economist on one side saying that he is obviously right and that everyone who doesn't agree has an 8 year old's understanding of the issue, and then on the other side another nobel prize winning economist saying the opposite. monkeys throwing darts

except for this issue where they were ~unanimous that voting brexit was equivalent to voting for an instantaneous deep recession. gjge lads

not claiming i was ahead of the curve btw, i voted remain for primarily economic reasons

The irony is too painful.

krugman was always right. a couple of percent lower gdp in perpetuity from leaving the single market/making trade harder/putting up barriers and so on but not an immediate recession or much else just based "uncertainty". im pretty sure i wrote something similar before the vote too.

the most shocking thing is just how far the pound dropped tbh. it probably cost chelsea a decent centreback.

i have no idea how many economists were saying stuff similar to that and how many warned of something more immediately drastic, but there were probably some of both kinds.

He's a cut above most of the rest and it's good to have a prediction that can't be proved wrong so he's no fool
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...gs&region=Body

all this is kinda setting up an awful narrative going forward. nobody is going to notice or believe that they have lost something major when the economy only grows 10% instead of 12% over the next 5 years, but the hyperbole about the immediate aftermath will be remembered as mostly just empty warnings (even though everything losing 10% of its value is pretty big to put it mildly).

i can understand that it's part of trying to win a vote and the other side said far more dumb stuff, but this will only strengthen the regressive forces now.

langer postmark: 24th june

Nope not according to Stiglitz

Indeed but it's also possible that some will believe they have lost more or less then iin fact they have. We will never know for sure*

I find Krugman's view of the cost side very plasuable but that doesn't mean there isn't another side. If we believe Krugman then he sees big problems ahead for Europe
While I'm sure he would argue the UK will still be hurt by this abscess, there is some value to rats in deserting a sinking ship. Maybe this is more than 2% of GDP

BTW I dont agree with him about the inevitability of the EU problems. I even fear that the UK leaving makes a major problem significantly more likely - one reason why I look on bemused at people who think the EU holds all the cards in the brexit negotiations.


*edit: Just to add that Krugman is working from some model and we will hopefully get some idea from him how well it matches reality and an updated estimate of the true cost. Obviously that will mean nothing to most people and your point remains but it should give us lot some idea.

Of course it's doomed. Monetary union without political union is a fool's errand brought about by optimistic federalists who thought the first would inevitably lead the the second sooner rather than later. I think the final architects of its destruction will be the small Eastern European late joiners who know they've been given powers well above their due, and will exercise them mercilessly.

Political and fiscal union is happening and may be fast enough to outpace the collapse. UK leaving may make the collapse faster but then again it may make PU and FU faster as well.

If isolated the smaller Eastern European countries will get bought off where neccesary. If they overplay their hand they may find themselves back on the outside rather than bringing the EU down.

"If isolated the smaller Eastern European countries will get bought off where neccesary. If they overplay their hand they may find themselves back on the outside rather than bringing the EU down. "

So you lose the eastern European countries and what do you have left? A France teetering on leaving if Le Pen wins, a broke ass Greece, systemic bank failure in Italy, far-right parties surging in Austria and Spain with a national unemployment rate at 24% and youth at 45% with no improvment in sight? And Merkel's popularity tanking maybe one bad terrorist attack from putting her out of power?

I'm a yank - I don't have much of an (informed) opinion about whether the EU is good or bad. But it sure doesn't look stable.

MM MD

It's not stable but that doesn't mean it wont survive. Huge change is happening fast. The political will to keep (at least the core) together is also huge and doesn't look like changing easily.

the eu easily survives a euro breakup. it would probably be healthy.

it's not breaking up over eastern european countries wanting more missiles aimed at russia and fewer refugees either. stick to reality instead of this dreamt up nonsense.

this is why the uk is leaving and nobody else will btw



polish plumbers and latvian shop owners are just nowhere near as disliked anywhere else.

In fairness, the features of the UK that might attract foreign workers (relative prosperity, English language) were always likely to result in large numbers migrating here, and people in general are usually quite resistant to sudden change.

However, it's hypocritical of Brits to oppose the right of EU citizens to live in other parts of the EU when so many Brits hanker after a retirement in Spain etc.

Interesting that Romania is 5th from the right. Anyone have any ideas why?

I don't think it's the tabloids - probably more to do with the fact that the UK is the only major country that was willing to take people after 2004.

The situation in UK with Polish people is bad, but it's nothing compared to what it would be like if 1 million people moved to Poland without the perception they had control over it. In Slovakia they gave the Nazis 8% in the general election because the EU wants to settle a few hundred muslims here.

I wonder if they regret not actually cutting a decent deal with Cameron and have been more proactive in the smaller change at that point rather than reactive and deal with a larger change soon?

at one point i bought the stories about the uk opening up earlier being a cause too, but the numbers dont back it up at all. most just went to germany and the uk havent had unusually many ee immigrants at all. they're just haters.

I suspect there are some regrets and it's Cameron's complacency that's largely to blame as it was so clear that he would campaign to remain without getting much and everyone expected an easy win to follow.

If his position had been that the UK needs some reform he can take to the British people or he will be campaigning to leave (which was more his position on the EU before he flip flopped and said leaving would be the end of the world) then those negotiations would have been a far more serious.

It didn't need to be much, probably didn't need to mean anything in practice but he needed to be able to lie about winning some big victory that gave us back control. That plus project fear would probably have made up for the lack of any positive case.

Are we there yet?

Nah. Fat lady is just sitting down to breakfast

Spain?

Missing comma. Happens when you post at 2am after a night shift.

I think the point that the EU may survive without the Euro is a good one - the Euro never made sense to me, and from what I can tell to a lot of economists.

Freely admitting I'm viewing all this at a distance - can the EU survive the loss of another "core" member? I understand that if Latvia would leave it would be a more or less "meh", but not that they're likely to. But what about France or Italy?

MM MD

France or Italy goes and the project is in serious trouble, it may still exist but it'd hardly be recognisable if France went certainly.

My wanting the UK to remain in the EU was tactical as much as anything to have the buttress of the EU mitigating any Conservative excesses but I think the euro brings with it certain problems that the EU is ideologically committed to addressing in a way that I think is wrong.