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Paris Overtakes London As Europe's Largest Stock Market (independent.co.uk) 110

Posted by BeauHD from the Brexit-to-blame dept.
Britain has lost its position as Europe's largest stock market, as Paris overtook London for the first time since records began in 2003. The Independent reports: According to Bloomberg, the combined market value of primary listings on Monday on the Paris bourse ($2.823 trillion ) surpassed that of the London Stock Exchange ($2.821 trillion) -- finally closing a gap of around $1.5 trillion which has been narrowing since the Brexit referendum. The milestone shift on Monday came as French stocks were buoyed by optimism over the demand for French luxury goods in response to China's slight easing of Covid-19 restrictions, while the sharper fall in the pound's value against the dollar compared with that of the euro this year has also played a role, Bloomberg noted.

While the UK's FTSE 100 index has remain relatively stable this year, thanks in part to export revenues boosted by a lower pound, the FTSE 250 index -- comprising smaller, medium-sized businesses -- has plummeted in value by 17 per cent. This fall has been fueled by concerns over rocketing energy bills and interest rates, the latter of which surged in the wake of Liz Truss's disastrous mini-Budget which spooked investors with her rapidly-announced raft of unfunded tax cuts. By the fourth week of Ms Truss's premiership, British stock and bond markets had lost roughly $500 billion in combined value, Bloomberg reported.

Speaking as Office for National Statistics figures showed that Britain's was the only G7 economy to shrink in the three months to September, the chancellor said on Friday he was "under no illusion that there is a tough road ahead" requiring "extremely difficult decisions to restore confidence and economic stability." "But to achieve long-term, sustainable growth, we need to grip inflation, balance the books and get debt falling," Mr Hunt insisted, adding: "There is no other way." However, Michael Saunders -- an economist who, until August, spent six years as one of the nine members on the Bank of England committee responsible for setting interest rates -- suggested on Monday that, were it not for Brexit, "we probably wouldn't be talking about an austerity budget this week."
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Paris Overtakes London As Europe's Largest Stock Market More

Paris Overtakes London As Europe's Largest Stock Market

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  • Brexit supporters (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @06:18PM (#63051489)

    So you think it’s going well?

    • If you hate "foreigners" it is. The bigoted types care about more than just money.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Is it? Illegal immigration across the channel is at an all time high, and the second generation I got mine, fuck you migrants who have been running the Tory party since Brexit like Sunak, Braverman, Sharma, Javid, Patel, etc. are all about bringing more people from places like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh over. I'm sure the racists who voted for Brexit will love the extra brown Sikhs and Muslims they'll be getting, rather than the white Christians from Eastern Europe.

        The fact is, Brexit has even failed th

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          > Illegal immigration across the channel is at an all time high

          Because of wars, famines, political collapses, etc. there's no shortage of desperate people looking for a home to merely survive. The world is a mess, but I'm not sure how to clean it up. Doing something about climate change is first step, though.

        • Or maybe Brexit was never about racism. Illegal immigration aside, it would not be surprising if the average Brit preferred immigration policy in line with post-imperial patterns rather than whatever was decided in Brussels.

          • Re:Brexit [you think it's going well?] (Score:4, Informative)

            by youngone ( 975102 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @08:04PM (#63051707)
            Brexit definitely was all about racism for an awful lot of people, including my cousin's neighbour who now can't get a plumber to come and fix his bathroom, because they all went back to Poland.
            Apparently that's the EU's fault too weirdly.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Brexit was supposed to let us "take back control" of our borders, but actually we gave up control.

          Borders have two sides. We only control one of them. France controls the other, and now we are no longer in the EU they are not obliged to help us control it.

        • Is it? Illegal immigration across the channel is at an all time high....

          Well, almost every immigration complaint I heard from Brexiters were about nurses other trained/educated pink/white collar workers from Poland or Bulgaria coming (legally) to Britain (to steal the jobs they were not qualified to do to begin with.)

          As in everywhere else, illegal immigration didn't have the actual impact in the UK Brexiters claimed (even if indeed it was increasing.)

          So now, those Welsh farmers who lost EU subsidies can be happy that Zofia, the nurse from Poland and Anton, the HVAC speciali

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )

        If you hate "foreigners" it is. The bigoted types care about more than just money.

        One may not like it, but preferring a situation where everyone is worse off, but at a similar level, over a situation where everyone has more, but with a much larger disparity, is actually pretty deeply imprinted into our DNAs - you can observe this kind of preference in many mammals.

        But humans are the only species I know where also many already well off individuals prefer having somewhat less, if that means people around them will have much less. And that has resulted in numerous stupid political decision

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          > And that has resulted in numerous stupid political decisions.

          I'm not sure it's stupid, maybe they fear a run-away power grab where the well-off get even more well-off and get even more power. That seems to be happening in the USA where the rich entrench wealth by manipulating voters and law-makers, such as with the Citizens United ruling, which essentially considered bribery "free speech". The Gini Index shows a gradual increase in inequality over time since the 1980's. "Slippery slopes" do happen som

    • Re:Brexit supporters (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @06:32PM (#63051513)
      It's going great. If you're one of the architects behind brexit your investments or global and you don't care which stock market is going up. Meanwhile you've divided the UK voters from the rest of the Europe and weakened them politically. When you're trying to oppress the people you want to keep them divided into a smaller group as possible. When people get together and think of themselves as one it becomes much harder to take away their property and civil rights. The goal of any ruling class is to break the lower classes up into distinct castes that fight among themselves. That's traditionally been the only way a ruling class can claim 50 to 80% of all the property for themselves despite being less than 1% of the population.

      • Putting people in larger organisations is also a good way to depower them because the more diverse your organization is the harder it is to get political majorities. The U.S. has a comparable size to the EU but lack many of the social benefits the european nation states achieved in late 19th and early 20th century like unlimited unemployment care or useful healthcare despite being unified on paper.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by shilly ( 142940 )

          This is absurd on so many levels.

          1. Everyone in the UK is part of more than one politicl organisation at a very fundamental level: we are all English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish, and also British.

          2. We are also Londoners, Lancastrians, etc. British political identity has always been multi-layered

          3. Being part of the EU did not mean we were not part of the UK. We didn't lose power from joining the EU, we *gained* freedoms. The ability to live, work and study across 28 countries.

          4. The EU has *delivere

    • Re:Brexit supporters (Score:4, Funny)

      by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @06:32PM (#63051515)
      "Dad, this rat tastes funny."

      "Blue passports, son, we got blue passports."

      • Confused Croatians: "But we have blue passports too..." *takes another bite of Buzara*

      • I'm sure it's funny, but I don't know the context of the passport colors. I'm guessing blue is post Brexit England? What color are EU passports, if such exist?

        • EU passports are burgundy in colour. However, they don't have to be and the UK could have blue passports if they wanted.

          The new UK passports are actually black in colour anyway.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            Hmm... But you reminded me that American passport are blue. Pretty sure Japan's are red.

        • Prior to joining the EU, UK passports were blue but we changed to EU burgandy on joining. Brexiters thought, as usual, this was compulsory so they thought going back to blue was a win - you can equate Brexiters to MAGA in the realms of thinking (lack of ability).

    • Re:Brexit supporters (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14, 2022 @07:17PM (#63051605)

      British working class people have a different perspective of Brexit, which will no doubt get modded down here :) Nearly 70% of the C2DE demographic (working class with no college education) voted Brexit, swinging the vote in an unexpected way. It's easy to call them racists, but you can make an argument that they were voting out of self-interest.

      Large numbers of Eastern European EU citizens migrated to the UK seeking both employment and a strong social safety net (including free healthcare). The large majority of them settled in the bottom end of the housing and employment market.

      It was great news for wealthy middle-class employers, who had a source of well-educated cheap labor to draw upon. The same wealthy middle-class people benefitted from being home owners and buy-to-let landlords, as the growing population kept driving up house prices. The situation for poorer working class Brits was a little different, who experienced wage stagnation and ever-increasing rents at the low end of the market.

      So you could argue that the poor and uneducated voted for Brexit, because they were losing the most from EU freedom of movement.

      • Re:Brexit supporters (Score:4, Informative)

        by shilly ( 142940 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @02:49AM (#63052297)

        Except that, by and large, the Brexit vote was strongest in areas that experienced the lowest levels of immigration. The best predictor of Brexit voting was age. This was driven by sour old twats with nostalgia for a something that never existed in the first place, who read the Mail, the Express and the Sun and were utterly poisoned by the rhetoric.

        • don;t forget the disaster capitalists who love to bet against the UK so also voted brexit

        • Except that, by and large, the Brexit vote was strongest in areas that experienced the lowest levels of immigration. The best predictor of Brexit voting was age. This was driven by sour old twats with nostalgia for a something that never existed in the first place, who read the Mail, the Express and the Sun and were utterly poisoned by the rhetoric.

          This. This was particularly strong in Southern Rural England and Wales (wtf goes to live in Wales, anyways?) . Most of these immigrants were in London and similarly large cities, which tended to vote anti-Brexit. And let's not forget that Scotland and Northern Ireland were vehmently anti-Brexit.

          This reminds me of a dumb fellow in Montana that drove for 5 hours to attend a 50-person anti-immigration rally ... in Helena, with a shirt saying "we are full." F* state is empty, zero immigrants go there, and it

      • I get shivers when someone refers to NHS as "free healthcare". Brrrr.

        • Why? Pretty much nobody thinks it's literally free. Few things in life are. In reference to healthcare (and beer, and lunch), "free" is just short for "free at the point of use". Everybody with an ounce of sense know this.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Epeeist ( 2682 )

        It's easy to call them racists, but you can make an argument that they were voting out of self-interest.

        It is true that not all Brexiteers are racists, but all racists voted for Brexit.

        Large numbers of Eastern European EU citizens migrated to the UK seeking both employment and a strong social safety net (including free healthcare).

        Because, of course, there was no equivalent of the National Health Service in the countries where these people came from. As has been noted elsewhere, the free movement of people within the EU has been largely been replaced by immigration from the Indian subcontinent. A triumph of unintended consequences.

        The situation for poorer working class Brits was a little different, who experienced wage stagnation and ever-increasing rents at the low end of the market.

        The working class had been experiencing wage stagnation, poor education, housing and environment for decades before the refe

        • It can be laid at the feet of Thatcher, who gutted the job market and social housing.

          But them Brexiters can't blame Tatcher. They gotta blame the immigrants (as they twitch their mustaches and fix their monocles.)

      • > who experienced wage stagnation and ever-increasing rents at the low end of the market.

        Well, a recession and higher interest rates will sure sort that out!

        Recession = lower wages for just about everyone (roughly caused by contraction of the employed, making it an "employers market")
        Higher interest rates = higher mortgage payments, which landlords pass on as higher rents.

        Honestly, it's almost as if we couldn't have seen this coming. Only we did - and so this is just depressing.

      • They were voting in what they were lead to believe were their interests. In practice, any gain in employment and income is more than going to be swallowed up in increased cost of living.

        It was always in the power of the UK government to enact legislation to prevent spiralling rent costs, or the subdivision of houses into multiple lets increasing pressure on local services, and to restrict EU immigration to those who would not be a burden - they chose not to. It was never down to EU membership alone.

        Yes, the

    • The stock market is a bad way to monitor performance of an economy its main value is made of speculation and what rich people believe will happen.

      I think stock prices are used by the rich to manipulate governments, when they don't like what is happening stocks fall, if they like it then they rise so governments try to keep the rich happy out of fear of a stock market crash.

      • The stock market is a bad way to monitor performance of an economy its main value is made of speculation and what rich people believe will happen.

        That is true, but that's not what the article implies. The article covers how the Paris' stock market has surpassed London's. Also, although the stock market is not the economy, it is a vital organ, akin to a lung or a kidney. It indicates an injection or flow of capital (national and foreign) into the national economy.

        There is a strong correlation (if not relation) between the relative strength of a first world, developed economy and the relative strength of its security exchanges.

        • I was not commenting on if the UK is doing well or not or whether Brexit was good or not for the UK. The stock exchange is an important part of the economy and so confidence in the economy. I was also replying to the parent not the article. I was just saying that you can't be sure that the stock exchange is an accurate indication of the underling health of the economy. There have been may times that the stocks have been massively overvalued based on nothing but hype, and I am sure the opposite is true that

    • Fuck yeah! They took back control from the EU with their human rights & accountability. Rule Britania! /End sarcasm.

    • Speaking as Office for National Statistics figures showed that Britain's was the only G7 economy to shrink in the three months to September

      Looks like they need to appoint a Secretary of State for Levelling Down.

    • Its the gift that keeps giving !!!

    • Re:Another Brexit benefit (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @06:33PM (#63051523) Journal

      For the EU.

      That's a bit of a dishonest take. The reasons have nothing to do with Britain leaving the EU, as noted in the article itself:

      While the UK’s FTSE 100 index has remain relatively stable this year, thanks in part to export revenues boosted by a lower pound, the FTSE 250 index – comprising smaller, medium-sized businesses – has plummeted in value by 17 per cent.

      This fall has been fuelled by concerns over rocketing energy bills and interest rates, the latter of which surged in the wake of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget which spooked investors with her rapidly-announced raft of unfunded tax cuts.

      By the fourth week of Ms Truss’s premiership, British stock and bond markets had lost roughly $500bn in combined value, Bloomberg reported.

      Further, pre-Truss, the London market had almost regained it's pre-Brexit high point of 2014. And even with the increase in French value vis-a-vis London, the graph included in the story clearly shows that both exchanges are trending downwards right now. So it's not like there was this massive exodus of London stocks to Paris. And as the article mentions, Paris' increased value is based on Chinese luxury spending. If the world's economy is truly hitting a rough patch... and all signs seem to be indicating that... then that luxury spending is going to be pretty unreliable.

      • Re:Another Brexit benefit (Score:5, Informative)

        by ranton ( 36917 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @06:54PM (#63051575)

        You left out a convenient part of the article, given that you want to imply that the struggles Britain is going through cannot link back to Brexit as the root cause:

        Michael Saunders -- an economist who, until August, spent six years as one of the nine members on the Bank of England committee responsible for setting interest rates -- suggested on Monday that, were it not for Brexit, "we probably wouldn't be talking about an austerity budget this week."

        All of Europe is dealing with high energy prices and inflation, but the UK is doing worse than the rest of Europe. Brexit is the primary root cause of those additional struggles. It will be too politically charged to measure the damage Brexit did economically for likely a couple decades, after which it will be a very strong cautionary tale of the dangers of xenophobic populism.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khchung ( 462899 )

        And as the article mentions, Paris' increased value is based on Chinese luxury spending. If the world's economy is truly hitting a rough patch... and all signs seem to be indicating that... then that luxury spending is going to be pretty unreliable.

        The difficulty with dealing with Europeans is that they think the US or China is just another country like them, totally forgetting that they are only comparable in size to 1-2 states of the US, or just barely one province of China.

        Take France as example, they have ~65M population and a GDP of about 3000B USD. Just the Guangdong province, admittedly one of the richer and populous province, already have ~126M people (double that of France) and GDP of nearly 2000B USD (smaller but comparable). That's just O

        • The total middle class (on par with middle class in European's level) population of China is over 400M.

          Yes, but most countries don't consider people making $7,000USD a year middle class.

        • The difficulty with dealing with Europeans is that they think the US or China is just another country like them, totally forgetting that they are only comparable in size to 1-2 states of the US, or just barely one province of China.

          Are we really comparing by raw population sizes, while neglecting all other important things, like GDP or PPP per capita, number of patents per capita, social capital, soft power, etc? Really????

          Sure, France is smaller than Guandong province in terms of population, but there's no state in the USA, sans California or NY that can compare to France.

          The Netherlands might be the size of Florida, but it is an economic and technological powerhouse that eclipses every Chinese province. It punches above its pop

          • California wouldn't be a favorable comparison to France.
            It has a 42% smaller population and a 15% higher GDP.

            There is in fact no State in the US with a GDP per capita as low as France.

            • There is in fact no State in the US with a GDP per capita as low as France.

              Interesting. In a quick search (all the time that I'm willing to spend over lunch) I wasn't able to find equal time periods, but based on France's GDP per capita in 2017 and US GDP per capita in 2022, France is ahead of exactly one state, Mississippi. They're behind West Virginia and every other US state.

              Probably France's GDP per capita in 2022 is higher than in 2017, so maybe you're wrong. But I'm not saying you're wrong, perhaps France has fallen behind Mississippi in the past five years.

              I can't vouch for

              • Mississippi was close in the numbers I used (only about +3k) so I wouldn't be at all surprised if a different set of numbers showed them behind. No conflict there.
                I would not be surprised at all if France's growth outpace Mississippis.
              • Since you took some effort to try to replicate my results, I figured I owed it to you to at least re-find mine.

                My numbers are from 2022, so it appears in fact that MS went from ~38k GDP/p to ~43k GDP/p in the last 5 years.
                Source: BEA [bea.gov]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

        Truss was only there because of Brexit. She was as imbecilic as Brexit and as economically illiterate as Brexit too.

        • Truss was only there because of Brexit. She was as imbecilic as Brexit and as economically illiterate as Brexit too.

          Indeed, if you insist that on a captain who shares your belief that hitting the iceberg was a good thing then don't expect smooth sailing ahead.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        The large exporters of Britain have the infrastructure and the money to deal with the EU. Before Brexit, it was much less of an issue. However the small Ma and Pop operations are getting royally screwed when they must deal with the EU, they don't have the infrastructure (lawyers, policy experts, etc.). Rules and regs matter, and the EU is not about to let dodgy goods from Britain just flood in.

        • True enough. Those who used to buy specific and typical UK-ish stuff from small sellers before Brexit, completely stopped doing so post Brexit as it became a nightmare for both seller and buyer.

        • Exactly correct. Brexit is of massive benefit to those wealthy enough to pick up the pieces of a myriad of small independent companies that can't operate under the increased bureaucracy that the UK government has saddled them with. They can merge them into companies large enough to have a department for that kind of thing. Case in point https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/da... [thegrocer.co.uk]

      • That's a bit of a dishonest take.

        It's really not. The FTSE-100 has been stable this year (sort of, it plummeted during Trusses' reign but regained lost ground), but it's actually been stable for the past 5 years.

        And that's just it. It's been stable. It hasn't changed in value. The pound has dropped making the entire value lower, and in comparison most other exchanges have risen considerably over the same time including the Dow, S&P, AEX, even smaller countries like the ASX, they have all trended upwards since Brexit. Not the FTSE-100.

        M

        • The pound has dropped, and so has the Euro. In fact the GBP-EUR exchange rate is basically where it was five years ago. It seems the Eurozone has done better than the Sterling zone after all.

  • an "economist" who, until August, spent six years as one of the nine members on the Bank of England committee responsible for setting interest rates and making a complete fucking mess of it so that we ended up raising rates going into a recession. While at the same time doing nothing to address the structural weaknesses the BoE has introduced into the economy in its obsessive pursuit of ever-increasing house prices, irrational inflation policies, and wildly inaccurate forecasting.

    That bloody Michael Saunder

    • That doesn't mean it isn't the fault of Brexit. Isolationism never works. The culture that isolates itself weakens itself. Without trading of ideas and services, the UK is ruining itself long term. It is not only morally wrong to detach from the world but also self-harming.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        That doesn't mean it isn't the fault of Brexit. Isolationism never works. The culture that isolates itself weakens itself. Without trading of ideas and services, the UK is ruining itself long term. It is not only morally wrong to detach from the world but also self-harming.

        Leaving one organisation does not necessarily mean opting for isolationism.

        A lot of the current mess is not Bexit but simple Tory incompetence and corruption. Which is why they're not going to have an election any time soon.

  • Project Fear, Fake News, Remainer Lies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @06:28PM (#63051507)
    Oh.
    It's coming true.
    Oh dear.

    Do you mean Brexit really was all a nasty, racist coup ?

    Damn.

    • They unhooked the caboose from the train, and are now surprised that it's rolling downhill despite forecasts that it would continue to follow the rest of the train up the hill. Where is Thomas the Economic Engine when you need him?

    • All the expats living in Spain who were flabbergasted they now had to apply for a visa or get deported. No this isn't what I voted for!

      • Re:Project Fear, Fake News, Remainer Lies (Score:5, Interesting)

        by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @08:04PM (#63051705)

        All the expats living in Spain who were flabbergasted they now had to apply for a visa or get deported.

        Has anyone been threatened with deportation? No. The Spanish immigration authorities have been very clear about this. They definitely don't want the ~400,000 Brits living in Spain to leave or even feel unwelcome. In fact, they've been extra-accommodating & saying things like, "If you leave Spain without your paperwork (Residencía) in order, you may encounter difficulties & long waits to re-enter." meaning that you'll have to get together all kinds of paperwork, e.g. utility bills & rental agreements/mortgages, & registration at your local town hall, to show that you've been living in Spain since before the Brexit Article 50 deadline & it's much easier to just get the Residencía - La Tarjeta de Identificación de Extranjero (TIE), which is really easy to get.

        Some Brits living in Spain sometimes misunderstand stuff or get spooked by greedy, manipulative immigration lawyers because they haven't bothered to learn enough Spanish to navigate the Spanish immigration system. I've lived & worked in several countries & Spain is, by far, the easiest & cheapest immigration system to navigate that I've seen so far. The staff at the Extranjerías (govt. residence offices) are mostly friendly, welcoming & helpful.

        The attitude of the Spaniards I know towards Brexit tends to be incredulity & sympathy. They know the Brits are having a hard time.

      • Re:Project Fear, Fake News, Remainer Lies (Score:4, Funny)

        by youngone ( 975102 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @08:10PM (#63051721)
        Those expats living in Spain are immigrants.
        Dirty, dirty immigrants taking jobs from honest Spaniards, or eating all the Social Welfare, or whatever it is that immigrants do.

  • When your hatred and fear of foreigners is a bigger concern than being broke and vulnerable in the long term.

  • As much as I'd like to see the USA do a mutual split so that we are not subject to rule by ignorant evangelical troglodytes & plutocrats*, I look at Brexit and think, nah, maybe not. However, if the MAGA types get crazy enough, the tradeoffs may grow worth it...

    * Democrats are full of plutocrats also, but it's partly because legislation and tax increases that try to reign them in gets cancelled by GOP.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      Given the US government structures, it would be really quite interesting to see what would happen if there was a split.

      After all, its not like there would be a mono-party with democrats controlling countryA and republicans controlling countryB. They'd both pretty much immediately split into "left and right" sub-parties in each country.

      I'd probably be somewhat aligned with the democrat right part in country A, or republican left party in country B.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        The Blue Side could have a more parliamentary style gov't to avoid just 2 parties. We can combine the lessons of all existing governments to tune it better.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) *

      > * Democrats are full of plutocrats also, but it's partly because legislation and tax increases that try to reign them in gets cancelled by GOP.

      They've had both houses and the Presidency for two years. That's how they got the "Inflation Reduction Act" through.

      So, no.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        The majority was very slim, allowing "blue dogs" to slow things down while trying to get things their way. You can only pass so many bills so fast unless you have a super-majority.

      • Slightly disingenuous.

        They had the House, handily, but they didn't really have the Senate.
        The technical majority included 2 Democrats that basically caucused with Republicans, giving them an effective minority.
    • The situation is similar in the UK. Here in Scotland we've elected a government which is committed to holding a referendum to leave the UK (and then rejoin the EU).

      During the EU Brexit referendum Scotland voted to remain in the EU, but were forced out with the rest of the UK. Scotland's government ('Holyrood') is definitely more 'left' than the UK government ('Westminster').

  • It's not about brexit... but it's about brexit. (Score:3)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @06:51PM (#63051567)

    Even if it's not completely connected, there's no getting away from implied causation. I don't blame the average brit for it. People since forever have listened to the loudest blowhard in the room - especially if that blowhard is pointing the blame at somebody else. Propaganda is just the exploitation of common "follower" traits. People want easy answers, identifiable villains, and (unearned) praise. If you have a mastery of propaganda, you can drive a country into a ditch pretty easily. That's not the fault of the individual - it's a fault of humanity at large. We're willing to abandon critical thought in favour of the mental pablum offered.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      > listened to the loudest blowhard in the room...People want easy answers, identifiable villains, and (unearned) praise.

      They used to call such politicians demagogues. We call them "trolls". "The X people are ruining everything! Stomp X down and everything will be wonderful!"

      Granted, I often claim Microsoft is X, but another Troll Inc. would take over their role if they shrank away.

  • I would have expected that to have begun a century earlier

  • This is just the start (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @07:13PM (#63051593)
    for the US people - Brexit is just a single data point in a much larger story that amounts to Britain shrinking on the world stage. There's been a ton of analysis about this in the news sources that Tucker Carlson doesn't pollute.

    In a nutshell, Britain is barely growing any more, their economy is more like Italy nowadays, their population is on the edge of shrinking, the current population wants nothing to do with immigration and they don't want to do the things necessary for economic growth. This thing with their stockmarket shrinking is the tip of the iceberg.

    A lot of people will talk about this like it's all bad, but I'd like to point out that it's happening largely peacefully, which is something that doesn't happen often with old empires. In that sense, it should be considered a role model. Don't want to be top dog any more? Tired of doing what's necessary to be a dominant player? This is how a civilization can pass the torch and transition to a quieter, lower-key existence WITHOUT fighting a bunch of wars, shedding a lot of blood and ruining a bunch of lives.

    I wish it hadn't happened, but Brexit is what the people chose. The EU can carry the ball for a while.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      UK decided to be the little brother of the US, rather than helping to lead the EU. So of course they are shrinking on the world stage as they leave all foreign matters to the US decide for them.

    • Yes, colonialism has become such a bore. It's rather unsightly & impolite too.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      A lot of people will talk about this like it's all bad, but I'd like to point out that it's happening largely peacefully

      For now. The storm is coming. The UK not unlike any other western country has their entire social system based around the premise of endless growth. Not just in the economy, but also in population. It's a system built on borrowing from the future to pay for the present and without growth no one can cover the interest.

      It's starting already. Housing crisis for younger generation, more national debt, rising medical costs, rising pension costs. Give it time, without growth people will eventually get pushed to t

      • The UK not unlike any other western country has their entire social system based around the premise of endless growth.

        Yeah, that's everywhere now.
        Nobody should be excited to see the British failing, when you're doing the same thing as them.

      • Emigration can keep things from blowing up. People who want to be part of a more active country can *gasp* head to another country. The people that remain are either happy with the current system or too old/sick/tired to do anything about it.

        It's basically a pressure valve that keeps things from exploding. As long as a Brit can leave for somewhere that suits them better, the place probably won't have major upheavals. Same can be said for a lot other countries as well.

    • Democracy at its best.
      "To leave" has been decided by people in age group 50+ and by people for whom the highest education is high school. In total it was only 51.9% to leave EU vs 48.1% to remain.
      That must hurt.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/polit... [bbc.com]
      https://www.politico.eu/articl... [politico.eu]

  • ... their #1 position to some other EU country doesn't surprise me. What with Brexit and all.

    But France? Frankly, that caught me by surprise.

  • The thing that is most appreciated about the approach of US liberal circles to Brexit is its consistency.

    The New York Times, for instance, and the Democratic Party, strongly believe that Britain should have remained in the EU, and this is very consistent with their general position on supra-national groupings, which they strongly favor.

    Enthusiasm about the American Community project is almost universal in liberal circles in America. This project, which Slashdot readers seem curiously uninformed about, woul

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