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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

Short term it is going to be bad for the UK. It will have to renegociate trade agreements, this will create lots of uncertainty which isn't good for the economy, and also lots of market volatility.

Long term the EU is going nowhere, it is dominated by socialist countries that will go the way of Argentina, a slow but steady decline (well under way). And the migrant crisis, which is likely only at its beginning (look at african demographic projections), combined with Brexit and the rise of populism all over Europe, will likely put such a strain on the EU that I think its days are numbered.

So on the long run, I think the UK has probably made a wise choice.

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100% wrong because of one unavoidable fact: people are ageing.

Without young immigrants and their higher birth rates there simply won't be enough tax revenue to cover future social obligations. We know what this game looks like: Japan. A country looking at a steady and certain decline in quality of life. This is what the UK is going to be like.

The EU is absolutely going to be dominant in the future. Collectively it has an economy that is more varied and flexible and the single market is invaluable. As a startup or prospective exporter being able to try things out in your local market (of 500 million people no less) is the reason the US is so successful.

> And the migrant crisis, which is likely only at its beginning (look at african demographic projections)

African demographic projections which shows Africa's population growth slowly dropping? Coupled with economic projections which shows most African economies growing at far faster rates than Europe? With some African countries, like Nigeria, likely to overtake the UK in total GDP (not per capita) over the next 20-30 years? Largely as a result of massively improved stability and fewer wars over the last decade.

Africa has plenty of challenges, but they're mostly headed the right way. And they're also slowly but steadily moving towards a far more ambitious union project than the EU, with several of the African Union pillars (regional closer unions like ECOWAS serves as "first stage" integration) hard at work at monetary unions and extensive integration.

Of course things can change - nobody expected Syria to blow up the way it did and more than we expected Yugoslavia to collapse as violently as it did.

But at the moment, countries like Nigeria are seeing graduates etc. returning in droves from the UK because the opportunities there are immense, cost of living low (though housing prices in parts of places like Lagos can rival London) and growth at levels you can't hope for in the UK.

I wish you are right. Demographic projections are showing the population doubling over the next 30 years:

http://www.geohive.com/earth/his_proj_continent.aspx

Now if it is matched by an unprecedented growth, it may turn out OK. But if I was a young african male, I would try my luck in Europe.

It's not an "if". It is being matched. I said growth is subsiding, not that their populations are not still growing. But the economic growth far outpaces the population growth most places.

> But if I was a young african male, I would try my luck in Europe.

If you were a young African male with the means of getting to Europe, there's at least half a dozen African countries where your economic prospects over the next 20-30 years would likely outstrip going to Europe unless you are in a tiny minority with skills that are in very high demand in Europe.

If I could predict the economic growth with your degree of confidence, I could make a lot of money!

Of course something totally unexpected could happen overnight (well, it did), but when you have several dozen economies most of which have been experiencing extremely rapid growth for many years now, and decades of trends towards reducing poverty across most of the continent, it is fairly reasonable to assume that the trends will continue for a while.

As it stands, they'd need to see a total catastrophic collapse of the economy of most of the African continent, with no subsequent recovery, for economic growth to not outpace population growth over the next few decades.

I think the past few years of economic growth in Africa had much to do with QE, and since QE stopped expanding, we have seen all EM economies suffer. I am not sure you can extrapolate this growth for the next 30 years.

Where do you get that idea from? Africa's growth has been going since ~2000, really taking off in 2003-2005. Nigeria's GDP grew by about 520 billion USD, or about 1000% from 2000 to 2014. In 2015 it was hurt somewhat by lower oil prices, but is still growing.

I'm sure you can't extrapolate it and assume it will stay the same for the next 30 years. But you can make reasonably educated estimates assuming that the average change in velocity will be all that extreme, given that large part of these amounts are based on income from relatively stable industries with well understood risk profiles.

Largely the development of Africa at present boils down to whether or not we see further major wars disrupt the progress. If we do, then, yes, things may go the wrong way. If not, it will take unprecedented crises to prevent Africa from continuing to see massive growth.

If the EU had been able to control its borders this would never have happened. Unfortunately it proved itself singularly incapable of dealing with even that task, having to cosy up to a dictator like Erdogan. There are too many bleeding hearts in European politics.

I'm not sure I agree. Rightly or wrongly, EU immigration, not african/middle-east migrants, was at the centre of the debate, Polish immigration in particular. I personally do not think that Polish immigration hurts the UK in any way, other than by increasing the strain on housing, and which has more to do with planning restrictions. But it is true that with close to a million Poles immigrating in less than 5 years, it is very much noticeable.

I do. Polish immigration is generally looked upon as favourable by those I speak to, people think they're hard workers and that many of them actually work in construction, building the houses we need.

I'd wager that the OP hit the nail on the head here. There are many large Pakistani communities in England in areas such as the Midlands, East London and Bradford that do not inter-marry, socialise or integrate outside their own culture, and when after two or three generations this remains unchanged the perception to the locals is that the cohesion of their communities have taken a real turn for the worse.

The EU's inability to manage middle eastern migrants in a controlled way, along with the belief that most will eventually hold EU passports and speak rudimentary English I think were major deciding factors in those communities, communities that have had demographic shifts not seen in Scotland and Northern Ireland & whose concerns are shut out and branded racist and xenophobic by both the media and the left.

What exactly does Commonwealth immigration have to do with EU membership? Do they think there will be some refugee quota saddling them with that many again amount of brown Muslim people or something?

What socialist countries, pray tell? The German chancellor is from the right. Spanish PM, same. France has an extremely unpopular socialist president who will be voted out very soon. The Italian government is nominally centre-left but has moved to the right in recent years.

Socialism in Europe died in the '90s. What we have now are right-wing neoliberal elites trashing the place that social-democrats built in the '70s and '80s.

Calling France and Italy "neo liberal" economies I think is pretty far from the reality. They are very much anti-free market, regulations heavy, high taxes, high public spending, high public deficit countries. And with the unemployment and low growth that goes along.

I can't resist sharing this French headline:

Les députés européens socialistes français estiment que la victoire annoncée du Brexit est "l'échec d'une Europe exclusivement dédiée au marché intérieur"

Translation: the French socialist members of European parliament think that the victory of Brexit is the "failure of a Europe solely dedicated to free trade".

Free trade is the only thing UKIP or the euro-sceptic tories want to keep from the EU. There is a fundamental cultural gap between the UK and Continental Europe countries.

How do African demographic projections have anything to do with UK/EU migration?

There is a narrative currently in favor with a particular (very fringe, American) blogger that Africa is experiencing a population explosion that will surge across the Mediterranean and overrun Europe. This ignores the fact that as incomes rise in Africa, population growth plummets (see South Africa as an example of this).

I assume you're referring to Stefan Molyneux. He has some very interesting ideas and presents them articulately. However he gives off quite the "cult leader" vibe and tends to deride or mock counterarguments, rather than critically engage with them.

I am merely refering to UN projections, which suggest the population doubling over the next 30 years. I wish the African economy will be able to support this population growth but I wouldn't bet on it.

http://www.geohive.com/earth/his_proj_continent.aspx

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