Barnsley wrote:So thats a no you have never been!!!
I do not answer most personal questions. Moreover, it's dumb to ask me or anybody else, especially when posters are pseudonymous.
There was no difference to them being at the bottom under a UK Govt or in the EU , therefore voting to leave they had nothing to lose.
We'll see.
Where are you from , banging on about GDP , when that is utterly irrelevant to 99% of the population of country.
GDP is largely irrelevant to the well-to-do, within reasonable GDP variations and ignoring second order effects (e.g. wars and revolutions). Whether you have one or two yachts isn't too interesting.
GDP is extremely relevant to everybody else. If you'd like an example of the relevance of GDP, take a look at Greece. In 2008 Greece's GDP was about $31.7K per capita. In 2013 (latest year I can find) it was about $22K. In 2008 Greece's unemployment rate was just over 7%. In 2013 it got above 27% and is still about 24%.
"Ah," you might say. "Greece is in the European Union. So you picked a bad example." No, the central problem for Greece (and for some other countries) is that they are members of the Eurozone. The United Kingdom is not. Never has been, never had to be, forever. The euro was/is a disaster, no question, as prominent economists -- those "experts" the Leave campaign mocked -- predicted. Greece is in a very different situation in that respect. But Greece does illustrate what happens when GDP falls.
Please explain how an Exit , unlikely as it is to happen , will have a negative impact on the folk at the bottom when it comes to say jobs for example.
Assuming economists are correct and that the United Kingdom suffers a permanent loss of 2 to 3 percent of its GDP, the whole nation is less economically prosperous. The market value of its goods and services is that much less. That means the
average person has 2 to 3 percent less income.
But that's the average person. What about the "bottom," specifically? Well, history suggests the bottom income percentiles and quintiles suffer the most. Employment has to contract to adjust to that 2 to 3 percentage point permanent loss of GDP. Government budgets
eventually have to contract, too. If somebody with lots of pounds loses a few (or even several), that somebody is not forced to eat cat food. If somebody with only a few pounds loses even one, then that's a big deal.
OK, but what about immigration? Well, what about it? Curtailing EU/EEA immigration will require that the United Kingdom leave the Single European Market. It's just that simple. People who claim otherwise are just being disingenuous. There won't be any other deal on offer. Leaving the Single Market pushes the United Kingdom into the high, pessimistic range of economists' forecasts (or beyond). Second -- and this has been studied very carefully, repeatedly -- when you look at each segment of the U.K. population you find that EU/EEA migrants contribute the most taxes relative to their consumption of government goods and services. U.K. citizen residents and non-EU/EEA migrants are less contributory than EU/EEA migrants. Therefore, if you reduce EU/EEA migration (voluntarily or not) you diminish the U.K. government's financial health. It's just how the math works. And when you do that, the government eventually has to cut back on government-provided goods and services. Like benefit allowances, education, job programs, policing, childcare, and much more. Those at the bottom of the income spectrum benefit the most from those goods and services. They're going to get whacked again that way, too. Lower incomes (and less employment), less government spending on them to replace that lost income.
These arguments are entirely logical and rational. They are real, too real for many. There's nothing controversial about them. If you believe the economists' consensus forecasts, the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union is going to
particularly hurt those at the bottom of the income spectrum.
Now, if you've got a plausible, rational argument why U.K. GDP will rise as a consequence of the country leaving the European Union, that might be interesting to debate and discuss. But arguing that a loss of GDP isn't going to hurt those most vulnerable in society is just...well, it's just crazy talk. The "bottom" really can lose more. They have before. They just recently did during the Financial Crisis.
Oh, but it gets even worse, I'm afraid. There's a lot of excellent research indicating that individuals -- and even multiple generations --
never fully recover from long-term job loss. As Channel 5's poverty porn programming indicates.
I sincerely hope the economists are wrong. They will be as wrong as possible if the United Kingdom ends up with an EEA or de facto EEA-like outcome, and soon. That outcome is still possible. Unfortunately I don't find any flaws in their logic or in what history teaches us about their logic. A loss of GDP really is bad,
particularly for those with modest incomes already. Life is tough, and for many it's going to get tougher, ceteris paribus.