As if to prove a point about the intelligence of Leavers.

You realise that 8% compounded over 4 years amounts to a 32% raise over all. Yea no big deal.

loooooool.

Going back to Dunning-Kruger, I think we may have another example right here.

The open goal of the bus was fairly heavily challenged by Remainers before the referendum - it's also worth pointing out the point of the bus wasn't to mix in an extra vehicle among the other 37.3 million on Britain's roads to persuade people who might happen to see it as they overtake, it was for the bus with its claim to be shown on TV - which it was but always in the context of the "controversy" about whether or not the 350 million figure should be replaced by another 9-figure sum (IMHO changing that would swing very few votes).

As for Farage, he was shut out of the official Leave campaign (the people around Boris Johnson, Michael Gove etc) and ran his own campaign. Why should he be responsible for defending Johnson? His own figure is 34 million a day, but others give lower numbers, and why should Farage be able to guarantee the UK government spends its money on the NHS when he has 1 MP?

But it's interesting that you are posting this the same week as Johnson has been criticised for doubling down on his 350 million claim - i.e. doing the opposite of what people who don't appreciate the distinction between "Vote Leave" and "Leave.EU" perceive Farage as doing. How do we think people in that kind of situation should behave? Whatever we decide we have to apply it to incorrect project fear statements - particularly net importers to the UK like RenaultNissan and Siemens saying they would cut production here (and become even greater net importers) when they have actually announced expansion in the UK.

Those old reports were predicting GDP will be higher than in 2016 anyway, whether we leave or stay - just with a slower increase than if we'd remained, so the choice was fairly successfully framed by Leavers as

a) Be richer than you are now, but remain in the EU.
b) Be richer than you are now, but leave the EU.

saying "yes, but under scenario a) we are richer than under scenario b)" isn't very persuasive for reasons covered in "Thinking Fast and Slow" and also raises the question of what GDP figure should be considered sufficiently high.

Also some of the earliest numerical predictions in are dated 2018, so we can check progress towards them now and get an idea of whether the predictions under the out vote scenario are coming true or if they were just part of project fear:

For example, the Guardian:
"That in turn would be a drag on GDP and contribute to a rise in unemployment, peaking at 6% in 2018. The number of people out of work would be 380,000 higher than if the UK voted to stay, the EIU said."

In fact unemployment fell in the year after the vote (from 4.9% to 4.3%).

Tired of experts anyone?

Irish citizens resident in the UK can vote for example. Their situation has never been simply due to EU membership.

As Alex points our 3% is a relatively normal increase.

The rest of your post is just saying that your boss thinks his costs will increase after Brexit. Ok, but rather than giving it to us second hand, what are his reasons for thinking it?

Only one taker. Ok it's tempting to grab 69% and have the whole space under yours but I'll be a bit more sporting and say 30% so between me and you it's I win if its 49% or less and you win if it's 51% or more, and 50-50 is a push.


Not sure I should feed the troll but the 8% is a single rise, the question is over how long it is to be spread (if it's spread over 4 years then its just inflation).

Anyone want to give odds on OAFK11's next post acknowledging he was wrong about Nissan?

(Also an 8% annual rise compounded over 4 years would be 36%.)

I'm happy with that (I punted 70% thinking others would join in and I'd get the spread 65%-100%).

Wowser, I don't want to sound rude but that LektorAJ post is one of the more extraordinary posts I've seen on Brexit. I don't check this thread out often tbh, so maybe it's a regular occurrence, but wowser.

In one single post we have the following:

the vexing question of "what GDP figure should be considered sufficiently high?"

the suggestion that, unless a recession is predicted, people aren't better off in general with a higher GDP (as, you know, it may have increased to a lesser extent anyway)

the typical leaver "logic" in full display with the line "Tired of experts anyone?"

a suggestion that an 8% jump in prices (which may or may not include inflation in that year, we weren't told that) can just be spread over a few years and "then its just inflation". What in the name of great Jove does that mean? Do you not realise how small profit margins are for many companies? If then can just ramp up prices by that amount without any consequences then why aren't they doing it now? We don't know a whole lot about this situation, just one post, but the Brexiter stiff upper lip ("it's only inflation, don't worry it will be fine - you are British after all") is as sad as it is common.

All in one post. Nice work in a way!

Re the percentage who may want to re-join in the EU in 2015, no way that can be anywhere near 70% imo.

We have to face the fact that a fair percentage of the UK think that the Daily Mail and Breitbart etc are actual news publications and not propaganda tools. It won't be armageddon post Brexit, but even if times are harder for many people they won't know for sure what caused it. If the Daily Mail says "phew, fewer foreigners" and "things would have been worse" then it doesn't matter what the truth is.

We also don't know how much further the fake news social media scene will develop etc.

Personally, I'd guess at 55/45 in favour of re-joining (assuming it was viable of course).

Pro-Brexit site on WTO option



If by 2025 GDP has shrunk by 10%+ due to a hard Brexit (or worse in the case of WTO tariffs examined above, the UK has ceased to exist as a trading nation), 70% may seem a conservative estimate.

Reality doesn't matter to some of the population - 70% is a huge number. Consider where people get their information from.

Around 30% of Americans will be pro-Trump even if he takes away their healthcare or fires off nukes to cause a distraction. It doesn't matter.

You say reality doesn't matter, and in normal times I'd agree somewhat, but the reality of being unable to feed or clothe well or take on holiday your family is another matter.

My point is that people, especially many of those who voted Brexit, will get their "information" from whether or not they will have a job any more, and if they do how much their net income is.

This is why I mention Trump - people know if the lose their healthcare. But, it will be blamed on someone else even if it's obviously the fault of Trump.

If there is a bad recession then how do you think the propaganda machine will spin it? Look at the insane spin we are seeing in the US right now, and a good proportion of the US population are stupid/gullible enough to believe it.

Don't get me wrong, I'd got for more than 48% but 70% is huge imo.

Successfully blaming anything other than Brexit for an economic catastrophe after we leave would be the greatest political spin ever, and it's not going to happen. If there's a credible Labour party the Tories would be probably out of power for a generation again.

We are just going to have to agree to disagree. I've spent ages on Twitter etc (I work from home to can do this whenever I want) and it's scary how easily people are brainwashed. I've never been as worried about the future as I am now and, we have to face the fact, that there has been no will to do anything about attacks on democracy from oversea countries via social media. Things will likely get worse sadly imo.

Remember, a good number of Americans think that Noah's Ark is real. When you think about what that entails you realise how some people can be made to believe anything.

It will, actually.

Armageddon requires zombies imo. I'm not expecting that.

agree with DTD. When (not if) our economy collapses post-Brexit the Mail and the Sun will place the blame on benefits cheats / high taxes / political correctness / environmental regulations and the morons who voted Leave will lap it up and vote for Boris to Make Britain Great Again.

The only thing that'll distinguish it from the zombie apocalypse is that the wandering blank-eyed hordes won't be clinically undead, because there's no such thing as clinically undead. But, as the government is in denial and has no plan at all, the economic and social breakdown (when they can't pay the teachers, or the doctors, or the street sweepers, or the pensioners, or anybody else, and they're reduced to paying the army in potatoes to try and keep order, and you're unlikely to get to see a potato unless you're in the army because the shop shelves will be empty) could be really quite severe.

Well at what point, if any, do you think it will be high enough to no longer have any impact on quality of life? Given self-reported happiness studies seem to indicate people in the UK are no happier than people in countries with lower GDP we might be pretty close already.

What I meant with the "Thinking Fast and Slow" thing was not that the slower GDP growth thing wasn't persuasive to me (though it isn't), I just meant that it wasn't persuasive to the general public to tell them that they will get richer slower, because of comparison effects and things like that. I don't remember the exact figures but there was one discussion where the figures were something like a 28% increase to 2030 with remain or a 21% increase with leave. Even if people accept that's true, paying a quarter of a future increase to get your country back (whatever that means to individuals) would look like a pretty good deal to some people who might not take the same choice if it was between GDP staying the same and taking a 7% decrease.

Also getting a 21% increase instead of a 28% one is a lot different to statements like:

which were floating around before the referendum. IMHO the referendum was won over the previous decades, not by Boris Johnson - it wasn't "the bus wot won it", people generally didn't like the EU and needed to be given sufficient reason to stay i.e. to be shown that project fear and potatoes for money was credible scenario and it wasn't - even though before the campaign many would have assumed it was.

Obviously Michael Gove's statement was silly but would have been rendered better as something like "People are tired of experts in social sciences making predictions with an apparent level of certainty that would be appropriate if they related to hard sciences".

Obviously he was ripped apart for it but it's fun of course that the predictions that he was talking about are turning out to be false anyway - unless you think unemployment is still going to be 6% next year.

Alex and I were just asking for clarification on SootedPowa's interesting post. He pointed out that the increase of 3% in prices over the last year was nothing remarkable unless there is a reason to think prices would have frozen in the event of a Remain vote. Obviously there exists is some point in the future when SootedPowa's prices will be 8% higher than now - the question is when, and also what are the reasons why his boss thinks that point will be reached sooner under a hard brexit scenario.

haha you guys have got your own little project fear going on.

Honestly LektorAJ, I disagree with many of things that you have said. GDP isn't the be all and end all, but think about where increases come from and remember the impact that the public sector pay freeze had. Some people don't have much margin - this will always be the case but fewer people will likely be below the poverty line (wherever you set it) after a good period of GDP growth than after a period of stagnation.

Economists no doubt could talk about trying to prevent economies overheating, in an attempt to move away from boom and bust cycles, but we are not talking about that.

Anyway, in all fairness my post was a bit smarmy and your response was respectful so kudos for that

lol You have no shame.

Do you want me to go back and find the ****s necessary to deal with your gnat like intellect to bother quoting all your arguments about how Brexit would be good for UK manufacturing, during which you cited professor X numerous times.

Professor X actually says: "Brexit will destroy UK manufacturing."

If the target is 2, then 3 can be significant, DUCY?

Its only 1 moah than 2 tho innit?

Sure it could be. Its 50% more right? In practice though, we know its not a big deal. Because we are talking about the absolute value of currency, and its only 1% difference. It is within the range about which experts would disagree about whether that should be target.

I'm curious, is 3% better or worse than 1%?

Brilliant

We are not just talking about the absolute value of currency, because there are relations to many other aspects, such as wage growth and also very importantly monetary policy and interest rates will be set in relation to the rate of inflation.

If high inflation leads to a higher interest rate, this will probably mean higher debt payments for those already borrowing more because inflation is outstripping wages. Pay growth in real terms (adjusted for inflation) has been falling/negative for several months now.

Consumer debt is growing very problematically in the UK at the moment. Its growing around 10% a year whilst household incomes are growing 1.5%.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...ost-banks-30bn

No worries though, a bit higher inflation and a lower GDP, wont effect anyone that much.......... the hand waving away of massively significant data points by yourself and lektor is phenomenal.

Its not that simple though, a lot of people think we need higher interested rates in order to reduce that debt you mention - because to some extent it is price elastic. We don't need to debate that though, only admit that it is a debate and the answer is not clear, and therefore 1% is not a big deal, since to a lot of experts would say it is a target outcome.

If the BoE's target was 1%, and we were approaching 2%, would that be a disaster?

2% is not set particularly scientifically, and lots of experts say it is wrong. So lets not get too obsessed with the current reference frame.