The economic consequences of Brexit (Vol 2)

[B'stard Child]

johnfm said:

So, has Godzilla emerged from the Thames and wreaked havoc throughout the capital yet?

We haven't left yet

[walm]

SKP555 said:

As far as I recall this was the most widely touted example of "proof" that Brexit is bad for the economy

No it wasn't touted as that.
It was a poll. Not proof of anything.

SKP555 said:

Firstly there was no actual research. It was an opinion poll of economists. 600 educated guesses.

I agree.

SKP555 said:

Secondly, not all economists are experts in trade or in long term macro forecasts. Someone whose main job is predicting demand for health services in Oldham isn't necessarily qualified to make an authoritative prediction for GDP 15 years hence.

Again, I agree and they weren't asked to give a prediction for GDP in 15 years.

SKP555 said:

Thirdly, nobody is really qualified to make that sort of prediction off the cuff. To even attempt an accurate prediction would require a model of absurd complexity and it would rest on many tenuous assumptions, not least what alternative arrangements we made. Which of course is still unknown.

Agreed again.
However, the point you are missing is that these guys well know about all the potential alternative arrangements.
They will be infinitely more qualified to understand the implications and scale of magnitude of the impact of leaving the single market and yet 88% of them COULDN'T THINK UP A REALISTIC SCENARIO WHERE WE WERE BETTER OFF.

SKP555 said:

What it shows is that a random sample of economists who did respond generally follow the standard economic theory that a reduction in trade will lead to a reduction in GDP when asked by way of a multiple choice question.

Again, I agree.

SKP555 said:

Lastly, only 17% of those sent the survey even responded which shoots down the idea that this represents a settled consensus amongst economists. Of course not responding doesn't tell us anything except that 83% were either too busy, not interested or just maybe not willing to engage in what was obviously a politicised poll.

Strongly disagree.
For you to be right you need to show that the 83% would have polled the other way.
Otherwise it doesn't matter if 1% or 80% responded - the OVERWHELMING CONSENSUS of a RANDOM sample of SIGNIFICANT size (N=600 is huge!!!) gave us a very VERY important data-point.
And lastly how on earth was this an "obviously politicised poll"???
Even if it was, why wouldn't those who felt strongly Brexit STILL ANSWER????????
What on earth is your evidence that the respondents were missing huge chunks of Brexiteers???
Are Brexiteers more busy? Less political? Less interested???
No - they are just as busy as the rest of us.
That sample of 600 is RANDOM. Pro-remain respondents weren't offered an extra £100 to fill it in.
Seriously - imagine the following.

"We sent a questionnaire out, 17% of people we sent it to responded (N=600) and 88% said they don't believe in God."
Your response:
"So what, all the religious people didn't respond, your poll is worthless. More people believe in God."

SKP555 said:

So this moron will give consideration to proper "RESEARCH" but I won't consider a complex hypothetical question a matter of settled scientific consensus based on a straw poll of people with a related degree.

They are members of professional bodies.
That doesn't mean they have a "related degree".
It means that it is part of their job. i.e. something they get paid to do every day.

I agree it's a straw poll though.
A straw poll of people infinitely more qualified than you or me to give a well reasoned guestimate to an economic question.
Nothing you have said makes me think that I was wrong to include the poll as a pretty important part of making my decision how to vote.

[KrissKross]

walm said:

I can't believe you morons still don't understand how research works.

Whats do you do for a living?

[walm]

KrissKross said:

walm said:

I can't believe you morons still don't understand how research works.

Whats do you do for a living?

Not sure it's that relevant but not much to be honest.
I mostly scour the internet looking for people to argue with.
In my spare time, I'm a financial analyst.

[///ajd]

FiF said:

walm said:

FiF said:

Please point out where I directed that solely at the Remain side. Still it's par for the course these days, alleging something that hasn't actually been said and then try and knock down your own fictitious allegation to support your own agenda.

You didn't, I never said that you did.
But feel free to have a rant.

VERY strong implication of that. Par for the course. On your bike.

The guardian snipe in your post implied that was exactly what you meant.

Par for the course indeed.

[SKP555]

Walm
I think you're giving an awful lot of weight to qualifications and vague guess work by people who hold them, but you're entitled to do that.

It's something like asking 3000 members of the RICS if a 3 bedroom house is worth £200,000 and taking the answer as gospel.

I didn't actually say thr 83% supported Brexit, merely pointed out that they didn't respond and speculated as to why that may be.

[walm]

SKP555 said:

Walm
I didn't actually say the 83% supported Brexit, merely pointed out that they didn't respond and speculated as to why that may be.

That's really my whole point!!!!
For the response rate to have any relevance you need to give a reason why those who DID respond will have skewed the eventual result.

I just can't sketch a scenario where the 83% were significantly different to the 17% such that we should ignore what I still believe is a highly relevant RANDOM sample of 600.

Thanks for giving my rant a thoughtful response though!!

[Carl_Manchester]

As I posted a few pages back, it is a tacked on certainty that one of the consequences of Brexit will be that the current economy will suffer due to its addition to ever increasing numbers of people which in turn also inflates assets due to the supply of cheap money.

This spanish dance will continue until one of the principle requirements ends. In this case it will be the free movement of cheap labour that will end first.

What some of the posters here assume, is that this is the only consequence and so the only possible outcome is certain doom.

There will be other, more positive economic consequences which comes out of Brexit and so concentrating on one negative aspect is not the way to look at it.

[philv]

Surely, in tne short to medium term, currency devaluation will go a large way to offsetting tarriffs as we export to the EU, after exiting the single market.

Conversly, raw material, etc can be sourced more cheap,y elsewhere, thus keeping our costs down, and causing us to be even more competative when exporting to tne EU.

Wouldn't tnose 2 things alone help to keep export trade with tne EU at close to current levels, even if we leave tne single market?

[WestyCarl]

philv said:

Surely, in tne short to medium term, currency devaluation will go a large way to offsetting tarriffs as we export to the EU, after exiting the single market.

Conversly, raw material, etc can be sourced more cheap,y elsewhere, thus keeping our costs down, and causing us to be even more competative when exporting to tne EU.

Wouldn't tnose 2 things alone help to keep export trade with tne EU at close to current levels, even if we leave tne single market?

Exactly, I can't understand all the focus on tariffs when GBP/EURO has varied over >20% in the last few years. A few % tariff becomes irrelevant, especially when it's likely to be both ways.

[barryrs]

walm said:

That's really my whole point!!!!
For the response rate to have any relevance you need to give a reason why those who DID respond will have skewed the eventual result.

I just can't sketch a scenario where the 83% were significantly different to the 17% such that we should ignore what I still believe is a highly relevant RANDOM sample of 600.

Thanks for giving my rant a thoughtful response though!!

Just out of interest do we know the questions in the survey?

[walm]

barryrs said:

Just out of interest do we know the questions in the survey?

Hard to read but:

[IroningMan]

philv said:

Surely, in tne short to medium term, currency devaluation will go a large way to offsetting tarriffs as we export to the EU, after exiting the single market.

Conversly, raw material, etc can be sourced more cheap,y elsewhere, thus keeping our costs down, and causing us to be even more competative when exporting to tne EU.

Wouldn't tnose 2 things alone help to keep export trade with tne EU at close to current levels, even if we leave tne single market?

Raw mateials etc can be sourced more cheaply elsewhere? Not hand-in-hand with currency devaluation, surely? That's assuming they aren't already being sourced from global markets now - leaving the EU isn't going to enable us to buy oil from anywhere that we can't buy it today, is it?

[Sway]

IroningMan said:

philv said:

Surely, in tne short to medium term, currency devaluation will go a large way to offsetting tarriffs as we export to the EU, after exiting the single market.

Conversly, raw material, etc can be sourced more cheap,y elsewhere, thus keeping our costs down, and causing us to be even more competative when exporting to tne EU.

Wouldn't tnose 2 things alone help to keep export trade with tne EU at close to current levels, even if we leave tne single market?

Raw mateials etc can be sourced more cheaply elsewhere? Not hand-in-hand with currency devaluation, surely? That's assuming they aren't already being sourced from global markets now - leaving the EU isn't going to enable us to buy oil from anywhere that we can't buy it today, is it?

Depends on the raw material. There are several that under the current structure the EU levies multiples of WTO standard charges... So there may well be some validity to continuing to buy from the same non-EU supplier, with a net drop in landed cost once fx is taken into account.

[CaptainSlow]

walm said:

Strongly disagree.
For you to be right you need to show that the 83% would have polled the other way.
Otherwise it doesn't matter if 1% or 80% responded - the OVERWHELMING CONSENSUS of a RANDOM sample of SIGNIFICANT size (N=600 is huge!!!) gave us a very VERY important data-point.
And lastly how on earth was this an "obviously politicised poll"???
Even if it was, why wouldn't those who felt strongly Brexit STILL ANSWER????????
What on earth is your evidence that the respondents were missing huge chunks of Brexiteers???
Are Brexiteers more busy? Less political? Less interested???
No - they are just as busy as the rest of us.
That sample of 600 is RANDOM. Pro-remain respondents weren't offered an extra £100 to fill it in.
Seriously - imagine the following.

"We sent a questionnaire out, 17% of people we sent it to responded (N=600) and 88% said they don't believe in God."
Your response:
"So what, all the religious people didn't respond, your poll is worthless. More people believe in God."

Rubbish, you obviously haven't heard of response bias, a pretty basic sampling concept.

In your example, I would have thought more would respond to say they believed in God, so if replicating what happened in June, the BBC and other MSM would have headlines that 88% of people believe in God, ignoring the fact that only 17% responded, and the remaining 83% didn't bother answering. A 17% response rate would pretty much invalidate any findings by any self respecting statistician.

The poll itself was flawed, despite what you think the respondents weren't independent from each other and the sample wasn't random, they all have access to the same prof body journals. In addition, the media representation was pretty disgraceful.

If you're a financial analyst there are a few basic concepts you missed.

[Tuna]

WestyCarl said:

philv said:

Surely, in tne short to medium term, currency devaluation will go a large way to offsetting tarriffs as we export to the EU, after exiting the single market.

Conversly, raw material, etc can be sourced more cheap,y elsewhere, thus keeping our costs down, and causing us to be even more competative when exporting to tne EU.

Wouldn't tnose 2 things alone help to keep export trade with tne EU at close to current levels, even if we leave tne single market?

Exactly, I can't understand all the focus on tariffs when GBP/EURO has varied over >20% in the last few years. A few % tariff becomes irrelevant, especially when it's likely to be both ways.

Sometimes it feels like I'm talking to myself.

[barryrs]

walm said:

Hard to read but:

Oh, I was expecting more than a one liner.

[B'stard Child]

barryrs said:

walm said:

Hard to read but:

Oh, I was expecting more than a one liner.

So was I...............

Sheesh so that was the question behind the claims "Nearly 90% of economists say leaving the EU and the single market would damage the UK’s growth prospects over the next five years"

Christ that slimey little runt Gove was right we shouldn't trust experts

[FiF]

B'stard Child said:

barryrs said:

walm said:

Hard to read but:

Oh, I was expecting more than a one liner.

So was I...............

Sheesh so that was the question behind the claims "Nearly 90% of economists say leaving the EU and the single market would damage the UK’s growth prospects over the next five years"

Christ that slimey little runt Gove was right we shouldn't trust experts

A consensus apparently.

Yet no mention of the studies by Capital Economics, or Standard Chartered Bank, and others, and apparently it's complete rubbish that anyone should suggest the Remain side twisted facts, perhaps we shouldn't mention THAT Treasury report, which just assumed away any and all possible benefits to present the worst possible picture. You know the one that was discredited at the time, and has since been admitted as wrong by BofE governor. But it's a consensus apparently.

Mind you we've had this consensus argument before and it was shown to be incorrect on several threads now. Doesn't stop the same ballocks being brought up time and again. Speaking of ballocks we'll have photos of that bloody stupid bus again soon.

Frankly I can't be arsed arguing with the cretins on either side anymore. I'm not in favour of the course that the Government seem to be taking and still feel UK's more complicated than they realise, but hey, had my say, now is the time to STFU, have a nice refreshing brew and get onto making the best of what comes.


Btw read today, speaking of STFU, that was what was apparently said to Sturgeon due to someone making a comparison of the difference between Scotland's exports to England vs EU. 4 times allegedly.

[SKP555]

walm said:

SKP555 said:

Walm
I didn't actually say the 83% supported Brexit, merely pointed out that they didn't respond and speculated as to why that may be.

That's really my whole point!!!!
For the response rate to have any relevance you need to give a reason why those who DID respond will have skewed the eventual result.

I just can't sketch a scenario where the 83% were significantly different to the 17% such that we should ignore what I still believe is a highly relevant RANDOM sample of 600.

Thanks for giving my rant a thoughtful response though!!

I don't know what a normal response rate is for such a survey but 17% seems low to draw a strong conclusion.

As I said one possibility is that people disagreed with the premise of the questions or felt that there was not enough information to give any meaningful answer.

I don't know what strand of Financial Analyst you are, but if I were to ask you - should I buy shares? You're likely to ask a load of questions back. If reduced to a multiple choice question you might say that shares are generally a good investment or you might decline to offer an opinion with such limited information.

Good ranting though