Blog Post 5 for March 13 Class

While I was reading the article entitled "Brexit in 7 Charts," I was surprised by how clearly and obviously the data shows that the EU has helped Britain thrive. For example, the data shows that the UK had the slowest growth in prosperity in the G7 before joining the EU but the fastest growth after joining, that there is no correlation between the number of EU immigrants and changes in wages in the UK, and that the majority of economists project a long term decrease in the UK’s GDP after leaving the EU, with the exception of economists for Brexit, whose projections are outliers compared to those of the others.  Although there may be other explanations for the depicted trends – such as Margaret Thatcher’s reforms contributing to Britain’s improved economy – the data still disproves many of the counter-arguments that the people who were in favor of leaving might have had, such as the arguments that EU membership was preventing UK prosperity and that the influx of EU immigrants was decreasing wages in Great Britain. It shocks me that the majority of people can be so swayed by strong feelings of fear and xenophobia that they completely ignore the facts in front of them and vote based off of their emotions instead of logic. Given that any savings that the UK might have due to leaving the EU are likely to be canceled out by lower tax revenues and higher benefit spending and that the UK was experiencing more migration of Non-EU citizens than of EU citizens, it appears that there are no foreseeable benefits from Brexit. The more I learn about the potential effects of Brexit, the more I feel concerned for the future of Great Britain. In Spain, I have yet to meet a person that is against the EU, which is likely due to the fact that Spain gets a lot of economic help from the EU because of its poor economy. It will be interesting to compare those attitudes with the ones that we will experience in London next week.