Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Gups]

David Beckham's come out for Remain and Posh has got into a public row with the Leave campaign.

Truly, not the referendum campaign we need but the one we deserve.

What's the general rundown of celebrities for each side? Surely that's something the tabloids must also care about. 

Here you go...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/eu-referendum-celebrities-want-remai-8243309

[Berkut]

My two cents, and it probably isn't worth even that:

The UK leaving the EU would be bad for everyone.

But the threat of anyone leaving the EU needs to exist to keep the EU bureaucracy in check.

[Monoriu]

That surprised me.  I imagine that most celebrities would remain silent and sit firmly on the fence so as not to offend anybody and lose fans. 

[celedhring]

David Beckham's come out for Remain and Posh has got into a public row with the Leave campaign.

Truly, not the referendum campaign we need but the one we deserve.

What's the general rundown of celebrities for each side? Surely that's something the tabloids must also care about. 

Here you go...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/eu-referendum-celebrities-want-remai-8243309

Besides Michael Caine, it seems to me the Leave side is scrapping the bottom of the barrel in this department 

[Berkut]

I am willing to risk the ire of a few of my fans anyway.

[Grey Fox]

The UK leaving would hurt the Bilderberg cabal conspiracy, so I am all for it.

[Josquius]

One of these things is not like the others:

This is a real point for me. The leavers love the buzzword corrupt. I've not seen any evidence for the EU being especially corrupt though.

Changing your own self-imposed rules so that you can pass your Accounts isn't exactly a good sign, though.

However, I agree that it's not especially corrupt compared to the average European Nation-State. That's not the problem with the EU though.

I'm not sure what you mean here.
Not that brexiter thing about accountants refusing to sign of the EU's accounts right?

[The Minsky Moment]

One of these things is not like the others:

Well yes- projecting a big positive boost is pretty silly.

OTOH it's hard to see how you get to 7%+ drops; the exit would have to be really badly handled.  That's verging on a Venezuela level collapse.

[Admiral Yi]

Well yes- projecting a big positive boost is pretty silly.

OTOH it's hard to see how you get to 7%+ drops; the exit would have to be really badly handled.  That's verging on a Venezuela level collapse.

Any idea how much cross-border financial services contribute to GDP?

[The Minsky Moment]

Any idea how much cross-border financial services contribute to GDP?

Not sure.
Some of that would survive Brexit, probably most.  Some would not though - like Euro clearing.  No doubt there are studies out there analyzing this.  But 7-8% or more just looks too high as a rough eyeball view.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think the "long term" means 2030 when discussing those projections, it usually does. So the negative figures need to be lopped off from whatever the standard growth is estimated to be in the period 2016-30. So, eg, according to the LSE growth would only be 20% instead of 28%.

I'd say that the projections are close to valueless.

[Agelastus]

This is a real point for me. The leavers love the buzzword corrupt. I've not seen any evidence for the EU being especially corrupt though.

Changing your own self-imposed rules so that you can pass your Accounts isn't exactly a good sign, though.

However, I agree that it's not especially corrupt compared to the average European Nation-State. That's not the problem with the EU though.

I'm not sure what you mean here.
Not that brexiter thing about accountants refusing to sign of the EU's accounts right?

I'm slightly annoyed, because I can't now find an article I found a couple of years ago.

There's two aspects to the EU accounts signing off - whether they are reliable (ie. all the transactions etc. are there) and whether or not all the transactions could be confirmed as being legal and regular.

Up until 2006 neither side was signed off fully.

From 2007 the budget's been signed off as reliable (everything spent has been recorded within the standard or error allowed) but not signed off as to being legal and regular (this is where the British press consistently get the "not signed off" from.)

The EU's budget probably could have been signed off as reliable before 2007 if they hadn't set themselves too high a standard following the expansion of the competency of the Court of Auditors at Maastricht. In 2006 a British comptroller told the Commons Select Committee involved that if he had to follow the EU's rules he couldn't have signed off the British government's accounts despite only finding 13 of 500+ accounts to have had material errors.

And here's where I am annoyed - a couple of years ago I found an article that linked me to an EU site that mentioned that they'd relaxed this standard for 2007 onwards (allowing a higher percentage error rate for the reliability measure.) I can't find this now, only information that 2007 was the first year the Accounts had moved completely to an accruals system from a cash accounting system. 

So unless I can find that information again you'd better take my comment about changing the rules with a pinch of salt.

---------------------

The "legal and regular" aspect's error rate has always been above the level considered acceptable (4.4% in the last audit , 2.4% above the acceptable level.) This is considered to be mainly due to error rather than fraud.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think the "long term" means 2030 when discussing those projections, it usually does.

Ok - that might almost be possible if you assume path dependency, which isn't entirely unreasonable. Still aggressive though.

[Josquius]

I think the "long term" means 2030 when discussing those projections, it usually does. So the negative figures need to be lopped off from whatever the standard growth is estimated to be in the period 2016-30. So, eg, according to the LSE growth would only be 20% instead of 28%.

I'd say that the projections are close to valueless.

The potential is certainly there to misread them but I wouldn't say they're valueless at all. When all predictions point to a recession looming and long term growth suffering, considering all that investment that won't come into the UK, and even the facts in the here and now show that whenever leave polls well things go iffy....
How big the economic blow will be is quite up in there but it seems pretty much certain there will be one.

I'm slightly annoyed, because I can't now find an article I found a couple of years ago.

There's two aspects to the EU accounts signing off - whether they are reliable (ie. all the transactions etc. are there) and whether or not all the transactions could be confirmed as being legal and regular.

Up until 2006 neither side was signed off fully.

From 2007 the budget's been signed off as reliable (everything spent has been recorded within the standard or error allowed) but not signed off as to being legal and regular (this is where the British press consistently get the "not signed off" from.)

The EU's budget probably could have been signed off as reliable before 2007 if they hadn't set themselves too high a standard following the expansion of the competency of the Court of Auditors at Maastricht. In 2006 a British comptroller told the Commons Select Committee involved that if he had to follow the EU's rules he couldn't have signed off the British government's accounts despite only finding 13 of 500+ accounts to have had material errors.

And here's where I am annoyed - a couple of years ago I found an article that linked me to an EU site that mentioned that they'd relaxed this standard for 2007 onwards (allowing a higher percentage error rate for the reliability measure.) I can't find this now, only information that 2007 was the first year the Accounts had moved completely to an accruals system from a cash accounting system. 

So unless I can find that information again you'd better take my comment about changing the rules with a pinch of salt.

---------------------

The "legal and regular" aspect's error rate has always been above the level considered acceptable (4.4% in the last audit , 2.4% above the acceptable level.) This is considered to be mainly due to error rather than fraud.

Here's something on it:

https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

Not heard of them changing the rules. But I wouldn't see it as such a terrible thing that they changed the rules because they were too overly strict.

[Agelastus]

Here's something on it:

https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

Not heard of them changing the rules. But I wouldn't see it as such a terrible thing that they changed the rules because they were too overly strict.

Yeah, that's one of the three-dozen or so articles etc. I checked before posting my reply (from half-a-dozen or so differently worded google searches.)

I'm annoyed because IIRC I found the article I recall concerning the rules change on my first google search a couple of years ago. If only I could recall exactly how I phrased the search now!

As for signing the accounts off? I'd break it down - from an Accountancy perspective they are signed off, from an auditor's perspective they're not.

Anti-EU campaigners exaggerate the significance of the audit side (error does not automatically mean fraud) whereas remainers exaggerate the significance of the Accountancy side (all the information being accurate does not make the expenditure legal and reliable.) It's actually a classic example of where it's best to look the full facts up yourself as the truth is in between the two extremes espoused by the media etc.