Does anyone still think the referendum was a good idea?

[whydidhesaythat]

Just checking.

weakened

It'll be great watching the chaos knowing we're out of it now grin

Limer those are homeless families you are talking about and those EU countries are struggling to accommodate them. You are one unpleasant individual.

I always thought it was a bad idea. It should never have happened (and I'd have felt the same whichever way the vote went

The 'experts' weren't a handful of cash-obsessed narcissists.

YY gone, it really annoys me when posters pop up and fling out what amounts to accusations of corruption in expert academics, then disappear when challenged. It wasn't just "money-obsessed" bankers who were warning that Brexit would have bad effects.

Don't worry gonetosea, she'll be laughing on the other side of her face when she realises that, even if we do Brexit, that's not going to stop refugees from arriving in the UK.

No (remainer)

There is too much to go into why but what everyone else says.

Leaver views annoy me by basic denial of reality. People who are watching the stock market and sterling and making noises about how it will all blow over are dreaming. It's not started properly yet.

I didn't want a referendum when Cameron won but I thought it would be okay in the end. I thought the quick timetable showed how much of a dead cert remain was to win. I am angry that they didn't plan a longer more detailed campaign but I'm mainly angry they held it at all. I'm angry that the Tory whip allowed it to happen MPs of all parties should have voted it down. It's not like politicians don't break other election promises.

Bastards.

"YY gone, it really annoys me when posters pop up and fling out what amounts to accusations of corruption in expert academics, then disappear when challenged."

Actually, I took great care to distinguish specifically between academic experts, who I admire, and a wealthy elite with power and money but not necessarily the best motives or insight.

LOL at "disappear when challenged". It's only 1.5 hours since gone's post

Tell me I'm wrong, have you little thought for those who have already lost their jobs?

well yes, of course this is one of the many reasons I voted leave. I have many people in my family who are bankers, doctors etc and also those have no formal qualifications and who need to do odd jobs to make a living. They were undercut by EE workers.

if you want to emigrate to Canada and be a plaster - you have to prove extensively you can do the job, ( written test, previous employers references), you also have to prove or rather your prospective employers do, you are not going to take this job off a Canadian.

SpecialSubject - there's certainly some research figures for % who
believe in climate change.

That's for the UK; more here for worldwide, though somewhat out of date.

Sorry, will go and derail some other thread now.

There really is no such thing as an 'expert' when it comes to economic predictions. Economists are of course experts on theoretical economics, which generally work in closed system with most variables controlled and correlations held constant.

It has been show time and time again that economists predict no better than the proverbial monkey at the dartboard.

The idea that we should respect the predictions of these 'experts' in the same way as we might that of an oncologist or an engineer does not bear scrutiny.

Yeah, experts, pah - what do they know?

The voice of the Leave campaign.

I wasn't talking about your post, nor gone's response to it, A4.

I really feel for Mark Carney and in no way would I dismiss his expertise.

But I have to ask any poster, if you were him, what would you say re - Brexit?
I just cannot imagine, even the most fervent leaver in such a role, declaring it and supporting a leave vote.
Even if in his heart he believes in the long run, leave is best, how on earth could he/would he say this?

I really feel for him and his role, and the fact he has such a weight on his shoulders.

larry - I've already asked once but I'll ask again.
What about experts outside of economics? As these people are not good enough despite spending their time studying and living the subject, let's all pretend they don't know what they are talking about and look beyond money.
Experts in the environment and the implications for Brexit?
Experts in the situation in NI and what might happen there?
Experts in things that I don't even know are affected by Brexit?
Expert isn't another term for economist. It just means someone who knows what they are talking about, and with Brexit, as so many different fields are affected, surely there will be experts in all these fields?
Or are we claiming to know better than all of them put together?

This is the thing babybythesea - I think people are thinking their 'man on the street' knowledge, or their google search, is as good as the knowledge gained by people who have spent years/lifetimes studying the subject.

The Dunning-Kruger effect has never been more apparent.

YY baby and Under.

Elements in that case I'm confused, as you quoted gone's reply to my post, and that's what I then replied to

Niall McCrae: Universities must abandon pro-EU propaganda and embrace free debate

"By instructing staff and students how to vote, some universities acted undemocratically. By suppressing debate, they undermined freedom of speech."

Baby,

Firstly 90% of posts have been about economic effects, so economists are mostly the experts being invoked.

the thing is that I have never claimed to know more than anyone. All I have said is that in a large complex system like the global economy, there are no experts (in terms of predicting the consequence of decisions) so you might as well let the populace decide based on what they actually want.

I have suggested you read Naseem Taleb's 'the black swan' or merely back test your hypothesis by digging out some old economic reports (pre 2008) on the u.s housing market. Or, indeed, reading Moody's expert rating report on AIG pre 2008. Or even read the BOE inflation reports over several years with their elegant fan lines of probability (yes, we generally land outside even the 95% line regardless of them making continuous interest rate adjustments).

As for the environmental experts, this outcome purely depends on political decisions and most of what they say is based on us abandoning the previous ec standards. Had this been suggested? It seems suspiciously political and yes, I am afraid, biased.

Please dispute the above points but, with facts, not personal insults. Otherwise it will be you sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting 'la,la, la'.

larry
This is going to lose something in translation I think, but I am off to work shortly so just wanted to acknowledge your response.
I'm not trying to insult anyone, or stick fingers in ears. I know most of the experts being invoked are economists. Which annoys me a bit because so many other issues are at stake than just the economy. Money talks though I guess. Someone up thread though, from a leave perspective, pointed out that there are other issues, and I was trying to respond by saying that I know of other experts in their fields who were anti-Brexit.
My own field is the environment. Obviously it depends on where we go from here, but most people are not optimistic based on the past record of UK governments. The EU provided a buffering effect with a longer term view than our government usually manage. It may all change but no, I'm not positive. Of course, I can't know, as its in the future and I don't yet have the benefit of hindsight, so maybe you could call it biased. I am worried though, because the only way we'll find out is to wait and see and if in the meantime, they make some catastrophic environmental decisions it will be too late.
I'm thinking in particular of the fact that the government want to allow some use of neonicotinoids, which kill pollinators. So we lose some pests but also lose our ability to pollinate crops - phenomenally short sighted.
I could also cite the control of badgers, which had nothing to do with the EU but does show that governments can have their own scientists saying something shouldn't go ahead, and blithely ignore it.
Will they rush to replace the Birds and Habitats Directives with something UK based? I really hope so. I'd love to be wrong. But along with all the experts I know who have spoken (loads - I have access to them, and I read a lot as its my field), I'm not convinced.

I don't think anybody would argue that economists are good at making accurate predictions. There are too many unpredictable variables.

However, does that mean any economic policy is as good as any other? Should we just get rid of Mark Carney and the chancellor and leave the economy to get on with things by itself?

If not, what economic policies were leavers voting for? 'leave' seemed to be about taking back control of cheap Chinese imports and increasing free trade with China.

My prediction is that the UK will survive Brexit, but it won't be the Brexit that most leavers thought they were voting for - immigration impact will be minimal and the nature of trade deals and international agreements will mean that we still have to comply with the wishes of other countries. There will be a general reversion to the mean.

In the long term (20 years) people will still be arguing over whether Brexit made any difference.

Merry mouse,

That is an interesting question and the answer is unclear. There is a sound and rational argument for setting interest rates permanently at the long run growth rate plus inflationary target (say 3.5% for the uk). Does opposing cyclical trends with interest rate changes improve things or merely delay the inevitable?

I don't know the answer and personally suspect that a less 'caring' economic policy yields higher long run growth ( the u.s for instance). But do we want that? It is the fact that people have different goals that mean our votes should matter.

a4 that's like saying there's no point trying to predict the weather because it's not always accurate. No, it's not a certainty but there is a great deal of expertise there and many decisions that are being made in an attempt to hold the boat steady now, for instance, are informed by experienced knowledge about what could happen next. Rather than economy being crap, the e problem is partly that brexit is an unprecedented act of such colossal destruction that it's hard to find a precedent to inform predictions. That is actually a sign that it is Huge risk with very uncertain outcome, but definitely pretty shit in the short-medium term, which is really all the expert economists were trying to point out. The fact that leave voters seem largely unfazed/unaware of what's happening in the financial world is only an indication that they didn't really understand this or give sufficient weight. Those experts you deride as being crap/purely self interested are doing some complex manoeuvring to try to keep a poverty-inducing recession from our door that will cause a great deal of suffering in ways that aren't immediately connected to the world of finance-housing, benefits, the NHS and medical research, for example.

While you may have 'taken great care' to distinguish between the experts you respect and those you don't, you have been uniformly reckless in lobbing all their words into the trash regardless.

In the long term (20 years) people will still be arguing over whether Brexit made any difference.

I'd like to think that the legacy of Brexit is that the govt & parliament, having been given a bloody nose by the backlash of the long ignored & wilfully forgotten working classes, use the opportunity to improve the lot of those outwith London.

Not by repeating the Labour finesse of the 90s & 00s where they just invented public sector jobs and propped up low wages, but by meaningful plans, investment and redistribution of power & private sector work.

We may still be subject to free movement to an extent in the future, but the impact would not be as disproportionate & devastating as it has been up until now.
Thus, even if immigration is broadly similar in levels, it won't feel as catastrophic as it does to many now.

The legacy of Brexit, even if still 'signed up' to many EU rules, would be that we are no longer locked in - we could presumably leave a mutual agreement with less fuss at any time.

Also, even if we still pay 'membership fees', then that will be a fraction of what we are paying now.
I don't mean the headline figures 'This Is What We Pay!', I mean the hidden costs - the travel cost, subsistence, expenses, food, accommodation, accompanying entourage etc.

Britain will be far better off out of the EU.