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[–] TelescopiumHerscheli 6 points -5 points (+1|-6) ago  (edited ago)

Can I have your e-mail address so in 10 years time I can send you a note of all the economic and social damage your stupid decision has led to, please?

As you can tell, I'm pretty angry. Mercifully, I know very few people who voted "Leave", but I know a few. For the rest of my life I intend to taunt them with periodic updates on the state of the English economy as it would have been without Brexit and what it actually is. Pretty nasty to remind people of their stupidity, but you really do deserve it. You were told, over and over again, that Brexit would be a disaster, by the smartest people in the country - all those scientists and economists and heads of industry and commerce - people who, you know, actually know their subject and have built years of expertise - but you had the arrogance to believe that you were smarter than they are. Let's see how things stand so far (after just two days):

  • Britain's creditworthiness is now under review. We are on track to lose our "AAA" status. Even being "under review" increases the borrowing costs the government has to pay. These extra costs come out of your taxes, meaning that there is less to spend on hospitals, schools, etc.. Your stupid vote did this.

  • The pound has collapsed in the foreign exchange markets. The likely collapse over time will be in the range of 20-30%. This means that imported goods will increase in price by 25-42%. Your food bill is about to go up, as is your bill for most household applicances and other electronic goods. Brexiteers went on about how James Dyson was in favour of Brexit: of course he was, because as a UK boss his overpriced machines will shortly be cheaper relative to imported ones. (And surely the fact that he named them "Dysons" was a clue to his monolithic arrogance and inability to focus on anything but himself.) Brexit makes Dyson richer; it makes you poorer. Over the next few months you should expect inflation to rise, starting with food and eventually covering everything you buy. Your stupid vote did this.

  • England will now have to renegotiate all its trade deals. Before, the UK was able to get a good deal, because we negotiated as part of the EU. The EU is a big market, so we were able to get good trade deals with China, Japan, the USA, etc., because these places wanted access to the big EU market. England, though, is much smaller. We will have to give away much more in trade negotiations to get access to these countries now, because when you've got a billion in population like China has, access to a piddly little market like England is unimportant and they can afford to play hardball with us (and they will). England's terms of trade are about to take a huge and permanent hit. A preliminary "back of the envelope" calculation suggests that we will lose at least 0.3% per annum in economic growth from this. This doesn't sound much, but it adds up very quickly. It means that in future we will have less money to spend on essential public services than we otherwise would have. For example, after ten years we will have 3% less to spend. This means that instead of 100 nurses we will only have 97; instead of 100 firemen we will only have 97; instead of 100 teachers we will only have 97; and so on. Over time we will become poorer and poorer relative to the rest of Europe, because their terms of trade with the rest of the world will be better than ours. Your stupid vote did this.

  • The Brexit campaign's key promise was that an extra £350 million per week would be available once we stopped paying it into the EU, and would be spent on hospitals. Within 24 hours of the vote, Farage has admitted that this promise was a lie and cannot be kept. Couldn't you tell he was fraud?

  • There will be many, many, many more pieces of bad news. Every single one of them will be due to your stupid vote.

Surely you must have realised, when the only people outside the country who wanted Brexit were a clown, a dictator, and a crypto-Nazi (Trump, Putin and Le Pen), that it was a bad idea? What the hell were you thinking? You took a great country, well integrated into the world economy, with a varied and effective workforce, and turned it into the future poor man of Europe. Your stupid vote did this.

You should be utterly ashamed of your arrant stupidity. For god's sake, the government itself sent you a document telling you which way to vote, just in case you couldn't work it out for yourself. Instead, you thought you were smarter than all those wise, experienced, educated people. You fucked up, and for the rest of your life I sincerely and with absolute conviction hope that you know, in your heart of hearts, that your vote contributed to the ruination of this country.

Of course, you won't really take this message to heart. How do I know? Because really stupid people, like you, don't admit that they were stupid. They make excuses and fatuous arguments to try and convince themselves that they were right after all. You'll do that, and in a couple of days you'll have forgotten this message. You won't face up to the calamity that you and the millions of stupid others like you have brought upon this beloved country. As England steadily declines relative to other countries you'll tell little stories to yourself of how "Brexit would have worked, but it was derailed by the elites" and how "we were betrayed after the referendum by the London ruling classes", because that's what stupid people do. You'll lie to yourself about who to blame as England lags further and further behind. You'll permanently abnegate all responsibility for the disaster that your stupidity has created. Your stupid mind will do this.

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[–] alostlemming 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

Still talking down to people, that got you here as much as anything.

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[–] The_Only_Other 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago 

Britain's creditworthiness is now under review.

True

We are on track to lose our "AAA" status

Bullshit. You aren't "on-track" for anything. The downgrade depends on the trade deals the UK negotiates. Straight from Moody's:

"Moody's expects a negative impact on the economy unless the UK government manages to negotiate a trade deal that largely replicates its current access to the Single Market."

None of the other countries that left the EU have had trouble accessing the single market, and it is unlikely this will happen with the UK as they make up such a substantial chunk of European trade. Further, the EU is already putting plans trade plans together.

It is extremely unlikely your credit rating will be downgraded.

Even being "under review" increases the borrowing costs the government has to pay. These extra costs come out of your taxes, meaning that there is less to spend on hospitals, schools, etc.. Your stupid vote did this.

True, but this "review" will only be in place until trade deals are negotiated, and it seems like all parties involved are very anxious to smooth this over quickly.

The pound has collapsed in the foreign exchange markets.

The pound fell 7% from 1.47 to 1.37 against the dollar, which is hardly the end of the world considering the amount of uncertainty in the markets over this vote. There have been far less significant political events which have shaken a nation's currency far more than this.

The likely collapse over time will be in the range of 20-30%.

No, this is how much people were saying the pound would fall. It didn't fall 20-30%, it fell 7%. This is a 7% collapse due to immediate market shock. It won't fall any lower in the near-term (at least not because of the Brexit, other non-related events may occur) because all the people who got scared already pulled out. It may fall lower in the long-term depending on how trade deals pan out, but as I mentioned above it is very likely that the UK will be able to negotiate decent trade deals as all parties involved are interested in making this happen.

This means that imported goods will increase in price by 25-42%. Your food bill is about to go up, as is your bill for most household applicances and other electronic goods.

If the pound actually fell 20-30%, yes this would be true. However, this is not likely to happen as the pound is not likely to fall 20-30%, as mentioned above.

England will now have to renegotiate all its trade deals.

True

Before, the UK was able to get a good deal, because we negotiated as part of the EU. The EU is a big market, so we were able to get good trade deals with China, Japan, the USA, etc., because these places wanted access to the big EU market.

Not exactly true. The UK was also constrained by EU trade deals, and this both worked to it's advantage and disadvantage. To think that the EU trade deals were all up-side and no down-side for the UK is disingenuous at best.

England, though, is much smaller. We will have to give away much more in trade negotiations to get access to these countries now, because when you've got a billion in population like China has, access to a piddly little market like England is unimportant and they can afford to play hardball with us (and they will).

First off, you obviously have no understanding of trade. Population size, country size, etc, have absolutely no effect on the outcome of a trade deal. Total output of goods can, but the biggest factor is what you are offering and at what price you choose to offer it. If the UK has goods that the world wants (and enough of them) and the world has goods to offer the UK, good trade deals will be negotiated. For example, the US has negotiated trade deals that are very advantageous to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, North Korea, and Vietnam (the last two of which were back-water, agricultural nations as little as 20 years ago and are now, through trade with the US, are on track to becoming the most advanced economies in the world). All of these countries are smaller than the UK and had far, far less to offer.

England's terms of trade are about to take a huge and permanent hit.

Extremely doubtful.

A preliminary "back of the envelope" calculation suggests that we will lose at least 0.3% per annum in economic growth from this. This doesn't sound much, but it adds up very quickly. It means that in future we will have less money to spend on essential public services than we otherwise would have. For example, after ten years we will have 3% less to spend. This means that instead of 100 nurses we will only have 97; instead of 100 firemen we will only have 97; instead of 100 teachers we will only have 97; and so on. Over time we will become poorer and poorer relative to the rest of Europe, because their terms of trade with the rest of the world will be better than ours.

Based on your actual understand of trade and economics, I'm guessing you just copied and pasted this from some news article. This is very unlikely as the UK is on track to negotiate trade deals with the EU already and will likely negotiate trade deals with other nations. Even if they aren't as good as before, the fact the the UK is not constrained by the EU will mean other deals can be made, and it will all balance out. Again, the situation outlined above is not likely to happen because, despite doom-sayer predictions, all parties involved are very anxious to trade with the UK.

As far as that last part (my emphasis) you do realize that the growth of every EU country has been terrible, and consistently declining, in the last few years, right? On the other hand, the UK has the higher growth rate than any EU country, and it has been growing. Even if economic growth in the UK were slower not that it's left the EU, the rest of Europe is literally already becoming poorer than the UK.

The Brexit campaign's key promise was that an extra £350 million per week would be available once we stopped paying it into the EU, and would be spent on hospitals. Within 24 hours of the vote, Farage has admitted that this promise was a lie and cannot be kept. Couldn't you tell he was fraud?

This is true. You won't be getting an extra 350 million per week. However, there will be extra money available to spend around.

There will be many, many, many more pieces of bad news.

Actually the immediate post-Brexit fallout wasn't nearly as bad as any of the doom-sayers predicted, which means it's very unlikely that any of their other predictions will come to fruition.

Can I have your e-mail address so in 10 years time I can send you a note of all the economic and social damage your stupid decision has led to, please?

As you can tell, I'm pretty angry. Mercifully, I know very few people who voted "Leave", but I know a few. For the rest of my life I intend to taunt them with periodic updates on the state of the English economy as it would have been without Brexit and what it actually is. Pretty nasty to remind people of their stupidity, but you really do deserve it. You were told, over and over again, that Brexit would be a disaster, by the smartest people in the country - all those scientists and economists and heads of industry and commerce - people who, you know, actually know their subject and have built years of expertise - but you had the arrogance to believe that you were smarter than they are. Let's see how things stand so far (after just two days):

Surely you must have realised, when the only people outside the country who wanted Brexit were a clown, a dictator, and a crypto-Nazi (Trump, Putin and Le Pen), that it was a bad idea? What the hell were you thinking? You took a great country, well integrated into the world economy, with a varied and effective workforce, and turned it into the future poor man of Europe. Your stupid vote did this.

You should be utterly ashamed of your arrant stupidity. For god's sake, the government itself sent you a document telling you which way to vote, just in case you couldn't work it out for yourself. Instead, you thought you were smarter than all those wise, experienced, educated people. You fucked up, and for the rest of your life I sincerely and with absolute conviction hope that you know, in your heart of hearts, that your vote contributed to the ruination of this country.

Of course, you won't really take this message to heart. How do I know? Because really stupid people, like you, don't admit that they were stupid. They make excuses and fatuous arguments to try and convince themselves that they were right after all. You'll do that, and in a couple of days you'll have forgotten this message. You won't face up to the calamity that you and the millions of stupid others like you have brought upon this beloved country. As England steadily declines relative to other countries you'll tell little stories to yourself of how "Brexit would have worked, but it was derailed by the elites" and how "we were betrayed after the referendum by the London ruling classes", because that's what stupid people do. You'll lie to yourself about who to blame as England lags further and further behind. You'll permanently abnegate all responsibility for the disaster that your stupidity has created. Your stupid mind will do this.

Do I need to point out the irony of someone who obviously can't spell or put together a coherent sentence telling someone else, who can clearly articulate themselves and lay out their arguments, that they aren't intelligent enough to make their own voting decision?

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[–] TelescopiumHerscheli ago  (edited ago)

Thank you for your entertaining post. I hope you got as much fun from writing it as I got from laughing at it.

  • I spoke to a contact at a ratings agency yesterday (Saturday). The outlook is not good, and they certainly don't intend to wait for two years while new deals are negotiated.

  • Sterling is likely to fall significantly further as more information becomes available.

  • Your comment on the possibility of England's trade deals in future being as good as those of the UK in the EU seems to be empirically false (though I do grant that there is a continuing debate about this, and there are additional factors that need to be included; I was simplifying because the "headline" result is pretty clear, and the original poster probably wouldn't understand the more nuanced position).

  • I did the calculation on future losses of public services myself, and am reasonably sure that a 3% loss in public services over 10 years is correct on the basis of the data inputs. (I took average GDP growth rates over the period since the UK joined the EU as my base case, and took the new growth rate as 0.3% lower, based on historical figures for the UK's economic performance against that of other leading EU members. Then it's just a difference of two exponentials.)

  • All things considered I'm happy with my spelling and coherence. (And I'd prefer not to take spelling tips from someone who manages to mis-spell "Iliad" and "Al Qaeda"!)

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[–] antiracist 5 points -5 points (+0|-5) ago 

I once met an idiot mathematician who thought fucking CHANGE doesn't exist. He is totally right though because he's a mathematician.

"cite me an empirical source showing that change exists in our universe and I will concede this entire argument to you ... and write a long winded essay admitting that I was wrong that you can plaster anywhere you want over this site." -- @The_Only_Other

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

https://voat.co/v/atheism/comments/1064083/5315243

Archived that shit: http://archive.is/C9241

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[–] flat_hedgehog 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

No, you cannot have my email address. I have given you an upvoat for typing all that out though. Given that the majority of your peers voted to Remain, I'll hazard a guess that you are a student. I will ignore the insults and try to respond to your arguments.

Britain's creditworthiness is not a issue. We borrow in our own currency and borrowing rates are at an all-time low. There will be extra costs to borrowing but I view that as a smaller issue that the amount our country will save from not sending money to the EU, not financially supporting many EU migrants,etc. We do need to balance the budget but that is a different issue.

The pound has fallen slightly against the dollar. It was artificially high to begin with at $1.49 so part of the drop was market correction. The other part was panic. Traders have nerves of tissue paper. Told to panic by the UK government's doom-mongering, they panic. Computer traders see a fall and follow. Once everyone realises that the sky hasn't fallen, people will re-invest.

The pound falling is bad for imports (foreign businesses' profit) but good for exports (UK businesses' profit). Guess which of those I care about. If it costs more to buy bacon from Denmark, I will buy bacon from a UK farm. Spending money within the country supports jobs here.

We need to negotiate trade deals. Fine. All non-EU countries have to negotiate their trade deals. It happens. EU countries do not want to stop selling us their goods. France will continue to sell us wine. China will continue to buy our whisky and salmon.

There were plenty of academics who didn't want us to leave the EU. They may be experts in top-line economics and in their fields but that doesn't mean that the view point of the less formally-educated is irrelevant. I resent anyone telling me that my experiences with rising rent, over-crowded public transport, inability to get a GP appointment are invalid because I don't have a PhD.

Some advice for the future - don't call everyone who disagrees with you stupid. It won't win anyone round to your point of view.

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[–] TelescopiumHerscheli ago 

Thank you for response. Your guess that I'm a student is wrong, though I do have lots of students ranging from callow first-year undergrads upwards. Very few of them would have made the mistake that you made.

I think you're being disingenuous when you say the pound has "fallen slightly" when it's one of the biggest falls in living memory. Certainly there has been some profit-taking, but it's likely that the underlying trend for sterling is still down. Your remark about algorithmic trading is partly right: there are many "trend-following" trading algorithms, but these algorithms have been falling as a proportion of all algorithmic trading over the last decade or so as more sophisticated models have been introduced. On balance it's a moot point whether algorithmic trading has amplified or reduced the impact of the Brexit news in the FX markets. A weak point in your citing the impact of computer-driven trading is that it fails to appreciate how many of the more modern approaches work: they only act on the basis of formally structured information of particular kinds (e.g. specific economic figures), so haven't yet had a chance to react to Brexit, as we don't have any new economic data of the right kind to trigger them. This will change in the months ahead.

It is actually exactly because of your "experiences with rising rent, over-crowded public transport, inability to get a GP appointment" and so on that your decision process is invalid. You, like many other less reflective people, confuse your particular experience with that of the country as a whole. Similarly, many less reflective people can't effectively think in terms of "counterfactuals" ("what would have happened if..."). These are common problems amongst what we can, for short, call "stupid people". Stupid people can't think clearly, and make decisions on the basis of a whole range of unhelpful behaviours (what we sometimes call "cognitive biases"). This is what you did when you cast your stupid vote: you looked at the world through the lens of your own limited view, rather than taking the broader view.

Don't get me wrong: academic economists suffer from exactly the same cognitive biases and tendencies to e.g. focus on anecdotal data rather than carefully compiled statistics. I have to work really hard to think abstractly, and so do all my colleagues. Most of being an "intellectual" or a "social liberal" or whatever is learning to think clearly and without bias. This is difficult, which is why most people don't do it. It's certainly why many many pro-Brexit voters cast their stupid votes.

It is possible to stop being stupid, but it takes tremendous work. I have the good fortune to work for an institution that only accepts very high quality students, and even then it's a real struggle to get most of them to think clearly and critically.

I imagine you think I'm "arrogant" for what I'm saying here. Actually, you are the arrogant one: you imagined that your ability to make decisions about an incredibly complex economic and social issue was better than that of all those hundreds of experts from all those different industries and academies. Would you think you were better than a surgeon who's trained for years? Would you even think you know more about plumbing than one of those cheap, well-trained Polish plumbers you worry about? Then why on earth did you think you knew more about economic and social issues than those highly educated, intelligent, hard-working people who told you over and over what the risks were? Certainly there are some people whose PhDs have contributed nothing to their minds (I'm thinking of one particular ex-colleague!), but generally having higher qualifications and having spent more time studying is a good indicator that these people know what they're talking about. When smart people speak, it's stupid to ignore them.