Comment by visarga | Hacker News Reader

Comment by visarga | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Romania is beholden to a post-communist party since 1989 using the same tactic - promise pension raises. Old people mostly vote with them, sacrificing the future of the country. They make a mess, then step down for a term to let the opposition fix it, then come back with more promises. And the old people love them because "What has the opposition ever done for us?" and "They are all corrupt, anyway, no matter the party".

But now even the leader of this party has a huge corruption case against him, so he tries to change the laws to save his ass, by making corruption legal. In the last 12 months he changed 3 prime ministers (all from his party, absurd as it seems) because even they were afraid to do the illegalities he demands. He's a joke and we can't get rid of him. Why can't he directly take the PM seat? Because he has already been condemned for corruption in a past case, so he's barred. He can still lead by proxy, though.

Sometimes I think old people shouldn't be allowed to vote because they got little time left and don't care much for the rest of us (the future they won't get to see), so they'll gladly sell our futures for a modicum raise in their pensions. If you vote, you should be held to the reality of what you voted on. It's unfair to vote and die soon (same thing happened in UK where old people voted out and young people are left with the consequences).

And if you introduce a voting threshold of 80 because "they're going to die soon anyway", thus ensuring their lifetime of experience is ignored, what stops you deciding that it's now all the fault of 75 year olds? Where does it end?

Your example of the UK gives away the problem. Lots of young people voted in, because they naively believed the predictions of catastrophe and doom that were being announced at max volume by the academic and governmental elites. Older people who perhaps remembered their long history of failed economic forecasting were less worried. Who was right? The older people were - the forecasts that were made in the run up to the referendum have by and large been systematically proven wrong since then, to the extent that senior members of government and business are openly stating the forecasters at the Treasury and Bank of England have no credibility and should be ignored.

Excuse me? What a load of bollocks. If you think Britain is currently experiencing the full effects of Brexit, you have something coming for ya. Even then government's own analysis shows that all Brexit scenarios will have a negative impact on Britain's economy. The only reason you feel otherwise is the overall booming economy worldwide, which is covering up the negative effects of PRE-Brexit.

The population was fed a bunch of lies and rolled with it, complete BS like the 350M that would be shifted from Europe to NHS. How any sane person can still be rooting for Brexit after the truth came out is beyond me.

Even then government's own analysis shows that all Brexit scenarios will have a negative impact on Britain's economy

Did you read my post at all?

Government ministers are saying that its own analysis is suspect and not to be believed. And they are correct because the Treasury and many other economists all predicted a recession triggered by a vote to leave, not leaving itself (due to "uncertainty"). But that vote happened, so did invoking Article 50, and yet no recession occurred. Also all their post-vote predictions about quarter on quarter growth were wrong too, and again, in the wrong direction.

The government's predictions about the economy have no credibility. Young people often have trouble accepting that, but it is fact and cannot be argued with. The predictions were precise, and the real reporting values are also precise. They do not match and are not even close.

The original forecasts were based on immediate invocation of Article 50, and without a significant intervention by the Bank of England, and without an uptick in global growth (which Britain is bottom of the class in). Instead what we got was a big devaluation in the Pound, slicing billions off the wealth of the country.

The other elements of the forecast are coming, they're just following on a time lag because they're dependent on choices getting locked in. The not so funny thing about Brexit is that it's like a game of chicken: the market doesn't believe Britain will choose drive off the cliff edge, so it hasn't priced in the damage; but that lack of pricing information makes it more likely Britain will drive off the edge.

It's one situation where markets might ironically be ill-suited to judge because of feedback effects. The worse the outcome, the less likely the market is to believe it, which sustains the delusion that it won't be bad.

Then the Rothschild's must be crazy for exchanging so much of their us assets into sterling. https://www.activistpost.com/2017/08/rothschild-just-dumped-...

This was primarily to reduce exposure to US assets, not to specifically gain exposure to UK assets. In fact, if you look at their holdings you’ll see the relative percent increase is much lower for Sterling than Euro, which could signal lower confidence in GBP than EUR.

True but if they were confident the Sterling was in bigger trouble than the dollar they wouldn't have invested in it.

No, they could believe that UK assets have a different risk profile than US assets and want to diversify, even if they think UK assets have a lower risk-adjusted return. Diversification is valuable.

The forecasts were not based on that, you can go read them. That's something invented later to try and explain why they were wrong.

But even if you were right about that, Article 50 was invoked and no insta-recession occurred.

Regardless of how you try and slice it the consensus of economists was wrong, 100% and completely wrong. There is no way to deny it.

The other elements of the forecast are coming

Wrong, totally wrong. Go read the Treasury's actual forecast:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-to-enter-recessio...

New Treasury analysis shows a vote to leave the EU would tip Britain’s economy into a year-long recession.

Speaking at B&Q in Eastleigh, Hampshire, the Prime Minister and Chancellor set out the Treasury’s analysis of the impact on the nation’s economy over the immediate period of two years following a vote to leave.

Do you see that - vote to leave. Very clear. There was a vote to leave. Their predictions did not come true. My point remains.

Still a game of chicken. See the poll results in today's FT - businesses still don't believe a hard Brexit is coming.

Here’s a prediction - the future of independent Britain is as a vassal state of China.

I’ve heard many arguments on how brexit is not going to be a disaster and many which say it’s going to be great.

The fact is that any exit from the EU will add friction to transactions with its closest geographic partner which it did not have before.

So the best option is that either the brits become a stepping stone for some world power (America/China).

And since recently someone pointed out that “China currently won, America just doesn’t know it yet.” I suspect that the power who finds use in propping up a regime near the Atlantic will be China.

Or it pretends to it’s populace that it’s independent but instead conforms as closely to EU regs to facilitate trade.

Either way, the drop in GDP is guaranteed, it is a matter of how much.

Every drop in GDP Is many thousands upon thousands of jobs that cease to be, its the inability to fund the NHS or repair trains.

Eventually it’s the utter overtake of the country by people who promise the moon but then divide the dwindling spoils.

Now humans think this sounds bad. But it’s not. It’s not terrible/ you aren’t becoming a third world nation.

You just have a GDP reduction. That’s it.

You also get to keep people tout, and fight harder for whatever it is that drove people to vote against their interests.

A small hint: Brexit didn't happened yet.

> Sometimes I think old people shouldn't be allowed to vote because they got little time left and don't care much for the rest of us (the future they won't get to see)

That sounds literally crazy to me, and the consequence of individualism run amok. In a healthy society, the elderly should have a strong vested interest in seeing their children and grandchildren succeed.

I'm not sure whether the fact that you seem to truly believe that the elderly just want to acquire as much money for themselves says about the elderly or about yourself — I truly mean that by the way, since I don't have much actual direct experience with seniors here.

But you know, what do I know, I come from a society where the traditional multigenerational family is still considered an ideal to be worked towards.

I'm not sure which society you are from, but it's pretty clear that we here do not have a healthy society.

It may be interesting to weigh votes then. The older you get the less worth your vote gets.

Perhaps a Gaussian distribution of weights?

Sounds very much like South Africa, as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capture#South_Africa

What is your brilliant solution? Bring back to power PNL plus a (so called) right coalition? Put Traian Basescu as prime minister, the liberal that stole Romania's entire naval fleet? In my town PNL won and they make Trump look sane! They claim they will bring a Tesla factory! We have no infrastructure and Hungary is absorbing electric car projects like crazy! Even Trump's dumb wall idea to keep Mexicans out of the USA sounds sane by comparison!

Are you suggesting we're better off with PSD?

The choice is between incompetent people and insane people. I can't choose for you. Your choice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com