Good reads from around the Web.
I am not going to waffle on for 5,000 words about Brexit today. Hallelujah! Even those of you who liked my articles (or who made them among the most shared we’ve ever published) deserve a breather. And the rest of you are due some respite.
But Brexit isn’t going anywhere, here or elsewhere. The potential implications are massive, the worst dire. Let’s hope we get the best.
Either way, the vote has exposed deep economic tensions in the UK that have been bubbling away for years.
A member of the FI London Facebook group [1] kindly flagged up an old post of mine from 2012 [2], in which I fretted:
I am sure something big is happening, and that people’s lack of faith in the economic system is more dangerous than just sour grapes in a downturn, but I struggle to say why.
Well, here we are.
You might have voted Leave for reasons of sovereignty, but for many voters and analysts, it’s the economy, stupid [3].
Financialisation and you
One thought-provoking article [4] from Goldsmith’s PERC unit tied the Leave win to the rise of financialisation1 [5] over the past 40 years.
This could explain the seemingly diametrically opposed circumstances of two big groups of Leave voters – and why one lot [6] gets so angry if they think they’re being mistaken for the other.
As the PERC author writes:
While the underlying inequalities wrought by finance may not fall neatly into binary oppositions, they seem to have influenced the politics of Remain vs Leave in certain ways.
Leave voters consisted roughly of those who have already accumulated assets over their lives plus those who don’t feel they ever had any chance of doing so.
Remain voters consisted of those who still feel (for whatever reason) that they could make financialisation work for them, either because they’re young or because they’re rich and could become more so.
How will these tensions be resolved?
Things can only get different
Nobody knows what’s coming next. At the least a recession is probably putting on its going-out frock.
If that’s all we get: result.
As Kazuo Ishigaru argues below, almost anything might now happen – and that’s a distribution with a lot of nasty fat tails.
Enjoy the weekend (and well done Wales!)
Post-Brexit quarantine warehouse
- Goodbye to all that – Bloomberg [7]
- A note to my friends who voted Leave – Jeff Lynn [8]
- Brexit tears hole in UK economy plans [Search result] – FT [9]
- Britain’s flight signals end of optimism – New York Times [10]
- Kazuo Ishiguro’s fears for Britain after Brexit [Search result] – FT [11]
- Tim Hartford fact checks Brexit, sounds despairing – Acast [12]
- We are the 48 and we want our country back [Search result] – FT [13]
- Culturally constructed ignorance wins the day – Bloomberg [14]
- Brexit voters are not thick, not racist, just poor – The Spectator [15]
- How much does the EU need us? We’ll find out – Simon Lambert [16]
- The possibility of re-invention after Brexit – Stratechery [17]
- How people in the valleys feel after voting Leave – Wales Online [18]
- Professor A.C. Grayling’s letter to all 650 MPs – N.C.H. [19]
- Colossal current account deficit promises much weaker pound – P.S.L. [20]
- BOE’s Mark Carney says rate cut likely – Guardian [21]
- Don’t panic – yet. Pension funds rise after surprise result – Guardian [22]
- Those stock market rises ain’t real, guys – Simple Living in Suffolk [23]
- Brexitland vs Londonia – The Economist [24]
- London property deals worth £650m collapse [Search result] – FT [25]
- Merry S-W: Positives within Brexit negativity [Search result] – FT [26]
- Why did bank shares fall so far after Brexit? – ThisIsMoney [27]
- London bankers face Brexit choice: Lobby or leave – Reuters [28]
- Brexit and the City: Europe plots a bank heist [Search result] – FT [29]
- More on banks: From folly to fragmentation – The Economist [30]
- The Brexit affect: Signals amid the noise – Musings on Markets [31]
- Police log five-fold increase in hate crimes after Leave win – Guardian [32]
- The inevitable Hitler parody video – YouTube [33]
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- How to respond to major economic events – Oblivious Investor [34]
- Positioning vs construction – The Reformed Broker [35]
- What sort of evidence? – Evidence-based Investor [36]
Active investing
- Europe looks cheap – A Wealth of Common Sense [37]
- Words of wisdom to aspiring value investors – Latticework [38]
- Who are the short-term investors? – The Value Perspective [39]
- Ready for when your strategy underperforms? – Abnormal Returns [40]
Other articles
- The ‘Grey Market Hypothesis’ – bps and pieces [41]
- There’s no wrong way to have a career – Jon Westenberg [42]
- Maximise happiness not spending in retirement – Can I Retire Yet? [43]
Product of the week: With the plunging pound decimating holiday budgets, avoiding high fees when you withdraw foreign currency is even more worthwhile. ThisIsMoney [44] rounds up the best debit and credit cards to help contain your costs.
Mainstream media money
Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view these enable you to click through to read the piece without being a paid subscriber of that site.2 [45]
Passive investing
- Crisis? The best thing to do is to keep trudging along – Morningstar [46]
Active investing
- John Lee: Mortified, I shall keep calm and carry on [Search result] – FT [47]
- The contrarian case for Tesla merging with Solar City – Vox [48]
- There’s an exodus from hedge fund-of-funds – CIO [49]
A word from a broker
- Five market reactions to the referendum – TD Direct [50]
- Tullow Oil’s white elephant is set to gush – Hargreaves Lansdown [51]
Other stuff worth reading
- We’ve probably reached peak pensioner – Guardian [52]
- We’d save £20,000 in stamp duty by getting divorced – Telegraph [53]
- The outlook for the property market – Telegraph [54]
- How Amazon Inc is eating downtown Seattle – Bloomberg [55]
Book of the week: Exiting from the EU will not enable Leave’s army of disgruntled white collar workers to return to the 1960s. Automation and AI is set to reshape our society anyway, argues Jerry Kaplan in Humans Need Not Apply [56].
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- Basically seeing everything from jobs to homes to health through the prism of economic return. [↩ [61]]
- Note some articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”. [↩ [62]]