the main issue is there's basically no upside to leaving. you just get to renegotiate all the trade deals that the eu already has. the only difference is that ttip is death but you can get a deal like that from the us if you accept the conditions they want in (which maybe you should. there's some dodgy stuff, but most is fine).

they were wrong.

If we were to continue importing a lot, wouldn't it be likely that we'd get better prices from India than Italy?

Some goods might cost more, but then blue collar wages increase and house prices go down, so what's the net effect?

That wasn't a goal post shift, but this one is - say you're right about lower production and fewer imports; that sounds great for environmental sustainability, shouldn't that be something we aim for, even if we did end up a bit poorer (in an un-noticeable way uncorrelated with happiness/utility)?

And that goal post shift is valuable, because it allows that conclusion that given either side is correct in their forecasts, Brexit is a dominant strategic choice.

We can import from India now. We also import BS* from Indian call centres now.


*nb it's British BS with an accent, just not a Scottish or Geordie one.

Only if you cant read.

Eh?

India cant substitute many of the things Italy produces and any it can we will already import from China.

This is a just a wish fulfillment chain of correlation.

You are basically just a word pie economist. You throw a bunch of phraseology at the wall and hope it sticks.

I guess Holland will have to elect that right wing Bond villain guy, Le Pen will have to win and Merkel will have to lose before any EUphile acknowledges that there may actually be something in the point that the EU might not be a great solution for a lot of Europeans.

Lol, who am I kidding, it'll never get acknowledged. EU is unable to reform itself meaningfully, and needs to be dismantled by forces around it.

I think you just described all of the world's top experts on this subject, so I don't feel too bad. Do you think your alternative analysis is more reliable?

Or just that if both outcomes are unknowable, the least active path wins by default?

I can see why you would think that given its plainly obvious what they are saying goes whoooosh over your head.

I am not really giving an alternative analysis, just pointing out objective untruths in the story you are making up.

You should get a job writing fake news.

somehow people that talk about merkel losing never seem get that it would mean spd/greens/die linke instead. they're not exactly going to tear down the union.

i would hate to be muslim under wilders and le pen, but i dont think it would mean much for the eu. it's too popular and makes too much sense for anything drastic to happen. maybe the euro, but i doubt that too.

there has been reform. lisbon isnt that long ago for example.all you need is the countries to agree to it. the status quo is just working too well for it to happen in the foreseeable future.

It will raise unemployment, it will raise inflation, it will lower economic output and it will lower government tax revenues. You could call that 'dominant', but not in a good way. And you could only call it 'strategic' if the strategy is completely insane. Which of course it is. It makes as much sense as Thomas Mair's actions.

Mair was a neo-Nazi and a member of Britain First. And in that famous picture of Leavers celebrating the result in Sunderland, with the woman in the red T-shirt borne aloft on two men's shoulders, the man just in front on the right in the blue shirt, clearly among friends -- he's a member of Combat 18 and known to the police as such.

Oh yeah, the India renowned for its plum tomatoes, olive oil etc.

This isn't some theoretical debate in a school economics lesson.

I doubt the big European olive oil producers would be quite so sanguine.

It's only 4% of the market and 80 million bucks or so but it's all from the EU (poorer parts) and it doesn't have to be.

Probably won't be from India for some reason. Think turkey or Tunisia.

and of course anyone dissing economic forecasts conveniently ignores that they were considering Cameron's insta-brexit. We are more than 6 months on and the govt admits they aren't anywhere near understanding what brexit means and what their negotiating position should be.

Anyone who was certain we would instant invoke has no business making forecasts about anything and I dont recall anyone saying their forecasts were only if we invoked immediately.

In any case there are far more confouding variables than when we invoke so what are any forecasts worth if that was enough to invalidate them?

Must have been reading different forecasts then, everyone I read just assumed as given when making forecasts that brexit happened almost instantly after the referendum result was known. It was such a given assumption that it was not always explicitly mentioned, which is perhaps where you are confused.

You can in your weird placate both sides of an argument way try and deny this but it was the only reasonable way to make an analysis, as trying to factor in an unknown such as when we would actually leave is pointless. The question answered by prediction was: what is the effect of brexit? Not what is the effect of brexit when it happens at an unknown point in time.

Chezlaw

It was a general comment on the recent discussion and not a reply to your comment but - could you link any forecasts that indicated that the govt would take nearly a year before acting? What forecasts indicated that after a Leave vote, Cameron, rather than going to Brussels immediately, as he indicated, would in fact refuse to do so and resign?

You do realise that there is a non-zero probability that the UK won't after all leave the EU? Or that some sort of fudge is agreed where we leave the EU in name alone?

Doing this in reverse order as the last bit is more interesting.
Absolutely, I said so beforehand and I'm still clinging hard to hope. You realise this remains true even after we invoke so are the forecasts for after we invoke worth anything?

Only me saying no-one has a clue what's going to happen. Even I wasn't that specific. There was a bit of a related discussion between me and dereds when I think i pointed out that what Cameron said would happen if he lost was worth diddly-squat

But your looking at it the wrong way round. If people say X will definitely happen then they are the ones making assumptions. If those assumptions are weak then that's their mistake - there's no onus on anyone else to have discussed the assumptions.

The previous arguements way back in this thread stated that if you have free trade agreements for services then you had to have free movement of people. Now we can see that is nonsense there are no barriers, as you have stated above, for the UK to have access to the single market with no need for tariffs or free movement provisions.

DB has a market cap of about 23B Euro and is being fined 9.5B$ (9B Euro) and you don't see that as an issue? I think you need to take of your rose tinted EU glasses and take a look at the real world.

N.B Lagarde is not of dubious competence - she was convicted of criminal negligence in court. She is a criminal. The fact that she keeps her job in the IMF despite this is incredible and only goes to highlight the corruption and nepotism in such organisations.

What exactly has house prices got to do with wages (there is no link nowadays) and will you also need citations if someone claims the sky is blue or the earth is round? Supply and demand will always effect prices.

Anyway, I'll cite one of the pro govt sources which downplays the impact as much as it can but still acknowledges the issue.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/resea...015/swp574.pdf

N.B How can any govt know how many houses will be required when it has no way of knowing how many people will be in the country next year?

Real UK Wages

The Explanations section and Conclusions section are damning. Pre-2008 real wages were higher than they were in 1980 (though not nearly enough to compensate for house price inflation), but "Wages of typical British workers have not been keeping up with productivity gains made in the economy (the origin of this pre-dates the downturn)." due to "Very sharp drops in [Union] membership density (and coverage), in particular now very low by historical standards in private sector" and "Decoupling of Wages From Productivity".

In other words, profits have gone disproportionately to the people at the top. But we knew that anyway.

I maintain that none of this would matter so much if housing prices hadn't been allowed to rocket out of the reach of most youngish people on normal wages.

Which doesn't counter my point that immigration is effecting the wages earned by the very worst off in society. We all know executive pay is out of control as well.

Regarding housing it's not old people who are to blame for this, its the foolish young people who keep on paying ridiculous sums for properties and propping up the market. Unless you're downsizing or moving area increases are largely irrelevant. (well you might die technically rich but most people view houses as homes and not assets).

In order to counter your point you should specify which jobs you mean. It just isn't that simple that by decreasing the supply the wages will rise. Could be as well that these jobs just won't exist anymore.

In order to pay our(in Germany) therapists and caregivers more money you have to spend more money on healthcare or change the distribution of money which won't be easy because you meet heavy resistance by the doctors union, pharma lobby and other players(at least in Germany). I recently read an article in our local newspaper that even our local nursing homes are recruiting in Asia where they find well trained personal which love to earn more money. The other problem right now is there isn't enough on the market to fill these jobs with Germans. If you think about it further you have to ask the question why are we recruiting in Asia when there are so many young people unemployed in France and Spain and other countries? Why do Asian people move to Europe for a job but Europeans aren't ready to move across the continent?

Another area are the service jobs. You can't just raise wages if the revenue isn't there. If you just deport all polish workers that won't mean these jobs will be filled with english workers who want to earn more money. It probably will come down to killing these jobs. Bars and restaurants owned by families won't create jobs because they cant afford higher wages if the revenue doesn't go up. They will do all the work by themselves and only take the money out they can afford.

You still haven't provided the precise groups of UK workers (with numbers) who are being affected. This is important as even if small numbers of workers did face downward pressure, leaving the EU is an absurd overreaction, particularly when policies like the living wage deal with any problem. In addition there is habsfan's point, that some jobs might not even exist at a higher wage.

Re housing the increase is very little to do with "foolish young people" and much more with older BtL landlords looking for somewhere to generate income as interest rates have been low for years.

i still dont get what youre trying to do here. free movement in the single market works fantastically well and it's a big part of what makes it a union. it's believed to be both fair and a good thing for a number of social and economical reasons, mainly because it is.

free movement for every country with an free trade agreement would have massive benefits in several ways too, but is, not least politically, impossible.

those are just facts. it' probably slightly racist because the voters are racist, but it's not foolish and i dont get how that is supposed to some great point in your favour. "hey the single market is racist too, just less so than me!".

but whatev. when everything else fails you can always make up some story about it hurting wages for workers.

See post 6146, the low skilled and low educated, those on the lowest wages, are the biggest losers from immigration. Doesn't seem fair to me, not sure why you seem to be ok with this.

These jobs will always be required to some degree, although expect more automation in restaurants/bars/supermarkets in the future, so the jobs won't disappear.

People in Spain will be less likely to move to Germany than those in Asia because the Spanish see poor pay whilst the Asians likely see good pay.