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UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by BBCWatcher » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 1:02 pm

Barnsley wrote:Do you even have the slightest idea why a vast majority of the folk who voted to leave did so?
Of course. Their national government(s) has(have) failed them in many ways.
The folk at the bottom are gleaning precious little benefit from being in the EU....
Mostly because, if you're at or near the bottom, the only substantial benefit that could exist is to exit the bottom. EU membership wasn't hurting them either, but unfortunately the United Kingdom's exit probably will. Or they'll be dead, and their children and grandchildren will be less well off. It's hard to estimate how much less well off since it'll depend on how EEA-like the outcome is, but the consensus economists' estimate is a 2 to 3 percent permanent reduction in U.K. GDP. That'll hit the bottom especially hard, even with the dubious assumption that the national government (or what's left of it) responds as it should with appropriate tax and spending policies.

It's just sad all around. :(

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by Barnsley » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 1:39 pm

BBCWatcher wrote:
Barnsley wrote:Do you even have the slightest idea why a vast majority of the folk who voted to leave did so?
Of course. Their national government(s) has(have) failed them in many ways.
The folk at the bottom are gleaning precious little benefit from being in the EU....
Mostly because, if you're at or near the bottom, the only substantial benefit that could exist is to exit the bottom. EU membership wasn't hurting them either, but unfortunately the United Kingdom's exit probably will. Or they'll be dead, and their children and grandchildren will be less well off. It's hard to estimate how much less well off since it'll depend on how EEA-like the outcome is, but the consensus economists' estimate is a 2 to 3 percent permanent reduction in U.K. GDP. That'll hit the bottom especially hard, even with the dubious assumption that the national government (or what's left of it) responds as it should with appropriate tax and spending policies.

It's just sad all around. :(
So thats a no you have never been!!!

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

Where are you from , banging on about GDP , when that is utterly irrelevant to 99% of the population of country.

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.
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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by Barnsley » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 1:43 pm

x9200 wrote:Meanwhile in the EU:
The Brexit Vote Is Making Skeptical Europeans Value the EU
http://fortune.com/2016/07/04/brexit-vo ... opeans-eu/

Not that this is anything surprising. Giving time it will likely move back to the previous ratios.
I am fairly sure there is also a lot of questioning the other way , whom is the EU benefiting , certainly there is a Political/Business Elite who are filling there boots with EU Tax Payers money.

Where as there is a sizable number of EU citizens whom are getting zero benefit from the EU.

The sooner the Elite realise that their gravy train could end very soon unless they get their act together. If they feel under no pressure then why exactly would they make changes for the better.

A Govts objective should be to help facilitate businesses to create jobs , it should be in the business of creating them itself.
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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by BBCWatcher » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 3:37 pm

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.

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by BBCWatcher » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 4:55 pm

The U.K. government refuses to guarantee that EU/EEA citizens already resident in the United Kingdom will be able to stay. If they cannot, that'll tear families apart, literally. British families included. Even prominent Leave campaigners are outraged, although they shouldn't be surprised.

Also, George Osbourne plans to cut government revenues by cutting the corporate tax rate in a desperate effort to try to keep companies from shipping jobs and offices out of the U.K. Of course, a government that raises less revenue has less revenue to spend, and the U.K. government spends most of its revenue on helping those with modest incomes. The Bank of England could also lower the amount of capital banks must set aside, another desperate reaction to try to keep banks in the United Kingdom. That means U.K. banks will be more vulnerable to financial crises, and we all saw what happened (especially to those with modest incomes) in the last financial crisis that's not even a decade old. (And hasn't anybody in the Bank of England heard about the U.K. real estate bubble?)

What a cluster(bleep). :(

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by JR8 » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 6:47 pm

Barnsley wrote:Do you even have the slightest idea why a vast majority of the folk who voted to leave did so? Have you ever been to the UK outside of the main Metropolitan areas?? Being in the EU has done almost nothing tangible for them , my parents live in such an area. Its at the bottom no matter who their "Overlords" are so they really have nothing to lose.
Similar situation for me.
I can see how people observing from abroad might be puzzled though. They might watch the BBC and believe it to be impartial, trust-worthy, representative; rather than what it is, the prism of the urban soft-left well-off pro-EU mindset. My parents watch the news on ITV, because the BBC news might as well come from a different planet to theirs.
This might be why there seems to be something of a stunned reaction abroad. There is perhaps no international media that is tapped into what 'the little people' outside of the major cities actually think.
Also, much of the UK media has a vested interest in the EU. The BBC is part-funded by EU grants. Much of the media has sales outside the UK, so an open EU market-place serves their interests. This is why the FT is painfully pro-EU. Etc.
Barnsley wrote:I was a Remainer, however unlike all the Champagne Lefties who are grumbling , I can see beyond the "Xenophobia" and "Racist" reasons for the exit vote. The folk at the bottom are gleaning precious little benefit from being in the EU , freedom of travel / work/ study really isn't high up on their priority list despite what the pompous ass's in the media would have you believe!
Well quite. For those outside the EU I imagine they like the idea of passport-free intra-EU borders, especially those in Asia that seem to enjoy '12 countries in 8 days!' type touring holidays. They get the benefit of convenience and pay nothing for it.
For your typical Brit, if they visit Europe then I'd guess 90%/+ it'll be to visit just one country; so what's a few minutes in a queue at passport control, versus the cost of co-funding the EU apparatus.
Some people abroad conclude the people somehow got it amazingly 'wrong'; because they can't access any media/voice that would have informed them that that vote was on the cards.
X9200 wrote: Quoting:- “This poll confirms that nobody wants to put themselves in the kind of mess the British have created for themselves,” Marlene Wind, a professor in political science at the University of Copenhagen, told Bloomberg.
An example of brutally punishing one monkey to stop the others chattering. The EU and other vested interests must be terrified of the UK thriving outside of the EU, hence all the talk of Brexocalypse. The UK must be publicly flayed just like Greece was, with Fuhrer Merkel leading the charge :) Obama with his 'back of the line' banner, which might have been something pitched at negroes in a 1950s Alabama milk-bar.

The UK last voted ['73] to join a 'free-trade area', the EEC. This time they voted to leave a Franco-German dominated super-state that they never knew was coming. It's really no surprise. The surprise is that popular demand for a referendum grew so large that the government were finally, eventually, hugely against their wishes, forced into having one. Democracy is the new enemy of the EU as it is today, and I suspect that's a circle the EU will never manage to square. Meanwhile the wounded beast will limp along the same old path slowly bleeding to death, one day collapsing under the weight of 10,000 band-aids.
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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by x9200 » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 7:13 pm

JR8 wrote:
X9200 wrote: Quoting:- “This poll confirms that nobody wants to put themselves in the kind of mess the British have created for themselves,” Marlene Wind, a professor in political science at the University of Copenhagen, told Bloomberg.
An example of brutally punishing one monkey to stop the others chattering. The EU and other vested interests must be terrified of the UK thriving outside of the EU, hence all the talk of Brexocalypse. The UK must be publicly flayed just like Greece was, with Fuhrer Merkel leading the charge :) Obama with his 'back of the line' banner, which might have been something pitched at negroes in a 1950s Alabama milk-bar.
I don't know her, maybe she meant this, but I read it rather straight forward and it is a mess. It is a mess of anxiety and uncertainty. I mean it without saying anything against or for. The UK society (as much as I can see it) seems in some sort of panic state. Many have doubts, hardly anybody has any reassuring idea what the future is going to bring. It resembles the situation when one leaves a safe job for a job that potentially may promise better career but not without a certain risk. Not everybody likes to be in this sort of situation. Probably majority doesn't prefer to take such risk.

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by BBCWatcher » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 7:45 pm

JR8 wrote:The EU and other vested interests must be terrified of the UK thriving outside of the EU, hence all the talk of Brexocalypse.
No, you're completely misreading and misunderstanding European reaction and projecting U.K. "Leave" sensibilities (or hostilities) onto the rest of Europe. That's not how the overwhelming majority of policy leaders feel. They feel mostly, genuinely sad, sad for the United Kingdom (or possibly for the rump state of England and Wales) and for her people. And then, beyond sadness...businesslike. "On your bike," as Lord Heseltine put it.

We're past talk of negative repercussions. They're underway. Britain's best and brightest are now engineering around the problems as best they can, and that's not good for Britain.

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by JR8 » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 11:08 pm

x9200 wrote:I don't know her, maybe she meant this, but I read it rather straight forward and it is a mess. It is a mess of anxiety and uncertainty. I mean it without saying anything against or for. The UK society (as much as I can see it) seems in some sort of panic state. Many have doubts, hardly anybody has any reassuring idea what the future is going to bring. It resembles the situation when one leaves a safe job for a job that potentially may promise better career but not without a certain risk. Not everybody likes to be in this sort of situation. Probably majority doesn't prefer to take such risk.
She's shrewd enough to personally keep largely above it, with Schaueble and Schultz carrying out her orders. It is inconceivable [to me!] that they go around the EU beating-up sovereign states without having been sent by her.
So yes it is a mess, but the EU have no PlanB. PM-Cameron saw the risk ahead clearly enough that he went to the EU pols to seek negotiations on terms of membership. He returned with no treaty changes at all, just a useless protocol that would change nothing. The moment he returned and opened his mouth people could see that he had failed. The BREXIT vote is a direct result of such inability or arrogance to change/evolve.
Here's one blogpost from the time from a writer who is pro Scottish independence from the UK, that reflects the mass indignation over what Cameron failed to get out of the EU ->
http://atrueindependentscotland.com/cam ... me-moment/
CAMERON’S “PEACE FOR OUR TIME” MOMENT

I agree the UK is in some state of anxiety, that's because they have chosen to enter waters that are intentionally uncharted. The EU need this to be terrifying, to discourage others.
Your job-switch analogy is correct. Another is that it's like the day you suddenly just know, like an epiphany, a 'flash of light', that the divorce you've long been considering is going to go ahead. That's also terrifying, but you have reconciled that the future can't possibly be worse than further enduring the present, what ever it brings. And IME that is absolutely true, it just takes a while to see it.

You may recall one of my favoured expression; 'The strongest tree is one that bends with the wind'. Unfortunately if the EU were a tree then it's a sclerotic and declining one, despite [or perhaps because of] it's relentless desire to grow. To continue the analogy, one branch has dropped off and the gale is rising.
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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by JR8 » Tue, 05 Jul 2016 11:22 pm

p.s. Until the EU changes in a meaningful way then the hurricane is going to continue circling the continent. Until then the perpetual question will be 'who's next?' And given markets trade rumour/fear prior to the fact, that will add to the risks later crystallising.

An article from overnight -

Spain’s Social Security Program Will Go Bust in 2018
https://mishtalk.com/2016/07/05/spains- ... t-in-2018/
'Spain’s Social Security system is expected to go broke by 2018. In the US, concerns over such matters are virtually nonexistent. But Spain cannot print Euros, and is already deep in the hole on meeting [EU] budget deficit targets.' [continues]

Denial is not going to make the problem go away.
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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by Barnsley » Wed, 06 Jul 2016 8:39 am

BBCWatcher wrote:
JR8 wrote:The EU and other vested interests must be terrified of the UK thriving outside of the EU, hence all the talk of Brexocalypse.
No, you're completely misreading and misunderstanding European reaction and projecting U.K. "Leave" sensibilities (or hostilities) onto the rest of Europe. That's not how the overwhelming majority of policy leaders feel. They feel mostly, genuinely sad, sad for the United Kingdom (or possibly for the rump state of England and Wales) and for her people. And then, beyond sadness...businesslike. "On your bike," as Lord Heseltine put it.

We're past talk of negative repercussions. They're underway. Britain's best and brightest are now engineering around the problems as best they can, and that's not good for Britain.
Are you paid by all Governments around the world to back them up on any issue?

Have you ever passed comment on here that is the opposite of any Govt or Political body?

The European reaction you mention here is of the Political Elite , there will be millions in the EU who can perfectly understand the vote in the EU as they see no benefit also.

It was Norman Tebbitt who said "Get On your Bike" by the way , If you even knew who Michael Heseltine was you would know that there is no way he would say this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_pDM1N7i0

Can I just add that you have a very strange writing style for posting in a forum.

Other than that , keep up the good work fella ... =D> =D> =D>
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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by BBCWatcher » Wed, 06 Jul 2016 9:15 am

JR8 wrote:So yes it is a mess, but the EU have no PlanB.
This is more than a bit rich. The European Union has a defined, straightforward procedure for a country's exit. There is a plan: it's in the Treaty of Lisbon, already. As the EC's press release helpfully reminded. So too the European Parliament. The EU doesn't have to do anything except wait for an Article 50 invocation, then take a businesslike approach to setting the divorce terms. It has its team and consensus agreed policy goals (EEA or "get on your bike," in summary). And, as perfectly planned, the concessions David Cameron obtained -- there were some! -- were automatically tossed into the rubbish bin.

At the same time, the United Kingdom's government cannot even decide when and how (vote? PM alone?) to invoke Article 50 much less what to try to negotiate. The Conservatives, Labour, UKIP, and Greens all have leadership contests underway at the same time. The PM announced his resignation, and the only Remain campaigner running for Tory leadership just won a majority vote of Tory MPs (and she cannot even promise that EU/EEA citizens already living in the U.K. will be allowed to stay). The chief Leave campaigners, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, took their own cowardly exits. They don't even want to try to pick up the pieces. The pound has fallen to another, fresh 31 year low, and gilt yields set record lows. Economists have slashed their U.K. growth forecasts for 2017, and many expect the U.K. to slip into recession. The Bank of England is pumping liquidity and just lowered bank reserve requirements (otherwise known as playing with fire), and the Chancellor says he'll slash corporate tax (and government revenues) to beg companies to stay -- and not at all setting up the U.K. well for its exit. All this amidst Britain's most inflated real estate bubble ever. Scotland is headed for its own exit, taking Gibraltar with her. Westminster just might eke out a save of the Kingdom if it ends up with EEA membership (the Norway model) or the de facto equivalent, but it's dicey. Nobody has a clue what to do with Northern Ireland and its land border with the EU. Racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in Britain are trying to cope with the worst attacks and harassment in at least recent decades. U.K. citizens are desperately seeking second passports, and continental European leaders are talking openly about granting Britain's best and brightest young adults (its overseas students) citizenship in their countries, literally skimming the cream off Britain's dubious future. Likewise, major European cities are busy signing up companies relocating their offices and staff, and they're no longer quiet about it. In contrast, business leaders such as Sir Richard Branson report they've had deals cancelled explicitly and expressly because of the Leave vote. For example, Branson reports 3,000 direct jobs blew up overnight at Virgin Money when his investors pulled out.

....And that's just within the first two weeks. Did I miss anything? ;)

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by JR8 » Wed, 06 Jul 2016 4:57 pm

Another interesting post on the Mishtalk finance/geopolitics blog. I have edited parts out, but warning, it's still quite long...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Can the EU Survive as a Prison? Who Has the Keys?
In the wake of Brexit, the EU and German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to the UK with spite and vengeance. Merkel insists that if the UK pursues a Norway-style solution, it will have to accept the EU’s migration rules along with it. Ironically, had the EU’s migration rules been more sensible, the UK would not have left in the first place. [edit...]

Hungary Announces Referendum on Migration

Hungary is so fed up with EU’s refugee polices that it announced an October Referendum on EU Migrant Plan. [...]

Four Countries Fed Up With EU
Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic issued a joint statement “The genuine concerns of our citizens need to be better reflected. National parliaments have to be heard.“
Poland’s deputy prime minister Mateusz Morawieck said “The British voice was the voice of reason.”

The EU Prison
Financial Times writer Martin Wolf asks “Is the best way to preserve the EU bloc to make it a prison, rather than a desirable place of refuge?”

----quoting the FT----

‘The UK is leaving. That has to be the assumption of its EU partners, particularly if free movement of people remains an inviolable principle. So how should the rest of the bloc respond? The UK’s almost certain departure is a threat to the EU on two dimensions.

First, the UK is a neighbour, a market, a financial centre, a security partner and a link to the wider world. It is in the EU’s interest to achieve a mutually satisfactory relationship, however infuriating the UK must be. This argues for the pragmatic position taken by Alain Juppé, frontrunner in the race for the French centre-right presidential nomination. He even suggests that restrictions on free movement of people should be negotiable. If so, that would surely have obviated Brexit.

Second, Brexit is a precedent. The first country to leave the EU is, inevitably, an example to those that wish to follow suit and a warning to those who oppose it. It is natural for the latter to seek to undermine the appeal of the former by punishing the UK. I sympathise. The question they must ask themselves, however, is whether the best way to preserve the EU is to make it a prison, rather than a desirable place of refuge.

The paramount example of recent failure lies inside the eurozone. That has nothing to do with the UK. The sad truth is that, far from launching a period of prosperity, the euro has delivered a lengthy period of stagnation and massive divergences in living standards. Between the first quarters of 2008 and 2016, aggregate eurozone real gross domestic product rose by a mere 0.5 per cent, while real aggregate demand fell by 2.4 per cent. This is grim enough. Even worse, between 2007 and 2016, real GDP per head is forecast to rise 11 per cent in Germany, stagnate in France and fall by 8 per cent and 11 per cent in Spain and Italy respectively.

The core challenge for the EU is to make it work — and be seen to work — for the benefit of the great majority of its citizens. Germany has done well out of the euro. Its principal partners have not.


----/quoting the FT---- [...]

Who Has the Keys?
Jean-Claude Juncker and Angela Merkel want to make the EU a prison. The Eurozone was designed as a prison from the beginning. But like Otis on the Andy Griffith Show, voters have the key. Otis was the town drunk. He frequently locked himself in jail to sober up. Otis had access to the courthouse keys and could come and go any time he wanted. Voters too have the keys. The UK has had enough of the EU prison and wants out. The more the EU responds by cramming absurd rules down the throats of citizens, the more likely it is for voters to demand the prison key.

Once again, it is Angela Merkel is the Person Most Responsible for Brexit. Her policies on migration rules led to the UK voting to leave. The cat is finally out of the bag. And voters know they have the key.’

Article here: https://mishtalk.com/2016/07/06/can-the ... -the-keys/
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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by BBCWatcher » Wed, 06 Jul 2016 8:11 pm

The pound is down again against the U.S. dollar, touching $1.2798 at one point in trading earlier today. It's around $1.297 as I write this. The last time the pound was this low was in June, 1985. The pound is also falling against the euro.

Aviva, Standard Life, and M&G Investments have suspended redemptions from their U.K. property funds.

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Re: UK vote to leave the EU ['BREXIT'] - 23rd June

Post by PNGMK » Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20 pm

I have to agree with a lot of BBCWatcher's posts on the matter. Nothing inspires confidence in the UK finding a positive way out of this. However there is a positive aspect for me personally - some of the products I sell are priced in GBP (made in Scotland - how ironic) and are picking up market pace with lower USD pricing.
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