BRexit : Shall UK stay in EU or go now?

One analyst reckoned if bank shares keep heading south, based recent history it might take ?160bn to rescue them!

Sterling falls and bank, airline and property shares tumble
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36636853

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Yeah... experts. Pesky little fellows who try to tell us about reality...

I'm much more comfortable in my land of wishful thinking.
 
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Like I commented on a video not long ago, Brexit sounds like somone having pancreatic cancer, and instead of consulting doctors for treatment, they went and polled their neighbours, just to decide to have a lobotomy instead.
 
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No, just another consequence if the UK does leave:

Each member state has the right to nominate one EU idiom. Although English is the most spoken language in Europe, and an official language in three member states, only Britain legally chose it in Brussels. Ireland chose Gaelic. Malta picked Maltese.

"English is our official language because it has been notified by the UK. If we don't have the UK, we don't have English," Danuta Hubner, chair of the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee told a news conference on the legal consequences of the British referendum to leave the EU.

English might remain a working language, even if it were no longer an official one, Hubner said, adding that keeping it an official language would require agreement by all member states.

Alternatively, rules could be changed to let countries have more than one official language, Hubner suggested.
 
I'm surprised Malta chose Maltese. When I was there they flat out refused to speak anything but English.

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Yeah... experts. Pesky little fellows who try to tell us about reality...

I'm much more comfortable in my land of wishful thinking.

Experts also deal in opinions in this case. Bottom line is no one has any idea how it's going to turn out. Expert guesses might be somewhat more informed than gen pop but ultimately guesses is what they are.
 
Experts also deal in opinions in this case.
? The "?350 million to the NHS" claim was torn to pieces by experts. Nigel Farage admitted it was a lie right after the vote.
? Economic instability was predicted by experts. It arrived immediately after the vote.
? "We'll end immigration from the EU and send the Polacks packing!" was Leave's promise. Experts said it wasn't feasible, Daniel Hannan agreed right after the vote.

Those three are off the top of my head. We might well be witnessing the beginning of a post-factual era where the term "expert" is a sneer, rather than a description, for people who know much more about a certain subject than most others.

Bottom line is no one has any idea how it's going to turn out.
So far, the experts' "guesses" have proven to be a lot more reliable than those from the Leave camp - see above. If the Scottish and/or the Northern Irish do go forward with their independence referendums, even the so-called "scaremongering" will be proven to have been exceedingly tame.

Expert guesses might be somewhat more informed than gen pop but ultimately guesses is what they are.
Do you think the same about your GP's "guesses" at what might help you? What about your tax adviser? An expert opinion is a lot more than a layman's guess.
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for a bitter laugh or three:

Michael Gove?s guide to Britain?s greatest enemy... the experts

(...)

?It is a common misconception that doctors know about medicine, simply because they?ve studied it for up to 16 years.

?Yet, mere centuries ago, these same people were routinely prescribing leeches, and performing amputations without anaesthetic. Wrong then, wrong now.

?The decent, ordinary patients of Britain have had enough of the medical elite lecturing them about how many tablets to take, and ordering them to open wide and say, ?Ahhh.? Day after day, we?re fed scare stories about how eating too much will make you fat, and how smoking causes lung cancer. It?s pure scaremongering, and I think this type of negativity is turning patients off.

?Quite frankly, it?s time to take back control of the operating theatre, and start performing our own keyhole surgery.?
 
? The "?350 million to the NHS" claim was torn to pieces by experts. Nigel Farage admitted it was a lie right after the vote.
? Economic instability was predicted by experts. It arrived immediately after the vote.
? "We'll end immigration from the EU and send the Polacks packing!" was Leave's promise. Experts said it wasn't feasible, Daniel Hannan agreed right after the vote.

Those three are off the top of my head. We might well be witnessing the beginning of a post-factual era where the term "expert" is a sneer, rather than a description, for people who know much more about a certain subject than most others.


So far, the experts' "guesses" have proven to be a lot more reliable than those from the Leave camp - see above. If the Scottish and/or the Northern Irish do go forward with their independence referendums, even the so-called "scaremongering" will be proven to have been exceedingly tame.


Do you think the same about your GP's "guesses" at what might help you? What about your tax adviser? An expert opinion is a lot more than a layman's guess.
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for a bitter laugh or three:

GP is I'm guessing a doctor? Those are bad examples as both my accountant or my dr would be dealing with more or less established practices. Predicting long term outcome of something like the BRexit is much more nebulous. Short term sure, and yes I would take an expert opinion over says yours :p but I also recognize that they are still opinions.
 
GP is I'm guessing a doctor?
Yup: general practitioner.

Those are bad examples as both my accountant or my dr would be dealing with more or less established practices.
Why on earth would you think that economists and political scientists would not be using established practices to arrive at their conclusions? :blink:

Predicting long term outcome of something like the BRexit is much more nebulous.
Does "This patient has a 50% chance of survival." ring a bell? ;)

Short term sure, and yes I would take an expert opinion over says yours :p but I also recognize that they are still opinions.
A doctor's opinion is also an expert opinion. He can tell you some facts after the illness is over... assuming you've survived it, naturally.

It's true that almost everyone has opinions. However, some of those are a lot more qualified than others - Donald Trump's opinion on the referendum results in Scotland was, for instance, extremely unqualified.
 
We call them physicians stateside or PCP - primary care provider.

Why on earth would you think that economists and political scientists would not be using established practices to arrive at their conclusions? :blink:
Because I have a business degree and studied finance and economics :) If you follow Last Week Tonight, he had a segment on 401K specifically the part about expert traders being worse at predicting market than a cat.
Also I have a friend who has a degree in poli sci, it's basically slightly more educated guess than gen pop.
Does "This patient has a 50% chance of survival." ring a bell? ;)
You ain't Pavlov and I ain't a dog ;) It does but medicine is a lot more exact than either poli sci or economics, if for no other reason that they are many more factors when it comes to economics and politics than there are when it comes to treating a patient (wife is a physician assistant so I have a bit more exposure to how the behind the scenes work).


A doctor's opinion is also an expert opinion. He can tell you some facts after the illness is over... assuming you've survived it, naturally.

It's true that almost everyone has opinions. However, some of those are a lot more qualified than others - Donald Trump's opinion on the referendum results in Scotland was, for instance, extremely unqualified.

Well Trump's opinions are a whole nother story. My only point here is that while I certainly respect an expert opinion above a lay person's, predicting long term outcome of moves such as BRexit is nearly impossible. Think about it this way, how many people thought that American war for independence was a terrible idea and that the colonies would never make it without the "mainland"?
 
I'm sorry prizrak but I think there's a missunderstanding or a difference in what Expert means to you and what it means to ch and me.
What I'm going to say is a generalization but I think it applies now, because in America, there are a lot of people who market themselves and inflate their titles (and therefor their perceived knowledge) to feel more trustworthy and fool you into giving you their money. I would not be surprised to see a tyre changer be referring himself as a "vehicular rubberized torus exchange expert".

We are talking about serious economists who warned that the numbers the "leave" camp were flinging around were absolutely bogus.
You pretend like 'common' (in this case non-expert) people can make a better judgement than experts can?
No, not in a regular scenario, and even less if they're being fed bad data.

Scientists, economists, politicians, UK's allies and long time partners were in the camp of remain, while for leave, you had Farage and Boris Johnson. I still don't understand how they won, but my guess is that they don't, either, judging by the total "damage control" mode they switched to merely a day after the results.

Let's talk about long term.
Yes, it is extremely hard to predict the future, but nobody is claiming they are. They are making an educated guess, and that is the whole difference.

Expert: Well in my educated opinion and based on my learned knowledge and experience, in a situation like this, what we can expect is A, B, C and D, followed by Y, most likely. Alternatively, Z could happen.
Average referendum voter: Well, I don't fucking know... *googles "what is the EU?"*
 
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I "vehicular rubberized torus exchange expert".
:LOL:
We are talking about serious economists who warned that the numbers the "leave" camp were flinging around were absolutely bogus.
You pretend like 'common' (in this case non-expert) people can make a better judgement than experts can?
No, not in a regular scenario, and even less if they're being fed bad data.

Scientists, economists, politicians, UK's allies and long time partners were in the camp of remain, while for leave, you had Farage and Boris Johnson. I still don't understand how they won, but my guess is that they don't, either, judging by the total "damage control" mode they switched to merely a day after the results.
To be honest you didn't need to be an expert to know that leaving was an idiotic idea, hell there wasn't even a plan in place for what happens after they ditch EU, that really should've told everyone how well thought out it was.
Let's talk about long term.
Yes, it is extremely hard to predict the future, but nobody is claiming they are. They are making an educated guess, and that is the whole difference.

Expert: Well in my educated opinion and based on my learned knowledge and experience, in a situation like this, what we can expect is A, B, C and D, followed by Y, most likely. Alternatively, Z could happen.
Fair enough.
Average referendum voter: Well, I don't fucking know... *googles "what is the EU?"*
:LOL:

Personal opinion, the government failed epically here, there should never have been a referendum, there is a reason we generally elect our politicians or in other words experts who know wtf they are doing (well better than an average "wtf is EU?" person anyways).
 
I've yet to verify the stats so these figures could be irrelevant, but I saw some figures (from Sky) quoting a turnout of voters by age:

18-24: 36%
25-34: 58%
35-44: 72%
44-54: 75%
55-64: 81%
65+: 83%

If it's true, it does do a lot to disarm the current trend of anger towards the elderly. I'll try and verify these when I've got a bit more time.
 
Scientists, economists, politicians, UK's allies and long time partners were in the camp of remain, while for leave, you had Farage and Boris Johnson. I still don't understand how they won, but my guess is that they don't, either, judging by the total "damage control" mode they switched to merely a day after the results.

It's actually quite easy to understand. The whole EU membership of Britain was a total misundertanding from the beginning. Britain always assumed it was just a loose community which provided economiccal advantages, they never wanted it to become a union where single states had to give up some of their authority.

In contrast to continental Europe, Britain wasn't conquered by the Germans in WW II. So while continental Europe had a vital interest in getting closer together in the aftermath of the war in order to make sure to never let something like that happen again, Britain was always a bit like the befuddled bystander who considered it all a bit curious and odd. Despite actively helping and promoting a new, peaceful Europe, Britain actually never really considered itself a part of it and only the bare necessities of the crisis-ridden 1970's drove them into the EC, which later became the EU.

For a while everything was going well, then Mrs. Thatcher came and decided that they paid too much and didn't get enough money back in return (which by the way was the general idea: Rich countries help the poor countries). So the notorious "Brit rebate" was negotiated and despite the British getting what they wanted, from that day on the British Yellow Press used every opportunity to fire at Brussels.

In addition to that, British politics conveniently used Brussels as a scapegoat in order to cover up their own inability to deal with Britain's problems. It was easy: Politics blamed the EU for everything that was wrong in Britain and the Yellow Press actively supported it. After decades of propaganda bombardement, many Brits today actually believe the EU is something evil, a totalitarian system even that exists to destroy national identities and make all of Europe standardized and identical.

It really is so telling that Google reported an enormous increase in British people looking for "EU" after they voted to leave it...
 
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I've yet to verify the stats so these figures could be irrelevant, but I saw some figures (from Sky) quoting a turnout of voters by age:

18-24: 36%
25-34: 58%
35-44: 72%
44-54: 75%
55-64: 81%
65+: 83%

If it's true, it does do a lot to disarm the current trend of anger towards the elderly. I'll try and verify these when I've got a bit more time.

They are based on the last election from memory, not on the referendum. I expect the youth vote would have had a much better turnout, although no doubt still worse than the elderly.
 
They are based on the last election from memory, not on the referendum. I expect the youth vote would have had a much better turnout, although no doubt still worse than the elderly.

That would make a lot of sense, it was shared through social media (I know, I'm better than that) and I was only saying yesterday that the stats from this years referendum are unnecessarily difficult to get hold of and extract any meaningful data from.

I know we poll on Thursdays out of tradition, but I do think weekend polls would yield more voters.
 
In addition to that, British politics conveniently used Brussels as a scapegoat in order to cover up their own inability to deal with Britain's problems.

I think Scottish politicians do that with Westminster.

Brits blame the EU for all of their problems. Scots blame Westminster for all of their problems.

It really is so telling that Google reported an enormous increase in British people looking for "EU" after they voted to leave it...

I honestly think that's a red herring. There are plenty of groups of people who could google "EU" terms and questions after the referendum from the remain, leave and indifference camps. The European and American media are using it to make Brits look stupid but I think they're over-reaching a little with it. It could be any of the following:

#1: Teenagers who aren't old enough to vote googling to find out what it means for their future.
#2: Migrants who are now unsure where they stand or worried about whether they can stay etc.
#3: People looking for the referendum result. ( I googled it when I woke up that morning. So I assume plenty of others did also. )

There are probably other groups who would have googled "EU" terms for perfectly legitimate and non-moronic reasons.
 
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