EalingBlue2
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Officials picked by elected governments and you want to get rid of that on reasons of democracy to replace with completely un-democratically appointed bureaucrats
EU referendum
- Thread starter Ric
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Officials picked by elected governments and you want to get rid of that on reasons of democracy to replace with completely un-democratically appointed bureaucrats
Zuriblue
Well-Known Member
Worth a try :)
B
B
blueinsa
Guest
For once, he was up against an audience split a third out, a third in and a third undecided. Usually his audience is handpicked but he struggled when it wasn't.
He promised things and yet again, he hasn't delivered, especially on immigration and the chickens are about to come home to roost.
I
I
inbetween
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I'm bored of arguments on democracy to be honest. Take the current government, they have renegaded on every single promise made. It is now commonplace for a government to make election promises only to break them, it was the same with the last Labour government who took us into a war no-one wanted, did you and me have a say in that, no. Did we have a say over Syria, no. What is the difference in not having a say in EU laws either, many of which are done for the common good and not for the benefit of large corporations who lobby politicians.
We won't gain any power more so our politicians will, our politicians will make the laws and on the record of the last decade, do we really want that seriously? Ultimately that isn't our fault but will leaving the EU suddenly mean we will all be rich like we all think.. No, it will probably erode workers rights and many other things which the EU has given us which no government ever would.
The laws in this country have always been made by someone else and ultimately with the current choice of government and shadow government I would rather leave it to the EU. I'm not for a United States of Europe but that can never happen whilst every member has a veto to stop it. If it did, we have the power to call a referendum at any time and leave.
Most MP's serve Parliament to serve the government not us otherwise they would spend 90% of their time in their constituency and not London. Out or in, democracy does not exist in this country, it is fake and just an excuse to hold a fancy election where we decide who is going to lie to us for the next 5 years.
Also, we all say we want more democracy but 35% of people in this country did not even vote in the last election. That is 1 in 3 on this forum chose to not even take part in democracy.
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sir baconface
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A curious twist. We should stay in the EU to avoid the UK government having power? Not sure that will win over many Brexiteers.
I
I
inbetween
Guest
Put it this way, people are arguing for power because they believe something good will be done with it. History tells us otherwise. It is only thanks to the EU that we now enjoy certain benefits and rights today that we take advantage of and that is a fact.
It is cheesy but with great power comes great responsibility and I would not trust that with anyone who is electable at the moment. For me it is not the right time to leave when we are at such a crossroads, leaving poses far too much risk.
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stonerblue
Well-Known Member
Bang on the money.
BlueHammer85
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Who voted for us to be in the EU ?
Who voted for free movement of people ?
Who voted for free movement of people ?
kevin horlocks wand
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Yes and labour were voted out in the next election. If you think the Tories have broken their election manifesto feel free to vote them out in the next election. Democracy eh what a load of shit.
Anybody see the student accusing cameron of "waffling"? What an annoying twat. "Im an english literature student and i know waffling when i see it..." Oh fuck off. I dont like Cameron, but that knob trying to get her 15 minutes did my head in
sir baconface
Well-Known Member
Anyone with half a GCSE in woodwork would know he is waffling.
Wow - that is a real 'Remain Volte Face'.
The reason the vote is happening on 23rd June is because it is essentially the 1st date it legally can. Cameron could have held this referendum any time over the next 18 months but has gone for the earliest possible date both for fear of what a summer of EU news and ever increasing migration could do the Remain vote. Also, he clearly wants to quickly marshal all his doom & gloom stories and get that propaganda out there with the Leave campaign hopefully not having time or finances to mobilise a campaign.
Cameron/Remain have no desire to afford the UK population the time/opportunity to form an informed view - they want us to just be scared or confused into selecting the status quo - more time would allow the scare-mongering to be debunked.
BlueHammer85
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Agree
Especially the fact he was giving her a straight answer. She had that reply prepared and like most Brexiters won't listen to any reasons to remain.
BigJoe#1
Well-Known Member
Not the British public! All the public voted for was a common market!
You're question us a good one, I look forward to the replies.
mancity dan
Well-Known Member
Who is to say that if we hadn't of been in the EU, that we would have had these benefits and rights?
yep
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Monkfish
Well-Known Member
lucky for you we are having a vote, and even luckier its coming up soon!
blueonblue
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Goes on a bit, but puts the spotlight on just how the facts are twisted by Call me daves minions.
Ashoka Mody is the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.
In the past few weeks, virtually all official agencies have insisted that leaving the European Union (EU)—a British exit or “Brexit”—will impose enormous costs on the British. Indeed, these agencies have competed with each other in escalating the cost estimates. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde pithily summarized the consensus: the consequences of Brexit, she said, would be “pretty bad to very, very bad.“
The UK Treasury, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the IMF say it is a “fact” that Britain will be permanently poorer because it will trade less with the EU. In a terrifying warning, the Bank of England adds that financial markets will panic and create senseless havoc. Adding comic relief, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne predicts that house prices will fall by 18 percent. Not to be outdone, G7 leaders say that the world economic system, as we now know it, will fall apart if Britain exits the EU.
Michael Mussa, my first boss at the IMF, used to say that a number must pass the “smell test” if it is to be used for making decisions. Conducting a “smell test” requires going back to core principles. When we do that, we reach a humbler conclusion: economics is neutral on whether to leave or remain. The battle for Brexit must be fought on other grounds.
All economists—not just the current protagonists—agree that a country gains by increasing its overall international trade. Greater trade makes it possible to produce more of and export what the country does best (its comparative advantage) and import what it does less well. Everyone gains.
But there is no gain in exporting to Germany, Spain and Poland rather than to the United States, Korea and China. In fact, if preferential access diverts trade away from the United States to Germany, then departure from the country’s comparative advantage hurts rather than helps, as Columbia University’s trade theorist Jagdish Bhagwati has long argued.
So the claim that Brexit will impose a huge cost rests on the twin beliefs that British trade with Germany will go down sharply and trade with the United States will not increase. Is that reasonable?
First, British trade with Germany will not decline significantly. As economists have long known, trade is embedded in business and social networks into which partners invest enormous social capital. Studies repeatedly show that businesses make accommodations in profit margins to retain the benefits of trust and reliability. For this reason, all productive trading relationships will remain intact. For this reason too, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble’s threat that renegotiation of Britain’s trade arrangements with the EU would be “most difficult” and “poisonous” is bluster. Germans run a trade surplus with Britain. Schaeuble can humiliate the IMF, but he dare not hurt the interests of his exporters (or his importers).
And even if British trade with the EU falls, trade with other regions will undoubtedly increase. Because Europe has been growing at a slower pace than the rest of the world, trade has been shifting away from Europe for years. With Europe rapidly aging and struggling to revive productivity growth, the shift to non-European markets is bound to continue. Most firms already sell to multiple markets and Brexit will prompt them to strengthen their non-European networks.
What about costs of transition? Britain exports 13 percent of its GDP to the EU. Say about a quarter of those export products—about 3 percent of GDP—have to eventually be sold either in Britain or outside Europe. If the adjustment each year costs somewhere between one-tenth and one-fifth of 3 percent of GDP, it is possible that GDP will be lower by about half-a-percent in the peak transition year. Thus the costs will be modest and short-lived.
So how do the Treasury, OECD and the IMF conclude that Brexit could reduce GDP by between 6 and 10 percent forever? The vast bulk of those large estimates come from the further assumption that reduced trade will shrink British productivity growth. This is disingenuous. There is simply no evidence that less trade lowers productivity growth—and there is not even a logical connection between productivity growth and a shift in trade from Germany to the United States. More trade has been associated with higher productivity growth when countries have emerged from economic isolation. But for the sophisticated British economy, this possibility should be completely dismissed.
The Bank of England’s claims are the most outrageous of all. The BOE says that fear of Brexit is holding investment back and, thus, causing growth to slow down in anticipation. How can they know that? British GDP is slowing for so many reasons. The economy has moved faithfully with the magnitude of fiscal austerity: gratuitous austerity delayed recovery from the Great Recession, brief fiscal easing in 2014 helped achieve a short-lived rebound, and now the IMF projects more austerity in the pipeline and slower growth. Meanwhile, the world economy is slowing: the United States had a weak first quarter, China is struggling and world trade is barely crawling forward. The BOE is cynically exploiting its authority by claiming to detect Brexit-induced anxiety in the cloud of short-term data.
But more outrageous is the BOE’s warning of mayhem if Britain votes to leave. Nobel Laureates George Akerlof and Robert Shiller have explained that people act in accordance with the narratives they live. The BOE is, in effect, building a narrative of panic, which could become self-fulfilling. The central bank’s proper role is to reassure and stand-by to stem panic.
Since 2010, official agencies have repeatedly promised global recovery. The forecasts fail because they all disregard inconvenient evidence. Now, the official consensus on the economic costs of Brexit has crossed the line into groupthink. A numerical illusion is masquerading as a “fact.” And when those in authority distort facts, they also subvert the cause of democracy.
Ashoka Mody is the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.
In the past few weeks, virtually all official agencies have insisted that leaving the European Union (EU)—a British exit or “Brexit”—will impose enormous costs on the British. Indeed, these agencies have competed with each other in escalating the cost estimates. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde pithily summarized the consensus: the consequences of Brexit, she said, would be “pretty bad to very, very bad.“
The UK Treasury, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the IMF say it is a “fact” that Britain will be permanently poorer because it will trade less with the EU. In a terrifying warning, the Bank of England adds that financial markets will panic and create senseless havoc. Adding comic relief, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne predicts that house prices will fall by 18 percent. Not to be outdone, G7 leaders say that the world economic system, as we now know it, will fall apart if Britain exits the EU.
Michael Mussa, my first boss at the IMF, used to say that a number must pass the “smell test” if it is to be used for making decisions. Conducting a “smell test” requires going back to core principles. When we do that, we reach a humbler conclusion: economics is neutral on whether to leave or remain. The battle for Brexit must be fought on other grounds.
All economists—not just the current protagonists—agree that a country gains by increasing its overall international trade. Greater trade makes it possible to produce more of and export what the country does best (its comparative advantage) and import what it does less well. Everyone gains.
But there is no gain in exporting to Germany, Spain and Poland rather than to the United States, Korea and China. In fact, if preferential access diverts trade away from the United States to Germany, then departure from the country’s comparative advantage hurts rather than helps, as Columbia University’s trade theorist Jagdish Bhagwati has long argued.
So the claim that Brexit will impose a huge cost rests on the twin beliefs that British trade with Germany will go down sharply and trade with the United States will not increase. Is that reasonable?
First, British trade with Germany will not decline significantly. As economists have long known, trade is embedded in business and social networks into which partners invest enormous social capital. Studies repeatedly show that businesses make accommodations in profit margins to retain the benefits of trust and reliability. For this reason, all productive trading relationships will remain intact. For this reason too, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble’s threat that renegotiation of Britain’s trade arrangements with the EU would be “most difficult” and “poisonous” is bluster. Germans run a trade surplus with Britain. Schaeuble can humiliate the IMF, but he dare not hurt the interests of his exporters (or his importers).
And even if British trade with the EU falls, trade with other regions will undoubtedly increase. Because Europe has been growing at a slower pace than the rest of the world, trade has been shifting away from Europe for years. With Europe rapidly aging and struggling to revive productivity growth, the shift to non-European markets is bound to continue. Most firms already sell to multiple markets and Brexit will prompt them to strengthen their non-European networks.
What about costs of transition? Britain exports 13 percent of its GDP to the EU. Say about a quarter of those export products—about 3 percent of GDP—have to eventually be sold either in Britain or outside Europe. If the adjustment each year costs somewhere between one-tenth and one-fifth of 3 percent of GDP, it is possible that GDP will be lower by about half-a-percent in the peak transition year. Thus the costs will be modest and short-lived.
So how do the Treasury, OECD and the IMF conclude that Brexit could reduce GDP by between 6 and 10 percent forever? The vast bulk of those large estimates come from the further assumption that reduced trade will shrink British productivity growth. This is disingenuous. There is simply no evidence that less trade lowers productivity growth—and there is not even a logical connection between productivity growth and a shift in trade from Germany to the United States. More trade has been associated with higher productivity growth when countries have emerged from economic isolation. But for the sophisticated British economy, this possibility should be completely dismissed.
The Bank of England’s claims are the most outrageous of all. The BOE says that fear of Brexit is holding investment back and, thus, causing growth to slow down in anticipation. How can they know that? British GDP is slowing for so many reasons. The economy has moved faithfully with the magnitude of fiscal austerity: gratuitous austerity delayed recovery from the Great Recession, brief fiscal easing in 2014 helped achieve a short-lived rebound, and now the IMF projects more austerity in the pipeline and slower growth. Meanwhile, the world economy is slowing: the United States had a weak first quarter, China is struggling and world trade is barely crawling forward. The BOE is cynically exploiting its authority by claiming to detect Brexit-induced anxiety in the cloud of short-term data.
But more outrageous is the BOE’s warning of mayhem if Britain votes to leave. Nobel Laureates George Akerlof and Robert Shiller have explained that people act in accordance with the narratives they live. The BOE is, in effect, building a narrative of panic, which could become self-fulfilling. The central bank’s proper role is to reassure and stand-by to stem panic.
Since 2010, official agencies have repeatedly promised global recovery. The forecasts fail because they all disregard inconvenient evidence. Now, the official consensus on the economic costs of Brexit has crossed the line into groupthink. A numerical illusion is masquerading as a “fact.” And when those in authority distort facts, they also subvert the cause of democracy.
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Monkfish
Well-Known Member
wtf? you want the in out campaign to last how long exactly? a couple of years? if you can't make your mind up in the time needed then don't vote but I think I speak for the majority when I say we will be glad to see the back of this endless regurgitated nonsense from all sides, don't think anything new has been said in the last month in public or on this forum
I would actually be more excited if we did vote leave, be interesting to see what happens and if we vote stay it will be a bit of a 'well that was a waste of time'
BigJoe#1
Well-Known Member
.... and the point of your post is? It's as pointless as this reply!
Nice to see you back.... seriously.
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