About a dozen hours after it became clear that a slight majority of the British voters favored leaving the UK, the Financial Times’ John Authers visited me at Brown Brothers Harriman to discuss the initial implications.
The situation is very fluid and there are many moving pieces. In Chinese, the characters for crisis are “danger” and “opportunity.” The danger component is the first cut and those dangers are far from over. At the same time, investors and officials will seek to secure their interests in changing circumstances. It is difficult at this juncture to see something constructive coming from the UK’s decision, which seems, at least to this non-European, to be a major distraction from more pressing problems,
Investors voted with their pocketbooks, and it looks like an unmitigated disaster. The Brexit leaders appear in disarray, with no agreement on who will replace Cameron or what the next steps will be other than wanting not to quite yet begin the formal divorce proceedings. The response by European officials is still evolving. As circumstances change, our views have to change. Click here for the 4.5 minute chat with Authers of my initial somber thoughts.
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