General Motors Might Stage Its Own Brexit, Says Report

Thank you! Ya know, I wonder if any of the pro EU here have any real insight into the past year's issues with Italy, Greece and Spain. Is it really that hard to see the underlying issues with this whole EU experiment? Does anybody here really, truly believe the Germans and Italians and Greeks all are working at the same goals? Are the EU PIGS really on the same page as the Germans and French (well, lets not include the French)? Can the EU really support the debt from these others? Does anybody here really wanna bet their savings on this? I say great job, UK! Keep your cars and your jobs and your freedom.

@TrailerTrash ++ungood, Lorenzo. But spot on.

Lorenzo your opinions would be less linty if informed by facts. The EU is an economic system, not, as you opine, "a sinking ship" [attempting] "to homogenize the various cultures". As for Germany and France, yes the UK is a significant trading partner, but Europe would be worse off losing the entire EU than just losing the UK, and that's where they're negotiating from, with all that implies. Thanks. As you were.

@cornellier If it's just an economic system, why do they need the Euro currency, and a central bank limiting the operations of national banks of the member states, and a flag (a ripoff of Betsy Ross), and a parliament (with no powers to enact or even propose legislation - that's done by unelected committees and commissions), and a laundry list of clauses in the Maastrict and Lisbon treaties dictating immigration, naturalization, and other normally sovereign powers of independent countries? Germany's trade with the UK is 40% of their total export trade, and that's a fact you can look up, and any deal that endangers that trade endangers the entire German economy. The "Club Med" countries are deeply in debt to the northern European countries and have had extreme austerity imposed on them by Brussels bureaucrats - have you forgotten about what happened to Greece? The "haircut" included bank depositors losing some of their savings! The whole continent is restive under the bureaucratic thumb, and something's got to give. The UK has gone it alone before, when the Habsburgs' Charles V tried to unite Europe, When Philip II tried it, when Napoleon tried it, and when Hitler tried it. The UK was smart to keep the pound, and is smart to be getting out now, before the stucco hits the fan.

@Lorenzo Bravo. Glad GB now has at least a fighting chance of removing itself as a terminus of the IAC*. *Islamic Alimentary Canal

@Lorenzo "why do they need the Euro currency, and a central bank limiting the operations of national banks of the member states" Because they want to compete with the US dollar and to have a reserve currency just as the US does. It's hilarious that American conservatives can't figure out that those in the EU who favor greater centralization want the EU to be more like the United States. Aren't Americans supposed to like the United States? And the UK maintains its own currency and central bank. It hasn't been a member of the Eurozone.

@Pch101 Yes, that's my point: the European elite is trying to build a European United States, whether the nations of Europe want it or not. It's far beyond the original Common Market concept, what the UK originally joined, and they've chosen to break free of the process of yielding powers to a central government. If the Euro-elite had floated a federal republic like ours, or even a loose federation like we had originally, it might not have been accepted, but at least it would have been an honest, above-board move. Attempting to create a nation via an unelected regulatory bureaucracy interpreting the small print in a couple treaties is underhanded and un-democratic.

@Lorenzo I'm always curious where a statement like "Germany’s trade with the UK is 40% of their total export trade, and that’s a fact you can look up" comes from. Not just because it's factually wrong - Germany's total exports last year were about €1.2 trillion, of which the UK accounted for €89 billion, or about 7.5% (see for yourself at https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/NationalEconomyEnvironment/ForeignTrade/ TradingPartners/Tables/OrderRankGermanyTradingPartners.pdf?__blob=publicationFile - I had to break up the URL to un-screw the comment formatting, so you need to reassemble it after "ForeignTrade/") - but because it's stated with such absolute certainty. Like, is there some alternate internet where you can actually look things up and get "facts" to support statements like this? BTW, as a share of GDP, Britain’s exports to the EU represent 13%, while the EU’s exports to Britain represent 3%. And this is all before Scotxit and Northern Irelexit, of course, which stand to both shrink the UK and increase the portion of England's GDP that requires trade with the EU.

@Astigmatism You're looking at goods alone, not services, especially financial services. I was in error mentioning exports alone, I meant total trade, and even that term needs to be nailed down. I got the 40% from the (UK) Telegraph online, and I can't recall the author of the Brexit article that made that claim. As with all statistics, it's how the authors slice and dice the numbers, and how you google the right terms to track it down. The overall point is that the economic interaction between Germany and UK is of major importance to Germany, maybe much less important to the UK. A lot of the activity is financial, and London, "The City", isn't going to feel the break as much. London is the EU's financial window to the world, while also being the Anglosphere's window into Europe, and that won't change overnight, if at all. In any event, the EU is run by Commissions, and the commissioners are largely from Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and they in turn work hand in hand with German ministers. Germany is the 800 lb. gorilla of the EU, the only state with a near veto - they just trot out judges who claim an act Germany doesn't like violates the German constitution, which apparently trumps all treaties, and Germany gets what it wants. I jokingly claimed in another thread that the EU experiment could be seen as another attempt by Germany to conquer Europe, but without the death and destruction like last time. The Germans will probably accept the loss of the UK, as long as they get a working financial agreement they can live with.

@Astigmatism "London is the EU’s financial window to the world, while also being the Anglosphere’s window into Europe, and that won’t change overnight, if at all." Of course it will. Any European regulation that requires a "European" entity in order to be compliant now excludes UK-based entities. How would London be the EU's financial window to the world if it's not in the EU? To see how my industry (financial services) is reacting to this, see https://next.ft.com/content/080f6a48-3fa0-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a or https://www.ashurst.com/doc.aspx?id_Content=12909 or a dozen other similar links. Basically everyone is making plans to bail out of London and figure out what other city in the EU will be the next financial center.

@Pch101 If this was 1789, then I suppose that you would have been an anti-federalist who was claiming that Washington, Hamilton and Madison hated democracy. Again, you guys miss that those who favor EU centralization want to be more like the United States, i.e. the country that you think is the best country on earth. The inconsistency simply makes no sense -- either you like the United States and believe that the concept works, or else you don't.

@Pch101 Wanting to be like the US and understanding why the US worked are two different things. Saying that EU capitulation is like the US revolution is like saying that Mark David Chapman was like John Lennon, except for the comparison of the EU to the US being more delusional.

@Pch101 Aside from a bunch of empty cliches, what exactly do you have to offer?

@Astigmatism What matters isn't what percentage of the UK and the EU's trade is with each other. What matters is the balance of trade. Is the UK a net importer? If so, it will impact their trading partners more.

@Pch101 Other than propaganda and fantasies borrowed from Mother Jones, what do you have to offer? Do you really think that our founding fathers would have farmed out their leadership to a bunch of 2nd rate bureaucrats? What's your motivation? Nobody is as stupid as you portray yourself here. You'd have starved years ago, simply from putting all your food in the wrong orifice out of confusion. Why aren't you at least smart enough to see why your latest line of BS is insufficient to fool anyone?

@Pch101 So the answer to my question is that you have even more empty cliches to offer in addition to the earlier ones. Gee, that's helpful.

@Pch101 Couldn't you have looked up what cliche means before you made it your mantra?

@Pch101 The summary of your position is you no likey the EU 'cuz Europe. You know even less about Europe than you do about the US, so your "insights" aren't particularly interesting.

@Astigmatism Seriously, Todd? So, in other words, if trade between the US and the Bahamas (where, currently, the US represents 80% of total imports and 66% of total exports) were disrupted, you think the US would be more severely impacted than the Bahamas, simply because the US is a net exporter to the Bahamas? I mean, really, this is your argument?