If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
The Clash
Maybe it was the fear of Britain being overrun by immigrating Turks. Maybe Brits had enough of being told what to do by elitist policy makers in Brussels. But Great Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was also a rebuke of President Obama.
You may recall that President Obama announced on his recent visit to the UK that if Brits voted to leave the EU, the UK would be moved to “the back of the queue” for trade deals. Maybe he’ll call his new policy with the United Kingdom “trading from behind.” 
The comment didn’t endear him to British voters, but our president wasn’t exactly an anglophile to begin with, having confessed to removing the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House. To our knowledge, he hasn’t replaced it with a bust of Che Guevara, but he’s treated Iran’s mullahs with more respect than he has our friends the Brits.
Perhaps after watching the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop more than 500 points during the early minutes of trading, President Obama’s tone was more conciliatory on Friday, as he said, “The people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision,” adding that, “The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is enduring.”
What Would You Do?
After all, you really can’t blame the Brits for their vote. With Brexit, Great Britain had two unpleasant choices. Remain and be part of the entitlement continent, with the EU making rules for you to follow. Or leave and take an economic bludgeoning, with less trading power, a sure hit to the stock market and whatever fallout the rest of the EU deems necessary.
The EU was created based on the principle that, acting together, European countries could be an economic powerhouse. For example, just as corporations, municipalities and other entities band together for joint purchasing to obtain lower prices, EU as a group could negotiate better terms.
In reality, though, the EU acts as a bureaucracy, with the most financially responsible members bailing out economic miscreants like Greece and Italy. Would you want to be part of that?
If Brexit had lost, this post could have been written as a sequel to Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential play No Exit. Instead of three people creating their own hell by making each other miserable, in No Brexit, the countries of the EU could continue to coexist and create their own hell.
While Prime Minister David Cameron resigned in the wake of the Leave victory, the best news for the United Kingdom may be that Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn, the anti-Semitic leader of the loony left, is likely to also step down. Former London Mayor Boris Johnson, a Leave supporter and member of Parliament, has seen his stock appreciate in value and could become the next prime minister or at least leader of the Conservative Party.
Meanwhile, Back at the Fed
While stock markets were taking a long walk off a short pier on Friday, gold and municipal bonds were soaring, along with long maturity U.S. Treasuries and the dollar, as investors sought a safe haven from the Brexit correction.
Economists were predicting the end of the world as a result of Great Britain’s renewed independence, but Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, must have been ecstatic. Now the Fed can continue its zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) at least through the end of the year—and blame the decision on the rest of the world.
As Bloomberg noted, “if markets are roiled and a flight to safe assets drives up the dollar and tightens financial conditions on a sustained basis, it could be even harder for the Fed to move.”
There is now likely no chance of a rate hike this year, and there may even be a rate cut. On Friday morning, the probability of a rate cut, based on futures trading, ran as high as 19% in both September and November.
And, of course, other central bankers will also be likely continue their failed economic policies and pile on ever-more quantitative easing (QE) and interest rate cutting.
Richard Buxton, chief executive of Old Mutual Global Investors, told the Financial Times that the Brexit will likely result in another reduction in interest rates by the Bank of England and possibly a return of QE. He also predicted that the vote will push both the UK and the U.S. into a recession.
Fidelity multi-asset portfolio manager Kevin O’Nolan said major world central banks could meet over the weekend and discuss coordinated moves to keep the world from coming to an end.
Central bankers to the rescue! They will likely do more harm than Brexit ever could.