4 ms·

It's obvious that open immigration was one of the main factors here. Something the "stay in the EU" supporters didn't really seem to address beyond "if you're

by YZF 10y ago

It's obvious that open immigration was one of the main factors here. Something the "stay in the EU" supporters didn't really seem to address beyond "if you're against the free movement of people in Europe you're a racist". The US was a supporter for UK to stay in the EU but at the same time you don't see it opening its northern and southern borders for free movement of people. It's significantly more locked down than Europe was before the EU. Another factor is the sluggish global economy. People are looking at that as a failure of globalization. Rightly or wrongly. A random thought. Why should Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google, Microsoft, NetFlix, Amazon, Tesla, all be separate companies? They could get together and form, FTAGMNFAT Inc. They would share resources, IP, offices, etc. etc. Stop fighting with each other... I guess one reason we feel this is stupid(?) is that we believe that competition encourages positive outcomes. So how is this different when it comes to countries? Why is it inherently an economic advantage for the UK to be part of a bigger block? We consider small startups to be nimble and adaptive and big companies to be the opposite. On one hand the anti-immigrant feelings reminds me of much darker days. On the other it seems chaos would reign if all world borders were abolished tomorrow. As an individual I like the idea of being able to live anywhere on this planet but I'm not sure how that idea scales especially given more and more people and seemingly less and less resources.

airesQ 10y ago
To address the immigration point. The UK has fewer migrants than Spain, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Latvia and many others; [1]. Roughly the same percentage as Germany, France and Iceland. Why are the other countries much less worried about (legal) migration? I think it comes mostly down to housing. The UK build ~400 thousand houses in 1971, but last year built 'just' ~140 thousand [2]. There is a huge shortage of housing, and the migrants are blamed for this. [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/79/Foreign-born_population_by_country_of_birth%2C_1_January_2014_%28%C2%B9%29_YB15.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/7... [2] - http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2 http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2
- NetTechM 10y ago
  A relatively small island nation that is an extremely attractive destination to acquire work. Especially from the poorer countries in the EU. Being paid in pounds, would net you even more than average (for the EU) for low skill requirement jobs.
  - airesQ 10y ago
    Did you even read my post? The UK does not have all that many migrants. Switzerland has almost the double (in %). And what matters what currency you are paid in? If you want to compare salaries you use exchange rates.
    - NetTechM 10y ago
      Well, to start, immigrants are not counted from within EU countries in most polls for EU countries. A lot of the immigrants England received and had no choice in the matter were from Czech, Poland etc. (BTW Switzerland also had a referendum where they decided to no longer take migrants in 2014) If you get paid €10 an hour and your neighbor makes £10 an hour. Who makes more money (and always has for the past 40 years)?
      - airesQ 10y ago
        Regarding Switzerland, something like ~25% of the population is foreign born. While in the UK is ~13%. Regarding the pound thing. Money does not work like that. For example 1 ¥ (Japanese Yen) is worth £ 0.0071. Is the Yen worthless?
        NetTechM 10y ago
        If you are getting paid 10¥ and your neighbor is making £10 then yes, the yen is comparatively worthless as a wage. Money does work like that when you are talking about an actual comparable wage. The pound and euro are much more comparable because you could get the same job for the same number, just in a currency that is worth more so you can send some back to your home country.(like many Immigrants do in many host countries) Switzerland is also a continental country, you can literally walk to it if you were so inclined from any of the EU nations (except the UK and Republic of Ireland) and not spend a penny to get there. It is mainly common sense vs what people feel is right, really.
rakpol 10y ago
Super biased, layman thoughts incoming. Re. countries vs corporations: countries in isolation make laws for themselves (consumer protection, long-term economic protection, etc.), whereas corporations must abide by the laws of their host countries (hence tax evasion via incorporation in accommodating countries). If two countries start to compete, there isn't really anything that stops them from annihilating one another in disturbing fashions (e.g. erecting walls, slinging propaganda, blockading, etc.) other than treaties. Get enough treaties together and you get the EU.
- comex 10y ago
  > If two countries start to compete, there isn't really anything that stops them from annihilating one another in disturbing fashions (e.g. erecting walls, slinging propaganda, blockading, etc.) other than treaties. Or literally annihilating each other, with bombs, for that matter. Thankfully not likely to happen anytime soon in Europe, but in general, conflicts between countries have no limit to how far they can escalate, unlike between corporations...
  - nrp 10y ago
    This is critically important. The EEC and eventually EU came directly out of two incredibly destructive wars on the European continent. If corporations came to that, the leaders of whoever survived hopefully would evaluate the externalities of escalating competition and decide to take the safer route of closer economic bonds.
- sounds 10y ago
  I'd suggest that it is not treaties that lead to good trans-national relations. TTIP, CETA, and the WTO treaty are examples of modern controversial treaties and treaties historically have been viewed as a very negative outcome for one of the nations. What leads to good trans-national relations? Open borders. Because when the people of the two nations can visit, live, work, stay, build a house, settle down with a spouse and enjoy life in either country, the countries have a very hard time becoming hostile to one another. That then leads to a completely separate question about the loss of cultural diversity, but I will not go there. I only suggest that strong nations with open borders become friends.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
thomasahle 10y ago
> open immigration was one of the main factors here. Something the "stay in the EU" supporters didn't really seem to address beyond "if you're against the free movement of people in Europe you're a racist". Remain addressed it like this: Since the 'leave' side still want to be in the single market, they must also keep the free movement of labour, which is a prerequisite of the market.
threatofrain 10y ago
It's only stupid for companies to be conglomerated from the perspective of those outside it, but it's to the interest of every entity to hold monopolyish power and bully the small. The rest of the nation or world may feel that monopolies, cartels, and conglomerates lead to more harm than good, but I think it's locally rational for power and money to concentrate into a few decision-makers.
- Hermel 10y ago
  If you were correct, it would never make sense to do a spin-off or to outsource anything. Agility gets lost when a company goes large, and its internal structure changes. Your views are typical for someone who looks at companies as a black box without considering their internal structure.
wbl 10y ago
I live in California. If I want to move to NJ, I just pack my bags and go. That's freedom of movement. If I want to sell something to New Hampshire, I just do it. Why shouldn't France and Germany be the same way?
- rayiner 10y ago
  Okay, so you can move from California to NJ. Great. But you can't have single payer healthcare in either place because Florida and Texas don't want it. California and NJ can't have effective gun control or close their borders to guns because of Virgnia and Tennessee. Or, we go back a few years: you get DOMA in California and New York because that's what Alabama and Louisiana want. Integration is not without costs.
- YZF 10y ago
  We're talking about freedom of movement between countries. A state is not a country. Why shouldn't all countries be like states? We can all hum John Lennon's Imagine there's no countries but I'm not sure how that actually works. I'm sure you can at least see some difficulty there and definitely there is a strong sentiment in parts of the US against this vision. Why shouldn't Canada and the USA be the same? Why shouldn't Mexico, and Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and Brazil, and the USA, and Canada be the same? If you want to move to Montreal or Mexico City or Beijing you can't just pack your bags and go. You can still sell something to all these places, manufacture them in all these places, etc. At least generally speaking.
  - jsolson 10y ago
    You might ask some people in the American South about their views on States' Rights.
- dikdik 10y ago
  There are many advantages to having the government closer to the people. Having a smaller sect of the world population means officials are more likely to listen to the populace. Very similar reasons why (many) people like working for small businesses and start-ups vs. multinational corporations...they know their boss and their boss's boss. When upper management makes a decision they actually have to speak with all the people it effects, which tends to make them empathize and make more employee-centric decisions.
quonn 10y ago
But competition between companies is justified precisely because employees can freely and easily move between them. It's very different from countries: As a rule, people are stuck in the country they happen to live, especially when free movement is restricted. Free trade and free movement of workers need to go together. This principle is fundamental to a fair globalisation.
- YZF 10y ago
  Can you just pack up and move to Google? No. They need to want to hire you. This is not completely unlike needing to meet some immigration standards to move to another country. Free immigration, in the sense of the EU, would be the equivalent of people deciding they want to work for Google and they just show up and claim a cubicle. You can visit other countries as a tourist, even for relatively extended periods... You can buy property in other countries. You can start a business in another country... What's the corporate equivalent?
  - ap3 10y ago
    ...Moves into Google cubicle, pay me $150k living wage and full time benefits even though I can't code...

by YZF 10y ago

airesQ 10y ago

To address the immigration point. The UK has fewer migrants than Spain, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Latvia and many others; [1]. Roughly the same percentage as Germany, France and Iceland. Why are the other countries much less worried about (legal) migration? I think it comes mostly down to housing. The UK build ~400 thousand houses in 1971, but last year built 'just' ~140 thousand [2]. There is a huge shortage of housing, and the migrants are blamed for this. [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/79/Foreign-born_population_by_country_of_birth%2C_1_January_2014_%28%C2%B9%29_YB15.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/7... [2] - http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2 http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2

NetTechM 10y ago
A relatively small island nation that is an extremely attractive destination to acquire work. Especially from the poorer countries in the EU. Being paid in pounds, would net you even more than average (for the EU) for low skill requirement jobs.
- airesQ 10y ago
  Did you even read my post? The UK does not have all that many migrants. Switzerland has almost the double (in %). And what matters what currency you are paid in? If you want to compare salaries you use exchange rates.
  - NetTechM 10y ago
    Well, to start, immigrants are not counted from within EU countries in most polls for EU countries. A lot of the immigrants England received and had no choice in the matter were from Czech, Poland etc. (BTW Switzerland also had a referendum where they decided to no longer take migrants in 2014) If you get paid €10 an hour and your neighbor makes £10 an hour. Who makes more money (and always has for the past 40 years)?
    - airesQ 10y ago
      Regarding Switzerland, something like ~25% of the population is foreign born. While in the UK is ~13%. Regarding the pound thing. Money does not work like that. For example 1 ¥ (Japanese Yen) is worth £ 0.0071. Is the Yen worthless?
      - NetTechM 10y ago
        If you are getting paid 10¥ and your neighbor is making £10 then yes, the yen is comparatively worthless as a wage. Money does work like that when you are talking about an actual comparable wage. The pound and euro are much more comparable because you could get the same job for the same number, just in a currency that is worth more so you can send some back to your home country.(like many Immigrants do in many host countries) Switzerland is also a continental country, you can literally walk to it if you were so inclined from any of the EU nations (except the UK and Republic of Ireland) and not spend a penny to get there. It is mainly common sense vs what people feel is right, really.

rakpol 10y ago

Super biased, layman thoughts incoming. Re. countries vs corporations: countries in isolation make laws for themselves (consumer protection, long-term economic protection, etc.), whereas corporations must abide by the laws of their host countries (hence tax evasion via incorporation in accommodating countries). If two countries start to compete, there isn't really anything that stops them from annihilating one another in disturbing fashions (e.g. erecting walls, slinging propaganda, blockading, etc.) other than treaties. Get enough treaties together and you get the EU.

comex 10y ago
> If two countries start to compete, there isn't really anything that stops them from annihilating one another in disturbing fashions (e.g. erecting walls, slinging propaganda, blockading, etc.) other than treaties. Or literally annihilating each other, with bombs, for that matter. Thankfully not likely to happen anytime soon in Europe, but in general, conflicts between countries have no limit to how far they can escalate, unlike between corporations...
- nrp 10y ago
  This is critically important. The EEC and eventually EU came directly out of two incredibly destructive wars on the European continent. If corporations came to that, the leaders of whoever survived hopefully would evaluate the externalities of escalating competition and decide to take the safer route of closer economic bonds.
sounds 10y ago
I'd suggest that it is not treaties that lead to good trans-national relations. TTIP, CETA, and the WTO treaty are examples of modern controversial treaties and treaties historically have been viewed as a very negative outcome for one of the nations. What leads to good trans-national relations? Open borders. Because when the people of the two nations can visit, live, work, stay, build a house, settle down with a spouse and enjoy life in either country, the countries have a very hard time becoming hostile to one another. That then leads to a completely separate question about the loss of cultural diversity, but I will not go there. I only suggest that strong nations with open borders become friends.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

thomasahle 10y ago

> open immigration was one of the main factors here. Something the "stay in the EU" supporters didn't really seem to address beyond "if you're against the free movement of people in Europe you're a racist". Remain addressed it like this: Since the 'leave' side still want to be in the single market, they must also keep the free movement of labour, which is a prerequisite of the market.

threatofrain 10y ago

It's only stupid for companies to be conglomerated from the perspective of those outside it, but it's to the interest of every entity to hold monopolyish power and bully the small. The rest of the nation or world may feel that monopolies, cartels, and conglomerates lead to more harm than good, but I think it's locally rational for power and money to concentrate into a few decision-makers.

Hermel 10y ago
If you were correct, it would never make sense to do a spin-off or to outsource anything. Agility gets lost when a company goes large, and its internal structure changes. Your views are typical for someone who looks at companies as a black box without considering their internal structure.

wbl 10y ago

I live in California. If I want to move to NJ, I just pack my bags and go. That's freedom of movement. If I want to sell something to New Hampshire, I just do it. Why shouldn't France and Germany be the same way?

rayiner 10y ago
Okay, so you can move from California to NJ. Great. But you can't have single payer healthcare in either place because Florida and Texas don't want it. California and NJ can't have effective gun control or close their borders to guns because of Virgnia and Tennessee. Or, we go back a few years: you get DOMA in California and New York because that's what Alabama and Louisiana want. Integration is not without costs.
YZF 10y ago
We're talking about freedom of movement between countries. A state is not a country. Why shouldn't all countries be like states? We can all hum John Lennon's Imagine there's no countries but I'm not sure how that actually works. I'm sure you can at least see some difficulty there and definitely there is a strong sentiment in parts of the US against this vision. Why shouldn't Canada and the USA be the same? Why shouldn't Mexico, and Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and Brazil, and the USA, and Canada be the same? If you want to move to Montreal or Mexico City or Beijing you can't just pack your bags and go. You can still sell something to all these places, manufacture them in all these places, etc. At least generally speaking.
- jsolson 10y ago
  You might ask some people in the American South about their views on States' Rights.
dikdik 10y ago
There are many advantages to having the government closer to the people. Having a smaller sect of the world population means officials are more likely to listen to the populace. Very similar reasons why (many) people like working for small businesses and start-ups vs. multinational corporations...they know their boss and their boss's boss. When upper management makes a decision they actually have to speak with all the people it effects, which tends to make them empathize and make more employee-centric decisions.

quonn 10y ago

But competition between companies is justified precisely because employees can freely and easily move between them. It's very different from countries: As a rule, people are stuck in the country they happen to live, especially when free movement is restricted. Free trade and free movement of workers need to go together. This principle is fundamental to a fair globalisation.

YZF 10y ago
Can you just pack up and move to Google? No. They need to want to hire you. This is not completely unlike needing to meet some immigration standards to move to another country. Free immigration, in the sense of the EU, would be the equivalent of people deciding they want to work for Google and they just show up and claim a cubicle. You can visit other countries as a tourist, even for relatively extended periods... You can buy property in other countries. You can start a business in another country... What's the corporate equivalent?
- ap3 10y ago
  ...Moves into Google cubicle, pay me $150k living wage and full time benefits even though I can't code...