Wow, Walkabout I like your summary better than the video!
according to Forbes per capita GDP
GDP UK $39,800
GDP Switzerland $58,100
Forbes Welcome

GNP and GDP are different in the following 19 minute video, he says GDP

http://www.prisonplanet.com/video-th...ut-brexit.html

blah blah blah

Here's an example of the 2 sided argument in the UK.

EU referendum issues guide: Explore the arguments - BBC News

They can agree on nothing.

Typical politicians....they look for any opportunity to give the other side a black eye. The needs of the public come a distant second.

@Xfiltrate: I'm not disagreeing with your central argument but it's impossible to measure quality of life as it depends upon the individual's opinion. If you love theatres you might choose London, if you love sun you wouldn't!

GDP-PC is only important when comparing the hours needed to work to buy something that is internationally traded such as a new Sony HD TV or a new BMW car (but you still need to take into account local issues such as personal tax rates and if your home country has high taxes on cars then it takes longer).

Spain is very low on GDP-PC but where I am, a small (which comes with a free tapa) is €1.20, a triple shot of whisky is €1, a three course midday meal just €8, the excellent local wine is €8.25 for 5 litres (7 bottles), our water rates (with swimming pool) are €40 pa, council tax and rubbish collection €120 pa, car tax is €56 pa, 6 tonnes of wood for winter fuel is €350, and so on. So GDP-PC is only part of the measure.

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For the future, your boss could be a robot:-
Switzerland rejected universal basic income - but that doesn't mark the end of the idea for Europe | Editorials | Voices | The Independent

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Dave

Don't functioning democracies need a fair and balanced press and an educated and rational electorate? How are people supposed to make an informed vote on the EU? I think the referendum has been extremely damaging to the UK and will sow divisions for years to come, no matter what the turnout. If democracy is the power to choose, well what's really the point of that if the electorate is unable to make rational, fact based decisions?

As someone who is obviously interested in the political process, are you not concerned that a great deal of the Brexit campaign isn't about economics, history or the complex workings of trade agreements and power, but simply a lot of deep anti-immigration sentiment whipped up by a very conservative and divisive print media, who blame the EU and immigration for the fallout of what is actually the fault of an economic doctrine that even the IMF says is creating stagnation and destructive inequality?

Some commentators here openly admit they don't care what qualified people have to say, and would rather reduce the entire argument down, complex though it is, to some sort sort of binary choice, based on sentiments rather than facts. It seems a strange concept of democracy if a great majority of the electorate rely on soundbites and heavily biased reporting from a media whose editorial stance is dictated by less than six individuals - none of which seem to like the electorate much and don't pay any tax either.

Quoting from that right wing Cameron/Osborne mouthpiece The Guardian yet again. Sorry. Not.

On the anniversary of D-day, we need the European Union more than ever

On the anniversary of D-day, we need the European Union more than ever | Harry Leslie Smith and Eddie Izzard | Opinion | The Guardian

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With that last post I forgot to add this extract which is circulating in email.
As it happens, a couple of facts -
Driverless cars will be introduced to UK roads next year.
Parts of Chile have so much solar energy that they give it away.

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.

Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 time more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's licence and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies might become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream until 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will run on electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.

At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed in to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all days on their fields. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you are. Until 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more that one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. Until 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries. We have already released our software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this Summer, because I see an enormous potential. We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.

Boom!

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Dave

And then the war with the machines will start.. We will all be Terminated

Sent from my G7-L01 using Tapatalk

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Returning to this point for a moment: it reminds me of my earlier question about the optimum number of levels of government but also the fact that we do vote for UK politicians - for better or for worse.

There was an earlier post that praised the democratic nature of the EU - I never could identify with that.
It may be like that in Germany but here in the UK the public do not vote for the EC commissioners (I see that Neil Kinnock and his side-kick wife have joined us from the continent for a while).
THe UK gets about 70 MEPs among 700+ total and are voted down on every occasion by virtue of this inbuilt minority or by use of Qualfied Majority Voting.
In essence, the UK, for many reasons - common law being but one - is not compatible with the current arrangements of the EU.

In any case, the European Parliament is notorious for acting as a mere rubber stamp to the EC; as just one instance, the EU parliament cannot introduce legislation, it simply accepts the proposals that come from the EC.
So, the EU parliament is less of a representative democracy system than that of our own UK system which has it's own gaping issues that need to be addressed.
But, the binary choice presented at present is not about the many UK internal issues but the external issue of the EU; in that we all need to make a judgement of where it is going, 10-20-30 years and more ahead.

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Dave

I hold the opposite view: just as the Scottish referendum provided renewed impetus to that part of the UK, so this national referendum will do the same for the rest of the country.

I have attempted to address some aspects of your post in my last one - the binary choice.

For the economic arguments I refer you to the thread "the economic crisis" which lies within this HUBB pub.
In summary, the so called economic experts "would say that, wouldn't they", being fully integrated pieces of the problem.

It is all evolving.

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Dave

At a very rough guess it takes something like 40 years for half the current population to die and be replaced. So, assuming one side wins by 1% and no imbalance of mind changing occurs we have concensus until 2036 or so. Birth rate vs immigration and qualification to vote may change the numbers but the answer isn't 2018 as I'm sure some poor losers will want.

Same goes for Scotland, ask again in a generation, although maybe we have done this in the wrong order, Scotland in the EU and England out may fit better.

I still think if we vote stay the EU will give us a beasting for rocking the boat.

Andy

I'd be interested to hear 'expert' opinion on this...

EU referendum: Chancellor says NI border checks 'inevitable' if UK leaves EU - BBC News

If it happens there it'll happen everywhere. Or is Georgie boy just stirring the pot

The border was open before we joined the EU and those treaties still exist. The Irish government would have to choose between hacking off their biggest trading partners and upsetting their masters in Brussels. They'd fudge something to have their cake and eat it (this would be known as a fudge cake )

Andy

Andy, you are right because....

http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/...olf-293714.jpg