Rory 

I have traveled the world and the EU is (all caps) massively the best place to live of the large global federations regardless of deficiencies. My moving to Colombia (sort of) was mostly down to a desire for a fresh experience rather than lack of opportunity back home.

I have done the same (with less place that you but EU, Africa, North America) and I massively agree to that statement

North America will perish (economically) under the growing burden of increasing inequalities. Africa has succumbed to it a long time ago and EU is the only place with a little hope.

(I don't know Asia)

Okina 

North America will perish (economically) under the growing burden of increasing inequalities.

You must be kidding, if USA perishes economically whole stock market perishes and whole world...it's like TOO BIG TO FAIL written all over USA....China will be ready to loose another decades worth of their manual labor (they can because of population) but they don't want USA to fail economically.

USA mean capitalism, In capitalistic country if there is not inequality then it's not capitalistic country.

FYI...I am not capitalistic or socialistic or anything...ONE thing I know is USA is enjoying the other countries labor because they freaking CAN and irony is other countries are dying to lend it to USA.

bmtrading9 

You must be kidding, if USA perishes economically whole stock market perishes and whole world...it's like TOO BIG TO FAIL written all over USA....China will be ready to loose another decades worth of their manual labor (they can because of population) but they don't want USA to fail economically. USA mean capitalism, In capitalistic country if there is not inequality then it's not capitalistic country. FYI...I am not capitalistic or socialistic or anything...ONE thing I know is USA is enjoying the other countries labor because they freaking CAN and irony is other countries are dying to lend it to USA.

When a country produce mainly super rich and super poor but close to nothing in the middle it is doom to fail because the main basic equation of economy which is production = consumption can not be equalize.

Inequalities are good when they remain under certain limits and are an incentive to risk, production and innovation but over a certain level they impoverish a Nation.

It not socialism nor capitalism it is just maths.

I think your both right @bmtrading9 and @Okina but definition of economic failure is the issue. Being too big does not prevent failure of course.

Has the USA already failed? I am wondrin'.. if believing it already has affects reality at all....

I just got off the phone with an.. acquaintance?.. in North Dakota who has just finished sorting his ammo. That is his subtle warning to the too liberal but maybe worth saving ones, sorting his ammo. He has some new collector arrangement on his ejector(s) so when the brass hits the floor it won't burn anything or cause him to trip. He is 70 so that is a real concern.

Brexit may bring chaos and he will be ready for the Mexicans when they attack his farm (which is on high ground, no accident). He has held this view since at least 2013 that Mexico is biding it's time. I can't even blame DT for him as he is so loco it was probably him who got DT started. He is an amazing Vietnam war poet if terribly racist.

He was a senior consulting engineer on several of the USA's very very largest infrastructural projects over the past 30 years. He is not organically ill in his brain...

Many kinds of failure in this world.

Edit: sorry as off topic yesterday. I was just off the call with him and drifted into a spiral of at least nobody in Europe is that bad (while being as heavily armed haha).

He can fix any broken thing but has miserably failed with people through his life. Psychological projection is a serious issue for him (Narcissism too..). Blow it up and start again clean is the only solution he sees in people/society problems. Marriages and organisations can be fixed but we need to shush the zero problem solving skills fringe and say this is what I want to change in Europe clearly and honestly (as a start).

1 think the issues are quite straightforward. In terms of political representation & accountability- do you want the laws that govern you & the taxation imposed upon you -created, voted upon & repealed by representatives that you elect & that you can un-elect? or do you want those laws & taxes decided upon & created by an unelected commission of 28 people who you didn't elect, & you have no right or possibility to remove? The commission currently passes 60% of all new laws in Britain, & that percentage is set to rise steadily, & studies have shown the vast majority of people across Europe don't even know who these people are.
Too much power concentrated in the hands of the few with Zero oversight is never a good thing. 1've seen at least 2 Independent studies & several documentaries uncovering details of how large corporate interests draft the legislation that suits them & the commission simply puts its logo at the top . As many others have stated - that's not undemocratic- its anti- democratic. The European Round Table was formed as a secret (until their existence was discovered) corporate cartel - to control the whole process.

In many ways, the questions of immigration & trade treaties (or lack thereof) are red herrings. The real issue is one of political representation, accountability - & democracy - values & ideals that past generations struggled, fought -& in many cases died for.

But as the argument has so often been reduced to a series of scare stories about trade, but the truth of the matter is that 2 countries do not need an international trade treaty for free trade to take place. It happens on a massive scale every day -all over the world without such treaties, which operate in a manner that serves the interests of the massive corporationS in favor of them & restrict & hinder the interests of smaller businesses who have to wade through mountains of bureaucracy, with limited resources, in order to attempt to compete.

As someone who has run small businesses both in Britain & elsewhere, I can see very clearly how the removal of those multiple layers of unecessary bureacracy will be of enormous benefit to smaller companies in the Uk. As Deutsche Bank in a recent report to its clients advised - that in the event ofa Brexit, they should buy Uk stocks as they're highly likely to outperform their European counterparts.

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

As @bebop says I think the accountability/sovereignty issue is paramount but everybody seems to be more focused on their version of the economics.

I think western civilization as we have known it is over its top.
From here there is only a way downward and the epicentre has already been shared and if not placed elsewhere.

A vote to stay, is a vote for Status Quo, is a vote for the establishment,
While this seems like the least of a turbulence, this is not going to solve
the bigger picture problem.

A vote to leave, is a vote of protest and the start of a significant change for both the Britain and the EU
I think it is fair to say, that significant changes are required
Brexit could be a catalyst for very needed deep reforms.

I think that ultimately people are being 'played' by press, government, and other forces.

A Brexit would be a strong signal that people are saturated by such manipulation and want a change
it will serve as a cataclysm for other regions (eg. Eastern Europe)

rleplae 

I think western civilization as we have known it is over its top. From here there is only a way downward and the epicentre has already been shared and if not placed elsewhere. A vote to stay, is a vote for Status Quo, is a vote for the establishment, While this seems like the least of a turbulence, this is not going to solve the bigger picture problem. A vote to leave, is a vote of protest and the start of a significant change for both the Britain and the EU I think it is fair to say, that significant changes are required Brexit could be a catalyst for very needed deep reforms. I think that ultimately people are being 'played' by press, government, and other forces. A Brexit would be a strong signal that people are saturated by such manipulation and want a change it will serve as a cataclysm for other regions (eg. Eastern Europe)

But the protests have taken and are taking place already in the EU. Look at Spain and its Podemos party. Look at what's happened in Italy over the last fews years with the M5S party (yesterday's election results that confirmed the first female mayor for Rome and who belongs to an anti-austerity movement is a strong signal). Look at Greece and Syriza. Brexit's malcontent is but the latest example.

I believe - overall - people are tired, yes. But have they been pushed to the brink yet? I don't think so.

That's why I believe people will eventually vote for the status quo.

I know I will make a lot of you laugh or disapproved but I think that the Brexit debate is very important not for what it brings on the surface (EU regulations vs National regulations, immigration etc...) but for a much deeper concern. It has consequences wherever you live. So yes EU has to be reformed but we can not reform something we leave. And above EU we need a real debate about democracy and our institutions.

The Brexit debate is a major opportunity for us “people” to think about this fundamental question: why governments seem unable to solve real problems? The answer is so obvious in my opinion that most people does not see it: it is because government has lost most of their power of decision. And by that "we" have lost most of our power of decision.

I am a libertarian in the sense that I would like to see people empowered but empowered in a democratic process and I would like to see a restoration of a real democracy in our society. This process can not be made in my opinion by bashing existing structures but instead by empowering them and by reunifying the political and the economic sphere.

We make a colossal mistake taking Democracy for granted. We mistakenly believe that capitalism begets inevitably democracy. It doesn't. China have demonstrated beyond doubt that it is perfectly possible to have a flourishing capitalism while politics remains non democratic.

Aristotle defined democracy as the constitution in which the free and the poor, being in the majority, control government. What was more pertinent, and continues to be so about ancient Athenian democracy, was the inclusion of the working poor, who not only acquired the right to free speech, but more importantly, crucially, they acquired the rights to political judgments that were afforded equal weight in the decision-making concerning matters of state.

Our liberal democracies today do not have their roots in ancient Athens. They have their roots in the Magna Carta, in the 1688 Glorious Revolution, in the American constitution. Whereas Athenian democracy was focusing on the masterless citizen and empowering the working poor, our liberal democracies are founded on the Magna Carta tradition, which was, after all, a charter for masters and by that way stated a clear distinction between political and economic sphere. And indeed, liberal democracy only surfaced when it was possible to separate fully the political sphere from the economic sphere, so as to confine the democratic process fully in the political sphere, leaving the economic sphere -- the corporate world, if you want -- as a democracy-free zone. Which is the biggest of all mistake and the root of all our problems.

Now, in our democracies today, this separation of the economic from the political sphere,the moment it started happening, it gave rise to an inexorable, epic struggle between the two, with the economic sphere colonizing the political sphere, eating into its power. One can be in government today and not in power, because power has migrated from the political to the economic sphere, which is separate. So we need to reconfigure, we need to reunite the economic and the political spheres, but we'd better do it by democratizing the reunified sphere.

Staying or leaving the EU won't of course solve this problem at once. But the EU is a very large government less prone (but not immune of course) to manipulation than a local government.

Do you want to live in a world in which the power belongs to people you have elected or do you want to live a world in which power belong to a "board of directors" over which you have no or little power? You can argue that you can have power over a corporation by owning a part of it but with 7B people in the world can we have 7B of owner? If you think yes in that case it is called communism and I do not share this ideology that has already failed and proved to be wrong.

I am an EU citizen, I have already vote for it. I think that the power belongs to us be we have been stupid and manipulated for not sizing it and destroying an institution instead of reforming it from the inside would be another mistake.

I am maybe too optimistic...

Okina 

I am an EU citizen, I have already vote for it. I think that the power belongs to us be we have been stupid and manipulated for not sizing it and destroying an institution instead of reforming it from the inside would be another mistake. I am maybe too optimistic...

Here's someone else that thinks like Okina... on a light-hearted note