If I Were President, On The Day After Vote for Brexit...
I would propose a free-trade agreement with the UK. No loss of sovereignty, no stupid EU regulations and bureaucrats, no restrictions on what can be called "sausage" -- just trade. I would offer a similar deal to anyone else who wanted to leave.
Actually, when Obama visited, I would have been tempted to offer it to Britain at that time. Why was the US President so hell-bent on encouraging closer ties between Britain and Germany when he should have been working to improve the relationship between the UK and the US.
I will admit that I am not thrilled with the anti-immigration tone of the Brexit vote, but the EU is a package deal, and there is a lot of bad with the good in the package. Here is a good list of reasons to vote for Brexit (hat tip maggies farm)
Bram:
Unlike Obama, you don't hate the British because they made his Dad feel bad about himself.
June 17, 2016, 10:47 amirandom419:
What is fascinating, is that the EU doesn't actually help with trade. In fact it is the opposite because everyone in the EU has a law to protect their niche.
https://vimeo.com/166378572
June 17, 2016, 10:55 amjim jones:
Immigrants to the UK are not chosen to make the country better, they are chosen to increase the power of the Left
June 17, 2016, 11:41 amMercury:
"I will admit that I am not thrilled with the anti-immigration tone of the Brexit vote,..."
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Yeah, the UK isn't as bad as new-rape-capital-of-the-Occident Sweden in that regard -not yet- but there is still hope. They do have a new mayor in London so, fingers crossed....
Imagine, citizens deciding who and who can not work, live and naturalize into their own country! Pah!
June 17, 2016, 1:15 pmKurt Droffe:
Being a German I hope that Britain remains in the EU; just because of its broad sceptical attitude it is one of the few counterweights to the menace of an ever closer union and to the political idas of the mostly leftish southern countries, let alone to the idiocies of my own government. But if I were a Briton I would vote for the Brexit.
June 17, 2016, 1:48 pmThere is a glimmer of hope: If Britain leaves it will be (hopefully) a shock to the EU-lovers that there really is an exit option. On the other hand it could be the reverse, that they think "good riddance"..
The EU is a great idea as a free trade zone; unfortunately it has become something very different (think of the mandatory repulsive pictures on cigarette packets for example), meddlesome and completely oblivious to the principle of subsidiarity (is that the right term in English?)
Onlooker from Troy:
"Why was the US President so hell-bent on encouraging closer ties between
Britain and Germany when he should have been working to improve the
relationship between the UK and the US."
You damned well know the answer to that. He's on Team Big State. Period.
June 17, 2016, 3:50 pmherdgadfly:
Hussein Onyango Obama - President Barack Obama's paternal grandfather, was arrested in 1949 and jailed for two years in a high-security prison by the Brits for participating in a Kenyan movement to overthrow the British colonial authorities. We saw how this act translated into Obama hate when he returned a Winston Churchill bust that was given to George W. Bush by the British Ambassador in 2001.
Sometimes a little background explains why narcissism is insurmountable.
June 17, 2016, 4:33 pmJohn Moore:
Of course you are not thrilled by the anti-immigration tone, since you are ideologically constrained to view unrestricted immigration as a natural right, even if it leads to the destruction of the very society which is the most free.
Obama won't offer a free trade agreement - Brexit is a punch in the eye of all progressives. After all, the EU is just what they believe works best: huge bureaucracies unanswerable to voters, run by "experts" who magically will make all the decisions for everyone and life will be great.
Brexit is right for Britain, as is reigning in the immigration that is crushing the blue collar class and increasing crime.
June 17, 2016, 8:42 pmJohn Moore:
Very well said! Had it remained a free trade zone, it would be great. Instead, it is a monument to the rise of bureaucratic control of the economy and everyone in it.
June 17, 2016, 8:43 pmkidmugsy:
"Hussein Onyango Obama - President Barack Obama's paternal grandfather, was arrested in 1949 and jailed for two years in a high-security prison by the Brits for participating in a Kenyan movement to overthrow the British colonial authorities." Are you sure? I understood that O's whinging about the treatment of his family had been revealed to be false, or at best as the sort of inaccurate and exaggerated family history that many children are told.
Whatever; no doubt a great deal about O will remain a mystery for many years.
June 18, 2016, 4:41 amMaddog:
Hi Warren,
I like the post, but I think I would go one step further. From my blog maddogslair.com
http://www.maddogslair.com/blog/coyote-makes-a-good-start
COYOTE MAKES A GOOD START . . .
. . . but a better start would be to simple, and permanently eliminate all tariffs on any imports to the US.
When we buy from another country US tariffs on foreign products imported to the US only hurt US citizens. Since that is a very bad idea, we should eliminate them. If other countries wish to hurt their citizens by imposing tariffs on other countries goods so be it, but I would suggest they not, unless they enjoy a lower living standard.
are forced to take action. They now have US dollars which are effectively worthless to them as paper unless they hoard them for later use, spend them in the US to purchase US goods or services, assets, or investments, or transfer them to others who will be faced with the same necessities. The dollars all must come home, or become valueless, there is no alternative.
I would offer the Brits, today, free importation of goods to the US, I would suggest to them to follow suit.
Perhaps I am crazy but I think the US should do everything it can to allow its citizens to create as much wealth as they possibly can, and tariffs only diminish US wealth. After all would you impose a tariff on your local grocery store for carrying a trade imbalance with you? Why not? This is of course absurd, since no one would demand higher prices from their grocery store because they buy more from the grocery than the grocery sells to them. Well, except for politicians who are too stupid to understand what it is they do? Or they do, but like the graft, and corruption!
http://cafehayek.com/2016/06/40972.html
David Glasner on the Absurdity of Worrying About Trade Deficits - Cafe Hayek
Please keep up the good work.
Mark Sherman
June 18, 2016, 12:49 pmQ46:
'Anti-immigration tone'.
The USA is a very large country with around 320 million of population. Immigrants coming to the US come at a relatively slow rate and low number, and disperse throughout the population.
Imagine if 5 million arrived and settled on Long Island over the course of a year: do you think there would be a 'tone' coming from New York?
In the UK, deliberate policy (we know so from documents leaked) of the Labour Government from 1997 to its demise, was to flood the Country with immigrants particularly from poor non-European Countries to force social change by multiculturalism down the 'Right's' throat and to provide an electoral advantage for Labour as poor immigrants tend to vote Labour.
Unlike the USA, immigrants do not disperse but congregate in certain areas, the poorest, also already focus for previous immigrants from their region. The UK, unlike the US, has far more developed social services... not just education, but healthcare and housing.
Local authorities try to plan ahead to meet anticipated demand for, for example, future school places, housing allocation, healthcare services and to budget for them. Sudden influx of hundreds, thousands over short time scales into their areas leave them with a shortage of school places, houses and overstretched healthcare and other social services.
All this has an effect on the people, some previous immigrants, already there. Poor people on waiting lists for years for social housing see newly arrived immigrants given priority. People in social housing waiting for repairs or renovation see these things which they cannot get, being done to houses for new immigrants. Local authorities also rent accommodation for immigrants on the private market which not only reduces rentals available but pushes rent prices up.
People cannot get their kids into the local school because the places are taken by newly arrived immigrant children so their kids have to travel long distances. The NHS, already a disaster zone that only socialised healthcare can deliver, cannot cope, so waiting periods for appointments to see a doctor, have tests done, get treatment increases.
On top of that, residents find the character of their home area changing, becoming alien. They cannot sell because nobody wants to buy, and many are not home owners anyway, live in social housing and are just stuck.
During the last 15 years as this mass inward movement has accelerated, anyone speaking out in concern or complaining has been branded 'racist': laws passed making causing 'offence' - such as complaining about immigrants - a crime. 'Offence' is subjective and the crime has taken place even if only one person says they were offended. It was a deliberate attempt to prevent any public debate on immigration and all the main political Parties are so aligned.
Generally people are not against immigration, just the speed and number, and want to see immigration better managed, which Government has promised but conspicuously failed to do.
In view of this what 'tone' do consider appropriate?
June 19, 2016, 5:42 amOnlooker from Troy:
Yes, indeed. I think that supporting free immigration while ignoring the huge distorting effect that govt has on it is fallacious. And it just plays into the hands of the govt.
June 19, 2016, 8:27 amDaveK:
My guess is that if Brexit prevails, Obama will do something to punish Britain, rather than something to help them move forward.
June 19, 2016, 9:15 ammesaeconoguy:
Dan Mitchell’s take –
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/the-economic-case-for-brexit/
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June 19, 2016, 6:39 pmmorganovich:
i think hannan really nails it on point 2 and demonstrates how disingenuous much of the EU position is.
they try to argue that the EU can cut a better trade deal than the UK. this is pretty much never true. sure, it's a bigger market and a bigger player, but it also has 28 stakeholders, each focused on their own crony capitalist needs and each with a veto. the process of negatiating with the EU is farcically hard. you finally get a deal with canada, and romania blows it up over visas. it's full of ridiculous nonsense like barriers to tomato imports for the italians, wine imports for the french, and a dog's breakfast of similar things.
so sure, the world want to do deals with the EU, but the EU does not want to do deals with the world that are anything like free trade.
why should the UK not have a deal with india because of Italian protectionism?
that's lunacy. to claim the UK is better off because the EU negotiates for it is laughably wrong. they are mostly getting NO deals and such deals as they do get are loaded up with the crony demands of others.
June 20, 2016, 6:52 amSeekingfactsforsanity:
Natural rights do not exist in a natural environment because governments are out of control and completely distorting what ever natural right could have existed. To even suggest there is some higher moral ground with this level of government incompetence is laughable!
June 20, 2016, 2:58 pmano333:
"Why was the US President so hell-bent on encouraging closer ties between Britain and Germany when he should have been working to improve the relationship between the UK and the US."
Obviously, the President had determined that good ties between the UK and Germany were in our interests. You seem to think that strong UK-German ties precludes good UK-US ties...
June 21, 2016, 5:52 ammarkm:
You are underestimating the value of not having to go through a customs inspection at every border crossing. But that only needs a customs union or fair trade agreement, not the EU bureaucracy and laws.
June 25, 2016, 6:57 am