Plan B Forum

Lord Jim wrote:What is it with this line of "reasoning" (that apparently both rube and wes subscribe to) that holds that if you support Brexit you must also be a Trump supporter?

The House of Lords has passed the Brexit bill, paving the way for the government to trigger Article 50 so the UK can leave the EU.

Peers backed down over the issues of EU residency rights and a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal after their objections were overturned by MPs.

The bill is expected to receive Royal Assent and become law on Tuesday.

The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said this would leave Theresa May free to push the button on withdrawal talks.

The prime minister could theoretically invoke Article 50, which formally starts the Brexit process, as early as Tuesday.

However, Downing Street sources have said this will not happen this week and the PM is expected to wait until the end of the month to officially notify the EU of the UK's intention to leave, thus beginning what is expected to be a two-year process.

"Parliament has today backed the government in its determination to get on with the job of leaving the EU," Brexit Secretary David Davis said. "We are now on the threshold of the most important negotiation for our country in a generation."

GE2017: Why Economic Facts will be Ignored Once Again

Simon Wren-Lewis:

GE2017: Why economic facts will be ignored once again: In 2015, the Conservatives spun the line that Labour profligacy had messed up the economy, and they had no choice but to clear up the mess. In short, austerity was Labour’s fault. As Labour chose not to challenge this narrative, almost all the media and half the voters assumed it must be true. The reality was the complete opposite. The rising deficit was a consequence of the global financial crisis, not Labour profligacy. Doing something about it should and could have been delayed until the recovery was underway. By acting prematurely, Osborne delayed the recovery and lost the average UK household resources worth thousands of pounds. The story that we had to cut now because of the markets was completely false. ...

The 2015 General Election was the first recent occasion that the economic facts were ignored. The second was of course the EU referendum. ...

A critical issue during the referendum was a belief that immigration had reduced the access of UK natives to public services. Economists know that is simply wrong for the economy as a whole, and if it happens locally it is because the government has pocketed the taxes immigrants pay. But the media did little to inform voters of why it is wrong, and I suspect this is why most of those voting Leave believed they would be no worse off in the long run outside the EU. ...

Brexit may not have led to the immediate economic downturn that some expected, but the Brexit depreciation has brought to a halt the short period during of rising real wages. The economic pain that economists said would follow any vote to leave is starting to happen. ...

As far as economics is concerned GE2017 is likely to be nothing more than a combination of GE2015 and the EU referendum. The economy has not got any better than in 2015, and is about to get worse, but mediamacro will let Conservatives insist that the economy is strong. ... The exchange rate has fallen and real wages have stopped rising, but we will still be told this is just Project Fear and the consensus among economists will get ignored once again. So, for the third time, we will have a vote where economics is critical but economic facts will be largely ignored. ...

As inflation rises and real wages fall the facts may be changing, but the narrative survives.

Narratives are a way people can try to understand things they know little about, and most people know little about economics or politics. Mediamacro is a set of narratives. Project fear is a narrative. The right and the ideologues are very good at selling narratives, and they have a media machine to invent them, road test them and spread them. The left and the realists have none of those things, and are hopeless at it anyway because they know reality is more complex than most narratives. That is why they have lost two elections, and look like losing a third big time.

Economists overwhelmingly reject Brexit in boost for Cameron
Poll shows 88% of 600 experts fear long-term fall in GDP if UK leaves single market, and 82% are alarmed over impact on household income
UK and EU flags
‘It is pretty remarkable to see this degree of consensus about anything,’ said Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP


Sonia Sodha, Toby Helm and Phillip Inman

Saturday 28 May 2016 15.30 EDT
Last modified on Friday 17 February 2017 07.00 EST

Nine out of 10 of the country’s top economists working across academia, the City, industry, small businesses and the public sector believe the British economy will be harmed by Brexit, according to the biggest survey of its kind ever conducted.

A poll commissioned for the Observer and carried out by Ipsos MORI, which drew responses from more than 600 economists, found 88% saying an exit from the EU and the single market would most likely damage Britain’s growth prospects over the next five years.

A striking 82% of the economists who responded thought there would probably be a negative impact on household incomes over the next five years in the event of a Leave vote, with 61% thinking unemployment would rise.

Those surveyed were members of the profession’s most respected representative bodies, the Royal Economic Society and the Society of Business Economists, and all who replied did so voluntarily.

Paul Johnson, director of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the findings, from a survey unprecedented in its scale, showed an extraordinary level of unity. “For a profession known to agree about little, it is pretty remarkable to see this degree of consensus about anything,” Johnson said. “It no doubt reflects the level of agreement among many economists about the benefits of free trade and the costs of uncertainty for economic growth.”

The poll also found a majority of respondents – 57% – held the view that a vote for Brexit on 23 June would blow a hole in economic growth, cutting GDP by more than 3% over the next five years. Just 5% thought that there would probably be a positive impact.

The economists were also overwhelmingly pessimistic about the long-term economic impact of leaving the EU and the single market. Some 72% said that a vote to leave would most likely have a negative impact on growth for 10-20 years. ... "

Similarities Between Aspergers and OCD

Aspergers and OCD share the following similarities:

Obsessive behaviors or obsessive interests
Repetitive behaviors
Self-stimulating behaviors or stimming such as hand flapping, twirling or head banging (However, some experts argue that similar behavior in OCD is not really stimming but instead a part of an OCD ritual.)
Unusual rituals
Strict routines
Focus on unusual object or activity for hours, which can seem like an obsession
Anxiety when a ritual or routine is interrupted and may make the rest of the day's activities difficult for him to participate in.
Participating in the ritual or routine helps regulate behavior to some degree.

Panicked passengers fled in terror as a knifeman was arrested at Paris' Gare du Nord station just a day before the French presidential vote.

The drama happened on a day of unrest in the French capital, during which police released tear gas after being pelted with flares and other makeshift weapons in a pre-election riot.

Footage of the station arrest shows armed police surround the man, who was restrained on the ground.

Panicked passengers abandoned their luggage as they fled, and boarding of Eurostar services was briefly suspended this afternoon. Police sources say the arrested man is a 20-year-old from Mali.

More than 100 wives and partners of police protested in Paris today against attacks on police following the assassination of an officer on the Champs Elysee.

The Angry Police Wives group marched through the city two days after Xavier Jugelé was shot twice in the head by ISIS sympathizer Karim Cheurfi.

At the end of the pro-police demonstration, marchers released black balloons signifying police killed in the line of duty and pink balloons for the families they left behind.

Is Marine Le Pen Really France’s Donald Trump?

Another nationalist is in line for the presidency. Professor Cécile Alduy examines the field.
By Isaac Chotiner
Cécile Alduy
Cécile Alduy is a professor of French studies at Stanford University

One of the more chilling aspects of the rise of Donald Trump is that he is not unique: He seems only vaguely better or worse than a number of other demagogues currently in power or running for office. Populism, xenophobia, and bigotry have exploded across Europe, but they have taken special prominence in France, which is scheduled to hold a presidential election in April to replace the unpopular Socialist administration of François Hollande. (Because no candidate is likely to approach 50 percent, there will probably be a runoff two weeks later.)

The reason the contest feels so momentous is that Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the right-wing National Front, is likely to be one of the two finalists. Le Pen is not only an admirer of Trump, and simpatico with right-wing populist movements worldwide, but she also wants to see France leave the European Union and take a much tougher line on Muslims and immigrants. (Her father, Jean-Marie, founded the party back in 1972 and ran repeatedly for president before being expelled from the party in 2015.) Le Pen’s opponent in the runoff was likely to have been the right-wing former prime minister François Fillon, who also takes a much tougher line on foreigners (as long as they aren’t named Vladimir Putin). But a financial scandal has now opened up space for Emmanuel Macron, a former minister in Hollande’s government who left to form his own party. The Socialists, meanwhile, nominated Benoît Hamon, who has criticized Hollande from the left. ..."