I agree with this article:

[Link]

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

There's an argument for what you say obviously.....though the issue is over what is 'sensible'.

However, if the first stage was anything to go by I'm not so sure that it's going to happen.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Nope.......we don't like the EU......We don't like no control of our borders nor being apart of their ever closer political and economic union.

Bye bye EU.

We shall defend Europe if required, we won't defend the EU.

Edited by Stirlingsays (02 Feb 2018 9.37am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

No it’s not.

If we were in a ‘Common Market’ with our European partners, then I would have voted to stay in that.

However, we are in a ‘Union’ that is attempting ecomonic, political and military union against the democratic will of the people.

We as a nation voted against being used from Brussels by a group of unelected commissioners.

If our European partners were invaded or attacked, we would defend them as that is entirely different from being locked into the US of E against our will.

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

I thought Brexiteers thought all forecasts were baloney?

The premise in this article is not crazy, but reliant on a couple of big factors which are not in our favour, one being we have David Davis running the DExEU department and he's a moron and we have May running a weak government without a majority for this kind of Brexit. Furthermore the EU has other things to think about which it may consider more important than the economic damage to certain industries and that's the integrity of the whole bloc. This is a good article from a Dutch journalist:

[Link]

It's a bit like Sophie's choice for the EU.

I agree that if we are going to do Brexit we should be going for a proper Brexit otherwise what's the point, and it's clear a Soft Brexit is worse than no Brexit. The lack of clarity on this pre-referendum and lack of planning has made this into a massive mess and I'd prefer it if we started this whole process again and Dodgy Dave and useless Theresa were allowed no part of it.

By whom?

FYI when Obama came in in 2008 general government debt was 93.1% of GDP and was 106.4% of GDP a year later, given the GFC and policies put in place by the Bush administration there was limited amounts he could have done about this debt figure.

He pursued a (reasonably modest) fiscal stimulus package which helped massively to improve the US economy. Monetary policy is determined by the Fed. US Debt to GDP in 2016 was 126.9% which is not double. Looking at absolute values is totally misleading and useless.

n.b. these are gross debt figures from OECD.

US GDP growth is pretty good and Obama's policies are to thank for that.