Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 112 posts

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#81

Post by jstanley »

CPLX wrote: post #71
jstanley wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the avocado farmers in Chile, it's also the avocado purchasers in the UK.

If the society you live in today decided to expropriate all of the money and resources owned by a randomly selected 5% of the population, so that 5% of the population was instantly destitute, but then distributed those resources evenly to everyone else, would you consider that society better off, worse off, or pretty much the same as the day before that happened?

Stealing 5% of people's money is not OK.

Stopping 5% of people from stealing other people's money is a good thing, but might easily be confused with the first thing.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#82

Post by tim333 »

bigpicture wrote: post #33
jdlyga wrote: post #3

So, why do it? Should a razor thin majority in a public vote 2 years ago decide the UK's policy forever?

> So, why do it? Should a razor thin majority in a public vote 2 years ago decide the UK's policy forever? Why do it? That question ceased being relevant a long time ago, when the process was irreversibly started. The linked article is suggesting a least-bad path forward. People may or may not agree with their assessment.

The question is still somewhat relevant. I realise the prime minister doesn't think it is but she may not be in power indefinitely.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#83

Post by stoon »

jimnotgym wrote: post #66
cletus wrote: post #58

I think at this point we can safely say that the Brexit was a protest vote against immigration that got out of hand (in that it got >50% of the vote) and the UK is now left to pick up the pieces. Look into this for even a few minutes and you'll come to a conclusion that leaving the EU is a ridiculous idea. - The Good Friday agreement gives the UK the obligation to maintain an open border with the Republic of Ireland…

> The UK regaining sovereignty over territorial waters for fishing purposes. These waters have been heavily overfished and the tragedy of the commons has definitely applied here. Ironically when the EC was originally formed the UK refused to join. Had they done so they would've maintained sovereignty over territorial waters. When they later joined they didn't. I don't think this is going to happen at all. Most fish l…

"More than 50% of fish caught by British boats end up elsewhere in the EU". A 47km traffic jam isn't going to help getting fresh fish exported either, that's the least of their worries.

What's most terrifying is the knock on affects of one of the largest economies on the planet going into reverse for 5+ years.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#84

Post by cletus »

jimnotgym wrote: post #66
cletus wrote: post #58

I think at this point we can safely say that the Brexit was a protest vote against immigration that got out of hand (in that it got >50% of the vote) and the UK is now left to pick up the pieces. Look into this for even a few minutes and you'll come to a conclusion that leaving the EU is a ridiculous idea. - The Good Friday agreement gives the UK the obligation to maintain an open border with the Republic of Ireland…

> The UK regaining sovereignty over territorial waters for fishing purposes. These waters have been heavily overfished and the tragedy of the commons has definitely applied here. Ironically when the EC was originally formed the UK refused to join. Had they done so they would've maintained sovereignty over territorial waters. When they later joined they didn't. I don't think this is going to happen at all. Most fish l…

The politics of fishing in the waters around the UK and Ireland is long and complicated. Here's just one example: http://britishseafishing.co.uk/atlantic-dawn-the-ship-from-h...

I believe there have been other examples where the Irish fishing quota was expanded by the exact amount of tonnage as whatever new supertrawler just got built.

It's also true that the British government have had their own issues when it comes to fishing policy but I still believe that the end result in total will be better with a single government (the UK) managing those waters rather than them falling under the EU's fishing policy.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#85

Post by jcranmer »

jdlyga wrote: post #3

So, why do it? Should a razor thin majority in a public vote 2 years ago decide the UK's policy forever?

There's essentially 4 options at this point:

1. Take the deal on offer.

2. Stall for more time to get a better deal.

3. Cancel the whole thing.

4. Bail out with no-deal.

(There's also a non-orthogonal option of hold a second referendum to let voters decide which option to do, the results of this are likely to depend heavily on what options are actually on the ballot.)

It's not at all clear that a better deal is forthcoming, given more time. Indeed, the current deal on offer is already kicking most of the hard contentious decisions down the road. So the general preference for what should be done amounts to, in decreasing order of desirability, 3, 1, 4, 2 or 1, 3, 4, 2, depending on how people view the EU. But that preference isn't the same preference that's going on for the vocal Brexiteer politician population.

For those people, the EU has been an ideological punching bag for quite some time, which means that admitting that leaving now is not the appropriate action amounts to discrediting their views. So to them, option 3 is the absolute worst option. Similarly, the current deal on offer commits the UK to maintaining a lot of the EU's provisions without a strong say on them, which is still pretty anathema to those who want nothing less than a hard Brexit, making option 1 nearly as bad. This means that the remaining option are to walk away from the current deal and hope that brinkmanship causes the EU to sweeten the deal, or to believe that the worst effects of a no-deal Brexit simply won't happen. So for these politicians, their order of preference is basically the reverse of what it is for everybody.

Essentially, that is the issue. Brexit was sold on a pack of fantasy and lies, and the people in power have the choice of committing to their fantasies are admitting that they've lied. It's rare to find the politician who would admit that the worldview they've committed to for decades is a lie, and you shouldn't be surprised that the Brexiteers are the same way.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#86

Post by tim333 »

jstanley wrote: post #6
jdlyga wrote: post #3

So, why do it? Should a razor thin majority in a public vote 2 years ago decide the UK's policy forever?

What do you propose? A razor thin minority in a public vote 2 years ago decide the UK's policy forever?

More votes? People can change their minds. That's the usual way democracy works.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#87

Post by OscarCunningham »

jstanley wrote: post #78
jimnotgym wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ECJ is ruling on whether the EU members can stop the UK withdrawing it's notice. The EU members will of course be bound by this, if Britain withdraws it's notice to leave it will still be in the EU so of course it will be bound. You have a habit of jumping on these EU threads j? It feels like trolling to me.

The reason I comment a lot in these threads is because lots of other people post things in these threads that appear (to me) obviously wrong. There seems to be this notion that governments are what makes the world go round, and people going about their daily lives do so only by the governments' blessings. I don't believe that is the way the world works, or is even a useful way to model how the world works. I believe…

I largely share that point of view, but I view leaving the EU as a bad thing since I think it's extremely unlikely that the UK parliment will unilaterally abolish tariffs after we leave. We're likely to end up with more tariffs than when we started.

Brexit is a step towards the global optimum, but we're going to get stuck at a local pessimum.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#88

Post by CPLX »

jstanley wrote: post #81
CPLX wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the society you live in today decided to expropriate all of the money and resources owned by a randomly selected 5% of the population, so that 5% of the population was instantly destitute, but then distributed those resources evenly to everyone else, would you consider that society better off, worse off, or pretty much the same as the day before that happened?

Stealing 5% of people's money is not OK. Stopping 5% of people from stealing other people's money is a good thing, but might easily be confused with the first thing.

It's just a factual question.

And it illustrates a basic concept, which is that redistributing money isn't value-neutral. Some distributions are better for society than others.

You can't just say free trade takes money from this group and gives it to that group and perhaps ekes out a modest efficiency gain and conclude your analysis there.

It matters who wins and who loses, and by how much.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#89

Post by PavlovsCat »

jdlyga wrote: post #3

So, why do it? Should a razor thin majority in a public vote 2 years ago decide the UK's policy forever?

That was my reaction from the get go... none of it was legally binding, why make more if it than it was? The reply I usually got was that politicians would have to do it to not "lose credibility" (the one they don't have in the first place), or to "get re-elected" (which is not actually anything they technically have to do).

To me it seemed like people hypnotizing themselves to sleepwalk into (IMO) pointless, useless harm, and that also came from people who said they were against Brexit. "This really sucks, but there's no going back now". Most of the (online) discussion (I saw) was about whether a Brexit would be good or bad, but that it would happen seemed a foregone conclusion.

Re: What to expect from a no-deal Brexit

#90

Post by ngcc_hk »

jstanley wrote: post #78
jimnotgym wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ECJ is ruling on whether the EU members can stop the UK withdrawing it's notice. The EU members will of course be bound by this, if Britain withdraws it's notice to leave it will still be in the EU so of course it will be bound. You have a habit of jumping on these EU threads j? It feels like trolling to me.

The reason I comment a lot in these threads is because lots of other people post things in these threads that appear (to me) obviously wrong. There seems to be this notion that governments are what makes the world go round, and people going about their daily lives do so only by the governments' blessings. I don't believe that is the way the world works, or is even a useful way to model how the world works. I believe…

Sometimes yes sometimes no in general.

If government of uk is so easy there is no politics.

Also if you just say government, think china. 1/5 humanity. No. Government can be very powerful.

But even there it could be sometimes help sometimes in the way. Politics is hard. Democracy especially you can have variety within like a federal system (Scots and north i is a bit different from England not sure wales) is good.

Life is hard to analysis even one person. For millions. You can believe what you want. But look at facts and read situation and change course. And make mistakes all the time.

Wonder whether is an option to remain. Planned exit or no deal seemed more realistic.

Post reply on HN