Will Brexit be a success or failure?

[Mordac]

Whatever the technology or other changes that happen in the future (and the impact of AI has been vastly over estimated) Brexit can never make things better.
There is no mechanism by which that could happen.

Secondly the effect of Brexit has been, and will be, to strengthen the EU

HTH,BIDI.

In your dreams. Strengthening of resolve, yes. Everything else looks a lot weaker without our contribution. Let's see how much "resolve" buys on the bond market...

[vetran]

You might want to take a look at this:

https://graphics.wsj.com/greece-debt-timeline/

(Note the creditors)

And revise your forecast...

Edit: Based on current repayment record. That's the important bit. Oh, and check the interest rates. That should really scare the tulip out of the EU.

Stop talking down the EU you enemy of the Reich Communist Union Collective love in with a strong & stable bank!

[northernladyuk]

Brexit will be Brexit.

[MrMarkyMark]

Indeed. Greece will be the first, but certainly not the last. Italy, Spain, Portugal, then some of the smaller members. Everybody and his dog will be holding out the begging bowl for Auntie Merkel (assuming it's indeed her in charge when the brown stuff starts really flying). How long the Germans (by which I mean the voters - the politicians will stay loyal to the project until hell freezes over) will continue to flog this dead horse once reality bites is the thorny question, and nobody wants to know the answer.

Interesting case Greece actually.

Lovely people the Greeks in my experience.
I was told that if you try and be legit with your taxes there, the authorities always think you are shafting them.
His friend is dentist who tried to play ball / straight, his "reward" has been 6 years at the sharp end of the tax investigation system.
(Almost sounds like our constant IR35 investigation"threat")

Greek professionals know this, so do everything to avoid even being identified as some kind of taxable entity.
So the government collect even less.

Aside from that, Greece and Spain got completely shafted, in the first instance, when they converted to Euro. Always going to be underdogs after that surely.
I sometimes wonder how the UK would have fared if we had joined the Euro (even as relatively naive young man I never wanted that).

Anyway there is a much, much bigger picture, Brexit is pretty much irrelevant / a blot on the landscape in the scheme of things really.

[Mordac]

I think there's a good chance that World War III will happen before Brexit. And then as the few thousand people that are left alive in Northern Europe wander blindly through the smouldering remains of once great nations, the Mordacs and Seanbouys will still be insisting that Brexit was right.

But let's look on the bright side.

Yes, lets. We've still got almost 21 months left to party...

[BlasterBates]

Both Spain and Greece are growing faster than the UK, but that is because the UK got shafted by Brexit.

[Mordac]

Both Spain and Greece are growing faster than the UK, but that is because the UK got shafted by Brexit.

I wonder what happens when you take currency movements out of the equation. Go on, look it up, just for a laugh...

[MrMarkyMark]

Both Spain and Greece are growing faster than the UK, but that is because the UK got shafted by Brexit.

True, well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that in the short term.
The result economical effects of Brexit, or even heading that way were never in any doubt to me.

The long time future of the EU, bigger picture, I must admit, I'm less certain of that.

[sasguru]

I wonder what happens when you take currency movements out of the equation. Go on, look it up, just for a laugh...

I did. And it does seem that we're fooked.

[milanbenes]

Indeed. Greece will be the first, but certainly not the last. Italy, Spain, Portugal, then some of the smaller members. Everybody and his dog will be holding out the begging bowl for Auntie Merkel (assuming it's indeed her in charge when the brown stuff starts really flying). How long the Germans (by which I mean the voters - the politicians will stay loyal to the project until hell freezes over) will continue to flog this dead horse once reality bites is the thorny question, and nobody wants to know the answer.

fer feck's sake lads, I know there's this self perpetuating feel good factor of knocking all of the other countries to make yourselves feel better in your collective inadequacy, but,

have any of you ever been to Italy, or are you going by what the Daily Mail and Torygraph tell you ?

I've driven across Italy, all I could see was:

. evidence of very strong seasonal tourism activities, winter season and summer season, even the ski resorts now have summer seasons because they put the mountain bikes on the ski lifts and cycle down the hills, I've heard that Livigno is busier in the summer than the winter !

ok, but winter and summer tourism will not feed the whole country, so what else is there ?

On my drive across the country I noticed,

. Italy has vast amounts of manufacturing, not just cars and trucks and ice cream machines, but look around you at all kinds of mechanical engineering and manufacturing items that come out of Italy, every city was surrounded by state of the art looking factories

and of course driving across the country, between the cities you have the countryside, and do they have countryside, their agriculture business is much bigger than ours, they have a longer season and a richer variety of crops to grow thanks to their weather and climate, fruit and veg (horticulture on a mega scale) are probably as big as agriculture

of course when an economy is founded on a strong base of manufacturing and agriculture, everything else will site nicely on top, services, retail, etc etc

To conclude, lads, don't believe everything you hear about Italy, because having been there many times, it looks to me as though they are doing just fine

Milan.