It is significantly worse the most pundits predicted.

I would do a quick google search of Brexit news articles with the year 2016.

I was living in the UK at a time. Nobody worth listening to was predicting war or famine.

So you agree that there was a large amount of hyperbole which was intended to create fear but not constructed in good faith?

that’s what I would conclude from “it exists but wasn’t taken seriously”

No.

I randomly sampled a few articles. And I think you’re right and I’m wrong. The economic messaging is aggressive and was wrong, but I’m not seeing famine and war.

Here is an article that sampled various expert opinions:

“ This event will unleash the kind of uncertainty that Keynes had in mind when he said “we simply do not know” when referring to the likely effect of war. Such uncertainty can only be disruptive for financial markets. We will enter a new era of volatility that is likely to last until these difficult negotiations are completed.”

“it is more likely than not that we will witness political instability.”

“ Such market reactions could sharply contract economic activity, further depressing asset prices in a self-reinforcing cycle”

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/brexit-potential-financial-ca...

So I agree, the more extreme must have been amplified voices from the fringe, on places like Reddit.

>“it is more likely than not that we will witness political instability.”

We have had 5 Prime Ministers since 2019.

Some of the problems we are seeing are due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. But Brexit is the biggest factor by far. And 100% self-inflicted. It is the elephant in the room that the politicians can't even talk about it, as it's electoral poison.

Not tied to failing and increasingly irrelevant EU?

What is significantly worse, is the governing clases continuing the same pre-Brexit policies and deals post-Brexit, to nullify it.

The UK is becoming a destination country for hiring low-cost services labor. Not exactly an endorsement of future success.

Low cost compared to what? California and New York? That’s also true of many states where finance and tech companies have smaller offices.

I live in Texas and contract for a company based in Europe. Comparable UK software engineering salaries are about 1/3-1/2 of what my salary expectations are.

Yes they did? Is this a joke? Or have you not been following the UK’s descent into poverty and irrelevance?

The UK’s GDP per capita trajectory diverged around the end of the Great Recession. That was before the Brexit vote (2016) and long before the actual Brexit (2020). France and Italy have been stuck in more or less the same doldrums since the same time: https://datacommons.org/place/country/FRA?utm_medium=explore...

As a fairly regular visitor (for work), what particular doldrums are you referencing? Admittedly, the loss of the US market will be a big blow for exports, but the anti-US (Trump) feelings strongly would put up with a financial hit rather than dealing with Mr. Loopy. And Tesla's are becoming very unpopular...and unsellable.

The per capita GDP of France, Italy, and the UK have been flat since 2009.

I'm not disagreeing with your main point (by a host of metrics, the UK and EU have stagnated economically compared to the US since the end of the great recession), but I also don't think GDP per capita is the best metric to use here given widening levels of inequality. Median income levels taking into account government transfers are much more informative in my opinion.

Em. Those aren't inflation adjusted.

- UK - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDGBR

- FR - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDFRA

- IT - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDITA

It would be somewhat unusual if they didn't all look similarish given the level of trade between them.

The UK government predicted a 2% reduction in growth over 15 years with a soft brexit compared to what it would have been otherwise, but seeing it on a graph may be difficult given those countries were also hurt by Brexit.

Here a few that were seriously threatened

- all the major corporations would leave and there would be no jobs - collapse of the pound - start of wars within the UK and potentially with EU

I'm as anti-Brexit as they come, but it didn't change the UK's direction much. It's still the 2nd richest European state (with the 1st declining fast), the 3rd largest tech ecosystem worldwide, one of the premier military powers. Brexit wasn't great, or even good, but it's not disastrous.

That’s because Europe overall is declining fast. However the rest of the world is rising fast and the next ten years should be interesting from this alone.

What metrics are you using?

if THIS comment isn't satirical then truly and honestly you should lay off the propaganda pipe.