Always bet on the Brits -BREXIT is happening

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Hugely oversimplified Aristophanes, that 1/6th has enough pull to drag the entire union into recession, as I explained in previous posts. A union that has far bigger financial issues than Brexit to deal with, a horde of migrants raping their way across the continent and burgeoning populist anti-migration movements that the EU in its "wisdom" will try to crack down on and silence, metaphorically trying to put out the flames with petrol.

You're making assumptions about the future, I'm showing you the reality right now.

Again, your view of reality is too simplistic. Size is not the most important aspect of an economy, if mismanaged bigger ones just fall harder. The EU may be big, but like most western economies it's balanced on twigs, reinforced with fiat currency papier mâché. Push and pull too hard and the twigs break. Now if Britain and the rest of the EU were roaring stable economies, your view would more or less play out, but they aren't and you haven't considered how much they care about the political union aspect. If they go all out and attack the British economy - then we can't or won't buy from the EU - the fragile economic balance in Europe is disrupted and the political union is in danger. If they make a sweetheart deal, other countries will want it and the political union is in danger.

What they might try to do is give us a sweetheart deal that looks like a punishment deal and use the propaganda tools at their disposal to pump the rest of the EU full of dreary images of northern "post-brexit" Britain, ignoring of course that they were like that well before the divorce.

Yes, very simplistic, no arguments there...but it's also the way that life has worked since the beginning: those with more power leverage it against those with less. Not everyone's an Einstein or a Newton, most are lucky to have the intelligence of Mr. Bean; unfortunately with such little capacity for nuance and independent thought most will just follow the herd. The E.U. has a bigger herd so it will collect more, it's just nature-- very rarely do animals go for "less". Don't blame me, I didn't make the rules, I just watch nature enforce them.

edit: grammar.

I'll try to restate it again, size is not everything, there are strong herds and weak herds. If size were everything, empires would never fall. I argue that the EU is on the precipice of history, intensely fractured, with a failing currency and a failing economic model. It does not have power, the unified will or the reserves to carry out an economic siege of Britain, regardless of its size.

So first up, there is no horde of migrants raping its way across Europe.

Britain is at much greater risk than the EU. If Britain leaves the single market, then its financial services will have to leave and will probably go to Paris. The EU will be hit by the reduction in trade with the UK, but the UK will lose that and then some.

I don't think the EU will crack down on racist movements, but it will stop them from breaking EU law. Given that the EU was formed to unite the continent against populist hate movements, that seems entirely appropriate.

Look at a trade map sometime. You'll see a web that hits every continent, every major city, and traverses six of the seven seas. It's a very stable web, in fact since it started getting spun ~10k years ago, it's never lost a strand, merely added more because the goal of the web is growth (trade), not destruction (war). You can pull yourself out of that web (and did), but all you've done is limit your options since outside of the web, there's not much of the world left to exploit. The days of unilateral action were 200 years ago, the world is no longer unexplored and "for the taking"-- it's already been divvied up, and that trade web is the power broker that glues it all together in stability. Sorry you didn't like the piece of pie you got, if you don't want it I'm sure someone else will.

So, when the U.K. comes to us for the deal, we'll say sure. But then the E.U., Japan, China, and the rest of that trade web that has it's hooks in our economy will apply leverage on us to give you a sh***y deal as retaliation for gumming up the works. We in return will apply our leverage on you to accept a sh***y deal and everyone with power will go home happy-- as it's always been.

side note: as for empires, they tend to fall through geographic over expansion (Persia, Rome, British/Spanish/French)-- basically overextending the physical limits of what they can actually control. The E.U. isn't there, modern communications and travel allow a single entity to control a much larger geographical region than in previous eras (hence Rome had nightmares ruling 1/3 of Europe, and the E.U. has moderately few problems). Brexit will (and has) had an effect on the E.U., but the E.U. is so large it will absorb it without much difficulty, and to be honest I don't think they'll spend time worrying about it, it seems their focus is just replacing you-- as any group would do that has a marginal member quit in a huff.

Enough, we are not getting anywhere. Lets just bookmark the thread and see what happens. If it goes one way or the other, we can dig it up again and rub our prescience in the other's face.

Hey, we're actually in agreement.

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