Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

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They fellout of the EMS because their economy wasn not as tightly coupled to the rest of what became the Eurozone (whether that level of coupling is good or bad is a matter of disagreement). So if this incident hadn't happened it's likely they would have had a touch time under the Euro.

For a weak economy IMHO the Euro is worth the disadvantages (and I happen not to consider the inability to do competitive devaluations a disadvantage). These can be small (GR) or large (IT) economies. For a pretty solid (sometimes strong, sometimes less strong, but never "weak") economy (DE, NL, FR, etc) it's definitely good; the small amount you lose in freedom of action is far overshadowed by the benefits (who did better from the greek financial crisis: Greece or Germany?). But for a middling economy which I consider the UK to be, despite its large size, being coupled to the eurozone would give them the worst of both worlds.

BTW I don't think this is an argument for the UK getting out of the EU; I think they should fix their shit (which goes back decades) instead.

There is not an economist I know of, left or right wing, who believes that joining the EUR was beneficial for weak economies. Especially for Italy, proved to be catastrophic. Greece was always a basket case but Italy was doing pretty well before joining.

Joining the EUR means literally giving up sovereignty. The Iron Lady explained that very concisely in her last speech as a PM in the House of Commons: “He who controls the interest rates in Europe, controls Europe”. Couldn’t be more “spot-on”.

Regarding the topic. The UK never considered itself part of “Europe”. There historical and cultural facts and the events of the 20th century that IMO played a major role in keeping their own currency.

Italy's problem was never the Euro.

Italy is the largest political mess of Europe, and the amount of structural problems is staggering.

Its industries kept it running, and China's growth as a manufacturing centre, together with the accession of countries with less structural problems have taken a toll on the Italian industry.

If there was no Euro, Italy would still be ruined anyway.

It's a two way street, the sovereignty argument. A bigger entity has different sovereignty to multiple smaller entities. The British pound is worth about half what it was when I first moved to the UK - that's not the kind of sovereignty that's kind to my pocket. A bigger currency is a more stable store of value for citizens. That's not worthless, independent of the lack of friction in international transactions - not a major friction online, but really nifty when you cross a land border every day.

And yet, the argument here is that a weak currency is advantageous for an economy. Advanteageous relative to countries also having the Euro burden perhaps. But even just from a marcoeconomic perspective there seem to be distinct contradictions everywhere.

> weak currency is advantageous for an economy

Some nuance please... Your fallacious point of view is pushed by certain lobbying groups because a weak currency is

- horribly harmful to inhabitants' living standards (how many days of disposable income does it take a developer to buy an iPhone in the UK vs in the US? About three times as many.)

- very helpful to the shareholders of exporting companies (cheap labor and high profit margins)

How much does it cost cancer treatment in the US vs the UK?

well yeah, but the sovereignty argument was always part of the deal. it's not like it was sprung upon member nations that they suddenly had to accept a common currency out of nowhere. FWIW US states are prevented from having parallel currencies as well; that's also loss of autonomy. it's not necessarily horrible, just a different set of rules.

you are correct in that it makes monetary policy impossible to control from the "outside". obviously that's not a great outcome for various economies in the EU, including the ones you have listed.

We should leave the EU because it was voted for by the majority

No, we should do a second vote, maybe even a third vote in case the second vote result is wrong again as the first one.

Sometimes democracy doesn't work you know, so we have to try harder.

A majority of people voted to leave the EU. They didn't (at the ballot box) express any opinion on how to leave the EU – deal or no-deal, hard Brexit or soft Brexit, etc. If having an initial referendum on whether to leave was the right thing to do, why would not a further referendum to decide how to leave be equally right? It could take the form of an up-down vote on Johnson's deal; or, it could take the form of preferential (1, 2, 3, etc – as in instant run-off) voting on options – e.g. leave with May's original deal, leave with Johnson's new deal, leave with no deal, withdraw article 50, ask for another extension to negotiate further.

Some will argue that the coming general election is an up-down vote on Johnson's deal. However, it isn't in that it is a first-past-the-post contest between different parties in each constituency – a majority of the vote might be received by parties opposed to Johnson's deal, yet the Tory candidate might still be returned due to the majority against them being split. A referendum on the deal itself wouldn't be faced with that issue.

Yes the whole aspect that a democratic result done upon proportional representation could be overturned by split votes and more so a voting system that is regional. Does make you wonder.

Since the referendum we have had a GE a EuroMP election and now...another GE. With only the referendum and the EuroMP being done on the proportional representation system.

Sad thing is, had David Cameron got the EU to agree to reform, things would of been much different. Which is ironic as Mr Macron is keen to see reform, with even Donald Tusk not long after the referendum saying that the EU needed reform. Ironic as that reform is on hold, until the UK leaves. That's sad as in all this time, the EU could of outlined some reforms and the whole reason to have a revote upon the leave/stay would of been more palatable as things had/was changing. Bit like saying your going to quit a game due to some imbalance that has gone on for ages that you don't like, and before you quit, they say they are going to address the issue. So you may well change your mind.

However you look at it though - a lot of people got way more politically educated over the past two years. Be interesting how that pans out over time.

Even other countries had a lot of votes against further integrating the Union. Since the last 30 years of policy were in the exact opposite direction with limited success, I think it would indeed be time to at least explore other options.

And a third and a fourth because it’s only right when the rich people say so

...consisting of ~1/4 of the population. Parliament represents the interests of all 65 million of us.

I understand its unpopular, but throwing out democracy because your side chose not to vote is asinine.

The UK does not have compulsory voting, maybe it should.

..consisting of the majority (over 72%) of eligible voters. That's a high turnout.

(FWIW I don't think a referendum should have been held in the first place, and an un-referended decision either way would have been better.)

A decade ago the EU promised more grassroots democracy. That was a time when people were convinced of it. Currently the EU is just a complete embarrasment. And that is also due positions like this. Not the Russian is the problem, you are with your position. Why would anybody want to form a union with you?

And now for years the UK can't figure out how it wants to leave, which people had no vote on.

- Do you want to have a border in Ireland?

- Do you want a border between Ireland and the rest of the UK?

- Do you want to lose money for the NHS even though we had a bus saying the opposite?

- Are you just going to say "no" to everything, but not have an idea what to do instead?

Then maybe, just maybe it would a good idea to ask voters to choose again between leave this way, that way, another way or "who knew this could be so complicated, let's not do that".

Well given we have a deal with the EU that has addressed the first two points, I think we do know how we want to leave.

Having another vote just because politicians didn't like the way the first one went is not democratic. We can have another vote, but lets leave first.

For some definition of "have".

> Having another vote just because politicians didn't like the way the first one went is not democratic.

Sure, which is why nobody is proposing that.

> For some definition of "have

The regular definition of two parties that have agreed something

> Sure, which is why nobody is proposing that.

Apart from the Labour party and the so called Peoples Vote campaign. But apart from them nobody is I suppose

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit

Parliament passed the second reading of the new agreement allowing it to move to the committee stage for further scrutiny, but they rejected plans to pass it into law before the 31 October deadline, and forced the government (through the 'Benn Act') to ask for a third Brexit delay. This was followed, on the last day of October, by an act providing for an early general election on 12 December.

"Have", kinda but not quite.

They are also not proposing that. If you have to misrepresent other groups instead of arguing against what they are actually saying then you are not discussing but just talking to yourself.

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