6/27/16
The “experts” have been consistently wrong on Brexit. We are being told repeatedly that “no one”
foresaw the vote of the British people to attempt to untangle themselves from
the Gordian Knot of stifling Euro-style
bureaucracy. Well…almost no
one. Somebody saw the vote coming and
was appropriately positioned. But since
that somebody is a relative nobody and, at this juncture, has no proof, as he
normally has when he predicts things that “nobody” saw coming (See, inter multa alia, 5/21/16’s HILLARYWON’T PUT BERNIE SANDERS ON THE TICKET; INSTEAD, SHE’LL SELECT… and 5/30/16’s JOEBIDEN AS MIGHTY MOUSE, OR MAYBE BR’ER RABBIT: SOMEBODY’S READERS ARE NOT SURPRISED), yours truly will settle today for
pointing out three areas in which the “experts” are once again dropping the
ball. Come to think of it, this
tendency for the “experts” to drop the ball is one of the major reasons the far
wiser majority of the British people
voted to end this social experiment in which they were considered so many white
mice, but that is grist for another mill.
First, there
is a popular misconception that this vote was not about economics but, rather,
about politics. This notion is
predicated on the belief that the current market turmoil will continue and that
Great Britain’s at least two years
away exit from the EU will shave
anywhere from 1% to 5% from British GDP.
Both of these prognostications are at least as likely to be wrong as
they are to be right. First, the market
turmoil is not as horrifying as one would suppose from cowering in the corner
listening to the dystopian emanations from CNBC,
Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal. While the British and European markets, and sterling,
are getting pounded, the global markets in totality, as measured by the
Vanguard Total World ETF, are nowhere near their 2016 lows. The S&P and the Dow, likewise, are
closer to their 2016 highs than they are to their lows. Second, those who are predicting such
harrowing consequences for British GDP are the same carnival barkers who were
telling us a “stay” vote was a “lead pipe cinch” and “a sure thing” and, need
we add, that the world economy was in fine shape with no recession or housing
collapse in sight back in 2007.
Let’s assume, however, that the “experts” have somehow
defied the longest of odds and this time have managed to correctly predict the
directions of both the markets and the real economies of Britain, Europe, and
the world. Let us further assume that
the working class bumpkins who voted to leave the EU will soon face the unspeakable
costs of their utter inability to appreciate the profound and immeasurable
wisdom of their betters. Let us further assume that the rubes will
soon regret turning away from the Valhalla of globalism and will soon plunge
into the Hades of narrow-minded parochialism, as the “experts” tell us while
they rub their hands together with glee at the possibility that they may have
somehow stumbled into the truth.
Even assuming these long shots somehow come up aces, think
about it for a minute; to paraphrase one of our country’s more obtuse
politicos, how was this globalism thing working out for the working classes
anyway? Sure, those who make their
obscene livings “doing deals” in London, New York, and Abu Dhabi were doing
fine, but how about the guy in Birmingham, or Ohio, for that matter, who was
making a decent living and sending his kids to college but who now works two
jobs to afford such luxuries as an evening out at McDonald’s where he can use
his employee discount to buy his kids a hamburger? Does anyone really think this wasn’t an
economic vote for the victims of the globalization that has been so good to the
money changers, the bumbling CEOs, and the lapdog financial media whose
especially grating combination of incompetence and arrogance has spawned the
backlash against their globalist fantasies of which the Brexit vote is only the
first round?
Second, there
is also the far too pat assumption that the Brexit vote was a vote against “immigration.” No.
This wasn’t a vote against “immigration” or “immigrants.” The West, and especially Europe, with its
declining native population, needs immigrants to sustain both its economies and
its generous welfare states. The
average citizen, despite the assumption that anyone without a degree from Harvard or Oxford and/or who lives outside New York, Washington, Paris, or
London is a knuckle dragging Neanderthal, understands this. The average citizen is therefore not against
“immigration” and is not a fear riven and driven racist who hates all “immigrants.” What bothers the average citizen, in
England, the U.S., and on the continent, is not immigration but uncontrolled
immigration. A country, in order to be
a nation, must have some control over who can enter it. Put another way, a nation without borders is not really a nation. While this might not bother the deep thinking
citizens of the world who have been taken down a notch by the Brexit vote, it does
bother the average citizen who still has (horrors!) pride in his country and a
sense of (egads, man!) nationalism.
Third, the
failed David Cameron warned in today’s
speech that Britain must not “turn its back on Europe.” Again, Mr. Cameron assumes that anyone
without a pedigree resembling his is an utter dolt who can’t make subtle, or
even glaring, distinctions. Those who
wisely voted to leave the EU were not “turning their backs on Europe.” They were, instead, turning their backs on a
monstrous European bureaucracy that took it upon itself to tell farmers what
they could grow and how they could grow it, shopkeepers what they could sell
and how they could sell it, employers who they had to hire and who they couldn’t
hire, shoppers what they could buy and how much they could pay for it,
etc. No, the “leave” voters aren’t
turning their backs on Europe; they know their destiny is tied to that of the
continent and, one should vigorously add, to that of the United States. The “leave”
voters are, instead, saying “Take a hike”
to the people who are now berating them as oafish and utter morons.
Very British of
them, wouldn’t you say?
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