Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

According to various media reports, the UK is prepared to abandon the single market, customs union and the European Court of Justice in order to achieve a clean break with the EU, Theresa May is expected to say this week (Tuesday).
This speech is expected to give the most detailed insight yet into her approach to the forthcoming talks with the EU.

UK's finance minister Phillip Hammond said in an interview published today in the German Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag that it will change its economic model to regain competitiveness if it were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access.

"But if we are forced to be something different, then we will have to become something different," Hammond said when asked directly about Britain's plans to lower corporate tax.
"If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term," he said.
"In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness," Hammond said. "We will change our model, and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged." Source

Are you now thinking that the brexit could be good for the EU, Walter?

For the EU? No, not for the idea. Otherwise, it won't be easy.

For the UK? Might work on the long run. But at least it's what was wanted.

Thankyou. I just think it's part of a much broader awakening across western nations, as people are slowing waking from a deep slumber, where they trusted their elected officials, and thought their own interests were being taken into account.

Well, I don't think that falling back to the nationalism of the 19th century is really an awakening. But it seems that the the extrem right and some conservatives have quite a bit of followers throughout Europe.
Just my opinion. (I've nothing at all against "regionalism", promote that!)

What I really don't like is that the UK is obviously wants to be a tax haven after Brexit. (I do understand, though, that somehow the results of Brexit have to financed and that this is a simple to be done possibility.)

Is the UK a fiat economy, like Australia and the US of A?

It seems to be no problemo for the US to simply print their way out of poverty, by creating more debt. Kicking the can down the road, so to speak. Buying their own investment bonds, flogging them cheap, and buying them back.

Call it something intangible, like quantitative easing, to appease the masses. It's still corporate socialism, or charity for the gambling addicted.

It really seems that the UK-government might start some kind of trade war with EU- and EEA-countries (Hammond said, Britain had "never been a nation that was focused on continental Europe", and that the UK may have to move away from a European-style system and cut corporation tax in order to "regain competitiveness" on the world stage.)

A different subject, but it could be another hint about the distance between the continental European countries and the UK-government: the UK snubs Middle East peace summit in Paris (to keep Trump onside, perhaps) - attendees include the EU foreign affairs representative, Federica Mogherini, outgoing US secretary of state, John Kerry, 36 other foreign ministers ... and Michael Howells, a diplomat who heads the Middle East desk of the Foreign Office, and two advisers to the UK ambassador to France.

How much more are you going to push that "fiat economy" baloney? The US debt-to-GDP ratio went up from 65% to 99% for the first few years after the recession hit, and it's only been going up a mild 1.2% annually for the past four years. In short, our debt situation is well under control. Please note the chart for the US debt-to-GDP ratio for the past decade:



The US dollar is supported by the US economy, which is always growing and which therefore always makes our debt payment on time. Please inform the Russians who write your talking points that they should worry more about their own present-day Depression, which they seem unable to shake. Among other things, the ruble is worth less than half of what it was worth three years ago. Less than half.

Whitehall tends to see any French initiative as a bad initiative, especially when it relates to an ex-UK colony/territory.

Not sure where you're getting your charts from, but the general consensus is, that quantitative easing hasn't worked at all. In fact, most of the money injected into wall street has ended up offshore, and often in tax havens.

Why they'd be going for another round of it, is anyone's guess, but it's becoming clearer that a ponzi scheme is in place, and the American people are the dupes in the game.



Inside the mind of the Fed
Monday, 29 Jun 2015 | 11:30 AM ET | 01:41

The Federal Reserve is putting some of its post-crisis actions under a magnifying glass and not liking everything it sees.

In a white paper dissecting the U.S. central bank's actions to stem the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, Stephen D. Williamson, vice president of the St. Louis Fed, finds fault with three key policy tenets.

Specifically, he believes the zero interest rates in place since 2008 that were designed to spark good inflation actually have resulted in just the opposite. And he believes the "forward guidance" the Fed has used to communicate its intentions has instead been a muddle of broken vows that has served only to confuse investors. Finally, he asserts that quantitative easing, or the monthly debt purchases that swelled the central bank's balance sheet past the $4.5 trillion mark, have at best a tenuous link to actual economic improvements.

Williamson is quick to acknowledge that then-Chairman Ben Bernanke's Fed, through liquidity programs like the Term Auction Facility that injected cash into banks, "helped to assure that the Fed's Great Depression errors were not repeated."

"There is no work, to my knowledge, that establishes a link from QE to the ultimate goals of the Fed—inflation and real economic activity" -Stephen D. Williamson, St. Louis Fed vice president

Article here.

Quote Builder:

Nice go-round at trying to brush aside the official figures, but the source of the chart is on the graphic and the official numbers the chart employed were taken from Bureau of Public Debt, which is under the Department of the Treasury. Those are the official figures, and they tell the story. Your original statement was about "fiat money" and the US "printing its way of poverty", which is the line the paid Russian trolls constantly push on YouTube and other social media to whatever gullible Westerners will believe them.

If what you said was true, the debt-to-GDP ratio would be getting larger and larger. Instead, the growth of the debt-to-GDP ratio, which went up drastically for four years when the Recession started in 2007, has levelled off almost completely the last four years. So your idea of the US "printing its way of poverty" is now revealed to be hokum. I'll repost the chart, apparently you missed its significance the first time around.

True. Our economy has done relatively well in the world economy when all other developed countries experienced stagnation. Anyone who understands macroeconomics understands what I'm talking about.

We've already covered this, CI. Australia's economy survived the orchestrated GFC unscathed, and our then treasurer was recognised internationally for instigating measures to stimulate our economy.

source.

You can bang on all you like about the US being the only economy to survive unscathed, but that just shows your complete ignorance of global or 'macro' economics.

And you've still got the blinkers on, I see?

Quoting stats from a government source about the performance of government? Really?

Widen your viewpoint. The QE1 and 2 failed, and so did 3. The fed now has a theoretical debt approaching half the US debt. Not that a ponzi schemer couldn't find a way out of that situation, when pressed.

I didn't say anything about Australia and your economy. The Great Recession was the result of US banks that got sloppy with their loans to people who didn't qualify.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Recession
Bankers were pooling those worthless loans, repackaging them, and reselling them on the open market.
They were eventually called "toxic mortgages".

So, what you're saying, is that Australia is an un-developed nation?

We spoke on this just last week. You accuse others of spouting BS, when here you are doing the same.

Research. You clearly need to do some. The following statement clearly states your complete lack of knowledge of the situation.



Take an hour out of your day to inform yourself of the full story. Here's a well-researched and perfectly documented summation of the GFC, and how it was clearly orchestrated. Enjoy. A Sony production, narrated by Matt Damon.

https://vimeo.com/20853241

Oh, please, you're just dancing around trying to avoid the fact that the figures don't support your conspiracy theories. Yes, I trust the US government's figures on such things as debt and inflation adjusted GDP. Given the central role the US economy plays in the world, if these figures were as made up from thin air as conspiracy theorists claim, the entire world economy would have collapsed in 1965 or so.

Fact is, you put forth a common internet conspiracy theory and you got slam-dunked. Our debt-to-GDP ratio has levelled off for the past four years, so much for your dark debt disaster scenarios. Of which you have plenty.

Quote Builder:

The chart indicates the exact opposite is true. The Full Time employment picture-over 2 Million Full Time jobs the past 12 months and 5 Million new Full time jobs in the past two years-indicates the exact opposite of what you say is true. But you're here to spin your tales of upcoming disaster with imaginary thread, and you are doing so now.

Meanwhile, according to a survey, nearly three quarters of the public don't trust the 'Three Brexiteers' to "do what is right", but Donald Trump tells Michael Gove that Brexit will be great and that he will make a deal with Britain.