#Brexit - whose next, whats next?

Great Debates
121

No. The loss of financial passporting would effect bank operations. But it ought not to effect it’s operations by a whopping 22% or more. We have seen other UK banks do relatively better than Barclays and RBS today. This suggest some banks are in more difficulty than others for reasons other than Brexit. I just cannot believe that the two most badly run banks happen to be the ones worst hit by passporting.

We are seeing Deutsche Bank fall by 12%. Thats the same Deutsche Bank who are not directly hit by Brexit or the loss of EU passporting. I believe we are seeing the tide go out. I can almost see the bare buttocks of Barclays and RBS.

122

What’s the “foreign” exposure of the good banks? Are they “good” or just domestic? Obviously, primarily domestic banks are going to be less impacted by the UK becoming a financial island (pun intended).

123

On the contrary, the banks that have been worst hit, in terms of stock prices, are those that have the greatest exposure to the domestic market. I think that reflects an expectation that, while Brexit will adversely affect the UK’s standing as an international financial centre, it will adversely affect the wider domestic economy to an even greater degree. The shares of banks with a large domestic business are a good proxy for the economy as a whole; if the UK economy booms, the banks that serve the UK economy will do well, and - in the present circustances - vice versa.

124

No. You go to London to set up the deal–and then funds are transferred via a branch office in Paris.

125

That would only work if there is free flow of capital between the UK and the EU and that seems to be unlikely.

126

There is free flow of capital in most of the industrialized world. While Greece has capital controls that is the only one in the EU that I know of.

127

I don’t see that the free flow of capital would be a problem in any event. If the money is deposited in the Paris branch, then it can be paid to e.g. a bank in Frankfurt regardless of whether are capital controls between the UK and the EU-27 or not.

I think there’s a prior issue. If one counterparty has money in Paris, and the other counterparty is looking to receive payment in Frankfurt, why would you bother to “go to London to set up the deal”? A trip to London doesn’t add any value that I can see.

At the moment, one of the reasons why London is a big financial centre is that there is lots of capital there, and highly active capital markets. But if transactions are going to be settled by payments in e.g. Paris, then capital is going to move from London to Paris. The London capital markets will get smaller and less active, and the Paris markets bigger and more active.

The City of London would dearly like that the UK remain in a single market for financial services (at least). If they cease to be, then the attractiveness of London as a financial centre does diminish somewhat, even if no capital controls are imposed.

128

Just as Google at al do now to avoid UK taxes (in this case, the money transfer is in Ireland).

129

So how are things supposed to work in a democratic government? Is the government supposed to make decisions based only on what is good for the largest banks, while ignoring what working-class voters say? Or does democracy means that everyone gets a vote, including those who aren’t banking executives?

A few years ago, the European Union tried to pass a regulation that would have shut down every small olive oil producer in Europe, in order to increase the profits of large corporations that make olive oil. In that case, there was resistance and eventually the regulation was removed, but there have been countless other cases in which the Brussels bureaucrats have clobbered working class Europeans with regulations in order to make rich people richer. Small businesses and working class people in Britain have been hurt badly by such regulations. As a result, they voted to leave the EU, while the wealthy corporate leaders voted heavily for Remain.

But it’s interesting to see many liberals taking the side of the big bankers and corporate executives.

130

Coremelt, I would be curious to read a disclaimer from you.

131

Everyone gets a vote, but it’s pretty clear that the Leave campaign was lying about everything in their campaign, lying about immigration, lying about the effects on the economy of leaving, lying about the terms they could realistically negotiate with the EU for access to the common market, lying about EU funds being able to go to the NHS.

What voters choose by 52% percent, was something that leave can’t deliver, they’ve already admitted that, from their own mouths. So it’s pretty reasonable to have a common sense moment and go “hold on, we didn’t actually vote for this, lets think again before we pull the trigger.” Whether that means parliament vetos Brexit, Scotland vetos Brexit or another referendum is had, that remains to be seen.

132

Whether those who campaigned for Brexit can deliver or not is actually irrelevant; what’s important is that the UK has decided that it wants out of the EU. If that means that the trade walls go up, so be it. They’ve been up before and we prospered.

133

Any chance that HM the Queen might step in and refuse Royal Assent on any bills to exit the EU?

Seems like that’s the very last brake against actually following through with retardation like this.

134

They were lying. And the Remain campaign was lying. It’s politics. People lie in politics. That’s the way things are.

A democratic election does not get overturned just because somebody lied. President Obama said, “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” After the truth was revealed, he remained President. George W. Bush claimed that Saddam had piles of WMDs, and he too stayed in office. In 2008, the state of California voted on whether to provide funding for a high-speed rail project. The government orchestrated a campaign of lies about the cost and benefits of the project, and is still lying about it today. Nonetheless, the people voted for it in 2008, and money keeps getting spent on it today. An election is an election, and does not get overturned when new information comes to light. If the British government does not do what the British people voted for, it will be a rejection of democracy.

135

That appears to be the case, so I hold out hope that the last paragraph is something that may come to pass.

That all hinges on the precise meaning of what, if anything, “the UK has decided” and whether this abstraction called “the UK” still in fact holds that view in light of all the post-referendum chaos. It’s not inconceivable to me that a party that wins a clear majority on a campaign of ignoring the referendum may consider itself empowered to do just that.

Well, that’s one question that’s easy to answer. No. One might reasonably debate whether Parliament is in some legal or moral sense obliged to honor the referendum results, but if Parliament does, the Queen cannot in practice oppose the will of Parliament although technically she holds those reserve powers for use in some dire emergency on the advice of the government. In practice, exercising those powers for a political purpose would spell the end of the monarchy. It just doesn’t happen.

136

No. You’re making a grossly false equivalency. Remain made a number of statements like the alleged average economic loss to each citizen if Britain were to leave that might be challenged as to their quantitative precision, but the vast majority of economic analyses agree that such losses will in fact be incurred. Whereas much of the Leave campaign was built on a whole foundation of lies and deception and wishful thinking, and the fallout is already being felt. You can’t dismiss it as “just politics”.

137

You might try reading the voting slip. ‘Leave the European Union’ is right there as the second choice.

What chaos? Life here is going on as normal. Okay, Cameron has resigned and the Tories are holding a leadership election, and Corbyn is in trouble, but that’s politics for you.

138

You don’t find it unusual that both leaders of historical opposition parties are both in trouble over the same issue? Is it “life as normal” to have the pound sterling drop to a 30-year low overnight, for the FTSE 350 to lose £140 billion in value, for world markets to be hit with $2 trillion in losses? Some believe this is just markets overreacting, which of course markets do, but there is also good reason to believe that if this goes through, it’s the beginning of a long and precipitous decline in Britain’s fortunes.

139

As I’ve posted elsewhere, this wasn’t an election. It was a glorified opinion poll.

140

Well, these folks, for example:

I think the problem may be less that economists don’t know what they’re talking about than that media supported by institutions profiting from a fundamentally unstable situation are somewhat averse to breaking up the party by realistically assessing the instability.