Bee Wilson hits the BREXIT rock bottom

OK people. This has got to be the absolute worst of all apocalyptic BREXIT punditry.

Here is the line that set my toes on fire:


"For the first time since the Second World War, Britain’s ability to feed itself is in question."


WTFF???!!!?????

First of all, exiting the EU doesn't force the UK to put tariffs on EU imports to the UK. They can just leave them at zero.

Second, I'm pretty sure that obesity, not food insecurity is the bigger problem in the contemporary UK.

There are plenty of countries with no FTA with the EU and they can all "feed themselves". If not, the EU FTA would not be the magic bullet to full bellies.

Here's some more rank stupidity:


"As a country that produces only around fifty-four per cent of what it eats, Britain starts to look vulnerable to fluctuating markets."

An FTA with the EU does NOT "protect" any country from "fluctuating markets". If the global coffee crop fails, prices will rise dramatically everything, trade agreements not withstanding. If a government does not let the price rise, then a shortage will arise instead.

And let's just finish off this dumpster fire with this gem:

Food is one of the unequivocal successes of the European Union.

Sweet Fancy Moses.

Actually I might partly agree with this one. Compared to the mess the EU has made of monetary policy, fiscal policy, dealing with its southern members' issues and dealing with the refugee crisis, the hideous CAP of the EU is not as bad as it otherwise might seem. After all, its cost has fallen from over 70% of the EU budget in 1984 to only 39% in 2013!

Zapatero, a tus zapatos!

Fed Hysteria

Check out this quote from Daniel Henninger in today's  WSJ:

"Not least, the future of the slow-growth, anxiety-producing American economy is in the hands of one nice lady named Janet Yellen, who presides over what is literally a central-bank black box. Crazy."


People this is indeed crazy. Also ridiculous, untrue, ignorant, etc. 

 Repeat after me, the FED does NOT control the real growth rate of economy!

(In fact it barely influences it).

Then as a corollary try this, The FED chair is NOT the dictator of the FED and the FED is NOT independent of politics.

There is a boatload of academic research supporting all three of these points.

But America is gripped by this weird cult of personality view of economic events. The Volcker recession, Alan Greenspan; The Maestro, the Greenspan (and Bernanke) put. 

The FED chair is NOT steering the American Economy.