Morning Reads for Friday, June 24th!

But how does the UK taking its ball and going home help solve the “real problem?”

This is the problem with race baiters like Trump: you dupe enough rubes into blaming the “other” and don’t actually do anything that would make their lives better. I get that people are frustrated, but frustration is no reason to act like a complete moron and vote against your own economic interest.

While we’re on the subject of finger-pointing, I’d like to just come out and say that old people have really screwed up the world for us millennials.

That’s why I went out and got a job that couldn’t be outsourced. I understand that people are upset, but reverting to neo-isolationism and praying for a return to the 1950s is just foolish.

Nice attempt at spin, but I’m not making fun of them for having their jobs outsourced. I’m openly deriding them for thinking the “solution” to their problem is blaming Middle Easterners and Southern Europeans and punishing future generations who embraced the future instead of vainly hoping the world would revert back to the way it was in 1950.

John, you know I love being a blank slate for you to attribute straw men to. I don’t need to “walk in their shoes,” because even a rudimentary understanding of economics leads to inexorable conclusion that leaving the EU is not going to solve the immigration problem.

As detailed above, in order to obtain access to the common market, the UK is going to have to accept free movement of persons (just as Switzerland and Norway do), meaning Poles and Pakistanis are still going to move to England and take dur jerbs. Meanwhile, UK educational institutions are no longer going to receive funding grants from the EU. Every other sector of the economy is going to lose out on subsidies, grants, and tax breaks from the EU. Scotland (and probably Northern Ireland) is going to leave. So, in summary, the economy is worse off and immigrants are still taking jobs away.

The alternative, of course, is to not accept free movement of persons and foresake tariff-free access to the common market. In other words, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage go Thelma & Louise with the British economy in the trunk.

Look, I get that people are upset with the status quo and frustrated at feeling “left behind.” Angry, frustrated people make irrational decisions because they let their frustration and anger drown out reason and fact.

Irrational actors are the lifeblood of craven hucksters like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, who saw the anger and frustration as an tool to gain power and influence. They have no intent (or ability) to keep the promises they made to folks during the campaign. Moreover, their promises are easily rebutted by fact and logic and data. But, as mentioned earlier, angry and frustrated people don’t listen to facts, or logic, or data. It’s a formula that snake oil salesmen have been using for millennia:
1) find angry, frustrated people;
2) offer them a scapegoat;
3) make them a bunch of promises you don’t intend to keep (i.e., building a wall between the US and Mexico, pouring 350 million pounds into the NHS, banning Muslims from entering the country, deporting all the immigrants, that Trump University will make you rich); and;
4) profit.

I know people are angry. I am, too. But I recognize that now is the absolute best time to be alive on this planet. I am not clinging to some hope that the 50s are just a Delorean ride away. As someone who is going to be around this Earth long enough to experience the long-term consequences of a Trump presidency, I have every right to be angry at a person trying to use racism and bigotry as a wedge to assume power. Trump’s campaign is demagoguery. It is hucksterism. It is disgusting, and racist, and terrible, and not becoming of what is, in my opinion, the greatest country on the face of the Earth. The Brexit vote scares the ever living crap out of me because it proved that anti-intellectualism can win, racism can win, divisiveness can win. I just hope folks wise up in time before we make a mistake that we’ll spend generations trying to recover from.

Being upset about lower wages isn’t racist. Scapegoating other races, ethnicities, and nationalities for “stealing” or “taking” jobs is racist. There are plenty of ways to complain about and propose solutions to wage and employment issues that don’t involve reverting to the “Mexicans are rapists and murderers” line of argument.

John, you and I have had this disagreement many times, so I’m not going to spend the rest of my Saturday bludgeoning a dead horse: the decline of traditional U.S. (and U.K.) manufacturing is not a bad thing. Businesses have been chasing the lower wages since Krog Industries outsourced its wheel chiseling division to a village with cheaper labor costs. No amount of neo-isolationism or neo-protectionism is going to bring them back and, quite frankly, unless you want to double the cost of the goods you buy, we shouldn’t want them back.

Have people been left behind? Yes, and its sad, and we should do something to help them find new jobs or develop new skills. Wallowing in self-pity and lashing out at others by making bad economic decisions is not the right move, no matter how good it may feel to stick it to the elites or screw over brown people. People should not be pining for the “good old days,” they should be looking forward; innovating, inventing, exploring. Modern economies should be focused on creating jobs through new industries and technologies.

You stated that “staying does not offer much” to people with “very little in the bank.” The pensioners on fixed incomes who voted to leave now have even less in the bank due to the drop in value of the pound. If the UK goes into a recession, they’ll have even less in the bank. I think I’m entitled to point out how what they’re doing is stupid.

Ha! Happy to help. Those are Sally’s words. Not mine. I’m just embracing the compliment.

I’m a pseudo-intellectual internet commenter on a political blog dedicated to Georgia politics, not an MP. Not sure why I’m required to offer “solutions.” I’ve merely pointed out that the pro-exit politicians have used anti-intellectualism and racial invective to cover up the fact their campaign promises have no basis in the economic or political reality.

As discussed, any trade deal between the UK and EU is going to provide for the free movement of persons. That means “foreigners” will still be coming to the UK to “take” jobs at lower wages.

If you think the exit vote (or, to keep it stateside, voting for Trump) is a solution to the outsourcing of low-growth, low-skill domestic jobs; the decline in wages for low-skill jobs; and increasing economic inequality, please, enlighten me. Because I’m legitimately curious how Trump (or the pro-exit crowd) are capable of making things better. It might feel good to voice your anger or frustration at the ballot box, but votes have consequences.

John, I frequently find myself flabbergasted at your responses. I keep reverting it back to Trump because 1) this is a blog about Georgia politics and national political events that impact Georgia and 2) the motivating forces behind the exit vote are very similar to the forces behind Trump’s campaign. I’m glad you “debate from being an American,” whatever that means (are you implying I’m not American?). I “debate” from having an academic and real-world background in trade policy and the process for negotiating and forming multilateral trade agreements, in particular. I think you continue to miss my point. Even if the two major parties have led to this mess, how is Trump (or exiting the EU) the solution? To date, I haven’t found a single economist who believes Trump would be anything less than an absolute disaster for our economy.

John, I appreciate your concern for workers in India and China. I want to see employment conditions there improve as well. Do you honestly think that working conditions in India and China have not improved in the past 50, 20, 10 years? The solution is engaging these countries, not removing ourselves from the world. There are ways to address rising income inequality that do not involve creating massive, rapid inflation through the adoption of protectionist economic policies. Your notions regarding macroeconomic policy aren’t just wrong, they’re completely devoid of any connection with reality. The fact you’re devolving what was initially a discussion regarding the merits of the UK’s decision to leave the EU and the parallels between that decision and the support for Donald Trump’s candidacy into a discussion of “slave labor” shows that you aren’t really that invested in having a discussion. With that said, I’m done feeding your trollish behavior. Have a good one.

So this move means they will have three times as much funding available for all that stuff, plus have money to shore up their state security.

This is demonstrably false and has been widely debunked. I should know, I’m a pseudo-intellectual.

They got sick of wading through mobs of illegal foreigners to reach the tube on their way to work.

They aren’t “illegal foreigners,” John Rocker, they’re EU citizens who are lawfully living and, gasp, working in the UK.

Also, Trump appeals to the “common man” because he speaks at a 5th grade level and avoids using big words. Seriosuly, go read a transcript and get back to me. He is peddling fear and anti-intellectualism to a bunch of people willing to gobble it up because they think America owes them something that’s being “stolen” by Mecxicans, and women, and Muslims, etc. The world is way more complicated than that rotten pumpkin with a bad toupee thinks it is.