Brexit

[Bofferbrauer2]

only777 said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

The EU is not a continent, but an economic bloc. And like you could see, it took entire continents to rival with the EU in that regard, as neither the US or China are big enough to beat the EU in that regard.

The problem with your theory is that the house in question is held up by the different nations in the EU. Leaving would be the reason why it collapses. But if you don't do so, it stays in place. What you're advocating is herd mentality: One's leaving, so everybody must leave. It's the reason why the stock markets crash (because everybody panics and starts selling too).

While there's a risk that Le Pen would push France out of the EU, she would need to win the election first. She has a good shot for the first round, but I doubt very much that she will win the second round. And depending on how severe Brexit will end up to be, this might also scare voters away from such an Eurosceptical party like the Front National.

Speaking of the FN, funny and ironic bit: Marine le Pen moved the party away from Pétainism and more into Gaullism. De Gaulle was a staunch advocate of not letting the UK join the EU. Now the UK are leaving and another Gaullism leader is trying to become Président(e?) de la République. The EU was Robert Schumann's (then Minister of French foreign affairs) project and not a German one as you claim. At worst, it could e called a Luxembourgish project as Schumann was born in Luxembourg. It is, funny enough, also a byproduct of the Marshall plan, which ordered the European countries to work out their industrial supplies together, which led to the predecessor of the EU, the ECSC.

Okay, so let's tackle those points.

"it took entire continents to rival with the EU in that regard, as neither the US or China are big enough to beat the EU in that regard."

The EU has been in constant decline ( Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=EU ).  Sure the EU is a big economic force, it added a wealth of many rich countrys together so it was always going to start strong.  But all it's ever done is make everyone under it weaker.  This is not good economics.

" Leaving would be the reason why it collapses. But if you don't do so, it stays in place."

Lets pretend Brexit never happened, and there was never a vote to leave.  That doesn't stop Greece from bankruptcy.  That wouldn't stop the immigration crisis from hitting Germany.  that wouldn't stop Italy for giving the EU the middle finger.  that doesn't stop Spain from hitting rock bottom.  It doesn't stop the yellow vests in France.  Even if Brexit never happened, all those other things still would have, and added together are a bigger threat to the EU than Brexit.

 

Add the US to the graph and you'll see that they're performing similarly. In fact, the last 2 years, despite your claim of slowdown the EU outpaced the US. The perception of slowdown comes from the inflation in the 70s and 80s; it enabled more growth but was less stable, and the inflation ate up most of the growth anyway.

Of course most if those things would all have happened (most because the immigration crisis hit all of Europe and got resolved pretty quickly, and Spain is recovering these days. The Yellow vests protested against rising cost of living in France due to a planned rise of the fuel tax and nothing else, thus having nothing to do with the EU). But that's like saying that the next government shutdown in the US is clear sign to leave the United States ASAP. No country is without times of crisis, if you count these as reasons to leave then better not live on the planet Earth because such things happen in every single country on Earth.