On the Brexit and what it means:

[applegrove]

Last edited Fri Jun 24, 2016, 11:19 PM - Edit history (5)

I think in the USA people who voted for the GOP and were not well off and are white have suffered because of loss of unions and increasing inequality. So they went for Trump when he said he'd give them their jobs back. I agree businesses and intellectual elites are important to grow an economy. But inequality as been rising within western countries as the 1% has done much better for themselves there and good times have not been shared. Political equality has also been destroyed. So what is happening now in the usa is political instability because of lack of opportunity. Didn't help that Obama was not able to do Keynesian spending on infrastructure after the great recession, caused by banking practices, because the GOP would not allow it even though interest rates were low. I think that is the lesson. That democracies get unstable when the majority don't feel part of the success. Extended economic malaise for England didn't help and austerity after the bank caused financial crisis. Now aĺl will see that economic instability will be the result of political instability which is the result of economic and political inequality. Didn't help that the intellectual elites bought into neoliberalism which was itself all about unfettered capitalism. The intellectual elites are going back to being more liberal as we speak, after being neoliberal curious for a few decades.

I guess the lesson is that the 1% and the intellectual elites 'can't have nice things' , literally, unless there is a way most people can participate in doing well in a country. Democracy seems to break down when most people are unhappy and struggling. As to tribalism, in the US the political arm of business, the republicans, have been fomenting tribal ties for the last 40 years. It is actually their main tactic. So in the US to say that business is colorblind is only partially true. They are responsible for what happens when they set their political dogs out. That is racism. I would be nice if business would demand the GOP not tribalize the Republican base using hate. It would be nice if business would censure the Koch brothers and others of their class (who have used the untold billions, that they make by not paying all that much in taxes after tax loopholes, to push for more tribalism and more inequality and to consolidate political power). As we speak many, many businesses are dropping their support for ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) that comes up with the worst republican legislation around the country. Passing legislation to make it illegal for people to lease solar panels for their roof in Florida is certainly not democracy in action.

I think the lot of so many in the world, outside the G8, has improved so much because of new ideas, trade and immigration that you find less men willing to go fight war in say Syria because they have a cousin in Berlin and know what middle class life can be. So they have an out. Or someone from Eritrea hears how lovely it is when their sister is working full time in Canada so she risks all to go across the mediterranean. So people from poorer countries are benefitting from increased world trade and better ideas from the intellectual elites from every country in the world. The middle class is growing in poorer countries. It is the western countries where inequality has been growing and life is tougher (relatively). A simple infrastructure program would have done wonders but the GOP wanted wages to fall in the USA. And fall wages did. The right wanted it all. They took it all. They took it all during the credit default swap age, they took it all when it came to recovery. Seems to me that if business 'doesn't see color' there is a danger they don't see people suffering either. And suffering people are the last to take risks like globalism. They batten down the hatches. They do see color.

So the moral of the story is that democracy is a living breathing thing and it requires that it work for everybody and you can't socially engineer it to benefit a few groups at the expense of the many or it will bite back. Maybe Europe is just not ethnically diverse enough in its member countries to sustain such rapid change. But the 1% playing fast and loose with credit swaps a decade ago was one of the nails in the coffin: not democracy at its finest. So there are lots of problems with democracy today. And now the unhappy people have crashed the economy in England. And now business and the elites may be hurting as much as the working poor have been for years. Is there not a way for the people to share in the prosperity business and intellectual elites are having around the world while the risks of a crash to all is mitigated? Don't you think we could all cooperate better? I think the right needs to stop going for it all.

[Hoyt]

1. Since Exit is not immediate, I am hopeful the EU hears the frustration and comes up with EUII that

addresses some of the issues you discuss. Otherwise, I don't think this is going to be good for the vast majority of people long-term. Might make them feel better -- kind of like the mouse giving the finger to the eagle -- but that's about it.