Slashdot Mirror
Britain's Scientists Are 'Freaking Out' Over Brexit (washingtonpost.com)
"To use a nonscientific term, the scientists in the country are freaking out," reports the Washington Post. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes their report:
The researchers worry that Britain will not replace funding it loses when it leaves the E.U., which has supplied about $1.2 billion a year to support British science, approximately 10 percent of the total spent by government-funded research councils. There is a whiff of panic in the labs.
Worse than a possible dip in funding is the research community's fear that collaborators abroad will slink away and the country's universities will find themselves isolated. British research today is networked, expensive, competitive and global. Being part of a pan-European consortium has helped put Britain in the top handful of countries, based on the frequency of citations of its scientific papers... Anecdotal evidence suggests that headhunters may already be circling.
Meanwhile, NPR reports that Britain's vote to leave the EU "has depressed the value of the British pound," prompting many Britons to vacation at home rather than abroad -- while "Americans will find their dollars go further in Britain these days." And an anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CNBC that Ford "is considering closing plants in the UK and across Europe in response to Britain's vote to leave the EU, as it forecast a $1 billion hit to its business over the next two years."
Worse than a possible dip in funding is the research community's fear that collaborators abroad will slink away and the country's universities will find themselves isolated. British research today is networked, expensive, competitive and global. Being part of a pan-European consortium has helped put Britain in the top handful of countries, based on the frequency of citations of its scientific papers... Anecdotal evidence suggests that headhunters may already be circling.
Meanwhile, NPR reports that Britain's vote to leave the EU "has depressed the value of the British pound," prompting many Britons to vacation at home rather than abroad -- while "Americans will find their dollars go further in Britain these days." And an anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CNBC that Ford "is considering closing plants in the UK and across Europe in response to Britain's vote to leave the EU, as it forecast a $1 billion hit to its business over the next two years."
The trouble that Europe has is it is stuffed full of old people. That is why the place has the same level of visionary development as your grandparent's living room has had since the 1970s. Old people are at a different time in their life, and understandably care less for change and progress, but when they clog up the political system, they make life extremely grumpy and difficult.
The trouble is that not all of Europe is old, and those who are young are getting tired of the 'waiting for death' and 'back in my day' mentality that is gripping the West. Globalization might have it's problems, but most young people are no longer under the illusion that their problems are being caused by that Greek or Chinese person who they partied with in Ibiza last year.
The danger for the West is that there are other places with better demographics, and rapidly increasing standards of living. Europe should be busy trying to bring in young skilled workers from these places to offset the coming demographic cliff, and also encouraging young people to procreate. Instead they are closing off the borders, and making it harder and harder for young people to afford to start families by trying to extract all their earnings through rent seeking activities in the belief that storing fiat currency is a viable way to fund their pensions.
It is hard to see how it will not all crash and burn at some point. The global retirement asset bubble thing will burst when the inflow of new money to the ponzi scheme declines (either from prices simply becoming impossible to afford by new entrants, or old people having to cash out) which will wipe out the supposed retirement savings of millions, forcing them to have to rely on state pensions. This will then set up a direct political contest (as opposed to the proxy contest going on in the housing/debt market right now) between young workers and pensioners. Stripped of the housing capital gains illusion, I think any young person who is not debt enslaved will vote with their feet at this point, which will accelerate the dependency ratio shrinkage (a problem Japan didn't have to deal with due to its tight knit culture).
Eventually we'll reach a sensible compromise where young people will have to pay a bit more tax to prevent poverty among old people, and old people will have to accept a reduced standard of living in their retirement. Unfortunately it will be a bumpy road getting there, but that is how populous democracies solve these sorts of problems.
Dissolve the EU. It serves no person only the corporations.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
"I assume everyone who disagrees with me is a racist. This makes it much easier for me to assume a moral high ground and dismiss their opinions and experiences out of hand without engaging." -everyone who voted to stay
I can see why you people do this. It's very easy and conveinient!
Oh go for crowd pleasing upvote clicking, social justice easymode retort shy of any actual facts. Sir, take your '"you people" and feck off!
Any campaign run on Xenophobia, fear of immigrants and refugees is racist and since the vote the country as enjoyed a huge surge of racially motivated incidents, as if this vote has given license to be a dick.
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
https://www.theguardian.com/co...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix...
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.u...