[jcbeard]

Will be very interesting to see if the UK economy can actually recover at all with all of the acquisitions. There's a fire sale of sorts at the moment on UK's most valuable companies. The promises of the current prime minister to prevent the few big employers in the UK from being purchased have pretty much evaporated...such is the way of the snake oil salesman. The free flow of super smart labor in the schengen zone was a net positive for most UK companies, and for the foreign labor that contributed to the UK economy. The trick, as Hawking says is to ensure the fruits of the globalized economy is shared by all. In the US we have a huge issue with churn. Industries like coal will never return, however people like Trump promise that they will. What we need is a cheaper university system that provides a means for the children of those former coal miners to move onto something else (or even the miners themselves). Right now, if you're an out of work person in an industry that is gone...there's no way to move on. You can take out massive loans, or join the military to get free education. Those are about the only two practical options for most people (I for one took the military option), and that's not good enough. The managed capitalism that we've developed works well, we just have to remember that the government's role is to manage the economy...not to run the economy. Government should foster an environment for everyone to succeed, not just those who have a more favorable starting place in life (like Trump). Right now people are upset, mad, and often without hope. While I (and just about any other person with critical thinking skills) can punch holes in just about every one of Trumps lightweight arguments, these holes are ignored by the masses because they want to believe that there is a magic cure to what ails them. Unfortunately, like the magic pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Trump's magical cure doesn't exist...just as the pot of gold that sold brexit will never be found.