I don't know much about, Minford? Do you have any good info? Wikipedia's description is uncontroversial. I see the Economist doesn't like him, but their coverage of Brexit was really awful journalism.

Economics is a difficult area to label people flat-earthers. For example, the EMH and CAPM are pretty much disproved, but are still used in the mainstream because they are taught in school and there isn't really a better simple alternative. Are they the flat earth models, or are attempts at left-field alternatives the flat earth models?

I'm not saying he makes a good forecast, but this list of criticisms of assumptions is similar to all the models we have discussed.

The treasury assumed a Brexit vote would cause no change in population or population mix so GDP/Capita change exactly equalled GDP change, and that the Bank of England would not do any part of their day jobs during a transition.

The civil service reports appear to assume absolutely no mitigating work, and no interactions across or up and down supply chains. These were things that are already shown to have started happening.

This is the reality of economic models. They are only good for nudging a decision when the strategic narrative makes sense, not for entirely dominating the subject we are discussing. All these reports were created to push the biased position of the commissioner, not to inform an objective decision, and that is how they should be read.

See below for Minford's own words:

I think it should be fairly obvious that "a lot of trade agreements" or "eliminating associated trade barriers" is not particularly feasible. A lot of trade agreements will take a lot of time and, also, the UK is not that strong and would likely have a weak position in establishing a trade deal with countries like the US (which has been touted as the main replacement of EU bound trade).

Reducing trade barriers including regulation is simply a terrible idea (unless you're a robber baron standing to gain from such activity). . I shouldn't have to spell out why.

Thirdly, he also assumes that the depreciation of the sterling will continue and it will remain low for a long time (making exports more desirable). Unfortunately the structure of the UK supply chain means imported parts (which are involved in ~50% of British exports) would go up in price and would partially negate the advantages of a weakened sterling.
This assumption is, best case, simplistic or quite misleading.

He is, in essence, a supply side economist whose ideas would make life worse for the segment of working class Brexit voters.

Seems to me like you're arguing that all assumptions are created equal and so where there are assumptions involved conclusions are invalid. I don't think that's a good way to look at economic models, since some are clearly better than others. Minford's assumptions are catastrophically bad.

If that's not the point you're making, I apologise.

ITT some people argue that because there is uncertainty in modelling, all models are basically equally as credible.

Next week, we will hear on the same poker forum then all poker strategies are also equal, as you just don't know how things will work out.

If anyone was serious about the Minford studies, they could easily find masses of critiques of what he assumes and why he virtually stands alone (if not, then we wouldn't even have heard of him). He reminds me of the "scientists" who stood alone in denying that smoking was bad for you, many years after everyone knew it was.

Not quite, I understand there is nuance. I am saying that in comparison to the size of the forecast effects, the Treasury and CS assumptions were also catastrophically bad.

Of course there exist some appropriate models with assumptions appropriate to their usage. A multi-year GDP forecast forecasting a small downward effect being the entirety of a Remain campaign was not one of them.

How was the Treasury forecast catastrophically bad? Bare in mind that, I believe, it would have assumed that things moved more quickly than they have - you can't blame the report for not appreciating what a mess the process has been - so you need to factor this in.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that many feel that this projection was on the pessimistic side (even at the time, and allowing for the slow pace of change), but why is it catastrophically bad?

At least I made an effort to spell out why Minford's assumptions were terrible.

Edit: Another quick thought on Minford. I don't think he even mentions the loss of financial services passporting rights under his "abolish it all and just trade freely with everyone" approach (I think he calls it the Britain Alone scenario). Losing passporting rights would mean a huge loss to the City to the tune of many billions a year of revenue shifted to the continent.

You quoted me above where I gave examples of that.

Very short FT article on an "Economists for Free Trade" paper.

There's plenty of this on both sides.

Link

There's not plenty of this on both sides. On one side you have a select group of people called Economists for Free Trade (about whom I've already written somewhat extensively) and on the other side there's everyone else.

Two even try and use the concept of both sides is semantics. There is near universal consensus on one side and a few free market ideologues extremists on the other.

Milford does not even factor in something as non controversial as gravity of trade in his models.

A good point made in there which is that post 2008 the government didn't eat popcorn while the economy sank, they pumped 400bn into the banks. Likewise in the event of future 'catastrophe' there would be a response.
The other study above claims financial services stand to lose the most from brexit, seems legit.

Btw if economists are so clever why do they consistently fail to spot massive icebergs?

He goes further than to not include gravity. He simply says that concept is wrong.

I thought that nothing good would come from Brexit. I was wrong.

Hahah that is amazing!

May under more pressure from centrist tories and labour. Hardly worth making a bet on there being an election in 2018, must be like evens at this point

The spread on betfair is currently 5.3 - 6.6 for an election in 2018. This (5.3) means you can bet 20 quid and be returned more than 100 if it wins, so longer than 4-1 in conventional odds. Have a bet if you think you're right. There's often value in politics markets.

Also this belongs in the general UK politarding thread or the Betting on Elections thread.

And place that bet before the local elections in May.

I still need convincing that someone really wants to take on the mantle of being the PM who took the UK out of the EU.

Up to a point yes, but if they can't control EU immigration then they have to reduce non-EU immigration - assuming of course they want to control population growth (which not everyone does including people ITT).

Ok, I admit it's trivial enough for me not to research it properly, why did you post it if it's so trivial?

I don't know why it matters - either his cartoons (and there are thousands of them he's done over the decades which are shared by people working in offices every day) show general truths or they miss the target. He wasn't quoted as an authority in the thread anyway.

1. There is no data yet for this calendar year apart from in your own head. Article was published in January and the figures goes up to November.

You say the data shows a decline in manufacturing - post said data.

2. Post data on EU manufacturing.

3. Post said data.

You know there was a net inflow of 38 billion of FDI in 2017? https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/natio...is/january2018

In any case this is a long term process. It's not turning out as bad as I thought so far at all - I was willing to take 5 years of disruption to be in a better position in 20 years time. Before the referendum people ITT were talking about exodus (of Brits) queuing at the ports, now we're talking about a couple of percent either way on a set of manufacturing figures that as yet only exists in grizy's head.

From dismalscientist.com (a well-respected aggregator site that monitors economic indicators from all over the world)

[IMG][/IMG]

You might want to read that FDI report a bit.

It doesn't actually paint a rosy picture like you think it does.

Before you try to clown yourself some more, you should realize I am probably not the only person in the thread that gets paid to read/summarize the stuff for real business people on a regular (almost daily) basis.

If you could be bothered to click the blue text under the graph:



"
United Kingdom: GDP Production Breakdown
Actual, previous and consensus values with detailed economic analysis for United Kingdom GDP Production Breakdown.
Print Alert Definition Source

Analysis by Barbara Teixeira Araujo

Actual 1.5%
Previous (Before any revisions) 1.5%
Coverage 2017Q4
Next Release
Updated Jan 26, 2018 4:30 AM
Archives


So the data has obviously been put in the graph incorrectly. Also, if it's an aggregator then you go to the original source data?

Click on the one for "industrial" and it says

"U.K. industrial production fell by 1.3% m/m in December, worse than the consensus but also exceeding the Office for National Statistics estimate of a 0.9% decline that fed into the fourth quarter GDP’s first estimate. We do not expect this will prompt a downward revision to the growth headline since separately released construction figures came in a little above initial expectations and provided offset. Also, the decline shouldn’t raise concerns about the health of U.K. industries, as it was mainly due to a 19.1% m/m plunge in mining and quarrying output after the closure of the Forties pipeline for emergency repairs. Since the pipeline reopened later in the month, we expect a strong rebound in January. Manufacturing, by contrast, rose by a healthier 0.3% m/m, after a 0.2% rise in November"

Still waiting for the data showing a decline in manufacturing.

Still waiting for 2018 data you say exists.

Then lol @ the people who pay you.

You can't even distinguish forecasts from actual data.

I'm fine with saying that my forecast for the next 5 years is "worse than under a Remain scenario", but be objective about the actual data.