Britons will vote on whether the UK should stay in or leave the European Union in the EU referendum on June 23. This one will come down to the wire. HSBC wrote an interesting report on all this The report is pretty extensive but here are some of the highlights: “Sterling could fall 15-20% against the dollar – pushing it down to 1980s levels – and towards parity with the euro.” -1.5 pp (percentage points) slowdown in economic growth. This roughly halves HSBC’s 2017 forecast for Britain’s GDP of 2.3%. “Inflation and labour costs could rise sharply.” The Bank of England could keep the interest rate at record lows of 0.5% for longer — which is damaging for savers. In fact, HSBC also provided an info graphic that detailed the other major risks Britain faces if it was to leave the EU. Not that I totally trust the big banks (since they have a vested interest in ensuring the slow, steady march towards their global neoliberal agenda) but I’m not sure what positive Britain thinks it could achieve for itself by exiting the largest and most economically viable union in world. This seems to be an exercise in futility organized by a bunch of backwoods hilljacks who still believe the UK is as important as it was during its glorious empires of the 1700s. The rest of the world is coalescing into free trade unions (like NAFTA, CAFTA, ASEAN/AIFTA/ACFTA, LAIDA); thinking that Britain alone is going to be powerful enough to negotiate favorable deals with these huge conglomerates is beyond wishful thinking.