[simonh]

If you work in London at all, you get trickle down from the financial services sector. People who work in finance drink in your coffee shop, eat in your restaurant, ride in your bus or taxi, buy things in your shop.

Look at what happened in 2008. Finance caught a cold and the entire global economy including Britain fell flat on it's back. Brexit has the potential to do far more damage over a much longer period of time, but mostly just to Britain. The knock on effect across the country isn't going to be pretty. But hey, if the rest of Britain decides they'd rather like to have a long drawn out recession just in order to stick it to the bankers then fine.

[ionised]

And those same people leech off the public purse in order to bail themselves out of their greedy, malicious fuck ups that end up ruining economies and destroying lives.

[simonh]

Alright, you hate bankers and financiers. I get it. Fair enough, that's your right and I won't argue the point.

However London is a global cultural and trade hub entirely due to it's finance industry. Take that away and what does London or Britain have economically? Every single London resident would suffer from that from lower wages, fewer employment prospects and higher taxes. Property would be less valuable and so rents might fall, but so would earnings to pay for it with.

I fully expect a 'we should be making cars (or whatever) instead of running banks' type argument, but why is that a choice? Anything else we could do to make up for losing Finance we could do anyway. We had a 3 term Labour government. They were in power for 13 years. If anyone was going to dial back the clock and 'save' Britain by turning it into a low-wage, low value jobs-for-the-boys economy they had the chance. Killing finance first then wondering what to do instead is kind of the wrong way to go about something like that.

[GrayTShirt]

I get where you are coming from. But, the revolving door/lobbyist economy/power concentration needs to be broken before real reform can begin.

This whole thread makes me wonder what the lowest common denominator is. My bet is brains in jars hooked up to virtual reality. Or perhaps we're all just harvested for our organs by the elite like in unwind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9snP4HuRsr4 or turned into AI controlled drones like in Ancillary Justice. I dunno, Bro. The future is bleak, and time is running out to take it back.