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Merged Now What?

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CoolSceptic said:
Complex topics such as exponential error growth from initial conditions in systems governed by non-linear dynamics? Actually, it kind of is on a par with rocket science (luckily I have experience of both! Hurrah) but not for your average ISF reader, who apparently can't tell the difference between the Guardian and the Express.
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Actually we were more thinking of the sun, but carry on. See exponential error growth is about precise prediction. But trend can be be predicted over what we call long term (1 or 2 year or so) and such trend have been predicted. If you had bothered to read the previous link which was speaking of economical expert, people which are a tad bit better at prediction that your crowing guy in your article you would have known that.

But keep harping that what was not predicted, did not happen. On the other hand fall of the pound and cost of borrowing up did certainly happen.
 
CoolSceptic said:
Would it have been worth less if the indicators had gone the other way and the crowing was on the other foot? :wink: :biggrin:
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I didn't go starry-eyed over this :

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/25/brexit-crash-house-prices-referendum

"The website also tells you how many sales it recorded in the last 12 months, which in London was 71,973, or an average of well over 6,000 a month before 23 June. Zoopla’s London transactions fell to 2,000 a month in the latest three months. This is a huge fall – although it is possible that it partly reflects the fact that not all of the most recent data is in its datasets.

However, I saw a similar drop a very long time ago, in October 1989 when people stopped buying homes because they thought prices were falling. Later, negative equity began to rise. We all know what happened next."
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so no, not really.
 
There's an old City adage : "Sell in May and go away". Which is to say, unwind your positions, park your money in gilts, and relax for a few months far from the great unwashed, with opium and houris. The markets tend to be quiet over the NH summer.

September is when chaps come back to the City. October is the traditional month for market gyrations. Just saying.

Christmas will, of course, be very revealing of consumer sentiment, and devaluation (if sustained, as seems very probable) will have worked its way through the system by then. It'll be worth taking stock in January, I think.
 
CoolSceptic said:
Except that economic systems exhibit exponential error growth from initial conditions and have a predictability horizon of the order of *just a few months* - if that.

So the arm-waving about what happens a few years from now is nothing more than that. Not the claim of an honest broker. Luckily, not many honest brokers in the economics business so we get to have these daft arguments instead.

Furthermore, there were short term economic claims (i.e. testable ones) that have been shown to be outright wrong. Mark Carney, the Bank of England head honcho, claimed voting brexit would cause my mortgage to go up. As a direct result of post Brexit BoE policy, my UK based mortgage is now around £500 a year *cheaper*, and so are many others. Experts, eh? Who'd have them.
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Another self-styled expert telling us that experts know nothing. Let me guess...they voted Remain right? Oh no wait....

Can you expound on exactly what Carney said and why he's wrong incidentally?
 
cullennz said:
Lol

I like the denial

Whatever happens. Us kiwis will be there.

The immigration figures came out the other day and brits are up something chronic.
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It isn't actually denial - if anyone says that they know what the deal would be, then they are wrong. I doubt that there is even agreement on the UK's negotiating position at the moment.

But saying that, I'm considering dusting off my NZ passport.
 
Aepervius said:
Actually we were more thinking of the sun, but carry on. See exponential error growth is about precise prediction. But trend can be be predicted over what we call long term (1 or 2 year or so) and such trend have been predicted. If you had bothered to read the previous link which was speaking of economical expert, people which are a tad bit better at prediction that your crowing guy in your article you would have known that.
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No, economic "experts" are not particularly good at predicting 1-2 years ahead. Data shows that, it's all about skill above a naive baseline, and economics models generally drop below the naive baseline just a few months out. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Aepervius said:
But keep harping that what was not predicted, did not happen. On the other hand fall of the pound and cost of borrowing up did certainly happen.
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The pound is down, but it was due to go down anyway - the UK deficit has been negative for quite a while. Doubtless the shock of brexit triggered that.

The cost of borrowing has not gone up in many cases it has gone down - the UK government borrowed at 1% the week after brexit - the lowest for years. And I've already given another example closer to home - UK mortgages are cheaper as well. So I am giving absolutely specific cases where the experts were quite wrong, and in the short term as well where competent economists should be able to make predictions with at least *some* skill.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Another self-styled expert telling us that experts know nothing.
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LOL, actually no, I'm mainly comparing predictions (e.g. the prediction that borrowing would get more expensive) against actual outcomes (borrowing got cheaper).

The other thing I'm pointing out is that all predictions should come with stated uncertainty intervals. A prediction without the limits of uncertainty is technically useless. I'm adding my *opinion* on the limits of predictability of complex systems governed by non-linear dynamics. Although that opinion is backed up by pretty sound mathematics (see Poincare, Kolmogorov, Lyaponuv, Lorenz, Mandelbrot, etc.), I'm open to an explanation of why my claims are wrong. You need to go a bit further than simple assertion though, or appeals to authority. Being a sceptic and all I tend to want more than that.

Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Can you expound on exactly what Carney said and why he's wrong incidentally?
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Annoyingly, a few weeks ago articles for his speech were at the top of the google search for Carney Mortgages, but this has now been replaced with Carney urging banks to pass rate cuts on. So it will take a bit of digging to find Carney's original statement again. From what I recall, the reasoning was along the lines that banks would be suffering a loss of profits due to brexit and would therefore tighten margins and not pass on interest rate changes to consumers. Of course, now after the referendum vote he is having to run around telling banks not to do what he suggested they should do before the vote - one of the dangers of a supposedly independent role getting involved in politics.
 
CoolSceptic said:
Actually, you kind of just did. Thanks for making my point!
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No, I didn't. You suggested that I would respond to short-term results that I favoured in the same way you have. I gave an example of short-term data that you would expect me to favour, and to which I had (and have) not responded in the way you have. Which is to say, like a puppy with a squeaky-toy.

What you are doing is projecting. The truth is that I'm really not like you. And I'm in good company.
 
CoolSceptic said:
LOL, actually no, I'm mainly comparing predictions (e.g. the prediction that borrowing would get more expensive) against actual outcomes (borrowing got cheaper).

The other thing I'm pointing out is that all predictions should come with stated uncertainty intervals. A prediction without the limits of uncertainty is technically useless. I'm adding my *opinion* on the limits of predictability of complex systems governed by non-linear dynamics. Although that opinion is backed up by pretty sound mathematics (see Poincare, Kolmogorov, Lyaponuv, Lorenz, Mandelbrot, etc.), I'm open to an explanation of why my claims are wrong. You need to go a bit further than simple assertion though, or appeals to authority. Being a sceptic and all I tend to want more than that.


Annoyingly, a few weeks ago articles for his speech were at the top of the google search for Carney Mortgages, but this has now been replaced with Carney urging banks to pass rate cuts on. So it will take a bit of digging to find Carney's original statement again. From what I recall, the reasoning was along the lines that banks would be suffering a loss of profits due to brexit and would therefore tighten margins and not pass on interest rate changes to consumers. Of course, now after the referendum vote he is having to run around telling banks not to do what he suggested they should do before the vote - one of the dangers of a supposedly independent role getting involved in politics.
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Well if you are comparing predictions please lets see the predictions you are comparing first before we assess anything.

Are you arguing that we should ignore the best economic forecasts we have when making decisions? If not then your hindsight is worthless. And if so... well its equally worthless.

If not then what exactly are you arguing? Theres no logic at all.
 
CoolSceptic said:
The pound is down, but it was due to go down anyway - the UK deficit has been negative for quite a while. Doubtless the shock of brexit triggered that.
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Your conclusion seems at odds with your belief that economies are chaotic non-linear systems and inherently unpredictable - or is that only true in regard to predictions you don't like the sound of?

The cost of borrowing has not gone up in many cases it has gone down - the UK government borrowed at 1% the week after brexit - the lowest for years. And I've already given another example closer to home - UK mortgages are cheaper as well. So I am giving absolutely specific cases where the experts were quite wrong, and in the short term as well where competent economists should be able to make predictions with at least *some* skill.
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Devaluation and quantitative easing will lead to inflation, which will in turn lead to increased interest rates. There really is no doubt about that.
 
May, govt. lawyers and others are still arguing about whether invoking Art50 requires a vote in parliament. What a hoot *that* debate could turn out to be.
 
GlennB said:
May, govt. lawyers and others are still arguing about whether invoking Art50 requires a vote in parliament. What a hoot *that* debate could turn out to be.
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Massive potential. It's a question of sovereignty, which is delicious. Does it lie with Parliament, or with the Queen, gawd bless 'er, delegated to May through the Royal Prerogative?

And every third MP a proven lawyer. (I don't know the exact number, but it's a lot.) This could run and run.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Another self-styled expert telling us that experts know nothing. Let me guess...they voted Remain right? Oh no wait....
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Economist Ruth Lea voted leave.
Patrick Minford, (he was advisor to Margaret Thatcher), voted leave.
Norman Lamont & Nigel Lawson, both former Chancellor's of the Exchequer, voted leave.
The head of Tate and Lyle voted leave.
JCB Chairman Lord Bamford voted leave.
Lord Owen, former foreign secretary and leading light of the 1975 EEC remain campaign, voted leave.

Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England said post Brexit there was nothing to fear.
Martyn Lewis, money saving expert, advised people who wished to leave to vote leave and those who wanted to remain to vote remain and said that there were risks in staying and risks in leaving. He personally voted remain, but thought a lot about the vote.

Can you expound on exactly what Carney said and why he's wrong incidentally?
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Brexit, to my mind, would have a material impact on growth and inflation. It would be likely to have a negative impact in the short term.
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And he was right, there was a short term risk. But in the long term, as Mervyn King has said, the economic risks were exaggerated by the remain camp. In 20 or 30 years, we'll look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...brexit-is-being-exaggerated-says-former-bank/

And crucially, the future of a federal project has been put into question.

I hope in the longer term, the federalised single market is replaced by a much looser collaboration of democracies with free trade agreements.
 
Why not wait until we leave to see what happens, there's at least a couple of years to go.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Why not wait until we leave to see what happens, there's at least a couple of years to go.
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Indeed. And nobody even knows what the UK's negotiating position will be, let alone what any agreement would be.

Worth requoting Aepervius because there seem to be a lot of Brexit proposers who seem to have failed to grasp this.

Aepervius said:
There is a link above describing why the "armageddon" described did not happen : because it was not what was predicted, and what was predicted encompass medium to long range, not short range of a few week. What was "predicted" in the very short range of week , happenned : the pound was weakened and cost of borrowing higher for UK. The long term effect of that and the indecision on brexit will happen in *years* not week.
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Airfix said:
Economist Ruth Lea voted leave.
Patrick Minford, (he was advisor to Margaret Thatcher), voted leave.
Norman Lamont & Nigel Lawson, both former Chancellor's of the Exchequer, voted leave.
The head of Tate and Lyle voted leave.
JCB Chairman Lord Bamford voted leave.
Lord Owen, former foreign secretary and leading light of the 1975 EEC remain campaign, voted leave.

Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England said post Brexit there was nothing to fear.
Martyn Lewis, money saving expert, advised people who wished to leave to vote leave and those who wanted to remain to vote remain and said that there were risks in staying and risks in leaving. He personally voted remain, but thought a lot about the vote.





And he was right, there was a short term risk. But in the long term, as Mervyn King has said, the economic risks were exaggerated by the remain camp. In 20 or 30 years, we'll look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...brexit-is-being-exaggerated-says-former-bank/

And crucially, the future of a federal project has been put into question.

I hope in the longer term, the federalised single market is replaced by a much looser collaboration of democracies with free trade agreements.
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Whats the relevance of any of this?

In thirty years??? Is that your timeframe for success? Christ most of us will be dead by then. Certainly a huge chunk of leave campaigners will be.
 
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