Orange man bad.
That sinking feeling
41–50 of 178 posts
Re: That sinking feeling
#42While the article may seem alarmist, considering how little the government has achieved in the 762 days since the referendum, I too have little hope of any meaningful progress being made. We have 240 days left, little idea what the government even wants, and Theresa May is in the headlines for snatching milk from children. Not that the opposition is in much better shape. I do not know what Brexit the UK will get, but…
When was the last time any UK government pulled of something this big this quickly?
Operation Corporate, South Atlantic, 1982? Although a small war isn't nearly so big a deal as Brexit.
Re: That sinking feeling
#43I've spoken to people who are cheering for these kinds of effects. An actual quote: "I hope Trump does as much damage as possible." The Trump and Brexit elections were for some people a kind of Luddite revolt -- not against technology per se but against globalization. This was a revolt by the working classes of the developed world against a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them. I can't say I…
an upvote was not enough recognition for this comment.
"I hope Trump does as much damage as possible." - I have heard almost this exact quote.
Its difficult to empathize with the sentiment, but it is potent and its real.
Re: That sinking feeling
#44Entertaining, but realistically the UK will just get a "bad deal". Life will go on, political parties are blamed, then we get to repeat it all again because the next party to be elected does it on a platform of "renegotiating".
There is a non-zero chance that May is replaced by a hard brexiter and they insist, by will of the referendum, that a hard brexit must occur. You can see UKIP bubbling back up in frustration. When you consider what a soft brexit is, it's genuinely nothing of what leave wanted. The UK still doesn't have a solid border between itself and the EU because of the Good Friday Agreement, the UK still had to pay the EU and fo…
And the most likely candidate is Jacob Rees-Mogg "Honourable Member for the 19th Century":
Re: That sinking feeling
#45What exactly are the EU red lines in the brexit negotiations?
Re: That sinking feeling
#46Entertaining, but realistically the UK will just get a "bad deal". Life will go on, political parties are blamed, then we get to repeat it all again because the next party to be elected does it on a platform of "renegotiating".
Realistically the UK is shaping up for no deal. Highly appealing to Rees Mogg and his tax haven based hedge fund, not so good for everyone else. No deal will mean life goes on with tariffs on many goods in either direction. As we have seen over the last two years the Foreign Office has seemingly lost everyone who has diplomatic ability. Funny, they used to be famously good at it. This is not promising for the chances…
It's not so much the tariffs as the customs clearance per se. Everyone seems to have forgotten that transporting goods across a border has VAT implications, and if you don't check and aren't part of the same VAT area there's a huge opportunity for "carousel fraud".
And the UK is absolutely not set up to cope with customs checks on every vehicle crossing the Channel. See "operation stack".
Oh, and all our international air travel agreements are part of EU membership. Unless something is agreed planes will be grounded.
Re: That sinking feeling
#47Just an outsider's opinion, but I think that they had a vote. They probably should not have voted "Leave", but they did. So now you have to get on with the business of implementing the will of the people. It might come out just as the author has outlined, or it might not be that bad, or it might be far worse than even the author has envisioned. The thing is, whatever the consequences and benefits are, they are conseq…
You should ask the people the same question again, now that they've had some time to inform themselves of what "leaving the EU" really means.
I wouldn't bet any money on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority would now vote Remain.
Re: That sinking feeling
#48While the article may seem alarmist, considering how little the government has achieved in the 762 days since the referendum, I too have little hope of any meaningful progress being made. We have 240 days left, little idea what the government even wants, and Theresa May is in the headlines for snatching milk from children. Not that the opposition is in much better shape. I do not know what Brexit the UK will get, but…
> When was the last time any UK government pulled of something this big this quickly? Suez?
And look how that turned out....
Re: That sinking feeling
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that it wasn't a legitimate vote, free off outside influence. The Russian troll factory was hard at work influencing the outcome of that referendum. So what's the actual will of the people?
You need to prove that. It hasent been.
Proving in court will be hard. But surely you've seen the smoke?
Re: That sinking feeling
#50I've spoken to people who are cheering for these kinds of effects. An actual quote: "I hope Trump does as much damage as possible." The Trump and Brexit elections were for some people a kind of Luddite revolt -- not against technology per se but against globalization. This was a revolt by the working classes of the developed world against a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them. I can't say I…
> a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them I sadly can't disagree with most of your comment, but I'm skeptical about this. I see drugs impoverishing people. I see unaffordable health care impoverishing people. The hollowing out of the traditional factory economy certainly hurt, but I wonder how much of that was artificially inflated by the fact that the rest of the industrialized world was dec…
I see what you're saying, but I think you're underestimating the effect of job loss, wage reduction, and general economic hollowing out.
The thing that makes it impoverishment is that our economic system is inflationary. It's designed for a world where everything always (over time) goes up: stocks, wages, prices, etc. Whether or not that's a good idea is a completely separate discussion but it's something we came up with to deal with deflationary problems during the first half of the 20th century and there it stands.
Globalization and automation are extremely deflationary. High technology is extremely deflationary. They place extreme downward pressure on wages. But we still operate our economic system as if everything always goes up.
So... college tuition goes up. Housing goes up. Health care goes up. Energy and food go up. Anything with pricing power goes up. Wages don't, especially unskilled wages in the interior where you have the double whammy of regional labor oversupply and lower skill levels.
The crunch is real and extreme. Many of the other things you mention are effects, not causes. The addiction epidemic in America's interior reminds me a lot of the alcoholism and drug addiction epidemic that followed the collapse of the USSR.