on 22-06-2016 09:50 PM
Warnings about global economic fallout if Britain votes to leave the European Union are reaching fever pitch a day out from the so-called Brexit referendum.
In an op-ed in the Guardian, billionaire currency trader George Soros said a "Leave" vote could severely damage British living standards and potentially trigger a major crash in the British pound.
Economists divided on Brexit
BlackRock managing director and global chief investment strategist Richard Turnill said if Britain does exit, he expected to see volatility and significant declines in the Sterling.
"We expect to see significant declines in domestic UK assets, particularly smaller, mid-cap equities, but actually as you've seen over the last few days, the volatility I think is going to extend to broader European assets and global assets. I think you'll see flows into safe havens in the event of an exit, back into treasuries, back into gold," Mr Turnill said.
But British economist Roger Bootle, the founder of Capital Economics disagreed, arguing the UK would not be necessarily worse off if it left the EU.
"It's not going to be a case of European politicians saying to their own industries and to us we can't trade, that would be illegal under WTO rules," Mr Bootle said.
"It's going to be a matter of the EU if worse comes to worse, treating us exactly as they treat all sorts of countries around the world, including the United States, India, China, Japan, etc."
My son, who lives in England and works in the finance sector in London, wants England to stay in the EU. I say they should leave. We've been sending each other terse emails.
on 24-06-2016 09:02 PM
@lionrose.7 wrote:In 2016 A.D. a small island nation representing less than 1% of the worlds population but one of the richest countries in the world decided that it couldn't sha...re even a tiny amount of that wealth with its close neighbours or people from other countries who didn't have as much as them.
They voted to leave the worlds larchest single market that they were pretty much in charge of, winning on well over 90% of votes.A point of historical interest is that the referendum was won because elderly and working class people who were getting little support under the right wing austerity based government of the time were convinced that by leaving the worlds largest mechanism for sharing they would somehow end up with a fairer society where people would share with them more.
This led to an even more unfair society and the small island nation ended up being devided up even further, based on the same logic, until it ended up being 3 nations full of people who believed that the smaller they were the less they would have to share with others and therefore the more people would share with them.
In hindsight this logic was fundamentaly flawed from a social, economic and even moral point of view but at the time a man with funny hair said it was true.
Over the coming decade this tiny island of 3 nations became politicaly irelevant and the unrealistic level of self importance it had built up in the 17th and 18th century through colonisation and some early technology innovations were of little importance in the modern world.
Whilst historians agree that leaving the EU accelerated the demise, the underlying cause was a social phenomenon where no one wanted to share with each other.
and then children, do you know what happend?
no miss, tell us.
global warming happend and the little island slowly sank into the sea, never to be seen again.
on 24-06-2016 09:12 PM
Leg it ! There's a rabied Kangaroo loose in the top paddock.....*wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh*
on 24-06-2016 09:19 PM
on 24-06-2016 09:40 PM
on 24-06-2016 11:01 PM
on 25-06-2016 07:26 AM
I truly don't think Trump will be voted in as USA president. If Americans are that stupid, then I will never be able to call myself American again.
As far as Brexit goes, we expected it. My husband is "British" by birth(Scottish version). We were in London a couple of months ago, and most of the people we met said that they were in favor of leaving.
Now we will wait to see how Scotland votes if they get another chance to leave to the U.K.
on 25-06-2016 09:19 AM
this is interesting
on 25-06-2016 09:53 AM
@tcmsecretuseid wrote:We will wait to see how Scotland votes if they get another chance to leave to the U.K.
on 25-06-2016 10:03 AM
trumps favorite book,
i see a lot of similarities between these two men
on 25-06-2016 10:18 AM
Addendum to post #28 - meant to say that the Sturgeon dame is considered to be a joke here. A caricature of Wima Flintstone, with hair that's been sprayed with cement. I could post a piccie but there may be children looking in.