Our company owned a power plant in European Turkey, about 100 km away. I was a member of the Board of Directors and we had quarterly meetings. We also had a lot of (unsuccessful) business development initiatives there.
I miss going to Istanbul. It is indeed one of the greatest, bestest, ausomestest places in Earth
Believe it or not, we felt that to tell them that we would not eat would be also offensive, as if we didn't like their food or something (like Burt says, as if we were expecting BETTER food).
We were very uncomfortable with the whole thing, and we didn't felt there was any way not to cause offense. We though this was the least rude we could be. By the way, there was a (very secular) Pakistani in our group. He agreed with the Don't Eat, Don't Tell, policy
One of my favorite Ramadan stories is in Istambul (a place I used to visit 4-6 times a year). We are walking along Istiklal Av (a pedestrian avenue with the finest shops in town, visited by up to 3 million people a day) close to noon during Ramadan, and there comes two young women wearing black chadors (a very strange sight in itself in Istanbul, particularly in the modern, fancy, districts)
These two women were religious enough to wear the full chador with only their faces showing, but not religious enough to stop them from walking along Istiklal eating a roasted corn cob each (a popular street food).
On a separate subject, Turkish beer (Effes) is great
In my former company we had a one week due diligence trip in Cairo in the middle of Ramadan. It was about 20 of us, and being a sensitive multicultural company, we knew about Ramadan going on.
The process was we would all 20 come to a conference room in a big hotel (paid by the counterparty), and the counterparty upper management would be there together with the middle management that corresponded to the subject of teh day (Tax and Accounting, Legal, technical, etc.)
When we walk into the room the first day there is a massive table with tons of sweets, pastries, juice, coffee, tea, soft drinks. Enough for all twenty of us to gorge. As befits traditional Islamic hospitality
We excused ourselves out of the room, gathered together and discussed: what would be less rude: ignoring the food they were offering us, or eating and drinking in front of hungry, thirsty people? We opted for completely ignoring the food.
At noon, we excused ourselves, went to the hotel restaurant (all the windows and doors were covered so people walking past it could not see who was inside).
When we returned for the afternoon session, all the untouched food had been taken away, and replaced with a completely new display of afternoon snacks, more drinks, more food. Which we absolutely ignored.
This went on for a week. They spent enormous amounts of money paying for food that we never even acknowledged, as if it wasn't there. We only thanked them for the hospitality in general (we honestly expected that after the second day they would reduce the display to a minimum, to keep the symbolism that they were offering food and drinks while minimizing the waste)
To this day, even though I was one of the most vocal supporters of "ignore the food", I'm not sure if we handled it as well as we could, but I could not have been able to look at the hungry person answering our questions while I was stuffing a cream eclair in my mouth. At the same time, the idea of telling them to stop bringing food felt terribly patronizing. Letting the food be the elephant in the room was the solution we opted for.
I think you meant outside of California and TEXAS, not Mexico
Which is totally my observation. Restaurants with food like they eat on Mexico are for arugula eating foodies. You can't get fajitas, charro beans, guacamole or nacho con queso in those damn places. No self respecting Texan would go there
It all went down in flames when she said, during the campaign or shortly after the inauguration, that, as a First Lady, she didn't plan to talk about baked cookies, or something like that.
I think Republicans emphasized Laura Bush's domesticity (and probably forced her into a more domestic role than she would have wanted herself) to emphasize the difference with HRC, a woman who didn't understand her place.
I think the comparison does not work because never in the days of the deepest Bush derangement syndrome I have heard a bad word said about Laura Bush, who seemed deeply uncomfortable with his husbands adinistration (and, for instance, was one of the first Republicans to speak in favor of LGBT rights)
Whereas Michele Obama has been the butt of jokes and sneers from Republicans since she decided child obesity would be one of her issues. The TX post Perry administration PROUDLY rescinded a policy banning French fries and other similar high fat foods from school cafeterias.
This particular issue will die very soon, of course. But it is a symbol of a disfunction that I expect will last the whole campaign(*), because Trump's ego and massaging Trump's ego is what this campaign is all about. Competence is a distant 17th priority
If you look closely, the restored constitutional monarchy of 1814/15 and its Charter of 1814 embraced most of the objectives of the 1789-91 revolution, and established France's (and most of continental Europe's) political model up to WWI.
In that respect, the French Revolution succeeded in its initially stated objectives, and is the base of what you have in France today.
The 1792/95 Terror and the Bonaparte Dictatorship that rose as reaction to it were just twisted offshoots that did not bear any fruit in history. Had Louis XVI had the political ability of his younger brother Louis XVIII he should have assumed the Revolution objectives as his own, and "give" them to his people, like Louis XVIII did when he "gave" the Charter of 1814. But he made the same mistake as Nicholas II. He felt duty bound to preserve intact a power he personally didn't care about.
Many people probably think Alberta CA honors Prince Albert. It does not. The name is a homage to Viceregina Princess Luise Alberta. She asked for Alberta to be used instead of the originally proposed Louisa.
Brexiters (though not May) have been now offering that existing foreign EU residents will be allowed to stay permanently, with restrictions applying to future migrants only.
If your concern is the dwindling pie of social services this is a bonehead idea. Many Polish plumbers (and this has been documented in the past in the UK press (and Polish press) only want to stay in the UK for a few years, and then go back home with enough saved money to buy a house or set up a small business. And these are young healthy people (many with no children) contributing taxes but taking little from the system.
Now Brexit is going to convert them into permanent residents who will start requiring more services and contributing less as years go by. They'll be reluctant to go home because, if things don't work there, they won't have the option to come back.
Same bonehead move in the USA converted male agricultural migrants that stayed for half a year, consumed little, had no children, and went back at the end of the season with a little money that went a long way home, into permanent migrant families, illegal and legalized, that required school and medical services, and eventually social security and Medicare.
Curtailing freedom of movement is actually making the problem worse.
I don't have much more than a combination of anecdata compiled from:
- My UK born and raised siblings, and their families, including civil servants (at the local level -EHS).
- Four to five trips a year there
- Reading the UK press (mostly the Guardian, because it's the only free one) almost daily to keep up with what happens there so I can discuss with my brothers.
The combined anecdata (my siblings vote Tory, even though I beg them to go LibDem) is:
1. Austerity is very popular with Tory voters. They have drunk Osborne/Cameron recipe and rejected G. Brown's Keynesianism.
2. Austerity has cut the civil services to the bones. They don't have enough resources to do what they used to before 2010
3. The press has been reporting for years the frustration of people with the loss of services, consolidation of schools, closing of hospitals, closing of and privatization of postal services, etc.
4. There's been a palpable sentiment of too many foreigners going around for quite some time. Even my siblings, children of a foreign parent (our dad) and grandchildren of foreigners (or their mum's side), fume against not hearing English spoken in the street.
I agree your reading of my anecdata is as valid as mine, and perhaps the correct one. I don't get that impression. Is not that I'm doing just tea leaves reading, but I can't go beyond trying to make an informed, but informal, reading of my personal anecdata
The reality (I have family in the civil service in the UK) is that cuts are driven by the Tory Austerity policy
The perception, particularly in Tory voters, is that is driven by X ends demand from Polish plumbers. Cognitive dissonance makes it difficult for them to relate their vote for Tory politicians with Tory politicians enacting the policies they promised (Austerity) and making their life more difficult.
It can't be the politicians they voted in. It must be something else.
That's not a fair comment. The Little England is fearful of different things than the USA White Working Class(*)
The USA would be better if things available in the UK, like Universal Health Care, were available here. And that would help assuage the fears of American WWC. Little Englanders are not afraid of medical bankruptcy, they are afraid, among other things, of the social service cuts the Tory Austerity implemented.
Different original fears, same mechanics
(*) Using very generalized descriptors whose accuracy I won't defend right now
Peter Breiner's 2001 Beatles Go Baroque has always been one of my top music selections. Four concertos grosso (no vocals, just music) in the style of Bach (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jpKIvyy6jg8), Handel (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EhoXnMqPKN0 ), Vivaldi, and Corelli are extraordinary arrangements worth listening over and over.
Plus, in Ringworld (a classic on its own right) the protagonist thinks, hearing the music in the background "Beethoven. .... Or The Beatles. Something classic". Quod erat demonstrandum.
The Yugoslav Breakup wars (original flavor) started in 1991 with the secession of Slovenia, and lasted through 1995 and the Dayton Accords.
The Kosovo War was all within Clinton the First's presidency: 1998-99,
After, that you still have the Presevo Valley Insurgency (1999-2001) and the 2001 Albanian-Macedonian insurgency (the latter, for once, not involving Serbia)
The very forgotten War in Ukraine is still going, so I guess whatever was the last battle there is the last battle in European soil. It's a feather in NPR's cap that it is the only mainline news source I see that remembers that there is a war going in there, once in a blue moon.
Xenophobic (I won't say Racists) Leavers don't live in a separate island from Remainers. The bad economic consequences will be bad for everyone. We should try to mitigate those as far as possible, irrespective of the xenophobia of (1/3)x(52%) of Brits, or whatever the xenophobic Leave vote was.
Would it be nice they stopped being xenophobic? Yes. But that's an orthogonal problem to the economic impact of Brexit.
The second order issue is that the xenophobic Leavers would not agree to mitigate the pain of Brexit, perhaps like with a Norway option, because it doesn't fully deal with the issue of Polish plumbers (and no matter what it will never deal with Rotherham)
I would also add that if you make progress towards resolving the economic problems, you have at least mitigated a contributing factor to racism: competition for resources between communities
This poll is interesting, and I hadn't seen it. Thank You for it.
Xenophobia (control of our borders) was the second most voted option, after the very mushy "Decisions about the UK should be made in the UK" (we are back to bananas and vacuum cleaners) 33% to 43% I would venture that a lot of people in s poll would chose the mushy general feel good option over the one that might make them uncomfortable to acknowledge.
So we might estipulate xenophobia was not the MAIN driver, but it was a big driver.
By the way, Rotherham might have been a factor, but Rotherham is orthogonal to the EU Freedom of Movement. The Rotherham perpetrators were of Commonwealth, but not intra EU origin. Rotherham would have happened exactly the same if the UK would not have joined the EU. A factor that it's possible many Leave voters among the 33% were not aware of
I do believe that the Leavers have moral agency, and that the Leavers believe "rationally" that Leave is a better option.
The problem is that , xenophobia apart, they are mostly, objectively wrong.
This is perhaps more clear in the context of the Trump followers.
The jobs that were lost will not come back. Because they no longer exist. Not in the USA, not in the UK, not in Mexico, not in China. Foreigners are not doing those high paying industrial jobs. They have been automated away. Power plants run on their own, without anyone there except for a caretaker that feeds the dog, and a dog that makes sure the caretaker doesn't touch anything.
We can do things to minimize the pain, to help the decades long transition. Or we can vote for policies that will exacerbate the pain. For reasons that we have discussed a lot in other threads, the USA White Working Class, like the Little England Tories, have consistently voted against their economic interests. Against Unions. For Austerity, etc. They believed they voted for their interests, or for non economical cultural interests that were worth the costs.
Plenty of pro Remainers raised their voice saying that the costs would be great, the wins negligible or non existing. Leavers laughed at what they called "Project Fear".
The costs will be big, the wins puny. That's the likely result of Brexit.
Likewise in the USA: Even if Trump really wanted to, he cannot bring back jobs that do not exist and in the meantime disrupt the global economy. The cost of breaking the Global Economy will be high pain for everyone, and those that are already left behind will end in an even worse place.
You can have illusions, ideals, hopes. But reality is what is outside of your head. You ignore reality at your peril
Because the average, median, and mean Brexiter did not vote Leave for sovereignty, Hoover regulations, or to bring Big Finance down a notch. The average Brexiter voted Leave because of Polish plumbers.
Xenophobia was a major driver of their decision, and the rise of (so far mostly verbal, fortunately) attacks against Poles and Polish stores and cultural centers since the referendum is proof.
The fact that non-White Brits or residents of Commonwealth origin (who are not related to EU Freedom of Movement) have been also targeted is another clue that Leave was not mainly about vacuum cleaners
By the way, i'm not saying Racism, I'm saying Xenophobia
We just set up an old job alumni monthly meeting. Last time i heard the desserts mentioned and Gluttony got the best of me.
When I saw the size of it, i had 3/4 put on to go - It lasted me for more than a week. I would just do two spoonfuls at dinner. The portion sizes are past incredible in almost every restaurant
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “A Third Qatari Travelogue”
Our company owned a power plant in European Turkey, about 100 km away. I was a member of the Board of Directors and we had quarterly meetings. We also had a lot of (unsuccessful) business development initiatives there.
I miss going to Istanbul. It is indeed one of the greatest, bestest, ausomestest places in Earth
"
I have a Malaysian friend in Oslo. They agree Ramadan is brutal there. They barely have 4 or 5 hours to eat and sleep
"
Believe it or not, we felt that to tell them that we would not eat would be also offensive, as if we didn't like their food or something (like Burt says, as if we were expecting BETTER food).
We were very uncomfortable with the whole thing, and we didn't felt there was any way not to cause offense. We though this was the least rude we could be. By the way, there was a (very secular) Pakistani in our group. He agreed with the Don't Eat, Don't Tell, policy
"
One of my favorite Ramadan stories is in Istambul (a place I used to visit 4-6 times a year). We are walking along Istiklal Av (a pedestrian avenue with the finest shops in town, visited by up to 3 million people a day) close to noon during Ramadan, and there comes two young women wearing black chadors (a very strange sight in itself in Istanbul, particularly in the modern, fancy, districts)
These two women were religious enough to wear the full chador with only their faces showing, but not religious enough to stop them from walking along Istiklal eating a roasted corn cob each (a popular street food).
On a separate subject, Turkish beer (Effes) is great
"
In my former company we had a one week due diligence trip in Cairo in the middle of Ramadan. It was about 20 of us, and being a sensitive multicultural company, we knew about Ramadan going on.
The process was we would all 20 come to a conference room in a big hotel (paid by the counterparty), and the counterparty upper management would be there together with the middle management that corresponded to the subject of teh day (Tax and Accounting, Legal, technical, etc.)
When we walk into the room the first day there is a massive table with tons of sweets, pastries, juice, coffee, tea, soft drinks. Enough for all twenty of us to gorge. As befits traditional Islamic hospitality
We excused ourselves out of the room, gathered together and discussed: what would be less rude: ignoring the food they were offering us, or eating and drinking in front of hungry, thirsty people? We opted for completely ignoring the food.
At noon, we excused ourselves, went to the hotel restaurant (all the windows and doors were covered so people walking past it could not see who was inside).
When we returned for the afternoon session, all the untouched food had been taken away, and replaced with a completely new display of afternoon snacks, more drinks, more food. Which we absolutely ignored.
This went on for a week. They spent enormous amounts of money paying for food that we never even acknowledged, as if it wasn't there. We only thanked them for the hospitality in general (we honestly expected that after the second day they would reduce the display to a minimum, to keep the symbolism that they were offering food and drinks while minimizing the waste)
To this day, even though I was one of the most vocal supporters of "ignore the food", I'm not sure if we handled it as well as we could, but I could not have been able to look at the hungry person answering our questions while I was stuffing a cream eclair in my mouth. At the same time, the idea of telling them to stop bringing food felt terribly patronizing. Letting the food be the elephant in the room was the solution we opted for.
On “Kamikaze Cruz vs The Convention”
I think you meant outside of California and TEXAS, not Mexico
Which is totally my observation. Restaurants with food like they eat on Mexico are for arugula eating foodies. You can't get fajitas, charro beans, guacamole or nacho con queso in those damn places. No self respecting Texan would go there
On “When is a Speech More Than Just a Speech?”
I was, and I think this is totally correct.
It all went down in flames when she said, during the campaign or shortly after the inauguration, that, as a First Lady, she didn't plan to talk about baked cookies, or something like that.
I think Republicans emphasized Laura Bush's domesticity (and probably forced her into a more domestic role than she would have wanted herself) to emphasize the difference with HRC, a woman who didn't understand her place.
"
I think the comparison does not work because never in the days of the deepest Bush derangement syndrome I have heard a bad word said about Laura Bush, who seemed deeply uncomfortable with his husbands adinistration (and, for instance, was one of the first Republicans to speak in favor of LGBT rights)
Whereas Michele Obama has been the butt of jokes and sneers from Republicans since she decided child obesity would be one of her issues. The TX post Perry administration PROUDLY rescinded a policy banning French fries and other similar high fat foods from school cafeterias.
"
This particular issue will die very soon, of course. But it is a symbol of a disfunction that I expect will last the whole campaign(*), because Trump's ego and massaging Trump's ego is what this campaign is all about. Competence is a distant 17th priority
(*) or, God forbid, his administration
On “Will the Chavistas Please Stand Up?”
If you look closely, the restored constitutional monarchy of 1814/15 and its Charter of 1814 embraced most of the objectives of the 1789-91 revolution, and established France's (and most of continental Europe's) political model up to WWI.
In that respect, the French Revolution succeeded in its initially stated objectives, and is the base of what you have in France today.
The 1792/95 Terror and the Bonaparte Dictatorship that rose as reaction to it were just twisted offshoots that did not bear any fruit in history. Had Louis XVI had the political ability of his younger brother Louis XVIII he should have assumed the Revolution objectives as his own, and "give" them to his people, like Louis XVIII did when he "gave" the Charter of 1814. But he made the same mistake as Nicholas II. He felt duty bound to preserve intact a power he personally didn't care about.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.07.19.T}”
Many people probably think Alberta CA honors Prince Albert. It does not. The name is a homage to Viceregina Princess Luise Alberta. She asked for Alberta to be used instead of the originally proposed Louisa.
On “How Brexit Turned Into an Immigrant’s Nightmare”
Brexiters (though not May) have been now offering that existing foreign EU residents will be allowed to stay permanently, with restrictions applying to future migrants only.
If your concern is the dwindling pie of social services this is a bonehead idea. Many Polish plumbers (and this has been documented in the past in the UK press (and Polish press) only want to stay in the UK for a few years, and then go back home with enough saved money to buy a house or set up a small business. And these are young healthy people (many with no children) contributing taxes but taking little from the system.
Now Brexit is going to convert them into permanent residents who will start requiring more services and contributing less as years go by. They'll be reluctant to go home because, if things don't work there, they won't have the option to come back.
Same bonehead move in the USA converted male agricultural migrants that stayed for half a year, consumed little, had no children, and went back at the end of the season with a little money that went a long way home, into permanent migrant families, illegal and legalized, that required school and medical services, and eventually social security and Medicare.
Curtailing freedom of movement is actually making the problem worse.
"
I don't have much more than a combination of anecdata compiled from:
- My UK born and raised siblings, and their families, including civil servants (at the local level -EHS).
- Four to five trips a year there
- Reading the UK press (mostly the Guardian, because it's the only free one) almost daily to keep up with what happens there so I can discuss with my brothers.
The combined anecdata (my siblings vote Tory, even though I beg them to go LibDem) is:
1. Austerity is very popular with Tory voters. They have drunk Osborne/Cameron recipe and rejected G. Brown's Keynesianism.
2. Austerity has cut the civil services to the bones. They don't have enough resources to do what they used to before 2010
3. The press has been reporting for years the frustration of people with the loss of services, consolidation of schools, closing of hospitals, closing of and privatization of postal services, etc.
4. There's been a palpable sentiment of too many foreigners going around for quite some time. Even my siblings, children of a foreign parent (our dad) and grandchildren of foreigners (or their mum's side), fume against not hearing English spoken in the street.
I agree your reading of my anecdata is as valid as mine, and perhaps the correct one. I don't get that impression. Is not that I'm doing just tea leaves reading, but I can't go beyond trying to make an informed, but informal, reading of my personal anecdata
"
The reality (I have family in the civil service in the UK) is that cuts are driven by the Tory Austerity policy
The perception, particularly in Tory voters, is that is driven by X ends demand from Polish plumbers. Cognitive dissonance makes it difficult for them to relate their vote for Tory politicians with Tory politicians enacting the policies they promised (Austerity) and making their life more difficult.
It can't be the politicians they voted in. It must be something else.
"
That's not a fair comment. The Little England is fearful of different things than the USA White Working Class(*)
The USA would be better if things available in the UK, like Universal Health Care, were available here. And that would help assuage the fears of American WWC. Little Englanders are not afraid of medical bankruptcy, they are afraid, among other things, of the social service cuts the Tory Austerity implemented.
Different original fears, same mechanics
(*) Using very generalized descriptors whose accuracy I won't defend right now
On “Heavenly!”
On the Beatles, I totally disagree with you.
Peter Breiner's 2001 Beatles Go Baroque has always been one of my top music selections. Four concertos grosso (no vocals, just music) in the style of Bach (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jpKIvyy6jg8), Handel (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EhoXnMqPKN0 ), Vivaldi, and Corelli are extraordinary arrangements worth listening over and over.
Plus, in Ringworld (a classic on its own right) the protagonist thinks, hearing the music in the background "Beethoven. .... Or The Beatles. Something classic". Quod erat demonstrandum.
On “Morning Ed: History {2016.07.17.Su}”
The Yugoslav Breakup wars (original flavor) started in 1991 with the secession of Slovenia, and lasted through 1995 and the Dayton Accords.
The Kosovo War was all within Clinton the First's presidency: 1998-99,
After, that you still have the Presevo Valley Insurgency (1999-2001) and the 2001 Albanian-Macedonian insurgency (the latter, for once, not involving Serbia)
The very forgotten War in Ukraine is still going, so I guess whatever was the last battle there is the last battle in European soil. It's a feather in NPR's cap that it is the only mainline news source I see that remembers that there is a war going in there, once in a blue moon.
On “How Brexit Turned Into an Immigrant’s Nightmare”
You didn't do much of a search
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/11/police-blame-worst-rise-in-recorded-hate-on-eu-referendum?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/30/police-report-fivefold-increase-race-hate-crimes-since-brexit-result
In case the Guardian is too Remain for you
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brexit-race-hate-crime-eu-referendum-met-police-a7121401.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-call-emergency-meetings-deal-8296935
"
With all due respect, I'd say Bollocks
Xenophobic (I won't say Racists) Leavers don't live in a separate island from Remainers. The bad economic consequences will be bad for everyone. We should try to mitigate those as far as possible, irrespective of the xenophobia of (1/3)x(52%) of Brits, or whatever the xenophobic Leave vote was.
Would it be nice they stopped being xenophobic? Yes. But that's an orthogonal problem to the economic impact of Brexit.
The second order issue is that the xenophobic Leavers would not agree to mitigate the pain of Brexit, perhaps like with a Norway option, because it doesn't fully deal with the issue of Polish plumbers (and no matter what it will never deal with Rotherham)
"
I would also add that if you make progress towards resolving the economic problems, you have at least mitigated a contributing factor to racism: competition for resources between communities
"
This poll is interesting, and I hadn't seen it. Thank You for it.
Xenophobia (control of our borders) was the second most voted option, after the very mushy "Decisions about the UK should be made in the UK" (we are back to bananas and vacuum cleaners) 33% to 43% I would venture that a lot of people in s poll would chose the mushy general feel good option over the one that might make them uncomfortable to acknowledge.
So we might estipulate xenophobia was not the MAIN driver, but it was a big driver.
By the way, Rotherham might have been a factor, but Rotherham is orthogonal to the EU Freedom of Movement. The Rotherham perpetrators were of Commonwealth, but not intra EU origin. Rotherham would have happened exactly the same if the UK would not have joined the EU. A factor that it's possible many Leave voters among the 33% were not aware of
"
"Ignoring reality led to be Frnch Revolution..."
You are right, and it's an apt point we must remember.at all times.
"
I do believe that the Leavers have moral agency, and that the Leavers believe "rationally" that Leave is a better option.
The problem is that , xenophobia apart, they are mostly, objectively wrong.
This is perhaps more clear in the context of the Trump followers.
The jobs that were lost will not come back. Because they no longer exist. Not in the USA, not in the UK, not in Mexico, not in China. Foreigners are not doing those high paying industrial jobs. They have been automated away. Power plants run on their own, without anyone there except for a caretaker that feeds the dog, and a dog that makes sure the caretaker doesn't touch anything.
We can do things to minimize the pain, to help the decades long transition. Or we can vote for policies that will exacerbate the pain. For reasons that we have discussed a lot in other threads, the USA White Working Class, like the Little England Tories, have consistently voted against their economic interests. Against Unions. For Austerity, etc. They believed they voted for their interests, or for non economical cultural interests that were worth the costs.
Plenty of pro Remainers raised their voice saying that the costs would be great, the wins negligible or non existing. Leavers laughed at what they called "Project Fear".
The costs will be big, the wins puny. That's the likely result of Brexit.
Likewise in the USA: Even if Trump really wanted to, he cannot bring back jobs that do not exist and in the meantime disrupt the global economy. The cost of breaking the Global Economy will be high pain for everyone, and those that are already left behind will end in an even worse place.
You can have illusions, ideals, hopes. But reality is what is outside of your head. You ignore reality at your peril
"
Because the average, median, and mean Brexiter did not vote Leave for sovereignty, Hoover regulations, or to bring Big Finance down a notch. The average Brexiter voted Leave because of Polish plumbers.
Xenophobia was a major driver of their decision, and the rise of (so far mostly verbal, fortunately) attacks against Poles and Polish stores and cultural centers since the referendum is proof.
The fact that non-White Brits or residents of Commonwealth origin (who are not related to EU Freedom of Movement) have been also targeted is another clue that Leave was not mainly about vacuum cleaners
By the way, i'm not saying Racism, I'm saying Xenophobia
On “Linky Friday #175: First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage…”
We just set up an old job alumni monthly meeting. Last time i heard the desserts mentioned and Gluttony got the best of me.
When I saw the size of it, i had 3/4 put on to go - It lasted me for more than a week. I would just do two spoonfuls at dinner. The portion sizes are past incredible in almost every restaurant
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.