Goodbye EU... Hello solo

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Originally Posted by lampost

I mean, you are saying how they screwed the younger generation which is kind of disrespectful imho.

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Disrespectful yes, but that doesn't mean it's not true. The whole "the elderly generation hates immigrants morethan they love their grandchildren hits pretty close.

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Originally Posted by lampost

I'm pointing out that they are the reason the younger generation exist as English speakers.

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First of all, it was a collective effort, none of the allies could have won without all the others, plus I'd bet money that 90% of those who fought didn't do it for the goodness of the people 3 generations later.

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Originally Posted by lampost

They all have 1 vote surely that is something you would agree with? and that is the main point here.....

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They do but that doesn't entitle them to not be belittled, disrespected or ridiculed.

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Originally Posted by lampost

Hmmm, not sure exactly what you're point is here, could you elaborate and back up your claim with data?

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GRANTED!
http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/files/201...t-big-five.png
http://cdn.static-economist.com/site...8_woc719_1.png
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ucated-old-an/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...u-referendum-0
http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/brexit...-demographics/

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Originally Posted by lampost

My point is that the EU is not as good for the youth as was claimed. Greece would have recovered better if they were sovereign, had their own currency and done what any normal country would do which was to de-valuate currency and boost their economy. Instead they are stuck with a monetary policy decided by the EU which screws their chances of recover. I hear there is another bailout soon.......

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The Euro was the sole reason Greece could get there in the first place because of shortsighted, populistic, irresponsible and incompetent politicians who loaned above Greece's ability to make payments. Leading politicians, are typically part of middle-age or above age segment. But you are correct, if Greece had had their own currency they could have devalued it, but you make it sound as if that would be all sunshine and rainbows... it wouldn't be, first of all most of their debt would be in non-drachma currencies, thus devaluating their currency would do little to solve their immediate problems. And that option is still open to them, if Greece seriously thought that dropping out of EU and the Euro would solve their problems then why would they stay?
The truth is that it's their politicians, not the currency that's the problem, and fixing the currency won't fix the problem, or offer a solution.

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Originally Posted by lampost

Look, I could not agree with you more regarding the corruptness of Greece and the unsuitability of its welfare program. However for me, I like what Churchill once said "democracy is the worst form of government that has been created, except for all the others." It cant be that the creators of democracy can have it swept away from them. I could not disagree more with your notion that foreign entities should be allowed to interfere with another countries democratic process.

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Foreign entities didn't interefere with Greece's democratic process, they held their election for all the good it did them. And those foreign entities have no reason whatsoever to be bound by that election, or if they had then they should just hold elections of their own along the lines of "do you want to give greece more money which they throw away and then come asking for more, or is enough enough?" I'm pretty sure what the outcome in Germany would be for such an election.

If Canada was not part of America how would we survive?

]:P

Elldallan,

I guess we just completely disagree on who should be respected in society. You seem to want to respect the young more than the old. But again i feel this is so irrelevant, because democracy is a vote per person. I could tell you that outside London (and Scotland.) Young people also tended to vote out. I could tell you that we dont really know the views of young people as the turnout was much lower among them. (Just like people wanted to discredit the 2014 EU elections where ukip won.)

I actually remember, during a pre referendum debate a real lefty taking on Ed Milliband who stated that the UK should stay in the EU because young people wanted to travel Europe! She responded how close-minded and London centric that statement was. The working class outside London cant afford to go to Europe. Its the last thing they think about.

Some of the other things you said about are just appalling and sad to read in my opinion. For example, do you really think elderly people hate immigrants more than they like their children?

As for the economic discussion. Without getting too deeply into it, one of the first things one learns in economics is the powerful effect monetary policy has in controlling and managing the economy. They had countless elections in which they voted for extreme left/right parties. Bailout 3 (or is it 4?) coming soon. Spain, Italy and others better watch out also.

Finally, would you be kind enough to tell me what point you want to make from your pretty diagrams.

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Originally Posted by lampost

Having said that, its the elderly who stopped the Brits from speaking German, and its the elderly that have paid so much into the system. Also not all 'working' class families have that luxury to move abroad and spend money in Spain or wherever. Furthermore, its the southern European countries some of whom are IN the EU who have 50% youth unemployment. They dont even govern themselves, the EU tells them what to do and where to spend.

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1. Anyone who had a hand in that would have to be at least 15 at the start of WW2, which means they were born in 1925, and are now 90+ years of age. There aren't so many of those. And besides, during footy tournaments we still speak German, right?
2. I'm glad Amsterdam will get less English scum to ruin our beautiful tow center ^^
3. The "Young" only have themselves to blame because they did not show up at the ballots.

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Originally Posted by lampost

Elldallan,

I guess we just completely disagree on who should be respected in society. You seem to want to respect the young more than the old. But again i feel this is so irrelevant, because democracy is a vote per person.

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I don't disagree with you, respect is earned, thus the older tend to be more respected than the young, but I don't believe that the old deserve respect merely for being old.
And this is the reason virtually every democracy(barring Switzerland to my knowledge, there may be others though), the public as a collective has neither the knowledge, insight, or understanding required to make an informed choice on complicated matters such as brexit, and therefore should not be asked to make such choices. I think it's a sign gross incompetence and neglect for politicians to call such a vote.
The idea with a representative democracy is that we elect officials who at least in theory have the time, resources, and hopefully competence to make themselves informed on a given subject. Enough so that they can make that informed choice.

If they do it badly we periodically get to replace them should we the public choose to. But because we the public lack the capability to make an informed choice we shouldn't be asked to make an uninformed choice.
There are too many lies, shams and general shady stuff going on(primarily from but not limited to the brexit camp to my knowledge) that aims to lead the public behind the light. When every living prime minister has spoken out for remain, and virtually all the experts recommend remain this should tell the public something. But the brexit camp responds with propaganda, lies and fake statistics(like that 350M£/week claim that has been debunked time and time again but they kept swinging it) and make statements like "the public is tired of experts" which is a bloody moronic statement, and if true it spells doom on that society.

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Originally Posted by lampost

I could tell you that outside London (and Scotland.) Young people also tended to vote out. I could tell you that we dont really know the views of young people as the turnout was much lower among them. (Just like people wanted to discredit the 2014 EU elections where ukip won.)

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Yes they did vote out to a greater extent, but there is a clear tendency for the younger as a group(sorted by each election circuit) to vote to remain to a higher percentage compared to the old(see image 2). Yes the voter turnout was lower amongst the young which is unfortunate or it might have prevented this disaster. But there where still enough of them to make statistically relevant estimates and assumptions on how the group as a whole votes.

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Originally Posted by lampost

I actually remember, during a pre referendum debate a real lefty taking on Ed Milliband who stated that the UK should stay in the EU because young people wanted to travel Europe! She responded how close-minded and London centric that statement was. The working class outside London cant afford to go to Europe. Its the last thing they think about.

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The vote is not only about freedom of movement. The areas outside of the cities are also the areas who generally gets a lot of EU grants and support, those won't be replaced by the UK government when they leave EU. The goods & products of the areas outside of the cities are also to a greater extent primarily exported to the EU, therefore it is those wares and produce that would suffer from tariffs and other penalties from loosing access to the single market. Therefore it should be in their interest to vote remain rather than exit. So the primary areas that voted out are those that benefit the most from the membership. That is in no way rooted to travelling abroad but rather job security, living standards and wages.

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Originally Posted by lampost

Some of the other things you said about are just appalling and sad to read in my opinion. For example, do you really think elderly people hate immigrants more than they like their children?

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No I don't think exactly those thought crossed anybody's mind, if it did that'd indicate some sort of mental disorder. We're hardcoded to choose familial connections over strangers, so sacrificing your friends and family for strangers generally means something is wrong with you.
But in terms of the big reasons people voted out(Xenophobia, they took our jerbs!), who was the major group voting out(the old), and who gets to pay for the longterm ramifications of the out vote(the young), in that context it rings true, but I seriously doubt anybody reasoned that way. Generally I think people were duped into voting out by lies, chicanery, propaganda and scaremongering. The vote is over and what's done is done, personally I hope that the new prime minister can find some way to either hold a second vote or override the will of the people(52-48 is hardly a strong message, it'd have been different if it was 60-40, even Farange said during the campaign that it was 52-48 for remain he wouldn't rule out a 2nd vote). Because out of necessity the EU will have to make sure that leaving will be moderately catastrophic or worse for the UK in order to discourage other votes that would tear the union to pieces. So the UK needs to be made an example of and that won't be pretty for the UK, if they get to keep what they have now it will only be if they accept all of the 4 freedoms, which the brexit camp promised not to, and even then they'll loose all say on the makings of those regulations and policies, they'll be told to take it or leave it.

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Originally Posted by lampost

As for the economic discussion. Without getting too deeply into it, one of the first things one learns in economics is the powerful effect monetary policy has in controlling and managing the economy. They had countless elections in which they voted for extreme left/right parties. Bailout 3 (or is it 4?) coming soon. Spain, Italy and others better watch out also.

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Indeed, monetary policy has a huge effect on the economy. Without an independent currency and by extension an independent central bank their ability to make policy is severely hampered. With an independent currency such as the Pound or the Krona it is unlikely that this could have happened. Because the market would have put limits on how deeply they could loan, if they loaned too much their credit rating would drop and further loans would become more expensive, thus naturally limiting the amounts they could loan. They got into this problem because the rates where a lot lower than they would have been for such a small, debt ridden and vulnerable country, because due to the Euro the rates were tied to the eurozone as a whole. They got there through incompetent and opportunistic politicians who sold out the country in order to get re-elected. But at this point dropping out of the Euro and floating their own currency only to devaluate it would not sort their problems, the debts would still be in euros so devaluing their currency would not decrease the debts. dropping out of the euro and probably the EU would loose them access to the single market and probably the Schengen union as well and thereby impacting the important tourism industry.
If it really was better don't you think Tsipras would have chosen that option after the vote?

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Originally Posted by lampost

Finally, would you be kind enough to tell me what point you want to make from your pretty diagrams.

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You asked Meish for data to back up the claim that there was a correlation between education level and voter affinity, 2 of the diagrams show that, the others just came with the picture and I was too lazy to crop them.

A representative democracy is and always has been about upholding oligarchy first. Any notions of superior merit are just justifications made after-the-fact; the vote itself is just a public debasement to acknowledge the rightful oligarchs, with a few bones thrown occasionally to people who matter to the oligarchy - people with money and power. The whole point is to convince enough of the lower classes that they're not really so bad off, while beating them if they ever get too uppity.

My bet is that for all this talk, nothing will happen. Too big to fail. Everything is so confusing.

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Originally Posted by noobium

A representative democracy is and always has been about upholding oligarchy first. Any notions of superior merit are just justifications made after-the-fact; the vote itself is just a public debasement to acknowledge the rightful oligarchs, with a few bones thrown occasionally to people who matter to the oligarchy - people with money and power. The whole point is to convince enough of the lower classes that they're not really so bad off, while beating them if they ever get too uppity.

My bet is that for all this talk, nothing will happen. Too big to fail. Everything is so confusing.

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Perhaps, but it's the best rule of government that we have atm, direct democracy is just the tyranny of the majority and everything else is just various forms autocracy.

In nations with a percentage based allocation for parliament doesn't lean for a 2 party system where it's truly just replacing one side of the coin with the other, it is possible to effect some change. A first across the line system ala UK or US is terrible and in the end essentially a just a Plutocracy/Kleptocracy.

I agree with you to a large extent, majoritarianism is no way to run a country and having a referendum every 2 weeks is also not. However can you name me the last time the UK had a referendum? Probably before you were born. And this is where I completely disagree with you. A constitutional question of such great magnitude on the direction of a country should be put to the people. Do the people went ever close integration into an EU superstate or do they want to govern themselves. This is not a question of should we run a 40% or 50% top rate of tax. I think this is also why you found many strongly pro EU people (including people from different parties) calling for a referendum.

"There are too many lies, shams and general shady stuff going on(primarily from but not limited to the brexit camp to my knowledge) that aims to lead the public behind the light. When every living prime minister has spoken out for remain, and virtually all the experts recommend remain this should tell the public something. But the brexit camp responds with propaganda, lies and fake statistics(like that 350M£/week claim that has been debunked time and time again but they kept swinging it) and make statements like "the public is tired of experts" which is a bloody moronic statement, and if true it spells doom on that society."

I think like you said, many in the establishment were pro EU including many in the media. The government had the whole machine behind it and still lost. One could argue that the fear campaign was on the side of the remainers. Just google 'George Osbourne punishment budget' where he said a leave vote would mean an immediate rise in taxes and reduction in government spending. Just a few days ago he announced tax cuts. How about world war 3? How about we wont get trade deals with other countries? How about we'll lose millions of jobs?

The 350M is not as blatant a lie as you claim. But I'm happy to settle at 250M a week if you want to go with that figure. The doom that did not happen to us was the what would have happened had we joined the Euro which even the people who promoted it agree they were wrong. I dont think we are doomed, on the contrary I hear countries such as India, China, Austrailia and New Zealand are knocking on our door for new trade deals.

The real neglect is going in in Greece, and the refusal of politicians to follow the will of the people. And we all know that there are more bailouts coming.

"The vote is not only about freedom of movement. The areas outside of the cities are also the areas who generally gets a lot of EU grants and support, those won't be replaced by the UK government when they leave EU. The goods & products of the areas outside of the cities are also to a greater extent primarily exported to the EU, therefore it is those wares and produce that would suffer from tariffs and other penalties from loosing access to the single market. Therefore it should be in their interest to vote remain rather than exit. So the primary areas that voted out are those that benefit the most from the membership. That is in no way rooted to travelling abroad but rather job security, living standards and wages."

Firstly, you're making baseless assumptions. Secondly, I think you are missing the fact that there should be a sovereign government that should decide on where funding should go. Not some centralized European bureaucrat in Brussels. Other countries are queuing up for trade deals and as everybody knows we have a trade DEFICIT with the EU. Its in there interest to make a trade deal as soon as possible. Even more so now that the pound is now so weak. Its freedom of movement that actually drives down wages for the working class, which is why they are voting out in droves. In this way its the big corporations that benefit mostly from freedom of movement.

"No I don't think exactly those thought crossed anybody's mind, if it did that'd indicate some sort of mental disorder. We're hardcoded to choose familial connections over strangers, so sacrificing your friends and family for strangers generally means something is wrong with you.]
"But in terms of the big reasons people voted out(Xenophobia, they took our jerbs!), who was the major group voting out(the old), and who gets to pay for the longterm ramifications of the out vote(the young), in that context it rings true, but I seriously doubt anybody reasoned that way. Generally I think people were duped into voting out by lies, chicanery, propaganda and scaremongering. The vote is over and what's done is done, personally I hope that the new prime minister can find some way to either hold a second vote or override the will of the people(52-48 is hardly a strong message, it'd have been different if it was 60-40, even Farange said during the campaign that it was 52-48 for remain he wouldn't rule out a 2nd vote). Because out of necessity the EU will have to make sure that leaving will be moderately catastrophic or worse for the UK in order to discourage other votes that would tear the union to pieces. So the UK needs to be made an example of and that won't be pretty for the UK, if they get to keep what they have now it will only be if they accept all of the 4 freedoms, which the brexit camp promised not to, and even then they'll loose all say on the makings of those regulations and policies, they'll be told to take it or leave it."

Some people like the idea of a dictatorship, as long as they are in charge because the population can not be trusted, and unfortunately you seem to be one of them. I'm so happy you posted this paragraph, we all knew the EU hates democracy! Democracy in Greece? rejected. Democracy in Ireland? rejected. Democracy in France? rejected. Are we going to be next? And who is after us?

I'm inclined to suggest the opposite, namely that the margin would have been much larger had the government and establishment not been behind the remain camp. Think about it, most people were predicting remain on the eve of the polls because of the 'status quo' effect. Which basically means people would vote stay just because leaving would seemingly go into the unknown (half the remainers in the cabinet were strong eruosceptics.) Additionally if someones job was directly connected to the EU they would vote remain.

"The whole "the elderly generation hates immigrants morethan they love their grandchildren hits pretty close."

That statement of yours is the one I was referring to.

Also, just so you know, as soon as the polls closed everybody predicted a remain win. All the 'leave' leaders were saying that we should respect the result whatever it is. They said it throughout the campaign and even when it was thought they had lost. Democracy has to be a two way street.