Election Essentials: How will Brexit affect the campaign?

include: —rapid response —official fundraising email —super PAC selection —Ohio state director “In new poll, support for Trump has plunged, giving Clinton a double-digit lead” by Scott Clement and Philip Rucker “No, Brexit isn’t a good sign for Trump” by Kim Soffen • Democrats are getting nervous that Clinton is neglecting Democratic-leaning states like Michigan and Wisconsin, The Post’s Philip Rucker and John Wagner report. “I have been stunned at the number of sane people who have said they know what Donald Trump is, they know what he stands for, but they want to shake up the system,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton greets a throng of people attending the gay pride parade in New York City. Happy #NYCPride! https://t.co/ZV75RMBiM2 • In Scotland, Trump briefly addressed the Brexit results at a press conference at Turnberry, a golf course he’s rejuvenated. The Republican was largely criticized for using the moment to focus on business interests rather diving deep into the global implications of the British referendum. He also rejected suggestions that he should talk with British Prime Minister David Cameron while abroad. Here are key moments from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's answers to reporters' questions June 24 at his golf course in Scotland. Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games! • A British comedian interrupted Trump’s press conference by apologizing for not presenting the crowd earlier with red golf balls personalized with a swastika. Last year, the same prankster tossed wads of cash at disgraced FIFA president Sepp Blatter. During a news conference at GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's golf course in Scotland, British comedian named Lee Nelson interrupted Trump's speech, attempting to give him red golf balls with swastikas painted on them. Trump gave most of his press conference in Scotland surrounded by these Nazi golf balls https://t.co/UsUoVK3nkW • While in Scotland, Trump amended his controversial proposed Muslim ban: The candidate’s spokesperson told The Post a ban would not apply to states with peaceful Muslims. We must suspend immigration from regions linked with terrorism until a proven vetting method is in place. • His frenetic ban on the media, however, continues. The Post’s Jenna Johnson, along with other reporters, was barred Saturday from Trump’s golf course. So @wpjenna and I just got thrown out of Trump's


Sarah Palin celebrates Brexit, says U.K. avoided ‘apocalyptic One World Government’

(Mary Altaffer/AP Photo) As the United Kingdom prepared to leave the European Union, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation, the value of the pound fell and HBO had to assure worried “Game of Thrones” fans that future Northern Ireland film shoots were going to be fine, Sarah Palin came forth with her own take. On Friday, the former Alaskan governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate congratulated the “smart Brits,” likening the June referendum to the Declaration of Independence. After all, as she noted in a Facebook post, the citizens of the United Kingdom may have avoided nothing less than the end of the world. Palin, a Donald Trump supporter, applauded the “leave” voters for outfoxing “globalists” who would bring about an “apocalyptic One World Government,” she wrote on Facebook. That is because the European Union, in her words, is a “One World Government mini-me.” Palin’s comments marked a public embrace of a conspiracy theory popularly known as the New World Order. Palin did not elaborate what, exactly, the apocalypse would look like. But the details of who or what make up the New World Order depend on the theorist — it is a secret organization of politicians, banks, the Illuminati, the media or, perhaps, lizard people. Distilled, the main goal of the organization is a totalitarian regime that will emerge from the shadows: One World Government to rule them all. Whether that goal is brought about by order or chaos is also in the mind of the beholder. Alex Jones, the 9/11 conspiracy theorist behind the website Infowars, told New York Magazine in 2011 that the members of the New World Order are working to acquire a genetically engineered mouse pox that could kill 99 percent of any given mammalian species. Rolling Stone, which described Jones as the “most paranoid man in America,” called his obsession with New World Order “Ahab-like.” The New World Order is everywhere: the Gates Foundation is a “eugenics operation,” Jones told Rolling Stone, and WikiLeaks is a government-sanctioned disinformation campaign. Jones and Palin are not, historically speaking, anomalies. People have worried about the establishment at least as long as there has been a Man to stick it to. In fact, the Illuminati started out as a collective of nonconformist philosophers resisting the Catholic Church’s influence in the 1770s. The idea of a “New World Order” is a modern flavor of a long-held skepticism,


D.C. area forecast: Chance of storms late today but plenty of nice summer weather this week

Sunset at National Harbor, June 25. (Namrata Dsouza via Flickr) TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT 5/10: EXPRESS FORECAST Today: View the current weather conditions at The Washington Post. FORECAST IN DETAIL A slow-moving front brings late day storm chances to start the week, but unlikely widespread severe weather. The middle of the week then brings lowered humidity and storm prospects shut off. Humidity starts to return toward the weekend when we reintroduce the chance of some late day storms. Sunday may present the most significant opportunity for showers and storms. But, at least, there’s no sign of excessive heat this week and highs should be below 90 every day. Today (Monday): Tonight: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest updates. For related traffic news, check out Dr. Gridlock. Keep reading for the forecast through the weekend… Tomorrow (Tuesday): Tomorrow night: A LOOK AHEAD High pressure builds into the region Wednesday and Thursday, so both days should be mostly sunny and rain free. Humidity drops noticeably with highs each day in the mid-80s. Overnight lows Wednesday range from the upper 50s to mid-60s (downtown). Some clouds may increase late Thursday as high pressure scoots away. Confidence: Medium Friday and Saturday A cold front pushing into the region Saturday night and then hovering through the day Sunday may mean fairly high chances of showers and storms. The period may not be a washout but the setup seems like the week’s most conducive for widespread storminess — though the setup could change. Lows Saturday night are in the 60s with highs Sunday in the low 80s. Confidence: Low-Medium A sneak peek at the forecast for July 4 is encouraging. High pressure may try to build into the region meaning dry, comfortably warm weather. But it’s far enough away that this outlook could change … so stay tuned.


Cool new gadgets and an all-night party mark the Air and Space Museum’s 40th birthday

This sign’s not the only bright, shiny new thing at Air and Space. (Mark Avino/Smithsonian) Months before the official opening of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on July 1, 1976, eager aviation fans smudged the museum’s brand-new windows while trying to catch a glimpse of the headline-making vehicles inside. Back then, people instantly recognized aircraft like the Atlantic-crossing Spirit of St. Louis and the Apollo 11 command module, the living quarters for the first manned flight to the moon. “The Apollo missions were part of recent history when we opened. People had lived through it and witnessed it themselves,” museum spokeswoman Alison Mitchell says. “Now, we can’t assume that people know what these things are.” That spurred the museum to renovate its flagship Milestones of Flight gallery, which will be unveiled Tuesday. Newly dubbed the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall (in honor of the company’s $30 million gift), the exhibit now features a huge interactive touch-screen display, revamped artifact labels, the USS Enterprise from Star Trek and one major addition: A lunar module just like the one that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon’s surface in 1969. This lunar lander is a new addition to the updated Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall. (Eric Long/Smithsonian) “You know how the Natural History Museum has that elephant in the rotunda that’s their iconic image? I always thought that the lunar module could serve that purpose here,” space artifacts curator Allan Needell says. Armstrong’s lunar lander was abandoned on the moon, so the Smithsonian has re-created it using an identical module that was used by NASA to test whether the lander’s electrical systems could withstand the shock of being dropped onto the surface of the moon. Needell has set up the module to look just like the one from Apollo 11 after it landed on the moon, wrapping it in golden thermal blankets and putting its ladder down. He’s even included details that visitors can’t see — for instance, a plaque underneath one of the ladder steps that says “We came in peace for all mankind,” and a camera like the one that captured Armstrong’s historic steps. The giant interactive touch screen will soon bear many fingerprints. (Eric Long/Smithsonian) The other major new addition to the Milestones of Flight Hall is a 16-by-12-foot touch screen that provides in-depth information about artifacts throughout the museum. If you have an iPhone


The Brexit and budget austerity: What’s the connection?

minutes and listen to these three either way; believe me, you’ll thank me). Britain's vote to exit the European Union sent U.S. stocks plunging. Clearly, financial markets were surprised and roiled by the vote, but do not conflate financial markets with the real economy. Stocks took a hit on Friday and the British pound was hit hard, staging its biggest one-day drop on record and resulting in a 30-year low relative to the dollar. But while these are big, negative swings, markets go up and down all the time, and from what I can see, there’s no cascading Lehman story in here. Central banks are ready to intervene if needed, and I don’t see systemic financial losses that could lastingly undermine credit markets. If the pound stays down, that has numerous “mechanical” impacts on the real economy. Since it makes imports to the UK more expensive—and imports are 30 percent of the UK’s GDP compared to about half that for the US—inflation there could go up. On the other hand, by making imports pricier and UK exports cheaper, this could help their growth by lowering their trade deficit, currently a hefty -5 percent of GDP. Also, these dynamics will likely lead central banks, including our Federal Reserve, to keep interest rates low for longer, which is a plus for growth but tough on those with fixed incomes. (There’s an irony there should rates also stay low in the UK, which they would if growth there takes a hit: pensioners who both supported the Brexit and depend on fixed incomes will be worse off.) Beyond that, we’ll have to see. A lot depends on what happens in the forthcoming negotiations about UK access to EU markets, the extent to which multinationals with UK operations get spooked, and, extremely importantly, whether the UK/EU austerity fever breaks. With the exception of austerity, the many reasons for the Brexit vote have been well covered. I’d stress: –PM David Cameron’s reckless, opportunistic political gambit: calling for the referendum back in 2013 to assuage his far right Euro-skeptics in time for the upcoming election. –Strong anti-immigration and anti-globalization sentiments. The unleashed xenophobia, surely linked to the refugee crisis, is to my thinking the worst part of all of this. Re globalization, UK voters (and probably US ones as well) finally had enough of elite economists and politicians lecturing them that if they only understood “comparative advantage”


Veteran preference in federal hiring: The ‘third rail of civil service reform,’ expert says

of millennials: Virtually any study of new hires in government or the private sector shows that turnover in the first 2 years with an organization is much higher than in following years. A Partnership for Public Service study showed that turnover for employees under 30 was also high, as is turnover for employees in entry-level jobs. This approach to veteran preference could have an adverse impact on veterans who get a job and learn that it is not a good match for them, or those who need to relocate (e.g., to accompany a spouse). The effect could be particularly pronounced for younger veterans who are still searching for the right career. Young veterans have higher unemployment rates than the population as a whole. It is not in our society’s interests for those young men and women to serve and then have no job when they complete their service. [American Legion: Pentagon officials ‘turned their backs’ on veterans to get around hiring them] If Congress wants to prevent veterans from going to the head of the line over and over, Neal says, a better strategy would be to restrict the benefit to those in full-time permanent positions. That way, someone on probation, or working part time, could get extra points twice or even three times. But the approach “does not punish the veteran who finds s/he accepted a job that isn’t working out, or who needs to relocate and must look for another job,” Neal writes. Neal calls veterans preference a “third rail of civil service reform.” Almost 1 in 2 people hired to a permanent federal job is a veteran, with former service members making up 47.4 percent of new hires to full-time positions in fiscal 2014, the last year for which the government has provided data. Starting in 2009, President Obama boosted the extra credit veterans get to give them a greater edge in getting federal jobs, setting hiring goals for veterans at each agency and directing managers to be graded on how many former service members they bring aboard. The Senate plan, the first change to the Obama administration’s high-profile push to hire veterans into the federal government, has generated controversy. Veterans service organizations oppose it as an effort to chip away at a benefit that helps reintegrate those who served into the workforce. [Military retirees have a revolving door to civilian jobs. The Senate voted to shut


Brexit is a reminder that some things just shouldn’t be decided by referendum

directly from the people instead. In a world where all kinds of decisions that should be made by legislators are made by referendums instead, we get, well, California — a state where ballot initiatives rule what happens to individual bonds and bag taxes and even proposed buildings. Back in 1978, California voters generously decided in a ballot measure to cap their own property taxes in a way — amending the state constitution — that has hobbled ever since California's ability to generate revenue and create reasonable housing policy. Last year's Supreme Court decision upholding gay marriage also underscored another drawback of referendums: Give people a chance at the ballot box, and they may also trample minority rights. To come back to Bell's distinction about the two different kinds of referendums, the Brexit vote arguably looks a little like both. Brexit supporters certainly cast the question as one of fundamental sovereignty and "independence" from Europe (as did Donald Trump, with his praise of voters who wanted to "take back their country"). But the proposition at hand also raised the kinds of thorny debates we elect government officials to hash out: Do the benefits of the E.U. justify those payments? Will the costs of leaving cripple the British economy? Will "independence" bring new forms of instability that voters haven't even been encouraged to foresee? Martin Kettle, an editor at the Guardian in the U.K., argued last Thursday, before the final vote, that Brexit should itself be a referendum on referendums, "now the weapon of choice for populist parties of left and right": There may, in certain circumstances, be an argument for referendums in our politics. But the argument has to be better than that we have had some referendums in the past or that a lot of the public would like one. People will always agree they want a say. Yet it is far from obvious that a system of referendums strengthens trust in democracy. Neither Ireland nor Switzerland, where referendums are more common, seem to vindicate that. Germany’s constitution is strongly rooted in the opposite view. And if an issue is major enough to require a referendum, why is it not major enough to require a high level of turnout or an enhanced majority of those voting, as should be the norm? London residents gave mixed reactions after Britain's historic vote to leave the European Union sent shockwaves around the world.


Jonathan Aberman: The real reason Brexit matters to Americans

but immigration is now a divisive concept. It couldn’t have nations such as Greece incurring growing amounts of debt without running risks of higher inflation — but that means that richer countries were called in to help out because of the actions of poorer countries. The United Kingdom gained much from being part of the EU: London is the financial center of Europe and many international companies locate their manufacturing plants or operating branches in the UK to reach the broader EU market. Parts of the UK are big beneficiaries of EU subsidies. By leaving the EU, it has placed these economic benefits at risk. The United Kingdom is a nation with a strong sense of national identity and pride. But there has always been within that an underlying tinge of nativism and xenophobia. I lived in the UK for many years, and was often struck when the closed-minded view would peek its head through the externally polite and reserved tone of general discourse: During the Falklands War, after another World Cup loss, or in a friend’s casual description of the local convenience store as the “Paki shop” because the owner was of Asian descent. Do you see echoes of this in our political discourse? The UK’s decision to leave the EU is important for us to understand. Not because of the crisis that this will create for the EU and the UK, which is more their problem than ours, but because it demonstrates the concerning ascendancy of nativism, nationalism and a distrust of elites resulting in profoundly short-sighted decisions. Now that the British have decided to leave the EU, the challenges for the UK and Europe may border on the existential. To survive, the EU will have to make things as unpleasant for the UK as possible or risk encouraging other nations to back out, too or even the dissolution of the EU. Germany and France will not allow that to occur. Because of their historical attitudes, they need the EU much more than they need the UK. The UK will lose access to markets and capital. It may itself atomize; Scotland benefits from being part of the EU in the form of subsidies, and has already been asserting its desire for independence. Northern Ireland may look to integrate with Ireland. London, the driver of the UK economy, will most likely lose its status as the financial center of


The world’s losers are revolting, and Brexit is only the beginning

States it's Trump, in France it's the National Front, in Germany it's the Alternative for Germany and, yes, in Britain it's the Brexiters. S If he were around today, Louis XV might amend what he said to this: Après Brexit, le déluge. That's not, though, because of what Brexit might do to Britain's economy, but rather to everyone else's politics. Now, of course, it is true that leaving the E.U. without getting a new trade deal almost as good as the one it has now will make Britain permanently poorer. And it is also true that the uncertainty over what any future agreement will look like will put the brakes on business investment and possibly push Britain into recession. But the economic fate of one little island isn't what has global markets on edge. It's whether the rest of Europe will follow Britain out of the E.U. and into their own portmanteaus. In other words, whether Brexit will beget Frexit, Itexit and Nexit. It might. Right-wing populists, after all, in France, Italy and the Netherlands have already called for their own referendums on E.U. membership. And if they win, it wouldn't just tear the common market apart but the common currency as well. See, unlike Britain, all those countries use the euro. So if one of them were to leave, two things would happen: First, they'd have to change all the money in their economy, and, second, every other euro country would worry that they'd be next. That, in turn, would set off a slow-motion bank run across Southern Europe as people tried to get ahold of their euros before they could be turned into, say, liras that wouldn't be worth anywhere near as much. It'd be the mother-of-all financial crises. Which is why German, French, Spanish and Italian stock markets all fell much further than Britain's did after it voted to leave. Indeed, those markets dropped 6.8, 8.0, 12.4 and 12.5 percent, respectively, on Friday, while Britain's "only" declined 3.2 percent. Brexit, it turns out, is more about Europe than it is about Britain. T The E.U. may certainly seem to deserve this fate. It has let an economic fire burn across Southern Europe for nearly eight years, its only response to that has been to pour some gasoline on it, and it seems to think it has done its job now that that is down to just a


Why everyone panicked and stock markets plunged after the Brexit vote

A pedestrian shelters from the rain beneath a Union flag themed umbrella in central London on June 25, 2016. (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images) Despite reassurances that we shouldn’t listen to the experts, the financial markets have gone and behaved almost exactly as the experts predicted. After the news that Britain will leave the European Union, the pound has dropped to a level not seen since 1985. The London-based Financial Times Stock Exchange has had the biggest one-day drop ever. On top of this, the yields of British government bonds have hit an all-time low. The price of commodities such as oil dropped 6 percent on the Brexit vote. House builders have been particularly hard hit, suggesting massive declines in the property sector. Alternative assets such as gold and bitcoin have rallied as people look for safe places to stash their money. This very British crisis has quickly cascaded across national borders. The German share market fell 10 percent, and the French market fell 8 percent. Outside Europe, there have been big falls in Japanese and Australian markets, too. The U.S. Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index dropped 3.6 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.4 percent, and the Nasdaq index fell 4.1 percent. So what started out as a vote by some angry people in England has rapidly become a global economic event. It has spread across continents and asset classes. It has unleashed a kind of contagion last seen during the financial crisis of 2008. This contagion happens as falls in one asset class start to make another look more vulnerable. For instance, as shares in banks go down, other funds that hold shares in these banks are likely to look increasingly shaky. Given the complex web of interlocking assets in the global financial system, it is often difficult to say when the contagion might stop. It could mean that assets that are not fundamentally affected by Brexit take a price hit — at least in the short term. Another common dynamic that kicks off when there are large-scale and complex economic events such as Brexit is herdlike behavior. The surprise of the referendum outcome led to usual assumptions’ being thrown out the window. In these situations, traders increasingly look to each other for a sense of what an asset is actually worth. As a result, they can start to ignore the fundamentals and start to follow what the crowd


This is the scariest thing that’s happening right now in the markets

both stocks because of sharp losses Monday morning. In Hong Kong, shares of HSBC and Standard Chartered slumped. The FTSE 300, an index of the biggest stocks on the London exchange by market capitalization, plunged on Friday and Monday: An index of bank stocks included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average also dived Friday and opened lower Monday: The steep drop-off in bank shares came after analysts' issued reports on Monday downgrading the banking sector. Citigroup cut its price target on a number of European banks, including Deutsche Bank, UBS and Credit Suisse, in a note Monday that said Britain’s banks are among the industries most likely to suffer because of Brexit. Barclays downgraded the European banking sector to neutral, saying that a mild recession might begin in Britain in the second half of this year. Analysts fear that the Brexit vote will lead to continued volatility for the financial sector, which could see more non-performing loans and lower profit margins as a result of the economic uncertainty surrounding Britain's departure from the E.U. The vote to leave the European Union has also raised concerns about the future of London’s financial services sector, which serves as a gateway into the European market for many banks and other industries. In addition, an exit from the European Union would require renegotiating Britain’s financial regulations, many of which are currently determined by the E.U. London's financial industry, among the strongest in the world, accounts for 8 percent of the British economy and 4 percent of British jobs. The city voted strongly to remain in the E.U. Banks were some of the loudest critics of Brexit in the run-up to the referendum, citing the prospect of jobs losses in the financial sector. In a report in April, consultancy PWC estimated that Brexit could lead to the loss of up to 100,000 additional jobs in country’s financial services sector by 2020. Both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank issued statements saying their financial sectors remain resilient and will receive support if necessary. In 2016 the world has faced economic uncertainty again and again with Brexit and now a Donald Trump presidential win. Here's why 401ks and IRAs are better left alone. See also: The startling human toll of Brexit The pound’s dramatic decline is the biggest impact of Brexit so far The one investment that just made a killing, thanks to Brexit


Four reasons why killing insurgents in Syria might backfire

week in each district, through all types of military engagement (including direct and indirect fire incidents, bombings or any other form of engagement where a member of the coalition was present to record the incident). We then analyzed whether the number of insurgents killed in a given week had an impact on the number of insurgent attacks against coalition forces in future weeks. The answer is yes — but it turns out that rather than reducing the insugency’s capabilities, killing fighters actually encouraged more attacks against the coalition. When coalition forces employed extreme violence — killing relatively large numbers of insurgents — they were able to moderate the rate of increase in insurgent attacks, but not reduce it. In other words, military force alone was not successful at decreasing violence in Iraq. Here are four reasons why. 1) Military force often means collateral damage Military strikes of all sorts also kill civilians, damage infrastructure and restrict economic activity. This collateral damage can harden public sentiment against the coalition, and increase civilians’ willingness to join or support militant movements, a phenomenon observed in Syria already. Even if they choose not to take up arms, civilians who lost a friend or family member to a military strike may begin to harbor attitudes that favor militancy, especially if they view these deaths as unjust. Communities that discuss terrorist attacks openly and where people’s statements about militant activities receive tacit support can create a culture that supports terrorist activity. The result can validate terrorist propaganda, cultivate narratives of heroism surrounding those who join and fight, and increase the movement’s appeal to locals. Indeed, scholars argue that suicide bombing is on the rise due to increasing cultural acceptance of it as a form of martyrdom. The Islamic State’s ongoing capacity to attract followers at home and abroad, despite years of coordinated airstrikes, offers supportive evidence. 2) Civilians are likely to blame outsiders for violence, not the Islamic State This anti-coalition sentiment can persist even when militants themselves kill civilians and damage civilian infrastructure. A recent study of violence in Afghanistan showed that attacks by International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) that harmed civilians reduced local support for ISAF, but equivalent attacks by the Taliban did not result in similar declines in support for the Taliban. This response is due to intergroup bias: People are more likely to blame those they don’t know or who seem “other”


Main Street Morning: Here’s how the Brexit could affect U.S. small businesses

- How this entrepreneur overcame hardships of a Chinese prison. Retail - Barnes & Noble plans to open four “concept” stores selling beer and wine. Restaurants - Some are predicting that self-service beer may be a trend that could take off. Sales Marketing - What you need to know about Google’s expanded text ads. - Here are three better ways to start your next presentation. - How the Brexit is bringing out the creative kings of mobile and ecommerce. Finance - Wells Fargo celebrates a group of black business owners who are working to change their communities. Start-ups - There is a growing trend of Millennial matchmakers set on helping people’s dating game. - This entrepreneurial engineer is starting his eighth business in Chattanooga. Technology - Tests are showing that plants grown in simulated Mars conditions are safe to eat. - These are seven game-changing tech innovations that will take off in five to ten years, according to a Google billionaire. - Why the app boom is not over. Online - How live video streaming is rising. - How fraudsters make billions off business e-mail scams. Social Media - Twitter and Foursquare partner to allow their users to follow major events through location tags. - WhatsApp users are making 100 million calls every day. On This Day in 1967 - The world’s first ATM is installed at Barclays London. Around the Country - Growing medical marijuana could mean big business in Maryland. - Maryland’s list of marijuana investors includes a pastor, a rabbi, an NFL player, and pretty much anyone you can imagine. - A Maine entrepreneur gives $1 million for science programs. - A local business grows exotic mushrooms for Chicago chefs. - Proposed DMV rules in Texas could put some local firms out of business. - A popular ice cream maker in Oregon celebrates 85 years. - The Panama Canal expansion could have economic impact on Western Kentucky. - The gun control debate is not affecting gun sales in North Carolina. Around the World - Japan’s has a booming rent-a-friend business. - Deutsche Bank’s CEO says London’s financial center will weaken but won’t die. - Affluent Millennials in China are drinking more. Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd PA consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. Follow Gene Marks and On Small Business on Twitter. News we should know about? Email us here.


Thanks to climate change, the Arctic is turning green

approach represents a blunt instrument. An examination of total leaf area, he notes, doesn’t record whether a particular area has changed its type of vegetation, say from smaller tundra shrubs to small trees. Buitenwerf also notes that the science is less clear about what is happening in the global tropics and in the Southern Hemisphere, where greening trends are either less apparent, or more difficult to explain. Still, the subtext of all of this research is clear — a key fraction of all the greenhouse gases that humans pour into the atmosphere each year is pulled back into plants through the process of photosynthesis. This is happening even as the overall warming of the planet may, by lengthening growing seasons and moistening the atmosphere, further stoke plant growth. They don’t call it the “greenhouse effect” for nothing. The key question then becomes how much this process can offset overall global warming over time. And that’s quite unclear. There’s a lot, after all, that we don’t understand. For instance, a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report found that while Arctic tundras have indeed been greening over the past 30 years, in the past two to four years, that trend has reversed itself. “Although we already identify this kind of human impact on this historical vegetation growth, for the future, it’s hard to predict,” says Mao. He said he is not sure to what extent the greening trend will continue, as “disturbances” like wildfires might counteract it, or plants may become “acclimated to this kind of high temperature.” Still, the trend is already prompting more optimistic assessments of our climate future in some quarters. Arctic greening was recently cited, in a major report by the U.S. Geological Survey, as the central reason that the state of Alaska, despite worsening wildfires and more thaw of permafrost, might still be able to stow away more carbon than it loses over the course of the 21st century. It is clear, then, that greening is emerging as a factor with the potential to blunt some of the worst impacts of human greenhouse gas emissions. But thus far, researchers do not seem to be arguing that it’s enough to counterbalance the entire human-induced warming trend. “While we are perhaps lucky that CO2 has this effect on plant physiology, in addition to being a greenhouse gas, it is not our ‘get out of jail free’ card when


See the best images of Jupiter yet, just in time for NASA’s Juno probe

This view compares a lucky imaging view of Jupiter from VISIR (left) at infrared wavelengths with a very sharp amateur image in visible light from about the same time (right). (Leigh Fletcher/ESO) At this very moment, a plucky space probe named Juno is zipping toward Jupiter. It's on the final leg of a five-year journey, and when it reaches polar orbit next week, it will start offering scientists an unprecedented glimpse into the composition and behavior of the gas giant. We already know that Jupiter is not a friendly place, even by the low standards of space. Its magnetic field is so intense that the poles are "crackling with electricity," as one astronomer put it to NASA. Its southern hemisphere is marked by a permanent, swirling, anticylonic storm so large it could encompass two or three Earth-size planets. Gas from volcanic eruptions on its moon Io is constantly spewing into its atmosphere. Before Juno arrives, astronomers wanted to get a better idea of what the probe is getting itself into. So they launched an on-the-ground coordinated observing campaign to map the gas planet and understand what's happening in its atmosphere right now. Some of the best images from that campaign were presented at the Royal Astronomical Society's national meeting in the United Kingdom on Monday. The infrared images are the highest-resolution maps of Jupiter to date, according to the RAS. False-color images generated from telescope observations show two different faces of Jupiter. The bluer areas are cold and cloud-free, the orange areas are warm and cloudy. More colorless bright regions are warm and cloud-free, and dark regions are cold and cloudy. (Leigh Fletcher/ESO) “These maps will help set the scene for what Juno will witness in the coming months," Leigh Fletcher, an astronomer at the University of Leicester who led the project, said in a news release. "Observations at different wavelengths across the infrared spectrum allow us to piece together a three-dimensional picture of how energy and material are transported upwards through the atmosphere.” It's difficult for earthbound telescopes to get clear pictures of things beyond our planet because they have to peer through the haze of Earth's atmosphere. That's partly why we send up probes, like Juno, or space telescopes like the Hubble. But a process called lucky imaging — in which astronomers take thousands of frames one after another and then sift through the results for "lucky" images


What’s the alternative to payday loans?

Neon signs illuminate a payday loan business in Phoenix, one of 650 operating in the state with some open 24 hours a day. (Ross D. Franklin/ASSOCIATED PRESS) There are more payday lending storefronts in the United States than Earlier this month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed rules that would Free market advocates have decried the proposals as government overreach, arguing that payday lending — while undesirable — fulfills the demand of people who are strapped for cash. But in the midst of the debate, there’s a broader question that’s getting less attention: Are there other easy credit alternatives available? There’s a near universal consensus that payday lending is, financially speaking, a terrible way to finance debt. With average annual interest rates floating around 320 percent of original loans, an Still, there remains that question of “what’s next.” Without access to credit, people in dire poverty may be unable to afford basic needs, like car payments or groceries. That’s why many people argue that the CFPB rules — which would require lenders to make sure borrowers can afford the loans and would limit how many consecutive payday loans people can take out — would be reckless without a contingency plan in place to help those in need. Without these lenders in place, what’s to keep borrowers from turning to other, Without a viable solution, opponents of the CFPB proposals have defaulted to But others argue that there’s room for the government to step in. A number of outlets, for example, Of course, as critics of this proposal As the CFPB moves its proposed rules through the public review process, the debate for further action around payday loans will continue. Is federal regulation the answer? Or should government take a greater role in offering emergency finance for the poor? Over the next few days, we’ll hear from: Mehrsa Baradaran, professor at University of Georgia Law School Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending Tim Worstall, senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute Nathan Fiala, assistant professor at the University of Connecticut Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy


As Britain reels, the queen stays silent. For how long?

a PG-rated version playing out in Westminster’s corridors of power. British Prime Minister David Cameron, the queen’s 12th prime minister, resigned Friday morning, and both of Britain's main political parties are in turmoil. Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland and one of Britain’s canniest politicians (future Queen of the North?), has been busy pushing her dream for Scottish independence. She says it is “highly likely” that there will be a second referendum on Scottish independence, given that the majority of Scots voted to remain in the E.U. The Scottish National Party has said that if Scotland were to gain independence, the queen would remain head of state with the title “Queen of Scots.” In Northern Ireland, where voters strongly backed staying in the bloc, questions have been raised about border checks between a post-Brexit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is in the E.U., and what that could mean for the fragile peace process. The political party Sinn Fein has called for the border to be removed completely. Britain is a constitutional monarchy with a queen who reigns but does not rule. She can’t vote and is expected to remain politically neutral. “As Head of State The Queen has to remain strictly neutral with respect to political matters,” the palace says on its website. Indeed, when the Sun tabloid ran a front-page headline “Queen backs Brexit,” Buckingham Palace complained to the media watchdog, which ruled that the headline was inaccurate. “The queen remains politically neutral as she has for 63 years,” the palace said in response to the headline. But nothing prevents her from issuing the kind of statement she did after the Scottish referendum, in which she said she had no doubt that the U.K. would unite “in a spirit of mutual respect and support.” The queen “is a tremendous unifying” figure, said Robert Lacey, a royal biographer, who noted that she has played an important role in Anglo-Irish relations. For instance, when she visited the Republic of Ireland in 2011, the first British monarch to do so in 100 years, she was widely praised for her efforts toward reconciliation. During a state banquet in Dublin, she began her speech by speaking in Irish, causing then-Irish President Mary McAleese to turn to others and mouth “wow.” But on issues related to Brexit, it appears that the queen is holding her tongue — for now, at least.


The sun has ‘gone blank’ for the second time this month. Here’s what that means.

The blank sun through four different filters. (NASA) The sun is blank for the second time in less than a month — not a single dark sunspot mars its surface. It’s a sign our star is entering a new period of decreased activity — one that will continue to last for about five years. But, despite the overall decline, history has proven that some of the largest solar storms in memory can occur when sunspots appear to be ebbing. The sun is a volatile star. Its surface changes on a 11-year solar cycle that oscillates between periods of increased and decreased sunspot production. Sunspots are dark areas on the surface of the sun that indicate intense magnetic activity — so strong, in fact, that it inhibits solar convection and thus reduces the temperature of the sun in that location. Sunspots can be just a few miles wide, but the largest can span 100,000 miles in diameter, or more than 12 Earths across. These massive spots can be seen on the surface of the sun without a telescope, and they can be just half as hot as their surroundings. Sunspots are not just something for scientists to observe and track; their fluctuating existence has huge implications for our environment and technology here on Earth. Sunspots are simply the observable sign of strong solar magnetic fields. Sometimes they are stable, and other times they are explosive. These reservoirs of strong magnetic field can fuel solar flares and coronal mass ejections that lead to radiation storms and geomagnetic storms on Earth that have the potential to drop-kick our modern way of life back to the stone age. It is a space weather forecaster’s job to determine if and when these storms will arrive so that — with enough warning — we can implement safeguards on our technology to prevent failure and lasting damage. Video by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows an active region near the right-hand edge of the sun’s disk, which erupted with at least a dozen minor events over a 30-hour period from Nov. 3-5, 2015. (Editor's note: This video does not contain audio.) After an activity maximum in the early 2000s, our star is entering a solar minimum. Slowly but surely, the number of shadowy spots on the surface of the sun will decrease. But that doesn’t mean it will go silent. This period of sunspotlessness will last for a


‘The decision must be accepted’: Read British prime minister’s full speech to Parliament on Brexit vote

leadership election. Turning to the devolved administrations, we must ensure that the interests of all parts of our United Kingdom are protected and advanced. So as we prepare for a new negotiation with the European Union, we will fully involve the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments. We will also consult Gibraltar, the Crown Dependencies, the Overseas Territories and all regional centres of power, including the London Assembly. I have spoken to the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, as well as the First and Deputy First Ministers in Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach, and our officials will be working intensively together over the coming weeks to bring our devolved administrations into the process for determining the decisions that need to be taken. Mr Speaker, while all of the key decisions will have to wait for the arrival of the new Prime Minister, there is a lot of work that can be started now. For instance, the British and Irish governments begin meeting this week to work through the challenges relating to the common border area. Mr Speaker, tomorrow I will attend the European Council. In the last few days I have spoken to Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande and a number of other European leaders.[gov.uk] We have discussed the need to prepare for the negotiations and in particular the fact that the British government will not be triggering Article 50[lisbon-treaty.org] at this stage. Before we do that we need to determine the kind of relationship we want with the EU. And that is rightly something for the next Prime Minister and their Cabinet to decide. I have also made this point to the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission and I will make this clear again at the European Council tomorrow. Mr Speaker, this is our sovereign decision and it will be for Britain – and Britain alone – to take. Tomorrow is also an opportunity to make this point: Britain is leaving the European Union, but we must not turn our back on Europe – or on the rest of the world. The nature of the relationship we secure with the EU will be determined by the next government. But I think everyone is agreed that we will want the strongest possible economic links with our European neighbours, as well as with our close friends in North America, the Commonwealth and important partners like India and


How online bots conned Brexit voters

A local resident leaves after casting her vote on the EU referendum in northern England on June 23, 2016.(AFP/Lindsey Parnaby) Hundreds of thousands of Twitter accounts tweeted about the #Brexit in the lead-up to last week’s historic vote. In its aftermath, millions of people signed a government petition claiming they wanted a do over. Both of those “groundswells” were taken as important signals of what British voters actually felt and thought. And both were also, it appears, influenced or inflated in large part by bots: automated computer scripts that masquerade as humans and complete thousands, even millions, of split-second prompts. // // The online petition, which appeared on the British government site petition.parliament.uk in May, earned more than 3.7 million new signatures over the weekend — a surge widely interpreted as a sign of voters’ remorse. But even as pundits passed around the petition, inconsistencies surfaced: By noon on Sunday, archived records show, the petition had 42,000 signatures from Vatican City (population 800) and almost 25,000 from North Korea (where Internet access is extremely limited). On 4chan’s /pol/ board, trolls and pranksters posted screencasts suggesting they were automating signatures from exactly those places — a claim that’s impossible to verify, given the nature of 4chan, but in keeping with the community’s ethos and modus operandi. The parliamentary committee that oversees the petition site has said it’s investigating allegations of fraud, and that it’s already removed 77,000 bad signatures. As of this writing, 96 percent of the petition’s signees claimed to live in the U.K., and the remaining four percent come from places with large expat populations, like France, Australia, the U.S. and Spain. (That doesn’t necessarily mean those signatures are legit, mind you — just that they aren’t quite so obviously fraudulent as the 4chan pranks.) // // Meanwhile, even before outcry unfolded over the potentially fraudulent referendum petition, researchers at Oxford’s Computational Propaganda project quietly released a preliminary paper on the role of bots in the Twitter conversation around Brexit. They found that, of the almost 314,000 accounts that tweeted about the vote, pro or con, in the week of June 5 to 12, 15 percent were heavily or entirely automated. While pro-E.U. tweets saw a higher rate of automation than pro-Brexit tweets did, the two most prolific accounts on both sides of the debate are believed to be entirely automated. // // Did anyone actually base her Brexit


Brexit is a net plus, and George Will can’t leave

All the hyperventilating surrounding last week’s Brexit vote has probably overstated the impact of the decision and mostly overlooked the political dynamics that produced the voter dissatisfaction in the first place. Two news articles from The Post perfectly illustrate the state of governance in the United Kingdom that made voters pull the trigger in the first place. First, Rick Noack detailed how, following Brexit, the county of Cornwall, located in southwestern England, stands to lose approximately 60 million pounds in E.U. subsidies — an “investment” that keeps the municipality afloat. Noack explained the sad state of things in Cornwall, stating that, “the county with more than 500,000 inhabitants is considered one of Britain’s poorest regions, and experts say further funding cuts could be catastrophic.” Next, The Post’s Max Ehrenfreund wrote that, “the people who will suffer the most severe impact of Brexit don’t live in the U.K.” The most vulnerable victims of Brexit are those who could lose British foreign aid as a result of the vote changing the E.U. foreign-aid formulary under which Britain must give, Ehrenfreund wrote. He went on to explain that Great Britain “has committed to spending 0.7 percent of national income on foreign aid — about 12.2 billion pounds.” Ehrenfreund gives the specific example of Ethiopia, which received 322 million pounds from the U.K. in 2014, or about 0.8 percent of Ethiopia’s economy, and argues that this money is now at risk. Well, let’s think about that. Let it sink in. Cornwall, which is located in the U.K., may lose its E.U. subsidy — and the U.K. might stop shipping some of its money to Ethiopia. Do you suppose British subjects in Cornwall wonder why they have to depend on a subsidy from the E.U. in Brussels while their government in London is sending more than five times that amount to Ethiopia? Maybe U.K. voters would prefer that Cornwall look to London for assistance and Ethiopia could take a haircut on what they receive from British taxpayers. It makes sense that British voters would want these decisions made by their government in London. Do you think any British politician has campaigned on a promise to secure subsidies from the E.U. while simultaneously pledging an increase in the amount of British money that would be sent to foreign capitals? Probably not, but this is what has become of life in the E.U.: Contorted logic, indefensible regulations


Britain’s 850,000 Polish citizens face backlash after Brexit vote

that the actor in the ad was an Irish immigrant. It'd be hard to deny that there was some truth to the stereotype. There really did seem to be plenty of Polish plumbers, builders and other tradesmen in Britain not long after 2004, and they were soon followed by Romanians, Bulgarians and other new Europeans. Politicians were later forced to admit that they never predicted the huge numbers of immigrants from Eastern Europe who would travel to Britain, nor the effect that would have on some British citizens. However, it was always a simplification. Even early on, experts argued that the arrival of Poles and other nationalities had been a boon to Britain's economy. "This influx has benefited a wide swathe of regions and industries … by increasing the flexibility of the economy and spreading the burden on housing and local services," professor Peter Spencer, chief economic adviser to the Item Club, told the Telegraph in 2006. Another study from 2014 found that migrants contributed $7 billion more to the British economy than they cost in welfare. And as more and more Polish people lived in Britain, cultures inevitably became intertwined. British people would shop at Polish stores, eat at Polish restaurants, perhaps even marry a Polish person. Many went on vacations to places like Krakow and Warsaw. Some even chose to live in Poland: In one unusual reversal of stereotypes, there was even a British citizen living in Poland who claimed state benefits. A survey of British attitudes toward Polish immigrants from 2014 found that negative feelings were not in the majority, with 55 percent saying Poles worked hard and 52 percent saying they contributed to Britain. Right now, it's unclear what sort of immigration relationship will continue between the two nations. While much of the rhetoric ahead of Britain's referendum on E.U. membership had hinged on immigration, "leave" campaign leaders have already begun admitting that they may not push a hard line. "We can control our own borders in a way that is not discriminatory but fair and balanced, and take the wind out of the sails of the extremists and those who would play politics with immigration," Boris Johnson said Friday. More on WorldViews Bregret? Regrexit? Don’t bet on it. Brexit campaign wipes website clear, sparking speculation it is hiding its promises Millions of Brits signed a petition for another E.U. referendum. They shouldn’t hold their breath.


Why Iran was so quick to praise Brexit

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrives at a news conference in Tehran on Aug. 29, 2015, walking by a picture of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) While the international community squirmed in distress when Britain voted to leave the European Union, there was one country that was quick to voice its optimism: Iran. Even though only a few Iranian political and military leaders decided to speak about Brexit, the ones who did expressed support and even enthusiasm for the referendum. "The departure of England from the E.U. is a 'historic opportunity' for Iran — an advantage must be taken from this new opportunity," President Hassan Rouhani's deputy chief of staff for political affairs, Hamid Aboutaebi, wrote in a tweet. “As a democratic establishment, the Islamic Republic of Iran respects the British people’s vote on leaving the European Union, and considers that as being in line with the will of majority of that country’s people to adopt their own foreign policy,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday. "A large earthquake shook Europe. The stars of the E.U. flag are currently falling. It is a long time that the E.U. has lost the trust of the people," Aboutaebi added. With many political analysts and economic experts raising concern that a post-Brexit world could negatively impact the economy and fuel mistrust of Western institutions, WorldViews answers why Iran might support Brexit: Why does Iran view Brexit as a 'win'? Some Iranian officials see a Britain outside the E.U. as a major geopolitical reshuffle that might give Iran more leverage in a political environment that has historically been against it. Iran's relationship with Britain and the rest of Europe is complex and dates back before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In the 1950s, Britain opposed the nationalization of Iranian oil and eventually, with the support of the United States, backed a coup to replace Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who wanted to take back control over Iran's oil. Why is this important to Iranians? Iranians saw this as a direct attack on their sovereignty and independence. Along with other things, this remains a strong reason for continued mistrust between Iran and Britain and could partially explain the lingering resentment. As the deputy chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, was quoted as saying after Brexit: "Britain must pay the price for years of colonialism and crimes


No, Britain won’t get a better deal now. Here’s why Brexit will be very costly for both the U.K. and the E.U.

the U.K. gone, the balance of power within the institutions of E.U. decision-making will shift. For example, the European Parliament will no longer have British MEPs. This means that it will shift somewhat to the left and toward more pro-integration positions. Right now, 44 of the 73 British members of the European Parliament belong to right-wing, Euroskeptic parties. Patterns of conflict in the European Council could also change. While the precise nature of change will likely depend on the issues under consideration, it is plausible that the large states at the core of Europe — Germany and France — will gain even more influence. The losers from all of this are likely to be the governments that are ideologically closest to the British. This may lead to new pressures on those governments that feel left out of the current system. We’ve argued that when one member wants a special deal with less integration, as the U.K. does, it can lead to a cascade of like-minded countries clamoring for the same. This has implications for other international cooperation The world, of course, is full of international organizations. None is quite so strong or binding as the E.U., but there are plenty of others — such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the United Nations. Our research Part of the reason why the E.U. has been so successful was that it was a club that everyone wanted to join. But when even one member starts edging toward the exit, the future starts looking uncertain. German Chancellor Angela Merkel already noted that since the referendum, markets seem to think that the E.U. looks ungovernable. Any organization seeking to promote deeper cooperation would be wise to make the high cost of leaving very clear to all members. Julia Gray is assistant professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science whose book “The Company States Keep: International Organizations and Investor Perceptions” will be available in paperback in July. Christian Jensen is assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Jonathan Slapin is professor of politics and director of the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis at the University of Essex. His most recent book is “The Politics of Parliamentary Debate” (co-authored with Sven-Oliver Proksch) and is the recipient of the 2016 Richard Fenno Prize and the 2016 Leon Epstein Outstanding Book Award.


Researchers have found that war has a remarkable and miraculous effect

swath of destruction through the nation — there was not much rhyme or reason to which villages got caught in the violence. It’s important to recognize how horrific some of these conflicts were. Rebels in Uganda raped women and cut off their lips, ears and breasts. In Sierra Leone, armed parties routinely went on missions to hack off villagers’ hands and legs. One survivor who lost both his hands told aid workers: Blood was spurting out of my arms. I was weak and kept falling as I tried to get up. They started laughing at me and I shouted, “just kill me, kill me, look at how you've left me." They spit on me and started pounding me and then several of them took a hammer, held me down and started knocking out my teeth. In light of these atrocities, the resilience of the survivors seems all the more remarkable. People who suffered more violence during war not only reported more civic and political engagement on surveys conducted years later. They also behaved in more cooperative and altruistic ways when researchers tested them with laboratory games. For instance — some studies paired up anonymous strangers, giving one person a sum of money that could be shared or hoarded. This is called "the dictator game" because the person with the money has all the power. In Sierra Leone, researchers found that people who had been exposed to more wartime violence were more generous — they shared more money in the dictator game than neighbors who hadn’t seen much violence. Another kind of experiment tested people’s willingness to cooperate. In Nepal, villagers were put into groups where they could vote to cooperate or vote to be selfish. For each vote in favor of cooperation, the researchers gave all participants four rupees. If people voted for themselves, they received 20 rupees on top of whatever the group payout was. For instance, if four out of 10 people voted to cooperate, then everyone received 16 rupees each. However, the selfish voters also received a 20 rupee bonus, for a total payout of 36 rupees. In this kind of game, it makes sense for individuals to vote selfishly no matter what everyone else does. People only vote the other way if they care more about the community than about their own well-being. In Nepal, there was already a strong sense of unity within villages following


Swipe your card? Or dip? This change could speed the transition to chip cards.

A customer pays with a chip card. (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg) The switch from magnetic stripe credit and debit cards to chip-enabled ones was always going to be more marathon than sprint: Millions of new cards must be manufactured and distributed, and any business that accepts payments — retailers, gas stations, doctors’ offices and more — must implement new hardware and software if they want to use this more secure technology. But the pace of the migration may have gotten a jolt this month when Visa and Mastercard separately announced moves to get stores up-and-running more quickly with chip technology. Both card companies have said they’ve streamlined what’s known as the certification process, which is effectively a thumbs-up for merchants that their systems are ready to safely accept chip cards. Visa said its move is, in part, a way to quell frustrations it has heard from retailers and other businesses as they make the switch. “Something we’ve been hearing in the marketplace is that some merchants are being delayed because they’re stuck in a certification backlog,” said Mark Nelsen, Visa’s senior vice president of risk products and business intelligence. Indeed, the National Retail Federation and Forrester Research recently surveyed 56 large and medium-size businesses and found that more than half have installed chip card-related equipment but are still waiting for certification. Of that group, 60 percent say they have been waiting for more than six months. So what does it mean for you, the consumer, if the industry can alleviate this bottleneck? In theory, it should allow retailers to activate chip readers — also known as EMV technology — more quickly. And the sooner the technology is implemented widely, the sooner you can stop playing a guessing game every time you’re at a checkout counter about whether you’re supposed to swipe or insert your card. Also this month, Visa and American Express each said they were taking a step that won’t be particularly visible to shoppers but that appears to be something of an olive branch to retailers. Each of those card companies said it will not ask merchants to cover the cost of counterfeit fraud on purchases that are under $25. Here’s the backstory: Back in October, as part of the migration to chip technology, a liability shift took place in which whoever had the more outdated technology — the retailer or the card issuer — would be considered responsible for


Some European migrants in Britain back decision to leave the E.U.

of a Brexit. "Will I need a visa? Will it cost more? Immigrants will be disadvantaged, for sure," said Alejandro Majnoler, a 28-year-old Italian immigrant, who had moved to Britain two years ago and now works at London’s Borough food market. The hopes of those migrants who believe Brexit will be to their advantage are mainly based on promises campaigners had made ahead of the referendum. Pro-Brexit campaigners have assured E.U. citizens who already live in the country that they would not be affected by potential new restrictions once Britain is outside the bloc and its provisions to allow generally free movement across borders. This would allow migrants like Vladislaw to stay and work in Britain, even after Britain's exit. Restricting others from moving to Britain would furthermore decrease competition among migrants in Britain who often apply for similar, lower-paid jobs. Vladislaw says he believes Britain would refrain from expelling him and others from the country, simply because the nation needs workers like him. "I've worked in quite a few restaurants here," he said. "But there were never more than one or two British people working there." Charlotte Kerin, 5, plays outside the public housing tower where she lives. (Shannon Jensen Wedgwood/For The Washington Post) But the majority of British citizens may not agree. Only 20 percent of those polled in the British Social Attitudes Survey 2013 said that the benefits of E.U. migrants coming to the Britain outweighed their costs. A different poll published the same year indicated that more citizens were opposed to legal immigration in Britain — mainly from the E.U. and Commonwealth countries — than in any other European country. Are 22-year-old Vladislaw and others underestimating how negative many British citizens view E.U. migrants like him? Vladislaw doesn't think so. "I pay taxes here. I support this country," he said. "People like me make this country's economy grow." But the chef also said that he had few other choices apart from hoping that Brexit would end up being advantageous for him. "There's nothing in Estonia. I can't go back," he said, before pausing and acknowledging: "The E.U. is destroyed. It's simply impossible to form a union which includes such poor countries like Estonia and rich nations like Britain." Also read: Voters in one fading port town wonder whether they were misled on Brexit Brexit is not just Europe’s problem. It highlights a crisis in democracies worldwide.


The myths that Brexit was built on

are just bizarre, such as claims that the European Union would dictate the serving temperature of British cheese or require that pets be pressure-cooked before being buried. Other such stories play on Britain's ambivalence toward the European Union, picturing rule-makers as fun-hating paper pushers determined to crack down on everything uniquely British — including mushy peas, double-decker buses, corgis and mince pies. Some seem designed to hurt British pride — for example, that new regulations would force the queen to make her own tea or classify kilts as women’s wear. Clearly, many of these claims were simply tales dreamed up by the tabloids to grab the attention of readers. But some garnered much more public attention. London former mayor Boris Johnson — who led the charge to leave the European Union and could be a candidate for prime minister — has been known to repeat several of these myths. Johnson, who previously said the E.U. was “acting like Hitler” in attempting to create a superstate, has erroneously warned his compatriots of a “great war against the British prawn-flavour cocktail crisp” for more than 15 years. He has also criticized the E.U. for telling Britain what shape its bananas should be — when actually rules used all around the world separate bananas into different sizes and qualities for international trade. Even when these stories are exaggerations, they reflect a more serious debate in Britain about whether its E.U. membership has subjected it to excessive regulation. Kilts and mushy peas aside, one common reason given for why Britain should vote to leave the European Union is to escape its red tape and bureaucracy, which many think have weighed on the British economy. As a member of Europe’s common market and customs union, Britain has adopted many of the same regulations as other European countries, including consumer protections and labor laws. And some of these rules have been costly. A 2009 study by Open Europe, a business-oriented think tank that advocates a more flexible E.U., showed that the cumulative cost of regulations introduced in Britain between 1998 and 2008 was 148.2 billion pounds, nearly three-quarters of which was driven by E.U. mandates. And the annual cost has been going up in recent years. But while Brexiters think these regulations have been clamping down on the growth of the British economy, there's also evidence that the regulations have not been as damaging as they


Brexit pain should curb revelry on right

A European Union flag (R) and a Union Jack are displayed outside Europe House, the European Parliament’s British offices in London. (Matt Dunham/ASSOCIATED PRESS) Viewing Brexit through the lens of American politics, many conservatives in the United States reveled in the U.K.’s decision to pull out of the European Union, the poster boy for busy-body Western Europe’s democratic socialism. Perhaps in the long run the U.K. — if there is a U.K. — will flourish. We simply don’t know, and in the short run the immediate consequences are frightening. It’s one thing to be opposed to the E.U. in principle and for national self-determination, but reality is often messy, with plenty of unintended consequences. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Desmond Lachman points out: Financing a very large current account deficit and maintaining the UK’s large foreign deposit base in its banks will depend crucially on maintaining domestic and foreign investor confidence in the economy. Yet the Brexit vote is bound to result in considerable economic uncertainty for a number of years as the new terms for the UK’s complex trade relations with Europe are negotiated. This is particularly the case considering that the UK’s European partners will have little incentive to give it favorable terms for fear of encouraging other members of the European Union, like France, Italy or the Netherlands, to emulate the UK and head for the European door. A further factor that will likely cause capital to steadily leave the UK in the wake of the Brexit vote is the all too likely relocation of large parts of the all-important UK financial system to Europe. This will occur since banks based in London will now lose the “financial passport” that they currently enjoy, which allows them to operate freely in Europe without being subject to additional European regulation. In the wake of Brexit the pound has plunged. In addition: “Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings stripped the U.K. of its pristine triple-A credit rating on Monday, following through on its warning that last week’s vote to leave the European Union threatens the country’s constitutional and economic integrity.” Making the U.K. into “Little England” comes with a price: “The credit rater said it believes the U.K. economy was able to attract higher inflows of low-cost capital and skilled labor than it would have without EU membership and said the U.K.’s EU membership, alongside London’s importance as a global financial


Here’s how Brexit may cripple Britain’s financial sector — and the British economy

stagnated, London has thrived. London is the center of the British economy, and financial services are the center of the London economy. London has thrived not only because of the skill of London financiers, but also because London provides financial firms with access to one of the largest and wealthiest markets in the world: the European Union. E.U. membership is crucial to British financial services Two key factors have made London into Europe’s center for financial services: a favorable regulatory environment in Britain and access to customers across the European Union via the so-called financial passport. The financial passport is an agreement among European Union members that any firm in an E.U. member state can sell financial services to customers in other E.U. member states. Thus, a British citizen can open a bank account in Ireland, and a German investor can rely on a London-based brokerage firm. This means that financial services firms that want to sell to Europeans have a lot of free choice over where they locate their business. One important factor in their location decision is whether financial sector regulation is demanding or light. The British lay a higher emphasis on light-touch regulation than other Europeans, making it easier for financial firms to take on bigger risks and increase their profit margins. This has made London the destination of choice not only for European firms, but also for non-European firms looking to sell to customers anywhere in the European Union. U.S. firms in particular have seen London as the gateway to Europe and concentrated their European activities there. The U.K. financial sector has succeeded in large part because London was the best place from which to sell financial services to all of the E.U. This will be called into question after Brexit. Broadly speaking, three scenarios exist for the U.K. financial sector post Brexit: preservation of the status quo, a loss of Britain’s regulatory advantages or the loss of the financial passport entirely. The best case would be to preserve U.K. access to European financial markets and regulatory advantages By far the best option for British financial services would be an agreement that preserved the financial passport and London’s regulatory advantages. This would let London continue to thrive as the low-regulation gateway to Europe and thus a global hub for financial services. However, this is probably the least likely outcome. Germany and France have long vied to


Payday lending isn’t helping the poor. Here’s what might.

An Advance America Cash Advance payday store is seen in Arlington, Va. (Rich Clement/Bloomberg) Each week, Mehrsa Baradaran is the J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law at the A public interest lawyer Without a financial cushion, every mistake, unexpected problem or minor life change can quickly turn into a financial disaster. This month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau This is why a lot of payday lenders claim that these rules will wipe out the entire industry, which offers an essential service to their clients who are better off with access to these loans. This is not entirely true: These loans do not make customers But are these loans an These loans offer liquidity — a financial lifesaver — when those living on the financial edge bump against an unexpected problem. Most of us rely on loans to get by or to get ahead. The poor also need loans, but usually just to stay afloat. One option would be to persuade banks to do it — after all, they are the institutions primarily responsible for lending. However, they aren’t interested and haven’t been for decades — banks don’t want to lend because they can make much more money with larger loans to wealthier borrowers. In fact, as I show in my book, “ A public option should not be seen as a “handout” to the poor, but merely a leveling of the playing field. The supply of credit has always been a public policy issue, with banks functioning as intermediaries. When the middle class borrows to buy a house or go to college, these mortgage and student loans come with heavy government subsidies and guarantees — that’s why they can have interest rates of less than 5 percent. These interest rates do not just reflect the borrower’s financial capacity, but also the federal government’s investment in these loans. These loans created the American middle class, which is why these subsidies have remained politically popular. Insofar as the state enables credit markets, all creditworthy Americans deserve equal access to credit, especially because reasonable and safe credit can provide a smoother path both through and out of poverty. How would a public option work? Postal banking. The post office was America’s first institution, and it’s not an overstatement to say that it helped create our robust democracy. Their services have always been available to all, regardless of income, location or race. And


How Brexit could turn every country into a loser

Jaguar cars are parked in rows at the Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham, central England, in January 2009. (Darren Staples/Reuters) Thanks to Brexit, the French may not buy as many American pharmaceuticals this year. Germans probably won’t buy as many Japanese printers. It’s the best time in recent memory for a non-Brit to drive home a new Jaguar, but no one in Britain should be too excited about that. Britain's vote to leave the European Union has shocked the global economy in an unusual way, unleashing a currency war in which all sides appear likely to lose. In the wake of the June 24 vote, the value of the British pound has plummeted, falling from $1.48 per pound Thursday to $1.34 this morning, hovering around the lowest level in 30 years. The U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen have surged. And unlike in normal times — when currency fluctuations tend to make winners and losers — this time all three countries are now bracing for currency-driven slowdowns in their economies. And they may not be alone, dragging along countries from Brazil to China along with them. The turmoil in foreign exchange markets since Brexit exemplifies a new world order. A strong currency used to be the hallmark of an advanced economy, a symbol of financial stability and international influence. Developing nations took advantage of their currency’s weaker status to export their way to economic success. But now, those rules no longer seem to apply. Japan is bemoaning the strength of its currency, the United States is chastising others who kept their currency too weak (and thus the dollar too strong), and emerging markets such as Brazil are trying to prop theirs up. Britain suddenly finds itself in a similar boat to many developing nations, less concerned with how a weaker currency might boost its export sectors and more with the faltering economic prognosis that is driving investors away from the pound. The U.S. dollar has jumped 3 percent since the vote last week, capping off a whopping 25 percent climb from mid-2014 to spring 2015. Those substantial gains have made American exports less competitive overseas, dimming a sector that had been a bright spot in the nation’s economic recovery. An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated that a 10 percent spike in the dollar can slow the U.S. economy by half a percentage point. For the


What Brexit tells us about the crisis of liberal politics

withdrawal nor about the future vision for the country. It literally leaves everything up for grabs: our relationship to the E.U., the future of our own union, our constitution, the legislative framework in key areas and even the name of our country. Yet at the time of most profound historical change faced by our country since the Second World War, there is a leadership vacuum. The prime minister is a lame duck, serving as a placeholder for three months. Conservative politicians are jockeying for position in a pending leadership contest, Corbyn faces revolt and motion of "no confidence" within the LabourPary, and the leaders of the "leave" campaign appear overwhelmingly unprepared for what comes next. Furthermore, social and political divisions seem to have been exacerbated by the vote. Reports of racism and xenophobia toward European and non-European migrants and ethnic minorities have grown. There is visceral animosity across the "remain"/"leave" divide among friends on social media. A small proportion of the "leave" campaign has contributed directly to stoking hatred and fear. In Britain, what is needed more than ever is unity and a healing of divisions. We face some of the biggest constitutional choices our country has ever faced. And they cannot simply be left to party politics. Everyone must look at the bigger picture. This has to be a time to set party politics aside. One suggestion would be a national unity government, as used around the world in countries facing moments of profound constitutional change. It would be an interim, cross-party government, perhaps drawing proportionately from the political parties based on their number of seats in the House of Commons, and including members of the House of Lords. It would seek broad-based consultation and dialogue and would culminate in a general election once a road map has been established. For the rest of Europe and the United States, the key lesson has to be that the liberal political elite cannot leave behind those who are suspicious of globalization. It cannot disengage from those whose worldview it intuitively dislikes. It must walk the delicate tightrope of addressing alienation and fear without giving into ignorance and nationalism. More on WorldViews Brexit prompts a push to end English in the European Union Brexit campaign wipes website clear, sparking speculation it is hiding its promises Millions of Brits signed a petition for another E.U. referendum. They shouldn’t hold their breath. Save Save


NASA tests the massive rocket booster it says will go to Mars

agency hopes will one day fly to Mars. Shortly after 11 a.m. Eastern time, NASA fired the engine, sending a torrent of fire gushing from the nozzle and a volcano-like plume of smoke that could be seen for miles. After an hour delay because of a glitch with the ground computer system, the booster fired horizontally for just over two minutes at a test site in Utah, burning through 5.5 tons of propellant per second, shooting flames out at three times the speed of sound, with temperatures that were expected to reach 3,700 degrees. The booster test comes ahead of the rocket's first mission, planned for 2018, when it would launch the unmanned Orion spacecraft on a three-week journey that would take it around the moon. After the test, officials at NASA and Orbital ATK, the Dulles-based contractor that built the booster, said it was a success. “Seeing this test today, and experiencing the sound and feel of approximately 3.6 million pounds of thrust, helps us appreciate the progress we’re making to advance human exploration and open new frontiers for science and technology missions in deep space,” William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA, said in a statement. "That rumble that you get is awesome," Charlie Precourt,vice president and general manager of Orbital ATK’s Propulsion Systems Division, said on NASA TV. "We made it through exactly what we were looking for." Fired up! Miss today's booster test for @NASA_SLS, the world’s most powerful rocket? Watch it now: #JourneyToMars https://t.co/wRVh32cTVc Test of the @NASA_SLS rocket booster! https://t.co/vn4P9A7MTL #SLSFiredUp https://t.co/ucK0ZCXTw1 Combined, a two-minute test firing of the rocket's boosters, the largest and most powerful ever designed, would generate enough energy to power 92,000 homes for a day, NASA said. The test follows a successful launch in 2014 of the Orion spacecraft, which flew further than any vehicle designed for humans had gone in more than 40 years. Ultimately, NASA plans to use the SLS to launch to Mars, but there have been some in Congress who are pushing the agency to return to the moon instead. [The vehicles that will take you to space.] "This morning was a really super day," said Alex Priskos, manager of NASA's SLS Boosters Office. "It was a fantastic test." He said the problems with the ground computers that led to the delay "had nothing to do with the motor."


Brexit prompts a push to end English in the European Union

Union will lose the only nation that has designated English as its official language inside E.U. institutions. Each country is allowed to pick one tongue, and Ireland and Malta — the other two E.U. nations that are predominantly English-speaking — chose Gaelic and Maltese, respectively. But they are tiny compared with the juggernauts of France and Germany, which supply the other two “unofficial” working languages of the European Union. “Despite the vote, the British remain our friends,” Juncker told the European Parliament in French on Tuesday, forcing many of the 751 legislators to put on headsets to hear a translation. “As a result of the British vote, we’ve lost something very important.” Britain's anti-E.U. leader Nigel Farage and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker appeared to share a private joke June 28, but later the UKIP leader delivered some inflammatory remarks to his fellow European Parliament MEPs. Juncker, a former prime minister of polyglot Luxembourg, typically speaks publicly in a succession of English, French and German, although English is his weakest language among the three. Other top E.U. leaders, including European Council President Donald Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland, confine their public comments to English. Aides to Juncker said before his speech that the omission of English was a deliberate effort to send a message to Britain. But others in Europe also were rooting for an end to English. “English can no longer be the third working language of the European Parliament,” left-wing French politician and European Parliament member Jean-Luc Mélenchon wrote on Twitter. L'anglais ne peut plus être la troisième langue de travail du parlement européen #Brexit “English is our official language because it has been notified by the U.K.,” Danuta Hübner, the chair of the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, said at a news conference on Monday. “If we don't have the U.K., we don't have English.” Official E.U. rules require that all official communications be translated into all 24 E.U. languages — a vast operation that the European Commission says makes it the largest employer of translators in the world. If English were to be struck from the list, that would leave Britain to muddle through the difference between "adieu" and "au revoir" on its own. Read more: E.U. leaders converge on Brussels for Brexit crisis talks Why Iran was so quick to praise Brexit Britain’s 850,000 Polish citizens face backlash after Brexit vote


The startling leadership vacuum in post-Brexit Britain

As Britain's leaders seem to have fled the scene after Brexit, "Chief Mouser" Larry the cat holds his post at 10 Downing Street. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant/AP Photo) On June 21, David Cameron stood in front of the prime minister's residence at No. 10 Downing Street and made a last-ditch plea. "Brits don't quit," he said, urging voters, particularly older ones, to side with him and elect to remain in the European Union. "We get involved. We take a lead. We make a difference, we get things done." Just three days later, on that famed stoop, he would do exactly that: Quit. Hours after British voters shocked the world by voting to leave the E.U., the very man who said he would remain in the job if he lost, the very man who called for the referendum in the first place -- a reckless and needless political tactic -- resigned, right there, on the spot. It was a stunning moment that may have ultimately been inevitable for the prime minister, but did nothing to spur confidence in a country that has seen a gaping void open in its leadership. The world may be reeling from 'Brexit's' grim economic fallout -- the warnings of recession, the 30-year drop in the value of the pound, the global stock market declines -- but the leadership fallout from Britain's stunning vote is just as, if not more, ominous. A new prime minister won't be named until September. Both major political parties are in disarray, with one locked in a divisive leadership battle and the other ensnared in an attempted coup. In the immediate aftermath of their victory, even some of Brexit's key supporters were either walking back promises or went largely missing from public view. Nicola Sturgeon, the politician who has said another Scottish independence referendum is possible -- Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the E.U. -- put it this way in an interview with Sky News Sunday: "At a time when the whole United Kingdom needs leadership probably more than it’s needed leadership in any part of the postwar period, you have got the Conservative Party and the Labour Party completely abdicating responsibility. They are letting down people across England, across the entire U.K., and I look on in utter horror.” Cameron's renunciation of responsibility began much earlier, when he decided, back in 2013, that a referendum on the complex question of Britain's


K Street mans hotlines, forms task forces following Brexit

An employee updates exchange rates on a board outside a foreign currency exchange bureau in London, U.K., on Tuesday, June 28, 2016. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg) The ripple effect of last week’s Brexit vote continues to be felt in Washington, where the city’s bevy of lawyers and lobbyists are working around the clock to advise corporations bracing for the fallout from Britain’s historic decision to exit the European Union. Several large law firms set up Brexit task forces and hotlines to respond to the avalanche of calls from companies seeking clarity on whether to move operations out of the United Kingdom, whether to revise contracts and partnerships between U.S. and U.K. companies, and how to position themselves to influence U.S. and European officials as they prepare to structure yet-to-be-determined trade rules the U.K. will adhere to in the new world order. “We’re really in uncharted territory with the breakup of the U.K. and the E.U.,” said Hal Shapiro, a trade attorney at Akin Gump and former lawyer at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The U.K. has long been a leader among E.U. members in negotiating trade deals with the rest of the world, and its withdrawal from the body could affect the way Britain trades its products and services, Shapiro said. That means a variety of products such as cars, cheese and wine that now flow freely between the U.K. and the rest of the E.U. could become subject to duties and tariffs depending on how the U.K. structures its new trade agreements. “Now that Britain has decided to leave the E.U., it’s going to have to decide how it wants to deal with the E.U.,” Shapiro said. “Does it want to have an open market, a closed market, protect certain sectors? These are all questions the U.K. will have to determine for itself.” Much of the long-term fallout of Brexit will not be clear until the U.K. formally invokes what’s known as Article 50, the provision of the E.U. treaty that deals with member states withdrawing from the union. That would trigger a two-year deadline to negotiate the terms of the U.K.’s departure. The uncertainty offers a chance for companies to shape how new regulations may be written on both sides of the pond, said Bruce Heiman, co-head of the policy group at K&L Gates, which set up a 24-hour hotline to take client calls and emails about Brexit.


A stampede for Irish passports in the wake of Brexit vote

LONDON — Standing on the steps of the Irish Embassy in London, Alison Rayner looked at her Irish wife and blurted out: “You’re European, and I am not!” For Rayner, a 63-year-old British jazz musician who travels around Europe, it was not a comforting thought. But like many Brits, she is considering applying for an Irish passport as a way to cling onto her E.U. citizenship following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. (iStock) Many Britons are scrambling to apply for passports from countries within the E.U., as a way to stay in the bloc even as their country waves goodbye. “It’s worth investigating if I can get Irish citizenship, because I’d like to remain European,” she said. Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said there has been a surge in interest for passports since Britain’s vote for exit, or Brexit, from the E.U., adding that the flood of applications could impact those who have a genuine need for a passport for imminent travel. “An unnecessary surge in applications for Irish passports will place significant pressure on the system and on turnaround times and is likely to impact those with a genuine need for passports to facilitate imminent travel plans,” he said in a statement. Britons can apply for Irish citizenship if they were born in Ireland or if they have a parent or grandparent who is Irish. It’s estimated that about 6 million people, about 10 percent of the British population, have Irish heritage. For now, Britain is still a part of the European Union, and until that changes, Britain’s burgundy passport will read “European Union” at the top. Britain has not yet triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the the formal process by which member states can leave. But there is an immediate panic in the air over what will happen. “How to get an Irish passport,” was one of the most Googled phrases after the referendum result last week. Over the weekend, a post office in Belfast, Northern Ireland, posted a notice saying it had temporarily run out of passport forms. Support for applying for an Irish passport has come from unlikely places. Ian Paisley Jr., a Parliament member and son of one of Northern Ireland’s most famous politicians of the same name, urged followers on Twitter to get a second passport if possible. This surprised many people, given he was also a strong advocate for


D.C. Council postpones action on bill to end contributory negligence for bikers, pedestrians

he or she would be able to receive full compensation for damages. Earlier in the meeting, Council Chairman Phil Mendelsom (D)– at the request of McDuffie — attempted to withdraw the bill from the agenda, provoking protests among members supporting the measure, with council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) appealing the decision and bringing the proposal back on the agenda. The majority of the Council then voted to postpone the vote. McDuffie has said he supports ending contributory negligence but called the current bill flawed. The disagreement among Council members has centered on those objections and whether the law goes too far to give bicyclists and pedestrians the right to collect full damages even if they are partially at fault in an accident. McDuffie was expected to introduce an amendment that would make the compensation based on the degree of fault of the cyclist, a model that is in line with what other states have adopted. For example if the cyclists was 20 percent at fault, the compensation would be reduced by 20 percent. The delayed vote drew immediate criticism from the bike community. “Injured victims must wait longer for a bill to pass,” Greg Billing, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association said in a Tweet. “They are the ones who lost today.” In an interview, Billing said after more than a year of the proposal stuck in committee, the community expected a vote that would give pedestrians and bike commuters greater protections on the road. He said about 1,600 people who bike or walk are involved in collisions with vehicles each year. Now the challenge, he said, is in trying to find a consensus model for how to end contributory negligence that the Council can agree on. “We support changing the law,” he said. “Both models will get us there.” I have been disappointed with @councilofdc in the past, but this is ridiculous. @CM_McDuffie and Mendo are bought and paid for. #bikedc If your re-election opponent is even slightly bike-friendly, @CM_McDuffie. They get our vote. #FixContrib #bikedc https://t.co/OWZklPxChX Before the meeting, some bike commuters rallied outside of City Hall in support of the legislation, holding signs that said “Pedestrians Deserve Fairness” and “Fairness for Crash Victims.” Although advocates for cyclists and pedestrians support the change, the insurance industry has lobbied against it saying the switch would result in unintended consequences, including higher insurance premiums for D.C. residents.


Jacob Levy’s libertarian critique of Brexit

The debate over Brexit has divided libertarians and otherfree market advocates in both the US and the UK. Those who view Brexit with skepticism (myself included), emphasize its potential negative effects on free trade and migration. But libertarian defenders of Brexit understandably emphasize the European Union’s many dubious economic regulations. A Britain freed from the dictates the EU bureaucracy might potentially have a much freer economy. Although I am on balance critical of Brexit, I don’t think this latter consideration can be lightly dismissed. But it may not be nearly as powerful an argument for Brexit as it may seem. I. Why Brexit is Unlikely to Reduce the Burden of Economic Regulation. Jacob Levy is one of the world’s leading libertarian political theorists (he might prefer the term “market liberal” or “classical liberal”). In an excellent recent post, he casts some cold water on the notion that a post-Brexit UK is likely to pursue much more free-market policies than it did before: On the regulatory side– which is what the right-leaning British press talks about a lot– there’s the usual number of silly and micromanaging stories that emerge out of any regulatory system. Bananas and vacuum cleaners and light bulbs, oh my. But these are anecdata, and any regulatory system (public or private) that governs by rules will have some silly ones…. We don’t have great aggregate measures of regulation, but we do have some that libertarians are generally willing to use…. According to the 2015 Economic Freedom of the World report’s overall measure for regulatory burden, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Ireland, and Romania are all less regulated than the UK. The most recent Heritage index of “business freedom” ranks Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Sweden ahead of the UK; for labor freedom, Denmark, Austria, and Ireland. In all these cases, these relatively-liberal EU countries compare favorably with other developed countries in or out of the EU. None of these measures are perfect, but they shouldn’t be systematically biased against the UK. And what they tell us is: a) Membership in the EU is perfectly compatible with maintaining a light overall regulatory burden by developed country standards; and b) the UK is not pushing the deregulatory envelope inside the EU, is not running into an EU constraint in its attempt to minimize the regulatory burden. Once we move beyond anecdata about light bulbs, vacuum cleaners, and bananas, I don’t