| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Brexit impass | |
| Posted by: | T P Howell | |
| Date/Time: | 10/03/19 09:27:00 |
| Yet more illustrations of the fallacious thinking used now to defend Brexit. When presented by a member of the public it is just stupid. But when adopted by the Government it is criminally irresponsible. When before in the history of any state has the Government actively and aggressively pursued a policy that would make the country substantially poorer? The "all economic forecasts are wrong" is complete and utter Horlicks. Economic forecasting is based on known cause and effect, with inevitably a thin overlay of opinion. The point of a forecast is not to precisely predict the future, but to enable a sensitivity analysis to be carried out for given policies or scenarios. "If I do "A" this will be the overall impact, whereas if I do "B" this will be the impact" Every day well run businesses prepare business plans to test the potential effect of different outcomes on their business - e.g. "what will be the impact on my business if interest rates go up 2% and the £ drops 5%" so that they can plan accordingly against different likely and less likely scenarios. So I know, for example, with a high degree of certainty; 1 Inward investment into the UK has dropped substantial to what it would have been (in fact I know this as an absolute fact because part of my day job is bringing investment into the UK, and many investors have said that they will not now invest because of Brexit). The impact of this takes a few years to feel. 2. 40%+ of UK trade is with the EU. At the moment this is tariff (and just as importantly non-tariff barrier) free. Post Brexit This will suffer a substantial drop, or increase in costs. 3. The UK is predominantly a service economy, with particular strength in the financial services sector. A great part of that business relies on the "passporting Directives'that allow banks, insurance companies, fund managers etc to freely offer services or set up offices across the EU (and the other EEA countries). This is why so many financial services companies are now planning to move part of their operations abroad. I could go on and on. So, frankly, anyone who says "we just don't know" it talking out of their hat. Yes we do, and those of us at the sharp edge of it can see it happening before out eyes (and in my case paid by clients to help it happen). Which all begs the question, which had been asked on this forum and elsewhere ad nauseam. IF BREXIT IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA GIVES US ONE, JUST ONE, EVIDENCE BASED REASON WHY. (Yes - I am shouting). Mr Riley - you demonstrate the problem with Breixt thinking. Your best justification for Brexit is "we just don't know". Even if you were correct, that alone would be a reason not to go ahead. But we DO know. |