Typically excellent piece from @dsquareddigest The exponential insight is especially neat. Think of it a little like fishing...today you can’t export oysters to the EU (because you simply aren’t allowed to), tomorrow you don’t have a fish exporting business (to the EU).
London's status as a financial centre isn't as secure as some might think | Dan Davies https://t.co/q9SU7ra4oF
— The Guardian (@guardian) February 13, 2021
I refer you to Brexit. But kidding aside, the balance between economic optimality and, to coin a phrase, taking back control is not at all straightforward.
I refer you to the financial crisis.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Well. Maybe. London has a v substantial scale / incumbency advantage. But ofc (as Dan points out) that does not mean that those new opportunities will necessarily arise in London.
More from Yet Another Columnist
The Commission’s view, according to several sources, is that Brexit means existing distribution networks and supply chains are now defunct and will have to be replaced by other systems.
Brexit reality bites: The new dawn of trade friction via @RTENews https://t.co/p6VdlhZUAN
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) January 9, 2021
Of course, this was never written on the side of a bus. And never acknowledged by government. Everything was meant to be broadly fine apart from the inevitable teething problems.
It was, however, visible from space to balanced observers. You did not have to be a trade specialist to understand that replacing the Single Market with a third country trade arrangement meant the end of many if not all of the complex arrangements optimised for the former.
In the absence of substantive mitigations, the Brexit winners are those who subscribe to some woolly notion of ‘sovereignty’ and those who did not like freedom of movement. The losers are everyone else.
But, of course, that’s not good enough. For understandable reasons Brexit was sold as a benefit not a cost. The trading benefits of freedom would far outweigh the costs. Divergence would benefit all.
Still, he's taken a very big step back now. The cliff risk was today; both sides were so close to the edge they could easily have gone over it. The fact @10DowningStreet didn't means Govt must genuinely believe there's now a landing zone that works, & which it can sell ENDS
— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) December 13, 2020
I find it most amusing that people invest so much value in public statements, briefings, tabloid headlines, the tweets of obscure backbenchers etc. Cherchez les fundamentals!
There is a deep vein of analytical pessimism in one particular direction, which, whether correct or not, is noteworthy. On the one hand, a firm belief in the fundamentals - gravity exists - but on the other hand those fundamentals are not meaningful to the final decision.
But gravity does exist! Whether one likes it or not. We do not have wings. Or feathers. And the realisation of the fundamentals will impact the political calculation (though timing differences may apply).
You don’t have to invest any particular optimism or see any virtue in the principal players to make this point.
More from Government
Sen. @JohnCornyn on budget reconciliation: "Chipping away at the rights of the minority may help you now. But you're sure to regret that someday." pic.twitter.com/12wwUkq43r
— The Hill (@thehill) February 1, 2021
https://t.co/W18nqFlLru
The GOP got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster so they could jam through three fringy right-wing Alito clones, including one right before the election, but sure thing, bud.
“Uh, actually, they got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster because Harry Reid did it first for something totally different! I am very smart!”
No. Knock it off.
Here’s the thing about the “But Harry Reid...” excuse:
1. McConnell was holding up Obama nominees, some *for literal years* without a vote.
2. Had he *not* done that, Trump would have inherited *even more* vacant seats.
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As a dean of a major academic institution, I could not have said this. But I will now. Requiring such statements in applications for appointments and promotions is an affront to academic freedom, and diminishes the true value of diversity, equity of inclusion by trivializing it. https://t.co/NfcI5VLODi
— Jeffrey Flier (@jflier) November 10, 2018
We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.
Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)
It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.
Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".