Will London Fall?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I don't like the idea of these Super National organizations that politically and economically integrate people so tightly.
Really it's more about having our global society so tightly integrated and efficient. It means power (economic and political) goes to a select few people who get better and better at holding on to it.
These crazy large banks that are so freaking tightly integrated are the worse example. A crisis at one bank triggers a global meltdown. We don't want a global meltdown so we bail out the banks, making them bigger and more powerful, exacerbating the problem.
The more tightly controlled everything is makes our system so fragile.
If the UK is more separated economically from Europe, if one or the other has an economic crisis the separation will lead to less drastic economic crisis.
Ups: moving in a cohesive direction. Like CO2 emission reduction
I think there's a balance between independence and integration needed at all levels (global/"continental"/national/regional/municipal) that has to be found
Brexit will do absolutely nothing to rein in the banks. The US has no interest in taming Wall St, and at this point - although it's a very long shot - only an organisation the size of the EU has the leverage to steer banking in a less serving direction.
From an economic perspective, we live in a world of supra-national companies. To have leverage when negotiating with the likes of Amazon or Google the UK needs to work with other countries to avoid a race to the bottom on working conditions, taxes and so on.
Its the same for trade. When we're not tied by EU legislation, the UK may keep going economically, by building a low tax imitation of the US with shorter holidays, poorer healthcare, welfare etc. But I think the world is a better place for having the EU as standard bearer for a fairer kinder society. Not perfect for sure, wasteful definitely (as is all government). But also holding hope that as human beings we're able to identify with a bigger picture than the tribal nationalisms we grew up with.
I particularly dislike the arrogance of the uniquely British 'reassurances' given to skilled non-UK citizens with regards to this anti-immigrant rhetoric, which goes something like "Oh when we talk about throwing out the filthy immigrants, we don't mean YOU - so long as we find you useful". I mean, geez, thanks I guess it's just friends and family who'll get forcibly deported then, nothing to worry about.
In general there appears to be a (possibly wilful) lack of appreciation among the Brexit crowd that when you say horrible things about the Europeans and immigrants, those people can actually hear you. I'm not sure how they expect to build an 'open trading nation' while becoming known as the country that calls foreigners scum.
Obviously, as with anything in reality, it's a bit of both. But polls both before and after the referendum consistently showed that immigration was not the primary concern motivating Leave voters, support for immigration in general is still very high across the board (well into the 80s IIRC, and ISTR the most recent poll I saw showed only about a 1% gap in support for it between Leave and Remain voters), and support for all existing EU residents being able to stay after Brexit is near-as-dammit universal. The only reason that hasn't been officially confirmed already is that the EU refused to reciprocate for UK citizens living in the rEU until the Article 50 notification had happened.
I understand that a lot of people are anxious, and I hope things get cleared up soon to remove that anxiety, but the people continually screaming that Brexiteers hate immigrants and want to throw them out, against all evidence to the contrary, are not really helping matters.
No wait, actually those 3 countries are in the top 5 countries to live in the world. Why do people wish for apocalypses?
To validate ideology.
I can easily interpret your characterization of me with the phrase "wishing for the apocalypse" as you overstating the relative importance of your loss vs mine.
- Statement by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member James Warburg to The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17th, 1950
[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/James_Warburg_before_the_Subc...
To put it bluntly, (consolidated government === consolidated control). We will see the media 'attack' the brexit decision in every possible way. TPTB (the ones with the money who own most media) do not want sovereign states.
Oh you mean like the Daily Mail and all the other tabloids that pushed for Brexit so they could get "their country" (read, their lobbying power) back?
That'd be what was referred to as a 'soft Brexit'. However, the UK, with its immigration fixation, is now basically committed to a hard Brexit. They won't be in the EEA and they won't have access to the common market. Totally different situation to the countries you named.
At the hight of the oil boom a local shipyard was 1/3 Poles, brought in by the busload. Some of them didn't have the first clue about English, never mind Norwegian.
For all the "champagne left's" kumbaya about EU being about European peace and solidarity, most of the working class see it as a way for the economic "elite" to defang unions and force down wages.
Canada does it, the US does it. No EU needed for that.
The alternative is to have production stalled or unaffordable because you don't have enough people to do the grunt work.
The industry jobs are more likely to be offshored without free movement of people, because import taxes are cheaper than manufacturing in high-wage countries. That's why free movement of goods and people go together.
Most of the working class right doesn't understand that Brexit will not be allowed to have any direct effect at all on immigration, because the EU is not the direct cause of wage gouging.
If corporations can't get cheap labour from Europe they'll get it from other countries - just as they did before the UK joined the EU.
And their toadies in government will continue to be noisily in favour of protecting the working man from the influx of nasty foreigners in public, while working hard to keep the cheap labour coming in private - just as they've been doing for at least a century and a half.
> tired of seeing industry jobs being "offshored"
This is really a complex one to solve. What are the solutions? If you impose the tariffs the poorest one will suffer the most - they spend the highest percentage of the income on "stuff". Less competition, higher prices. Trading will slow which will have further implications for the growth. Historically, countries that were trying to isolate themselves failed (19th century China, Brazil 50 years ago)
In the UK, one shocking source of work insecurity is the zero-hours contract (basically, you have no guaranteed income but have to be available whenever your employer feels like it). The EU has nothing to do with that, in fact most EU countries have banned the practise [1] but the British government refuse to do anything it in the name of 'labour flexibility'.
These same people are now claiming that leaving the EU, which offers important protections to workers rights through the treaties and the European Court of Human Rights, will magically solve problems they created and sustain themselves.
[1] https://fullfact.org/law/zero-hours-contracts-uk-europe/
The people against Brexit were all major political parties that ruled for 50+ years, all mainstream press, all businesses, the financial sector.
The deep establishment, in other words, that is, precisely those who have done the most to undermine workers rights.
>but the British government refuse to do anything it in the name of 'labour flexibility'.
Yes, but the British government was all for bremain. So who are those people you were referring to?
It seems to me there's an inflection point in these national economies when the citizens' wages can no longer pay for goods and services produced locally.
I'm all for free trade between countries but I think nations need to really discourage imports of goods and services that can be provided internally solely for maximizing profits.
They would be allowed to import the components for the iPhone from foreign manufactures but the design and assembly would be restricted to the U.S. They wouldn't be allowed to setup shell corporations abroad to handle component manufacturing or distribution. Distribution would need to be handled solely by companies within the importing nation.
Basically free and open trade but with clear national boundaries... Put restrictions on the rent seeking.
The sentient element of the population is agitating hard to stop Brexit and/or making plans to leave.
None of these countries is in the "European Market" in the way EU member states are.
And Britain will be as much a part of the free market as those countries are, if not more.
London is currently one of the top few cities in the World in terms of wealth, culture, diversity and other measures. If it 'falls', it will probably still outrank the vast majority of the World's cities still, but lose its status as one of the jewels in the crown.
And if there are fewer property speculators and the housing market cools off a bit, bloody good thing too.
The anti-EU sentiment is coming from the people with family, a mortgage around their neck, and watching their former workplace rot away, stripped of all machinery, because the bosses in the glass tower decided that it was more beneficial for the bottom line to sack the lot and contract with a foreign company.
I don't believe you even care about credibility outside of your ideological bubble.
But, in case I am wrong, I'd recommend to avoid clichés that only have meaning for you. It is sloppy and lazy. This acronym is like crying out loud: "I'll just blurt out a standard canned answer devoid of any deep thinking or originality".
Switzerland, Norway and Iceland all have very unique characteristics that make them rather independent. The UK on the other hand - and London particularly so - is very connected to the single market.
Having recently moved back after 10 years, the country seems massively behind the times in most ways. Everything is slower and less efficient than in Europe; more bureaucratic, worse technology & infrastructure. Half the service at twice the price and takes three weeks to do anything. I don't feel farming subsidies are going to cut it going forward.
Takes three weeks to do anything? BT are crap, granted, but Amazon Prime takes care of many things I need the next day, and apart from getting a mortgage banking is pretty swift these days. Healthcare? I call the doctor and get a triage callback the same day, and often an appointment the same day, with nothing paid. I remember telling colleagues in the Netherlands that we paid nothing, which punctured their idea of superiority a little given their compulsory health insurance charges, plus extra per visit costs.
You're not the only one that's lived abroad.
The Netherlands is one such country: not perfect but vastly better - definitely including the health service. You certainly don't pay nothing for the NHS.
Why is London the only prosperous city in England? Does that seem right? Germany has many prosperous cities.
And what is it that makes London a world capital so much more than Paris or Frankfurt? Perhaps it is due to something uniquely British? If so, perhaps that's worth preserving.
As someone living for years in one of these "global cities," they are all hype. They are modern feudal estates. Look at the mentality of so many of these expats who come into London... For example, the French. Do they treasure British traditions? Doubtful. They want to make their money and resume and go back home as soon as it's feasible. They want to stick to their own enclaves in London. Does anyone else find this odd and unappealing from both sides?
How did London become a global capital? Mostly money laundering for the world. They call it finance, but it's really just banking (not a lot of PE or hedge funds), which is really just money laundering when you talk about the top end of that industry. Screw banking and finance, every city they dominate ends up sucking. Leave and we can build a city based on something real.
I just saw this in Sydney too. Everyone openly says, the (white) Aussies have sold their property and bailed out to regional towns or what not.
It seems abnormal because what all the immigrants were chasing was the place, culture and system those people built.
The EU is totally undemocratic with 7 unelected presidents imposing layers of bureaucracy and regulation on everyone within the eurozone. It has failed to reform and modernize, a key reason why the UK elected to leave in the referendum.
Meanwhile Wall Street is locked in combat with the City of London, hence the 'poor old London the loser/ has been tone' of this article. 'Will London Fall?' etc
The reality is that the City of London is an entirely separate sovereign state within England, and is also one of the largest offshore tax havens on the planet. (This also urgently needs reform). https://www.ft.com/content/7c8f24fa-3aa5-11e4-bd08-00144feab...
As such it is highly unlikely that anything will change around London's global dominance financially..
I am all for integration of the peoples of europe, but on their own terms and wellbeing, not as chattels of a large globalist financial entity. Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland have all been badly damaged by the EU. We need a more equitable system that is about the people and not profits...
1. Londoners are said to be more open-minded, but there's been plenty of narrow-minded sneering about Brexit supporters from Remainers
2. There is a deliberately false picture being portrayed that no immigration will be permitted after Brexit. On the contrary - it's just that the UK will be able to exercise sovereignty over its borders once again. Nothing about that means the drawbridge is being pulled up
3. No one makes the same criticisms about isolation etc. from other places that don't offer hundreds of millions of people the automatic right to move to. Canada? Australia? You never hear the same bleating about these countries skilled migrant programmes!!
4. No one could have predicted what London would have looked like in future even if we had stayed in the EU - let's not forget the EU has a good long list of serious challenges on its plate
5. 'You can't live in an island and call it your oasis' said Shirley Watkins, 83 - might just as well say the same about the detachment of Londoners from the rest of the UK!
6. Criticism of tabloid press over Brexit - let's not forget the almost unanimous media, political, business and academic consensus that supported remain, and the apocalyptic FUD saying things like the day after a leave vote an immediate recession would start, etc. etc. In that context criticism of one side hints at bias
7. '..London is struggling so much now.'. Oh please.. Not from where I'm standing. So the borders with the EU become a little firmer. As if there won't still be millions of people interested in making the UK their home. Who's to say we won't have a more interesting and diverse London with more migrants from outside the EU?
Remove that possibility, then people will consider other places as well.
This may be the only reason it has retained the role, but it had the role for a couple centuries before the EU, largely due to its historical position in the Empire and inertia. I don't think the essential connection of the role to the EU is universally accepted. Though we'll certainly see if it's true...
The essential connection of the role to the EU may not be universally accepted, but it's also not universally accepted that the world is round or that humans visited the Moon. The EU countries are more prosperous economically for the same reason the US has been prosperous for a long time: having tons of different currencies and massive transaction overhead (customs, duties, different regulations to follow, etc.) every time you cross a border is bad for economies. North Korea is a good example of how a country does economically without significant trade.
Yes, London is at an inflection point. Then again, so is the EU, traditional commercial banking and global finance in general. Brexit pales in comparison to these things.
- An Indian-British writer (Nikesh Shukla) who has compiled a set of essays about nonwhite Britons. (In case it isn't obvious, most (all?) European countries are mostly white and the countries that are mostly nonwhite are not in Europe).
- Russian house-buyers.
- A Canadian who wrote a book about London.
- London's Pakistani-British mayor.
- A Brazilian hairdresser.
- A Japanese sculptor.
- Jewish refugees from European persecution a hundred years before Britain joined the EU.
- An Indian food entrepeneur.
- Somali immigrants at the doctor's surgery.
- The Bangladeshi-born mayor of Tower Hamlets.
- Bangladeshi muslims at Brick Lane Mosque.
Excellent people, no doubt, and worthy contributors to the life of the capital (even the Russian oligarchs). The point is that they don't seem to owe their position to EU membership.
It's interesting, the opening lines of the article say 'after the "Brexit" referendum, its future as an international crossroads is far from certain'. But the sources make it seem like London's multiculturalism doesn't owe that much to the EU in the first place.
Not an excellent person.
"An east London mayor has been removed from office and a poll declared void after he was found guilty of electoral fraud."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648
Current mayor is John Biggs.
I think it's great that NYT is experimenting new ways to capitalize on this medium and not merely just publishing their print stories on the web.
...but it's probably best for them to learn from this experiment and not repeat it.
Nicely designed site/story. But to put it simply: no.
There's simply no reason that London will "fall". Yes the immigration with the EU will cause problems, and yes they will lose a lot of financial industry business but London will continue to exist, and prosper. People will still immigrate to the UK, and people will still live in London. The strength of the city lies not solely as it relates to the EU, but because it is the capitol, and largest city of a long and storied nation that is largely prosperous and innovative.
I really wish we'd stop this whole Brexit == UK falls into the sea forever nonsense. Economic problems? Maybe. But prosperous people are innovative and responsive to change. Immigration is not the sole contributor to economic growth or innovation. If it was, than China, Japan, and many other countries would still be subsistence farming.
It doesn't say it'll fall into the sea. It wonders how such a city might change, most likely in directions opposed to its current identity.
It's the hope that is feared to fall, not the bricks and stones.
No. Because headlines have been written to be "clickbait" for long before there were clicks.
Not catastrophic by any means, but if someone is living in London because they consider it to be the center of the world, then it's a big deal.
Even so, you don't need to be the center of the world.
I totally agree that the title is clickbaity, but the sentiment expressed in the article is legitimate.
Not quite true. London is the capital of England, not the capitol. A capitol is a building, not a city.
Anyway, typos aside, you're still wrong. The reason London is as successful as it is is because it's a financial hub, which it got to be by being part of the EU. There really isn't much else going on there; England is not a huge industrial producer any more like it was decades ago. Banks are going to pull out and move to other EU nations, and the local economy is going to implode.
>and yes they will lose a lot of financial industry business but London will continue to exist, and prosper.
Doing what, exactly? That financial industry business you handwave away is what makes the city successful in the first place.
>Immigration is not the sole contributor to economic growth or innovation.
It's not just immigration which makes London successful, it's its membership in the EU and access to the common market. That all goes away with Brexit. England will be about as relevant and economically prosperous as Russia. Well, strike that; Russia actually has natural resources, while England has none. So it'll probably be more like Egypt.
As the focal point for economic activity of the planet moved from Europe to North America and eventually will move to China.
Brexit has got nothing to do with it; there are much larger forces at play.
"She pays $750 a month for a room on the edge of the city with seven roommates".
Financialisation of housing is killing the UK. Work has no real meaning because value created is unrelated to fiat money appropriated. The divide between have and have not is massive. Immigration is being used to prop up demand for housing as nobody can pay for a small apartment any more so people live 8 to a small house.
The UK has brought the world much pain, sadly there is no omnipresent compensation, like Karma, that make things right again.
The only fear I have is that people will now flock to Berlin and gentrify the hell out of it. Shame.
Maybe this isn't a productive comment but the format ruined the article for me.
These days I read practically all of my articles using Reader Mode. No ads, no scrolljacking, no popup videos.
It's actually surprisingly readable in the source code, which is what I was about to do before I read your comment.
"Please. Please. Just let me read."
It is basically about emulating printed documents online.
Before HTML5, this was mostly done using full size Flash sites.
I guess a really big screen and a beefy non-laptop CPU helps.
Maybe they should start making laptop versions of these "interactive stories".
That's quite literally the summary, if you normalize for all the musings and feel-good details.
I bought a house just before the election, but I'm finding it extremely hard to justify investing much in it because I can't really see a future for me in this country, if it continues to trend.
It's not about plummeting stock markets or failing banking systems. It's about living with the uncertainty as to whether I'll still be welcome as a non-citizen. The moment the UK state starts to vary treatment on important things like entitlements or tax rates, I'm out of here - I'm not like some cow to be milked for the benefit of the natives.
I reckon I'm 6 to 18 months away from leaving for someplace else.
Quite a lot about how it feels different, about how London is a multicultural hub, about how migrants are thinking about leaving, about how London will change.
It's a mood piece, but a fairly accurate one from my point of view (lived in London for 20 yrs)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavs:_The_Demonization_of_the...
What exactly do you mean by that if you don't mind me asking?