Alan Rohrbach @MacroMeister

1. What do you expect to be the fallout from Great Britain’s vote to leave the European Union?

More pressure on international merchandise trade flows, which the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and others have already noted are a sign of likely further weakening of the global economy. 

2. Will others follow?

It depends on whether the EU manages to reform some of its more overbearing policies or continues to incite resistance by the residents of member companies.

3. Will potential contagion create a shake-up in the EU leadership and force reforms in Brussels? 

That is more likely if any refusal to evolve its practices foments more popular resistance in some key countries like France or Italy.

4. Will there be an EU in five years? How will it be different? How many of the current 28 members will remain? 

Only if it reforms and gets back more so to key trade focus that was successful in early years and forgets trying to dictate too many internal policies of member states.

5. Who is this good for? Who is this bad for? What are the political implications?

Good for U.S. only by default, but also good for West’s enemies on further distraction from key growth efforts of Europe into bureaucratic tangles. 

This may be instructive for the U.S. election, where quite a few conservatives and average folks feel the federal government and especially the executive branch are not in touch with the middle class. This will be an advantage for Trump’s outsider status compared to Clinton...but only if he can remain calm enough to not shoot himself in the foot with some overbearing hyperbolic reaction. We shall see.