For five days headlines have told us the markets are being “Pounded”, with “Turmoil”, like a “Wild Ride” with “bloodletting“. I thought I’d graph the horror of the last week on the FTSE100, DAX, the CAC40 and the Euronext. Naturally big-government fans in the media have no interest in overselling the disaster that is Brexit.
Spot the crisis?
The last five years of the FTSE 100. See the carnage of the last week:
5 Year FTSE graph TradingEconomics.com
More shocking routs on the continent. Here’s the last twelve months of the EURONEXT:
The last year on the Euronext 100 | CNN
Twelve months on DAX:
The last year on the DAX 100 | CNN
Looks like a disaster every other week:
The last year on the CAC40 (Paris) | CNN
Financial graphs on DAX, CAC, and EuroNext from CNN
The British Pound is at a historic low (luckily the fall hasn’t quite hit the 2008 level):
10 year Great British Pound (USD) graph. 2006 – 2016. Investing.com
British exporters must be loving this.
Shh. Banks are the biggest losers:
The S&P 500, Germany’s DAX, the Euro Stoxx 50—all of them have banks at the very bottom of the performance table…
In Europe, the damage is much, much worse: Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are down by between 11.5% and 12% (having recouped around half of their losses at the European opening). In France, Societe Generale is the biggest loser, down 19%, followed by BNP Paribas -16% and Credit Agricole -12.1%. In Italy, seven of the bottom eight losers are banks, down by between 17% and 20.9%. The only thing keeping Lloyds Banking Group off the bottom of the FTSE 100 table is the fact that the U.K. has a lot of listed homebuilders, who have been hit even harder. — Fortune, June 24th
In the Brexit aftermath the Big Banks are getting into trouble. Most mainstream journalists don’t seem to want to highlight the banker-pain. Maybe it’s not the right message: “Stay IN the EU and Save the Banks”
Jo,
Here is a fantastic speech to the EU that the mainstream media cut out
due to the damage that it could cause with other EU countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM8Gw_SxEdI
The Queen was asked how was the Brexit?
She replied…We’ll I am not dead yet…The hype of such disaster by the mainstream media…
110
Of course the european banks are down; most of them are close to bankrupt and will need continued bailouts. With the UK withdrawing there will be less money to do so.
Of course we will be told that Scotland will seceed and join the EU. That is the last thing the EU wants, another greedy mouth and the switch would be good news for the Chancellor of the Exchequer; 2 reasons why Scotland hasn’t yet received the invitation to join.
And while the UK might be £13 billion better off out of the EU, the Budget deficit is around £70 billion. Getting rid of Scotland and its social security costs might help reduce that.
160
Italy is hoping for a bank bailout…but Germany and the EU are opposing this…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-29/germany-just-blew-italys-bank-bailout-plan
Interesting times…
51
Good Grief man. There is no way that Scotland will seceed from Britain. The fact that Hadrian tried to keep the Scots out of Britain stil rankles in Glasgow.
You will note that I do not refer to Great Britain. The “great” became superflous about a century and a half ago.
103
Indeed….the Anglo Saxon Brits have a reputation for cool under pressure, the Celts ( Ireland & Scotland ) less so….
I disagree with removing the “Great” – NY might be hopping, but Londinium is still the centre of the world….and it has some class, unlike NY….
110
Londinium was not the centre of the world, when it was called Londinium. It was simply the furthest point up the Thames river, that a boat could be pulled, before becoming jammed in the reeds.
Modern day London though, is a different matter, and there I agree with you.
31
Rereke, the great in “Great Britain” only refers to the size of the largest island in the British archipelago. Compare with “Great Barrier Island” and “Little Barrier Island”.
51
Well, in my history books, it was definitely named “Greater Britain” in the 10th or 11th century because it included the part of France, now referred to as Brittany. It had nothing to do with the relative size of the island, because there was no other island of note, to compare it with. Ireland was seen as a totally separate entity.
I don’t see any connection with Great Barrier and Little Barrier islands in this regard, other than a similar word usage. And of course, they were named much later.
20
Not correct, and Richard is! The correct name for what we are talking about is “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. Historically the British Isles included Great Britain (now Scotland, England and Wales) and Little Britain (now Northern Ireland and Eire). The “Great” quite definitely refers to the larger of the two islands, not it’s status in the world. However ……… Time will tell!
20
Not sure what the purpose of “belittling” the British is. And it certain was a “great” empire far more recently than 150 years ago. or 1866. And surely, there has never been an empire as vast. And finally, there is nothing that promises what was, cannot again be. I am not saying the British empire, as it was, will be reestablished, but there certainly is no culture that has impacted the world to a larger extent. The US rides on the coattails of the legacy of the British Empire, mostly on the strength of the common language – that isn’t all that common sometimes. but I have faith that the character that distinguishes the UK from the rest of the world will again having it rise above the “union” that dragged it down.
10
Scotland is possibly one of the most bankrupt countries on the planet, only kept solvent by the generous teat of the English taxpayer.
If the Scots vote for independence, they will end up governed by an economically incompetent (already well demonstrated) government, obsessed by ideals of socialism and nationalism. Add to that the loss of the English teat and a weak oil price and the outlook for the future becomes bleak indeed for anyone there who has the slightest shred of common sense or economic reality.
Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas!
160
Yes. Is it just me or does anyone else find it more than a little crass that the ruling Sottish NATIONAL Party are demanding to remain governed by unelected foreigners in Brussels?
100
It’s definitely not just you! They are inconsistent there. It has given us a laugh.
51
They do nae wan’ yer mun. (
30
You mean except for the North Sea oil?
02
Jo
Chiefio’s take on this
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/europe-and-the-united-kingdom-in-context/
and
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/brexit-market-hype-and-fud/
20
Anything to try and get socialism back on track.
30
I’d say it had already derailed. Take a look at the EU Debt Clock sitting at E28,800 per capita. It’s delusional to pretend otherwise. But then delusion is the hallmark of the EU kollectiv isn’t it?
The MSM socialist mantra has recently been ramped up in NZ post Brexit. It’s as if the UN-NZ eco-globalista have suddenly realised that their position is in fact precarious. NZ (and Australia for that matter) merely need a John Galt. Now, that’d turn things around very, very fast.
So, the NZ MSM ec[h]o-chamber in true watermelon tradition answer is to
franticallyfanatically re-cycle climageddon for all its worth and whilst acknowledging that the FTSE 100 has entirely recovered all its pos-Brexit ‘losses’, clamour that the FTSE 250 is still well down on where it was…looks well within six month range to me and on the up-bounce, lagging a little behind the 100.So life, as entirely anticipated, continues on in the usual manner, with the demented tragedy in Istanbul, which really requires all our undivided attention.
80
“The thing with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples’ money”
– Margaret Thatcher.
80
So, the NZ MSM ec[h]o-chamber in true watermelon tradition answer is to frantically fanatically re-cycle climageddon for all its worth.
Well the are not going to get much traction there. The sun is currently having a bit of a nap, which may be a prelude for a Maunder experience. We are somewhat overdue for one, by all accounts.
70
Manfred, I cannot comment about John Galt, but perhaps the reading of John Gall might be essential reading for everyone!
Personal observation of the world as it is, not what some people would like it to be, has convinced me of the basic truth of his theories.
30
The EU economies are tottering on the edge of the abyss courtesy of that disaster the Euro … and next month Greece are meant to make a massive debt repayment to Germany ….. it seems very doubtful that they can.
As of today there are now some 34 Referenda being called for across the EU – some are to take back border control and leave the EU or to Ditch the Euro. ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3664626/Backlash-against-EU-spreads-political-parties-continent-call-34-separate-referendums.html )
Its not long since I explained how much control the EU had over Britain and how little sovereignty we had left.
At 5.25 am GMT, having watched the result unfold throughout a long night of votes being counted across the UK, it became clear that we, the British people, had voted to take back our sovereignty and restore democracy by leaving the EU. Despite all of the threats and fear mongering we had stood firm.
It was as if a prison door had been opened or the clouds which had darkened the sky for years had cleared, such a huge feeling of relief to know that once again we are to be a Free and Sovereign nation and that youmg people who have grown up under EU rule will finally see for themselves what democracy is and what it truly means.
180
I have my doubts about that.
If you look at some of the comments, on the post that Jo put up, following the Brexit results, it becomes very clear that there is a huge disconnect between Brits who have life experiences that predate Britain joining the Common Market, and those who have grown up, been educated, and joined the workforce, post Britain joining the EU.
The former tend to be self-reliant; the latter have a dependence on the EU, and a strong sense of entitlement, which they are intensly afraid of losing.
There is a lot of interesting psychology involved. I suspect a lot Teaching Notes will need to be revised, by whatever passes for the British Ministry of Education these days.
161
RW, I agree with your comment and would say that it is typical of all developed nations. In the US, for example, most of the “under thirty crowd” thinks that the world owes them everything. Conversely, those that are older tend to believe in self reliance and are not counting on the government to be there for them in a SHTF scenario.
91
It’s not simply that the ‘young’ have no pre-EU experience, it’s that they have no experience of life during anything other than good fortune. They have never experienced a real recession and, even during the recent lows and the GFC, the modern welfare state(s) mitigated the pain for many who would otherwise have experienced much more misfortune. No, for many of today’s young, the word ‘consequences’ has little meaning. They have never seen three-day weeks, bottles smashed on car windscreens during violent pickets, whole towns left destitute when massive industries are shut down, fuel rationing, blackouts…….
To this generation, ‘hardship’ is having to hang on to last year’s iPhone for a bit longer. Is it any wonder that they fail to understand just how bad things can be?
180
Steve, an excellent summary.
I grew up in the 1950s and 60s in a society which set a very high value on personal freedom.
By the 1980s it seems to me that, at least for the younger generation, the concern was not so much that “I” be free as that nobody else should be more free than “I”. We have progressed now to where if “I” doesn’t feel like doing a thing, then nobody else should be allowed to either.
100
The older British citizens are being blamed for the Brexit vote by the predominantly younger and claimed better educated and better paid British citizens.
BUT rarely mentioned is the fact that back in United Kingdom European Community (Common Market) Membership Referendum of 1975 the vote for the question;
.
“Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?”
—————–
United Kingdom European Community (Common Market) Membership Referendum 1975
Choice —- Votes ———- %
Yes:—-17,378,581 —–(67.2%)
No:——8,470,073 ——(32.8%)
__________________
BUT that 1975 Referendum which passed by a two thirds majority as above, would have had many, many young Britishers of the time no doubt voting for Britain to stay as member of the Common Market, aka “European Economic Community” [ EEC ] later to morph into the politically based EU.
1975 is now 40 years ago so the young Britishers who would have voted in that 1975 Referendum would now be in their 60’s to 70’s.
And that Age group according to the analysis of the polls had the highest percentage turn out in this Brexit referendum and the highest rejection rate of the EU.
Which tells us that those young Britishers of the 1975 Referendum had been there and done that and had got the social and personal scars from the British member ship of the EU and no longer wanted Britain to have anything much to do with the increasingly dictatorial, elitist controlled EU regime in Brussels.
160
Nicely put ROM. And spot on, from my perspective.
60
Also ROM, much has changed since 1975. Back then, we were told we were joining a simple common market, nothing more than a free trade zone that would allow the UK to deal with larger economies (i.e. the USA) on a more level playing field. Whether it was always planned, simply came about in the usual way that bureaucracy tends to grow or was hijacked, the EU slowly morphed into another, massive layer of government and control, much more a political than trade organisation. To make matters worse (in my opinion) it was or became a socialist instrument, which further eroded the sovereignty of member states and played an increasingly meddlesome role, as Leftist-controlled organisations tend to do.
I have noted before the parallels between the EU and the whole AGW scam. The most startling is the way in which both seek to further a socialist agenda but are nevertheless supported by and colluded with by large corporations, who see it as a means to fleece consumers and make a motza. This is why so many big corporations supported the Remain camp, and why so few are prepared to call out the global warming scam. Odd bedfellows, but with a shared interest. Another parallel, I fear, will be a similar level of reluctance in the Remain camp to accept that the people aren’t buying it, just as we see with AGW. This is far from over, unfortunately.
80
Steve: “colluded with by large corporations”.
The primary concern for large corporations is the bottom line in this year’s balance sheet. Second comes next year’s. That is their sole reason for being. They run with the short term flow. When the tide turns, they run back.
00
Spot on ROM.
00
Excellent and accurate analysis ROM. Thank you.
00
The peculiar thing is, WSJ, FT, the world’s economists and Christine Lagarde, NYT, Bloomberg, Reuters, Sky, Channel4, CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC who were positively, enthusiastically taking every opportunity to talk about the ‘financial crisis’ that the Brexit vote had triggered, somehow as if by some miracle of silence and all of sudden, totally clammed up?!
Hmm, I wonder why that could be?
70
‘The Chinese economy is the second largest on the entire planet, and since this time last year Chinese stocks are down an astounding 40 percent…’
Infowars
41
I fail to see how that can be blamed on Brexit.
China is currently going through a liberalising phase, politically. That might influence their domestic financial markets, but I am not really qualified to say.
30
‘China is currently going through a liberalising phase, politically.’
That is not correct, in light of the stock market crash over the past year the communist dictatorship has introduced tighter security. Imagine the uproar in New Zealand or Australia if our market lost half its value.
Brexit is only a catalyst to the financial world meltdown, here is Donald Trump talking of the US stock market.
‘You have a situation where you have an inflated stock market. It started to deflate, but then it went back up again. Usually that’s a bad sign. That’s a sign of things to come. And yeah, I think we’re sitting on a very, very big bubble.’
The Washington Post
50
Yes and no – the chinese market has always been over inflated so a loss of 50% probably brings it back closer to real value….
60
Tru dat and Rereke is also correct about the human face of communism.
10
‘…probably brings it back closer to real value….’
Looking at the FTSE graph in the post and comparing it to the Shanghai Composite, it found a floor after its major correction last year.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/stock-market
The UK has also burst its bubble and found a floor.
00
Politically, the Chinese population have more latitude now, than they had, say, ten years ago.
30
As with most “market disasters,” the markets correct themselves.
The UK decision to leave the EU is probably a harbinger of things to come. If I were Germany or France I would want out before Greece or another failing socialist economy within the EU goes belly up and takes the rest of the members down, too!
Brexit is also having an impact on the US presidential race. Many of Trump’s supporters are claiming that the discontent in the EU is similar and analogous to the political revolt underway in the US. Let’s face it, people are getting tired of the same old same old and the leftist media can no longer control the flow of information let alone the narrative!
It always gets down to the money. Why would anyone want to follow the dictates of bureaucrats in Belgium regarding matters that should rightfully be made at the national level?
The US does not suffer with the “Exit” problems that plague the EU because all rights and powers not granted to the federal government by the constitution are reserved unto the people or the individual states. Still, the power of the federal government is constantly having to be placed in check via the intervention of the courts.
For the opponents of Brexit it is sour grapes and the “sky is falling” message is falling on deaf ears.
We indeed live in interesting times.
130
The Daily Bell ( a must read for free marketeers who value independent thought ) has oft considered the internet as the next Gutenberg press / revolution that has shaken the Elites hold on power to the core.
The only problem with when dealing with the Elite is they have close to no morals in th eway we woudl view right and wrong. They are closer to an animal defending its food than a human. As such, if they decide the only way to arrest thier loss of control is to start a global war, they will do it. Why do you think the whole ANZAC thing is closer to a religion than a cautionary tale?
40
I see that know the USA are calling for the UN to get the “Boot”
Rep.Mike Rogers from Alabama,pointed to a wide range of reasons why the U.S. should dump the UN. “Although the United States makes up almost a quarter of the U.N.’s annual budget, the U.N. has attempted a number of actions that attack our rights as U.S. citizens,” he explained. “To name a few, these initiatives include actions like the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would subject our country to internationally-based environmental mandates, costing American businesses more money, or the U.N.’s work to re-establish an international regulation regime on global warming which would heavily target our fossil fuels.”
Indeed, especially in recent years, the UN has become increasingly brazen in attacking the rights of Americans, and even the U.S. Constitution that enshrines those unalienable rights. From attacks on free speech and gun rights to assaults on America’s federalist system of government and states’ rights, the UN and its member regimes have become increasingly aggressive. Now, the UN is working on a series of major schemes that would undermine even the principles upon which the United States was founded, much of it under the guise of promoting pseudo-human rights and pseudo-environmentalism.
120
The UN 2030 goals and EU 2030 goals are one and the same thing. They encapsulate the mechanism and installation for a New World Order with its implementation of eco-Marxism by bureaucratic administration. The EU was the proto-global State until a few days ago. The departure of the UK delivered a very substantial blow to the time line and MO of the global eco-Marxists, maybe even a snowball down a mountain, soon to become an avalanche as others recognise the relationship between freedom and prosperity.
The very best thing the US could do for The World would be for the new Trump Administration to yank the UN financial chain damned hard and at the same time demand the UN retire to its core mission of peace and security, divesting itself of megalomania and pretensions of Global Administration.
31
I think most of this market disaster talk is the big boys deliberately trying to create confusion so they can make a quick buck out of it. The MSM keeps up the mantra that the market like certainty or stability —rubbish Soros and all his hedge fund mates love a Brexit type moment as they know others will over react and they can make a killing. There are reports already on how Soros did well out of it.
The biggest issue at the moment is the reluctance of Cameron to trigger Article 50. He should do it now even if nothing much happens over the next month or so as a result. At least everyone knows the scheming behind the scenes to scuttle it will stop.
To see Richard Branson acting like a petulant 5 year old throwing the toys out of the cot is priceless –“I want a second referendum?” “I’m going shift our HO out of London to the EU” etc.
I bet there are quite few Virgin customers cancelling their accounts at the moment.
140
I gather that he was one of those people who were too busy, or too self-important, to bother voting, in such a trivial matter as a national referendum, on the political and economic future of Britain, and the future of the British peoples.
Some are born to the elite, some acquire elitism, but none have elitism thrust upon them.
80
Or is that ?? —
Some are born to the elite, some acquire elitism, and many have elitists thrust upon them.
70
Good point!
30
To show how far out of touch Branson is , a Yougov poll shows 2/3 of the UK voters don’t want another referendum. Even the Scots are marginally against the idea.
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8jgy2vu2ft/ChannelFiveResults_160628_EUReferendum_W.pdf
60
At the risk of just saying I told you so, well…
I told you so — http://joannenova.com.au/2016/06/brexit-hanging-in-the-balance/#comment-1813280
¯
Britain now can get its house in order at a pace and timetable Britain can dictate. All the while they can ignore the mini-minded EU bureaucrats stamping their little feet and shouting at the UK to hurry-up and start the exit negotiations. Britain does NOT have to hurry they MUST do things at the pace that is good for Britain.
On trade – the Eurocrats have to remember that if they do not compromise with the UK over the trading rules they will lose — Europe export trade is in the $Billions to the UK, is that the sort of loss Europe can sustain?
The UK is now free to trade everywhere, freed from that 8% levy the rest of the EU has to pay. There is no reason Britain can not have access to the EU market the same as Norway or the Swiss, or Iceland. And also note that while there is more producers than buyers in the world currently (thank-you China), Britain should be on a winning run initially as the slump in the value of the £ means the price of British exports are cheaper on the world market.
100
tom0mason
You have highlighted something the MSM overlook. You don’t have to have trade agreement to trade. Australia and NZ , both significant trading nations, trade with countries all over the world , the majority of which we don’t have trade deals with.
Yes trade deals can help make trading easier and in some cases more profitable but they are not absolutely necessary.
The UK trading with the EU will change for some companies but they will still have to comply with EU product regulations and the exchange rate may alter but that happens all the time.
BTW. I wasn’t aware of the 8% levy you mention –do you mean all exports from the EU have an 8% levy imposed on them and it is payable to Brussels ?
50
Ross,
From what I understand 8% levy is an average of the levy imposed on all imported goods from outside the EU. Across the EU there is no levy
It is applies to all within the EU group of trading nations.
You can go here and read all about it, but unless you are really bore I wouldn’t bother.
20
The levy is imposed on all goods from outside the EU.
Sorry for that reply I’m fighting with a very poor ISP connection at the moment, dropped connection every few seconds etc…
20
The levy is imposed on all goods from outside the EU entering for sale within the EU.
Sorry for that reply I’m fighting with a very poor connection at the moment, dropped comms every few seconds, etc…
00
Thanks , so it is a normal import duty.
That goes against UK exporters –their goods to the EU gets , on average, 8% more expensive. But if the pound stays down, it off sets it a little. It will hurt trade for a while but will eventually balance out.
40
Or Britain fights for a Swiss style settlement (or currently not!) where they are half in half out and pay the different but loose the tariff.
But then again the Swiss are currently ‘in negotiations’ to settle this ‘abnormal’ arrangement.
00
One item being overlooked might be VAT (value added tax, aka GST – goods and services tax). From the time when the EU was the much less oppressive Common Market, 50% of VAT collected went to Brussels. I don’t think the EU will have given that up …
If I recall correctly, it started at 10%. It is now 20%. I’m not sure how it is divvied up these days, but the following link says
“Over the seven years from 2007-13, the UK paid over £15.4 billion in VAT contributions to the EU, an average of £2.2 billion a year. This amounts to just under 18 per cent of the EU’s annual VAT revenue, despite the UK population being only 13 per cent of the EU whole.”
“Business for Britain” http://forbritain.org/euvat.pdf
No wonder the EU bureaucrats are squawking.
50
Martin
Do I take it you are saying this payment is on top of other payments made to the EU (ie. the 250 or 350 million/ week or what ever the correct figure is, being mentioned all the time) ?
00
@Ross: “Do I take it you are saying this payment is on top of other payments made … ”
Not sure. I suspect the answer is “yes”. Apparently, EU bureaucrats are entitled to €2000 a month laundry allowance, so they have to be awash with someone’s money …
It is extremely complex, and I have not been involved for some time – I have been on the opposite side of the world since 1986.
I voted to stay in the EEC. I was one of those on the receiving end of funds returned from Brussels for projects supported by the “Less Favoured Areas” Program. I recall making sure that we didn’t slip up, and the EEC shingle went up on the site boundary 🙂
The UK VAT Manual got to be about 1 inch (±25.4mm) thicker with each passing year. Standard practice in the building industry was to read it, and dig out all the ambiguities for creative use. Great fun, eg new buildings were exempt from VAT while refurbishments weren’t. The break point could be number of walls, eg 3 walls = refurbishment, 2 walls = new building.
20
I am troubled by Climate Skeptics being viewed as 100% EU Skeptics as well. It is true that we live in a period of Central Banking Ponzi financing that for its credit tries to overcome some horrible demographic numbers in Western Societies as well as effects of Globalization but there is a real danger of a total meltdown so you have to be careful what you are wishing for. Britain on it’s own with 90% debt to GDP ratio? They better pull up their socks or they might go for a ride. Access to ECB gives EU members access to bigger money printer and maybe later access to even bigger IMF money printer. It all sounds crazy but what is the alternative? Britain standing alone doing things the old fashion way? Like I said start with pulling your own socks up and pray, maybe.
20
And that, Rafal, is the crux of the matter. They are printing promisory notes (ie money), in order to obtain tangible goods and services, with nothing to back the original promisory note, apart from another promisory note. That only works, when the people making the promises are trusted. As soon as they are no longer trusted, the whole thing collapses. Brexit was a no-confidence vote.
50
As I understand it the European Central Bank has no “Lender of Last Resort” behind it.
20
Nobody likes to print money including Central Banks. Those are tools of last resort. At this stage we are out of bullets, no sense to assign blame, all we can do is to print to buy time. To be brutally honest we have to buy time for the baby boomers to be buried and only that will alleviate all the stresses they are about to unleash on economy. When they/we are gone the young generation still has to make a decision about what to do about the accumulated debt but at least they won’t have to deal with baby boomers pension liabilities and health costs, anymore. Brexit might be the shock that collapses the system. Again careful what you are wishing for. The idea that any single government can deal with this on it’s own is just for populist talking heads who sooner or later will bring disaster to the people who entrusted them. You can romanticize about self sustained economy like in the old good days but nothing/no one will bring it back.
01
That sounds a little like the global ‘blanket’ of greenhouse gases that delay the radiation of energy into space. So, the central banks are churning out gigatons of money (CO2) to keep their World a little warmer.
Hmmm. We all know how well that skience is working.
20
Another thought (that’s two today – must be time for a nap). It is in the interests of the EU, the various vested interests (yes you, Branson) and their fellow travellers, for Brexit to fail, as a deterrent to other states thinking of joining the escape party. I therefore see them making life as difficult as possible for the UK and making mischief wherever they can. We can therefore expect the usual leftist tactics of deception, lies, sabotage and dirty deals, aided and abetted by most of the media.
Meanwhile, the UK might well survive very nicely, thank you, but they will do this in spite of dirty tactics from, and misinformation spread by, the EU and its cronies. Interested folks will have to work hard to find any positive coverage in the media.
90
And as of the 2nd July, some people are starting to worry that the senior British civil servants who will be in charge of the exit process are the same bunch that (a) WANT to be in the EU (lots and lots of lovely pay and not much work), and (b) are the ones that managed to snarge up Cameron’s abortive attempt at negotiation with the EU. Lots of opportunities to fubar up the exit!
00
Let’s not worry about Brexit. The important thing is that in three days the same people who thought it was a good idea to raise $60000 for a drugged up bogan get to decide how the government should spend $450 billion.
30
Brexit is being portrayed as a disaster by the media.
The media is now moving to the far left.
the media is a disaster, not Brexit.
80
The media has always been the disaster. They don’t impartially report the news, they have to create or embelish or sensationalise the news, in order to increase their audience or readership figures upon which, their bonuses depend.
90
RW, how does that work out for the propaganda bureaux of the State funded MSM who remain bereft of advertising revenue, are the recipients of declining ratings and increasingly, are routinely derided, the BBC for example, what ‘bonuses’ do the execs and drones receive for remaining on message?
For example, here: Scandal: BBC’s six-year cover-up of secret ‘green propaganda’ training for top executives
and here: BBC Green Bias Exposed By OFCOM _ BBC News Ignore Story!
There doesn’t appear to be very much push back permitted by RNZ / TVNZ klimanazis these days?
30
Thanks for your reporting and coverage of the truth Jo. It happened – the dream became reality!!!
80
The French would not be happy! They voted overwhelmingly against a political union and were put in one against their explicit wishes with the Treaty of Lisbon. The British once again have shown the leadership in Europe for which they are famous and which rescued Europe from Hitler.
From Jo’s figures, half the Germans wanted to leave before BREXIT and now the others will be questioning such things as open borders for unskilled, often illiterate and uninvited people. There are already 6 million Turks in Germany and another 6 million in France. There have never been problems like the mass murder in Paris and Brussels and now Istanbul.
You could not imagine a European Union without France and Germany. Basket cases Greece and Spain need to leave as soon as possible, restart their own currencies and let them devalue.
However the good parts of the Common Market can remain and it is those parts which will stay. Integrated control of common infrastructure, compatible regulations, free borders. It is the political monster in Brussels which has to disappear.
Fundamentally you cannot be represented by people who do not speak your language or live in your country or have anything in common with you. It is not Nationalism but until there is only one language in Europe, there cannot be one democratic government like the US or even the UK or if there is one government, it cannot be democratic. Historic empires created by marriage like the Habsburgs with three official languages in three different geographic areas were doomed to collapse. The Spanish Nederlands too.
Free trade created the cities of the Hanseatic league and ushered in the social revolution which created modern Europe. Then countries appeared only in the 1850s, often the language based entities we know today. The very concept of a politically United Europe is nonsense except as a dictatorship, which is what the EU sought to create by stealth.
Britain has revolted against creeping dictatorship and will lead the way out of this political union. Now watch it all fall apart because it is something no one ever needed or wanted except the unelected and ungoverned autocrats in Brussels.
110
Perhaps not uninvited. Angela Merkel invited everyone. No one else did but they all have to pay. The price is too high in every sense.
70
I don’t know about that, things were pretty grim for the UK in the early 1940’s and were aided to some extent when Hitler turned his attention to the East after the Battle of Britain, and the Americans ramped-up their assistance to their ally.
10
Hitler could not invade Britain without control of the air. Operation Sea Lion was ready to launch and it had to be cancelled. Hitler also considered that Britain could be brought to heel by U boat isolation and until Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and his declaration of war on the US, they were a pacifist country who were helping but trying desperately to stay out of the conflict.
All the countries were a mess after WW1 and then the depression. Unemployment in Australia was 40% and in the US 25%. Italy and Germany and the UK were basket cases. Ironically rearmament solved all the economic problems as it did for Germany and that manufacturing led economic boom persists to this day with the growth of a consumer based economic model.
20
Also Hitler in Mein Kampf did not consider Britain an ethnic or cultural enemy. They were Anglo Saxons, two German tribes after all. The Royal Family was Germany, the Battenburgs not the Mountbattens from the Gothe Saxa Coburg line and the upper classes French/German in origin. He felt an accommodation was inevitable and Britain could be isolated. His biggest mistake was declaring war on the US. Prior to that there had been a close relationship and Dr Porsche’s engineers were trained in the US by Henry Ford.
10
Bolt has a link to an article by Dominic Lawson – about Cameron and Gay marriage – but the first part is instructive, demonstrating that the scare campaign before the referendum was based on nonsense. They lied to the British people in order to scare them into voting Remain. It is their lying that has caused the current heartburn.
So whats new?
70
What’s new indeed.
The journal Nature up to it’s old tricks.
Nature journal is misleading scientists over Brexit
There’s also some interesting info in the sidebar . . Tarrifs for instance.
00
Walking west across Spain a few years ago I enjoyed the sight of separatist slogans from region to region. After walking past many slogans calling for Leon to split from Castile I spotted a slogan declaring that if Leon leaves Castile the Bierzo wants out of Leon. A day or so later there were slogans objecting to slogans in Spanish instead of Galician. When you cross that bridge into Portugal the loathing really starts. (Then there’s the really hardcore separatism of the Basque and Catalan regions.)
Garibaldi is a villain to many southern Italians, East and West Germany give one another the pips (as do North and South), nobody likes the French, and Belgium makes a Charlie Sheen marriage look happy. Europe is a superb patchwork but it is not cohesive, and no amount of too-big-to-call-in debt by too-big-to-fail banks can make the too-big-to-dismantle EU anything other than a dodgy cartel and a gigantic fiddle.
With enough funny money you can make anything look good for a decade or two. Then you have to find the hilarious money to keep going.
110
Yes, well, you don’t want to be on the train, when the train-wreck occurs. That is why Brexit was a good idea, and that is why several other countries are just hanging in there, waiting for the next station to come into sight.
90
That’s right. There are cultural differences like there are accents and dialects that people hold dear. The other big point is that Quantitative Easing, practiced all around the world by big government, favours those who get hold of the liquidity first, before it hits the market and dilutes value. The big players are the beneficiaries. The chickens will come home to roost.
20
The bubble Trump talks of is a sure thing.
00
So there is a bit of discord around in the world of Wealth accumulation.
Wealth accumulation is of course driven by Greed, pure and simple.
Greed aka Wealth accumulation when undertaken as long term goal is the great driver of Capitalism as the players all try to gain and get access to the fastest way and with the least in the effort towards accumulating more personal wealth.
Those who are missing out on the wealth accumulation will, if and when they achieve sufficient influence through either numbers of those who in the same category as themselves and / or political power and influence will seek to disrupt the older established order in wealth accumulation so as to direct some of or as much as possible of that wealth towards themselves.
And so we have Brexit or any number of other highly disruptive economic and socially disrupting events and happenings over the years that we can point at, as those with lesser amounts of Wealth aka Money or who are trying to gain even more wealth try to disrupt and more often than not do disrupt the established order in the personal Wealth accumulating stakes.
The great driver of Capitalism in the end is just pure unmitigated Greed, the desire for sufficient personal wealth so as to make for a very comfortable and salubrious living for oneself until the end of one’s days.
And so we have almost constant disruptions in the economic, social and political structures of any society which is basically but quite variably Capitalistic in nature.
This constant disruptive characteristic of a Capitalistic society as individuals and groups of like minded individuals chase what they believe is a path to greater wealth has become the great driver of our civilisation as new ways, more efficient ways and means with less costs and more suited to an individual customers demands are constantly being created as the nascent wealth accumulators try to expand their own personal wealth accumulating enterprises by innovating and out competing their competitors for the limited amounts of accessible wealth within a society or the international collection of societies.
As the amount of wealth that is available at any one time, as one sector or group of or individuals gain and accumulate wealth, somewhere else in that society there will be others who lose out because they cannot compete or no longer have the products whether financial, societal, political, processing of every type and nature or just plain hardware and resources to compete against the newest rivals for that limited amount of societal wealth.
And it is not just individuals, groups and corporations who seek such wealth accumulation but whole nations of which the citizens of that nation enjoy the many benefits as a society arising from the ability of the government of that nation to distribute the accumulated national wealth as largesse to its citizens in the form of numerous personally beneficial social projects plus the vital infrastructure creating projects that are fundamental to the functioning of any modern society today.
The whole truth is that the highly disruptive effects in the political and financial and longer term, the economic fields of the likes of a highly disruptive Brexit event will disrupt and even destroy an established order with the less adaptable beneficiaries which is most of them, of that established order losing very substantially.
But their going or the lessening of their influence immediately provides new niches and new opportunities in just about every field of human endeavor to place their skills and their projects before the public to assess and pass a judgement on by either opening their wallets to enhance the wealth of the new comers or to just give the proposed project of the new seekers of wealth a two fingered salute judgement on their offerings.
The true wealth as compared to the artificially created wealth through the manipulation of and creation and destruction of enormous and extremely vaporous numbers which is mostly what is propounded and commented on by a vast array of media talking heads whose media opinions are no barely worth the electrons or the paper they are printed on, has in our modern age become the apparent driver of societal wealth as seen in stock markets and derivatives and bonds and banking schemes.
But when this highly volatile and vaporous supposed wealth just evaporates for any number of reasons, the whole society is supposedly harmed and suffers.
But the true wealth is still there in that society, latent perhaps in is citizens because the elite in power are no smarter and are often considerably dumber and more stupid than the average street wise citizen and which elite in their all knowing arrogance and ignorance and greed have failed to create the conditions that will allow their citizens to exploit and create a whole new national and personal wealth base.
As has been said many time about economics and economic predictions and the putative to be financial disaster of the Brexit is a classic example;
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
Friedrich August von Hayek
Years ago, I noticed one thing about economics, and that is that economists didn’t get anything right.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith
42
For the most part I agree with what you say, except…..
The creation of wealth is not greed. Accumulating wealth without creating it is greed. I think that’s what you maybe saying anyway, and yes it is the crux of the problem.
Similarly, it’s not “money is the root of all evil” but “the love of money is the root of all evil”.
40
The exercise of talent and ability in the driven pursuit of excellence, and advancement, and of choosing to labour long and hard to improve one’s circumstances and those of one’s fellow man, and to provide for one’s family and to safeguard one’s future, and above all, to provide a greater degree of choice as an entirely fitting recompense for the hard work, perseverance and inspiration required, not omitting to mention the delayed gratification required to save and accumulate – all these of such prolonged endeavour, honesty and altruism you passingly deride to be motivated by Greed?
No sir. Such unrestrained generalisation does very little to promote your argument.
30
elitist, globalist, CAGW-infested Economist in melt-down:
24 Jun: Economist Editorial: A tragic split
How to minimise the damage of Britain’s senseless, self-inflicted blow
HOW quickly the unthinkable became the irreversible…
Yet, by the early hours of June 24th, it was clear that voters had ignored the warnings of economists, allies and their own government and, after more than four decades in the EU, were about to step boldly into the unknown.
The tumbling of the pound to 30-year lows offered a taste of what is to come. As confidence plunges, Britain may well dip into recession. A permanently less vibrant economy means fewer jobs, lower tax receipts and, eventually, extra austerity. The result will also shake a fragile world economy…
There will be a long period of harmful uncertainty…
Everyone from Barack Obama to the heads of NATO and the IMF urged Britons to embrace the EU. Their entreaties were spurned by voters who rejected not just their arguments but the value of “experts” in general…
The leaders of Leave counter with the promise to unleash a vibrant, outward-looking 21st-century economy.
***We doubt that Brexit will achieve this, but nothing would make us happier than to be proved wrong.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21701265-how-minimise-damage-britains-senseless-self-inflicted-blow-tragic-split
***proved wrong? take this:
23 Jun: Economist: Projecting the EU referendum
How we calculated our extrapolated Brexit vote shares
First, we combine the consensus betting-market prediction for the overall result—54.8% “remain”—with the demographic characteristics of each counting area to produce a baseline forecast. For example, on the eve of the vote, we expect that 60% of voters in Tendring, a ***working-class part of Essex that strongly supported UKIP at the last election, will opt for “leave”. In contrast, we project that just 20% will do so in Edinburgh, a ***highly educated Scottish city…
***It’s important to note that this model is only as good as the data it is fed and the assumptions it rests on…
On the whole, people who are older, less educated, of a lower social class and support the Conservatives or UKIP are likelier to support Brexit…
To bring our estimates in line with the wisdom of crowds—if you think you’re smarter than a prediction market, think again—we simply reduced the projected “leave” share by the same amount in every counting area, so that our national forecast matched the bookmakers’ expectation of 54.8% for “remain”…
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/06/projecting-eu-referendum
20
How very patronising of The Economist! Economists don’t seem to have a very good record on accuracy of predictions, do they? Why ever do they think we would trust them?
20
This is brilliant. Nigel Farage addresses the European Parliament post Brexit.
Just 2 min 32 sec.
https://youtu.be/kPzvbJrWx1s
20
following is easier to watch on youtube.
brilliant 27 June interview which Fox News headlined:
“Nigel Farage: ‘Rubbish’ to blame Brexit for stock losses””
Youtube: 12mins07secs: Nigel Farage on Fox News after Brexit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em6vhreT0L4
compare with anti-Murdoch CNN interview of MEP Daniel Hannan by the arrogant Amanpour, keeping in mind ComRes post-referendum poll showing Leave vote: Sovereignty 53 percent; immigration 34 percent:
Youtube: 8mins58secs: (CNN’s Christiane) Amanpour interviews pro-Brexit MEP Daniel Hannnan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ivOOM0PbNps
which is actual journalism? which is pure propaganda?
30
I have just watched that CNN interview by that arrogant, biased, Amanpour. She clearly had an agenda which Hannan had no chance of fighting fairly. She was meant to ask questions and listen to the answer; instead she made statements and browbeat him into semi silence, despite his valiant efforts. And of course, they showed some clips of “unfortunate” Poms who said “it’s all abooot keepin’ them bloody black M**l**s aaat” just to prove how racist the whole Brexit campaign was. What a travesty.
30
She’s a piece of work alright.
Also, one of the recurring themes since the referendum is the notion that the ‘leave’ side has no plan in place to move forward.
While that’s probably a valid argument, the critics don’t seem to concern themselves with the fact that the EU haven’t put forward their plan either.
And why would that be surprising? It’s a first time for both parties.
10
No, it’s most certainly not a valid argument.
Flexcit – The Market Solution to leaving the EU
Dr Richard A E North with Robert Oulds of the Bruges Group and the assistance of readers of EUReferendum.com
Dedicated to Peter Troy
16 June 2016 v. 06
00
A little OT. Malcolm Turncoat made a very interesting statement during the excellent Four Corners report this week.
“Let me say to you emissions trading schemes ah in the six or seven years, seven years since I perhaps or eight years since I made those remarks, have I would say worked better in theory than in practice.”
I don’t imagine acknowledgement of the stupidity of confected markets is any guarantee another will not be created, even by the LNP, but an interesting sound bite nonetheless.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/06/27/4487476.htm
60
Yes safetyguy66 I heard that comment too and it made me hope that Turncoat is tiptoeing away from his previous strongly held views on saving the planet. It’s possible that he would only invoke an ETS if the Greens hold the balance of power and an ETS becomes a bargaining chip.
20
But Turnbull has already given us an ETS as reported on this very web site.
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/05/australias-ets-scheme-hunts-denial-of-the-obvious/
10
David, I understand this to mean that the ability to start a carbon tax/ETS is available in legislation. Hopefully it will never be invoked.
00
My undestanding is it starts tomorrow, July 1.
00
Look at the bright side: Everything isn’t being blamed on climate change.
60
Breaking: Dow jumps more than 280 points, returning to positive territory for the year, as Brexit fears fade
http://www.wsj.com/articles/global-markets-rise-as-brexit-worries-ease-1467185655/
via junkscience
50
29 Jun: UK Express: Rebecca Perring: Will the eurozone come crashing down? George Soros bets €100m AGAINST Deutsche Bank
BILLIONAIRE investor George Soros took out a staggering €100MILLION bet that a major German bank would collapse after Britain decisions to cut ties with the crumbling EU.
The man who “broke the Bank of England” took a short position of 0.51 per cent in Deutsche Bank shares on Friday – the day after the people of Britain backed Brexit.
In growing signs that desperate Angela Merkel’s economy is struggling in the wake of the nation’s decision to leave the EU – Soros Fund Management said its short position was now 0.46 per cent – suggesting it had begun to take profits from the trade…
Marshall Wace, a British hedge fund, also took a big bet against Deutsche Bank…
(Deutsche Bank), which is undergoing a deep restructuring, has been hamstrung by the fallout from the financial crisis, posting a record loss of €6.8billion in 2015…
Around a year ago, John Cryan took over as the bank’s new CEO, with a clear mandate to slah jobs and costs.
Since then the bank’s share price has dropped by nearly 60 per cent, making it one of the lowest-valued international banks…
It comes after Mr Soros who banked profits of $1bn by famously positioning himself against sterling 22 years ago, said a British exodus from the bloc would make the eventual dissolution of the EU “practically irreversible”…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/684259/George-Soros-100-million-euro-bet-Deutsche-bank-collapse-shares-EU-referendum-Brexit
40
Off Topic and the Climate Change worm is indeed for the turning .
The main European source of Climate Change fear creation and “Denier” bashing, the Potsdam Institute run by the less than savory Shellenhuber has done a U turn.
Quite suddenly “its the Sun wot dun it !” and but for all that very dangerous and nasty CO2 we have thrown up there the outcome could / would be a whole lot worse
[ sarc/ ]
U-Turn! Scientists At The PIK Potsdam Institute Now Warning Of A “Mini Ice Age”!
40
ROM,
I have already mentioned this at comment 4.1.2.
Please, do try to keep up.
But seriously, there are no sunspots, i.e. a reduction in solar activity. This may not be a good thing.
If that light in the sky goes out, it will be no good burning money. It is mostly plastic these days, in order to save the trees, dont-ya-know.
20
Well I think the Kiwis are a couple of hours ahead of us Aussies and I guess that fact has finally shown up ! 🙂
20
Italy’s debts are getting close to unsustainable – beyond any restructuring exercise and is likely to follow Greece in being utterly crushed in most aspects of everyday life. Yet there are five candidates who are being encouraged to join the EU, even as it sinks – Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey – well over 80 million people and all of them supplicant nations bringing nothing to the table to justify membership. Turkey (96% in Asia) is overwhelmingly the largest at ~78 millions – and it is now being “fast tracked” – the only reason as far as I can see is to ensure a speedy and complete collapse of the EU.
30
Burn the city so that the winners have nought but ashes.
10
The EU constitutional rules embargo any “bail outs”. This is why Ireland and Cyprus were so harshly treated …
Yet if a French or German bank starts to fall over – Mon Dieu, Gott in Himmel etc. Rules must be broken.
These smaller countries – Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia – want to join on the basis that hand-outs and bail-outs are free for everyone. This is especially so for Turkey, although it is not a small country. But several smaller countries, in my personal experience Hungary, Serbia and Romania, claim they are already “fully economically integrated” with the EU but still retain their own local currency. Interestingly, their shops will happily accept Euros in payment but insist in giving change in their own local zloties or whatever, which are absolutely useless and of no value outside that specific country; as one goes north along the Danube and then Rhine rivers, this only changes when one reaches Austria.
My point is that it’s a total, hypocritical mess. Over the next 5-10 years, the British will become grateful for their Brexit decision.
00
Making money on the down wave.
‘Joshua Mahony, an IG analyst, said: “There is a confidence within the City that perhaps the implications to this vote may not be as immediate nor far reaching as many initially thought, providing opportunities for bargain hunters to grab shares at a discount.”
‘European bourses are roared ahead, with Frankfurt’s DAX climbing 1.8pc, the CAC in Paris advancing 2.6pc and the Spanish IBEX rallying 3.5pc.’
Daily Telegraph
20
28 Jun: BBC Wales: UKIP to chair assembly climate change committee despite scepticism
The news has prompted anger from Labour AM Lee Waters who described the move as “appalling” given the party questions whether climate change is man made.
But UKIP said the group was “allocated to us without our being consulted”.
It is one of 13 committees divided among the parties based on the number of AMs they have…
Assembly committees scrutinise the activities of the Welsh Government.
Llanelli AM Mr Waters said: “I am appalled that a party that doesn’t believe in climate change is man made… should be chairing the assembly committee responsible for it.
“Lots of people are very unhappy about it.
“The fact is that people voted for UKIP in large numbers and they have a significant group here. The way the assembly works is on a consensual basis and as a result they are entitled to one of the chairs.”…
Wales Green Party leader Alice Hooker-Stroud said putting a UKIP politician in charge of a climate change committee was “absolutely ridiculous”…
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-36651136?utm_source=Daily+Carbon+Briefing&utm_campaign=38bc4fe758-cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_876aab4fd7-38bc4fe758-303449629
28 Jun: Guardian: Arthur Neslen: Siemens freezes new UK wind power investment following Brexit vote
A £310m manufacturing hub in Hull that employs 1,000 people will not be affected by the decision, and should still begin producing blades and assembling turbines next year.
But Siemens, one of the few firms to openly back a Remain vote, will not be making new investments until the future of the UK’s relationship with Europe becomes clearer…
It is unclear how much money the EU gave to the Hull project but it has put up £525m for the Beatrice windfarm project in Scotland, whose developer will be a major buyer of the Hull factory’s turbine blades.
The firm also agreed a contract with a Belgian consortia which received a £250m loan from the European Investment Bank for the supply, servicing and maintenance of 42 offshore turbines.
Despite this EU support, the people of Hull voted overwhelmingly for Leave in what a local councillor described as “a cry of rage”…
There are also concerns that the EU’s target of a 27% share for renewable energy, averaged across Europe by 2030, could now be too ambitious…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/28/siemens-freezes-new-uk-wind-power-investment-following-brexit-vote
20
urged by Ed Miliband only:
29 Jun: BBC: Roger Harrabin: Cameron urged to ratify climate deal before quitting as PM
Labour’s former climate change secretary Ed Miliband said “climate sceptics” might try to derail the deal if they gained positions of power following the EU referendum…
Mr Miliband told me: “I take David Cameron at his word that he cared about these issues – but we don’t know who’s going to succeed him.
“He should ratify the agreement before he leaves office because we don’t want to end up with a climate change denier or sceptic as prime minister who tries to renegotiate the whole thing.
“It’s the biggest single issue facing our world; the biggest single issue facing my kids as to whether we step up on this. We have a massive, massive challenge and we’ve got to get on with it.
“The French have ratified [the Paris agreement] and as I understand it’s perfectly in our gift to get it done. There is a majority in the House of Commons for it – so we should get on and do it.”…
But the Global Warming Policy Forum – influential amongst Conservative MPs – warned in its latest policy note: “Since the UK will need to sail fast and free post-Brexit, the economic engine must be fuelled as cheaply and efficiently as possible, a requirement that is incompatible with currently applicable EU (climate) regulation, and much of it will consequently have to be rejected.”
It pointed to 230 rules affecting energy supply and called for the speedy rejection of three major planks of EU climate policy: the emissions trading scheme, which increases the cost of pollution for big business; the Industrial Emissions Directive which cuts pollution from power plant; and the Renewables Directive, which requires the UK to obtain 15% of total energy from renewables by 2020…
Mr Miliband was been accused by critics of inadvertently provoking the government’s subsidy cuts by promising during the last election campaign to freeze power bills. His critics say that forced Mr Osborne into a political corner where he was obliged to cut subsidies in order to trim bills.
Mr Miliband rejected that accusation.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36654281
28 Jun: Nature: UK scientists in limbo after Brexit shock
Researchers organize to lobby for science as country prepares for life outside the EU.
No one is sure how ‘Brexit’ will affect science, but many researchers are worried about long-lasting damage. Beyond the immediate economic impacts and the potential loss of EU funding — which currently supplies some 16% of UK university research money — scientists fear a loss of mobility between the country and the continent…
Researchers are already mobilizing to lobby for the United Kingdom to remain a participant in EU science programmes, and for domestic funding to make up any shortfalls. “We need some kind of rapid monitoring to catch fallout problems early and implement remedial measures,” says Mike Galsworthy, who led the Scientists for EU campaign…
Most academic groups had lobbied for the United Kingdom to remain in the EU…
James Wilsdon, a science-policy researcher at the University of Sheffield, UK, says that beyond the questions about continued access to EU funding and policy, there is a more fundamental issue that UK researchers must come to grips with: the fact that most academic experts, research lobby groups and other experts came out in favour of staying in the EU and were ignored by the public.
“Here you have such a major question around which there was such a torrent of solid analysis and empirical evidence, and we’ve had a rejection of that by 52% of the public,” he says. “That needs to provoke some serious soul searching and reflection.”
http://www.nature.com/news/uk-scientists-in-limbo-after-brexit-shock-1.20178
30
28 Jun: Bloomberg: Virginal Postrel: California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco
California’s high-speed rail project increasingly looks like an expensive social science experiment to test just how long interest groups can keep money flowing to a doomed endeavor before elected officials finally decide to cancel it. What combination of sweet-sounding scenarios, streamlined mockups, ever-changing and mind-numbing technical detail, and audacious spin will keep the dream alive?…
But the assurances were at best wishful thinking, at worst an elaborate con…
The total construction cost estimate has now more than doubled to $68 billion from the original $33 billion, despite trims in the routes planned
***Last month’s cap-and-trade auction for greenhouse gases, expected to provide $150 million for the train, yielded a mere $2.5 million. And no investors are lining up to fill the $43 billion construction-budget gap…
Now, courtesy of Los Angeles Times reporter Ralph Vartabedian, comes yet another damning revelation (LINK): When the Spanish construction company Ferrovial submitted its winning bid for a 22-mile segment, the proposal included a clear and inconvenient warning: “More than likely, the California high speed rail will require large government subsidies for years to come.” Ferrovial reviewed 111 similar systems around the world and found only three that cover their operating costs…
The truly damning revelation, however, isn’t just that Ferrovial’s research flatly contradicts the California authority. It’s that the company’s warning on subsidies disappeared from the version of the bid posted on the state’s website. The Times obtained a copy of the full document on a data disk under a public records act request…
Some of those who knew better still succumbed to the glamour of the idea. “There’s something undeniably alluring about a bullet train — the technology is so powerful, the speed so breathtaking, it makes quotidian trips seem exotic,” opined the Times’s editorial board in October 2008…
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-28/california-hits-the-brakes-on-high-speed-rail-fiasco
20
29 Jun: Reuters: Charges dropped against former Deutsche Bank executives – source
Deutsche Bank’s former co-chief executive and former chief financial officer have been cleared of charges of conspiring to evade taxes in the trading of carbon emission certificates, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The source said the Frankfurt public prosecutor terminated investigations of Juergen Fitschen, who stepped down as co-CEO of German’s biggest bank in May, and of Stefan Krause, who recently joined buyout group Warburg Pincus.
The prosecutor and Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
Earlier this month, a former Deutsche Bank employee was sentenced to three years in jail for his part in a scheme trading carbon emission permits designed to curb global warming but used to fraudulently collect tens of millions of euros of sales tax.
Handing down suspended jail sentences to five other former Deutsche bankers also involved, Judge Martin Bach had criticised the bank, saying the “failure of all security mechanisms” had allowed the fraud…
European police agency Europol has estimated the cost to taxpayers at more than 5 billion euros (4 billion pounds) since 2008…
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-deutsche-bank-carbon-idUKKCN0ZF0V7
scrap it:
29 Jun: SMH: Peter Hannam: $200m tipped into landfill firms by government’s Direct Action dubbed a ‘waste’
The country’s biggest operators of landfills have pocketed almost $200 million from the Abbott-Turnbull government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) without having to prove the funds reduced their greenhouse gas production.
LMS, Energy Developments and AGL were the largest beneficiaries, collecting the lion’s share of some $194.5 million of taxpayer funds handed to 39 landfill projects…
The fund still has $816 million to allocate after three auction rounds.
Fairfax Media sought comment from Mr Hunt about whether the landfill gas industry had “double dipped” by getting payments for emissions abatement that they would have done without the ERF.
“The independent Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee ensures that all ERF methods, with which all projects must comply, deliver additionality,” a spokesman for Mr Hunt said. “The landfill gas methods were first made under the [Carbon Farming Initiative] – under Labor.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/200m-tipped-into-landfill-firms-by-governments-direct-action-dubbed-a-waste-20160628-gpu66j.html
20
comment #34 is in moderation.
29 Jun: UK Express: Tom Parfitt: ‘EU fragmentation NO LONGER unthinkable’ Dutch politician says Brexit is a ‘wake-up call’
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, Holland’s Defence Minister, said the result of Thursday’s historic referendum is a “watershed in European history”.
And she insisted the EU needs to be more “effective” and “convincing” amid fears other countries are keen to follow the UK out the exit door.
She said: “The shock of the referendum should be a wake-up call to us all. The sentiments of many British voters are shared in many other member states.
“Europe is facing huge challenges, so we need an EU that is protecting its borders, providing economic opportunities, and keeping threats at bay…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/684130/Jeanine-Hennis-Plasschaert-Brexit-European-Union-Brussels-Martin-Schulz
27 Jun: UK Express: Ross Logan: Italian journalist destroys anti-Brexit arguments and blasts ‘rubbish’ EU
An Italian financial journalist has delivered a devastating verdict on the European Union – saying Britain is far better off out and hoping Brexit will help destroy the ‘anti-democratic project”…
Asked if he thought Brexit would create a domino effect in Europe, Barnard replies: “I hope. I hope it will destroy this rubbish.”
He continued: “If a Brit overlook’s Dover’s cliffs, what does he see?
“He sees a Europe that from 2007 to today has lost its GDP to the point of not getting it back.
“He sees an unemployment rate that’s double that of the UK. He sees banking gaps for €1.7 trillion in Europe, that nobody is covering…
He dismisses the impact on British business as “bulls**t” saying it will effect 0.4 per cent of the UK’s largest companies such as Shell, GlaxoSmithKlein and Unilever.
To loud applause, Baranrd concludes: “Now the UK wants to leave from this Economocide, from this authoritarian EU and from this nomenclature. Then for what are the Bilderberg’s men trembling for? What are the huge companies afraid of?
“They’re not scared of economic loss – they are scared over the loss of control over a neb-feudal, authoritarian and anti-democratic project called the European Union.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/683556/Italian-journalist-destroys-anti-Brexit-arguments-blasts-European-Union
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27 Jun: International Business Times: David Gilbert: No, Britons Were Not Frantically Googling ‘What Is The EU?’ Hours After Brexit Vote
On Friday as the U.K., Europe and the wider world were coming to terms with the shock decision, the Washington Post reported: “Many Britons may not even know what they had actually voted for.” This assertion — along with the mocking headline “The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it” — was based on a tweet posted by Google based on information from its Trends tool, which analyzes in real time what people are searching for…
The problem with using Google Trends as an indication of anything other than a relative increase or decrease over previous norms is that it doesn’t give the whole picture. Yes, there may have been a big spike in searches about what happens if the U.K. leaves the EU, but compared with what? Were there hundreds of thousands of people searching Google for these answers? Millions?
It turns out the figure is likely to be less than 1,000 people, or 0.001 percent of the population…READ ON
http://www.ibtimes.com/no-britons-were-not-frantically-googling-what-eu-hours-after-brexit-vote-2387205
of course, not only WaPo mocked voters with this google “story” – it was all over the MSM.
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democracy-loving Obama Administration:
29 Jun: Guardian: Jennifer Rankin: John Kerry: Brexit could be ‘walked back’
US secretary of state expresses doubts over whether Brexit will happen as David Cameron ‘has no idea how he would do it’
Cameron was worried that Britain would be forced out of the EU at the end of the two-year negotiating period without a trade deal, Kerry told Aspen Ideas festival on Tuesday. Asked if this meant the Brexit decision could be “walked back” and if so how, Kerry said: “I think there are a number of ways. I don’t, as secretary of state, want to throw them out today. I think that would be a mistake. But there are a number of ways.”…
The US was a big cheerleader of Britain’s continued EU membership and has stood by White House warnings that the UK would go the “back of the queue” when trade deals were being negotiated…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/29/john-kerry-brexit-could-be-walked-back-david-cameron?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
democracy-loving NYT:
28 Jun: NYT: Max Fisher: How Britain Could Exit ‘Brexit’
Option No. 1: Simply don’t do it
The referendum is not legally binding. The process of leaving does not begin until the prime minister officially invokes Article 50 of the European Union’s governing treaty. So he or she could, in theory, carry on as if the vote had never happened…
Option No. 2: A Scottish veto
Option No. 3: A do-over
Option No. 4: An exit in name only
ETC
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/world/europe/brexit-bregret-european-union-the-interpreter.html?_r=0
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11 Countries Gearing up to Strike Trade Deals with Britain.
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