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International Monetary Fund: EU exit could cause severe damage


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IMF: EU exit could cause severe damage



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The UK's exit from the European Union could cause "severe regional and global damage", the International Monetary Fund has warned in its latest outlook.


A so-called "Brexit" would disrupt established trading relationships and cause "major challenges" for both the UK and the rest of Europe, it said. The IMF said the referendum had already created uncertainty for investors and a vote to exit would only heighten this. Vote Leave said the IMF had been "consistently wrong" in past forecasts.



The IMF, one of the main pillars of the global economic order with a mandate to oversee the international monetary and financial system, also cut its UK growth forecast. It now expects 1.9% growth in the UK this year, compared with its January estimate of 2.2%. For next year, it expects 2.2% growth, unchanged from its earlier forecast.


If the 23 June referendum in the UK were to produce a vote in favour of leaving the EU, the IMF would expect negotiations on post-exit arrangements to be protracted, which it warned "could weigh heavily on confidence and investment, all the while increasing financial market volatility".


It also believes a UK exit from the EU would "disrupt and reduce mutual trade and financial flows" and restrict benefits from economic co-operation and integration, such as those resulting from economies of scale.


However, the Fund said that domestic demand, boosted by lower energy prices and a buoyant property market, would help to offset the impact on UK growth ahead of the EU referendum.


Chancellor George Osborne said the IMF's comments reinforced the case for staying. "The IMF has given us the clearest independent warning of the taste of bad things to come if we leave the EU," he said.


Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: "The IMF is right - leaving the EU would pose major risks for the UK economy. We are stronger, safer and better off in the European Union."




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The IMF causes also severe damage

:chuckle:

Together with those so called rating agencies. When they want a certain outcome (if and when they want to destroy a country's economy) they will "downgrade" their outlook. It's a sort of institutionalised 21st century financial, geo political pre emptive "witchcraft" game, so to speak

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Guest Rachelle of London

The IMF causes also severe damage.

Exactly. So much propaganda in the news it's untrue. David Cameron spending nearly £10m on his media campaign to get people to vote to stay in.

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Guest Rachelle of London

It's uncertainty in both ways. The fact that David Cameron wants us to stay in makes a lot of people want to vote out :lmao: the way I look at it the EU Model as it is is very archaic, yes as a union things are probably "stronger" especially with trading but Britain doesn't even have the euro and we've been following our "own rules" anyway. Everyone was so excited that Scotland nearly left Britain and became independent but so hesitant on Britain leaving the EU. It's so odd.

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:chuckle:

Together with those so called rating agencies. When they want a certain outcome (if and when they want to destroy a country's economy) they will "downgrade" their outlook. It's a sort of institutionalised 21st century financial, geo political pre emptive "witchcraft" game, so to speak

Rating agencies are the ones responsible or the chaos now in Europe. If we have had our very own agency countries like Portugal or Spain wouldn't have doubled their debts and make impossible any kind of recovery. Fuck them too!

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It's uncertainty in both ways. The fact that David Cameron wants us to stay in makes a lot of people want to vote out :lmao: the way I look at it the EU Model as it is is very archaic, yes as a union things are probably "stronger" especially with trading but Britain doesn't even have the euro and we've been following our "own rules" anyway. Everyone was so excited that Scotland nearly left Britain and became independent but so hesitant on Britain leaving the EU. It's so odd.

It's better to leave whenever you don't feel comfortable. Countries are like relationships. if a region wants to be independent, it's far better to let them go. You avoid years and years of problems. If UK decides to leave, it will be far better than having many of them boycotting important structural changes in the EU.

Whatever happens, i really admire UK for taking the bull by the horns and facing reality. First with Scotland, now with EU. In Spain we have had nationalism problems for decades and nobody solves anything. Whenever a party defends a referendum they are labelled as "radicals" or even "terrorist friendly". It sucks.

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IMF is what is causing severe damages since DECADES. they should shut the fuck up and stop hiring molesters and rapers and taxe evaders as presidents.

And pig fuckers.

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It's better to leave whenever you don't feel comfortable. Countries are like relationships. if a region wants to be independent, it's far better to let them go. You avoid years and years of problems. If UK decides to leave, it will be far better than having many of them boycotting important structural changes in the EU.

Whatever happens, i really admire UK for taking the bull by the horns and facing reality. First with Scotland, now with EU. In Spain we have had nationalism problems for decades and nobody solves anything. Whenever a party defends a referendum they are labelled as "radicals" or even "terrorist friendly". It sucks

I agree

Also, if you stay in you must be willing to adhere to all the rules and procedures like all the other member states

The fact that they kept the Sterling was a bad sign to begin with (and very shrewedly too I might add, but it could only work for so long) as much as it's a bad sign for the EU project as a whole to have only the common currency as the underlying bond of this so called Union. 28 different legal systems, 28 different tributary systems etc etc. The whole EU thing is a failure on many fronts, a common currency is not all there is to a real true Union.

Look at how quick they are at "taking decisions" (whose brunt is unvariably left to bear on the working and middle classes) when it's time to discuss on the banking sector and "public deficit restructuring" and how much of a jungle it becomes when refugee crisis and immigration issues needs to be discussed.

The fact is that people at financial and high political level in the UK, people in the know, are now shitting themselves because they know the City Of London, one of the biggest corporations in the world, cannot survive outside of the EU framework and that's bad news for the country's economic outlook as a whole because the UK does not produce anything anymore, unlike EU's other three biggest economies, Germany, France and Italy, and that's thanks to Thatcher's brutal deindustrialisation policies, as brutally resumed by Blair in the late 90s.

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Rating agencies are the ones responsible or the chaos now in Europe. If we have had our very own agency countries like Portugal or Spain wouldn't have doubled their debts and make impossible any kind of recovery. Fuck them too!

No doubts about that

Look at the dirty game they played with Greece

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Exactly. So much propaganda in the news it's untrue.

David Cameron spending nearly £10m on his media campaign to get people to vote to stay in.

Wonder how much money he has in those Panama accounts

Doubt it's £30,000 as he says :chuckle:

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Guest Rachelle of London

but I thought that he wanted to leave EU ? Maybe at first?

Yup he wanted to leave but then changed his tune when he thought that he will be the prime minister to break up Europe. He did the same with the Scottish referendum.

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Guest Rachelle of London

The fact is that people at financial and high political level in the UK, people in the know, are now shitting themselves because they know the City Of London, one of the biggest corporations in the world, cannot survive outside of the EU framework .

Not really. All our politicians (apart from Cameron due to personal reasons) and leaders in the City are for Brexit. It's even caused huge tensions within the Conservative Party with members quitting as they can't understand why Cameron insists on leading the stay in Europe campaign.

There was a lot of scaremongering when Britain decided to keep the sterling, which turned out to work out good for Britain whereas countries like France, Germany, Spain suffered. I think this will be the same if Brexit does occur. Also if we do leave we which still have "access" to the single market. Even though Britain doesn't have as much manufacturing industries as we used to it is still the 6th biggest economy in the world which is nothing to sneeze at given how small the country is. HSBC deciding to stay in the City shows there is still growth in the City whether we stay in Europe or not.

My fear lies that if we do leave will other countries be pressured to leave. Italy alongside UK, France, Germany contribute much more than what they recieve from the EU but at least France and Germany do receive a lot more back than Italy does. Do you think pressure will amount for Italy to leave or at least request changes made to the EU?

With a lot of the Eastern European nations that recieve more than they contribute I wonder if pressure will mount for them to contribute more. Especially Poland who's economy has grown at rapid rates over the last few years.

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We are not really suffering because of Euro. Euro is a incredibly effective way to save lots of money and to make a bigger market inside Europe.

Part of the Brexit is because the UK can't control many important things in Europe anymore, because UK is not part of the Eurozone, which is the place where is the power now. I recall one certain reunion where they were going to debate about Greek bailout, where Cameron had to sit with prime ministers from Romania, Serbia and all that, instead of Merkel and Hollande (or Sarkozy, can't recall), precisely because there was a group for Eurozone and a group for the rest. Cameron protested but Merkel told him to shut up. Cameron is trying to have a vote in Eurozone, even though there's not euro in UK. If that happens, it would be the biggest absurd ever.

No, we are not only suffering because of euro. We are suffering because they didn't create, along with Euro, a financial system in Eurozone. Nowadays they are bulding the system, but the damage is already done. It will take decades to solve this mess, unless they condone debt. Which won't happen.

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Guest Rachelle of London

No I meant that the UK was right to keep the sterling. Whereas other countries had a lot stronger currencies than the euro. The eurozone was badly thought out to begin with. As you said they're working on it now but that's like 20 years too late. Look what happened to Ireland and Greece.

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No I meant that the UK was right to keep the sterling. Whereas other countries had a lot stronger currencies than the euro. The eurozone was badly thought out to begin with. As you said they're working on it now but that's like 20 years too late. Look what happened to Ireland and Greece.

But the current situation has nothing to do with the Euro. The crisis in Spain was created because two (I think it was two?) banks gambled highly on subprime mortgages in Spain. As a result the Spanish government had to save those banks by bailing them out. In result the Spanish debt increased immensely. Ireland tumbled because of all the investment banks that are/were registered there (thanks to Ireland being a tax haven compared to other European countries) that were heavily involved with subprime mortages in the U.S. None of those problems actually come from the Euro.

The most obvious problem in regards to the Euro and yes that goes back to the introduction of the Euro is that most of the Southern countries are/were not competive enough in comparison to Northern countries and have no longer the possibility to lower the value of their own currency to make their products cheaper. The system that China uses heavily to get rid of their cheap stuff.

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The fact is that people at financial and high political level in the UK, people in the know, are now shitting themselves because they know the City Of London, one of the biggest corporations in the world, cannot survive outside of the EU framework and that's bad news for the country's economic outlook as a whole because the UK does not produce anything anymore, unlike EU's other three biggest economies, Germany, France and Italy, and that's thanks to Thatcher's brutal deindustrialisation policies, as brutally resumed by Blair in the late 90s.

THIS. A thousand times.

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Not really. All our politicians (apart from Cameron due to personal reasons) and leaders in the City are for Brexit. ....

HSBC deciding to stay in the City shows there is still growth in the City whether we stay in Europe or not.

I suppose they might be in favor of a Brexit because they know that an "independent" Britain will never change the rules on investment banking and restrict them out of fear that the City might leave. When this was discussed some years ago the City openly threatened the UK government they could leave to Dubai or Singapur because money does not care where it's made. And if the UK should say "you can't do that, you can't do this" they move to a place that allows them all their shady business.

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There was a lot of scaremongering when Britain decided to keep the sterling, which turned out to work out good for Britain whereas countries like France, Germany, Spain suffered. I think this will be the same if Brexit does occur. Also if we do leave we which still have "access" to the single market.

Germany suffered? Very low unemployment rates. Constant economic growth. Record tax income. Budget surplus. Huge trade surplus. Okay, German people are fucked now thanks to the ECB and its fucking zero percent interest policy. Many pension plans become useless because you don't make any interest on those. Soon you will have to pay the bank that you give money. But are we surprised? Look where most of the top people at the ECB are coming from. Goldman Sachs. Enough said.

Regarding the access to the single market. Yes, the UK will have access but you will have to accept tons of rules and regulations. Just ask Norway what it means. If the idea behind the Brexit is to save money and have less regulations, think again. The access will cost almost as much and will be just as regulated. In fact you will pay and will have no influence at all. Or does anyone in the UK believe you can still have all the advantages of a common market for free?

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Guest Rachelle of London

But the current situation has nothing to do with the Euro. The crisis in Spain was created because two (I think it was two?) banks gambled highly on subprime mortgages in Spain. As a result the Spanish government had to save those banks by bailing them out. In result the Spanish debt increased immensely. Ireland tumbled because of all the investment banks that are/were registered there (thanks to Ireland being a tax haven compared to other European countries) that were heavily involved with subprime mortages in the U.S. None of those problems actually come from the Euro.

The most obvious problem in regards to the Euro and yes that goes back to the introduction of the Euro is that most of the Southern countries are/were not competive enough in comparison to Northern countries and have no longer the possibility to lower the value of their own currency to make their products cheaper. The system that China uses heavily to get rid of their cheap stuff.

But if the eurozone countries didn't have a single currency, surely the eurozone crisis wouldn't of happened, especially to the extent that it did. You can't have one currency continent wide yet so many different rules and regs set by each country which each country follows, which kind of defeats the whole purpose.

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Guest Rachelle of London

Germany suffered? Very low unemployment rates. Constant economic growth. Record tax income. Budget surplus. Huge trade surplus. Okay, German people are fucked now thanks to the ECB and its fucking zero percent interest policy. Many pension plans become useless because you don't make any interest on those. Soon you will have to pay the bank that you give money. But are we surprised? Look where most of the top people at the ECB are coming from. Goldman Sachs. Enough said.

Regarding the access to the single market. Yes, the UK will have access but you will have to accept tons of rules and regulations. Just ask Norway what it means. If the idea behind the Brexit is to save money and have less regulations, think again. The access will cost almost as much and will be just as regulated. In fact you will pay and will have no influence at all. Or does anyone in the UK believe you can still have all the advantages of a common market for free?

Who said that people in the UK will want to have access to trade markets for free? Who said that we expect to have it for free? The British government are well aware that they will have to pay. It will still work out cheaper than what we're paying now but allowing us to have further control over who and how we trade with.

Also every European nation I've visited (bare in mind they're all in Western Europe) all I hear from locals is how they should've never got the euro, the euro ruined the economy etc, I thought the general consensus throughout the continent was that people/business owners were better off before the euro was introduced. If the euro is so great why is there so much complaint?

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The fact is that people at financial and high political level in the UK, people in the know, are now shitting themselves because they know the City Of London, one of the biggest corporations in the world, cannot survive outside of the EU framework and that's bad news for the country's economic outlook as a whole because the UK does not produce anything anymore, unlike EU's other three biggest economies, Germany, France and Italy, and that's thanks to Thatcher's brutal deindustrialisation policies...

That's the crux of the matter, and that's why it won't happen.

I've yet to hear one persuasive argument for exiting, other than the "we can look after our own affairs" tosh and the fear mongering bull about Muslim terrorists' open door policy on our shores etc.

The idea of Britain being some isolated, insulated little island running its (non-existent) empire from afar is still something that people cling to for whatever reason, but most people are forward thinking...I hope.

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Guest Rachelle of London

That's the crux of the matter, and that's why it won't happen.

I've yet to hear one persuasive argument for exiting, other than the "we can look after our own affairs" tosh and the fear mongering bull about Muslim terrorists' open door policy on our shores etc.

The idea of Britain being some isolated, insulated little island running its (non-existent) empire from afar is still something that people cling to for whatever reason, but most people are forward thinking...I hope.

Weren't you pro Scotland becoming independent from Britain?

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For me the issue is that of risk to jobs and livelihoods. Is there a risk, I don't know, but the rich won't be impacted if the vote is to leave and it all goes tits up. They can just fly the nest and sit it out somewhere warm and nice.

I agree with Kim around the fearmongering re immigration and terrorism.

It is interesting that today the no camps are now at war over who has been nominated to run the official campaign.

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