you actually can make a very educated guess that if the UK leaves the EU, the short term reaction by the market will be to short british stocks

Your statement is absolutely fine. You've made no concrete statements and your analysis is based on sound economic principle. Stocks losing value isn't a negative for everyone, in the same way that house prices falling isn't a negative for everyone.

However, OP's statement that this will undoubtedly have a negative impact on people is baseless scaremongering. For the vast majority of people, the economic impact of Brexit will barely be noticeable.

Yeah, he's not exactly hard to find. But unfortunately for him, civil servants with BAs are ten-a-penny. This guy is not an expert. He's most likely just a dogsbody who has to trawl through the several-hundred-page documents that the EU releases to pluck out a dozen or so useful bullet points for more important people to analyse.

Thread just got nuked. Looks like your request was granted.

Good lord there is nothing more irritating than someone who knows very little trying to pretend that they know a lot.

You're absolutely correct, but here is why I object firmly to OP making the statement that he did:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4m6i5y/iama_uk_based_expert_in_european_history_and/d3t3ar2

Your writing reads like you're sat there thumbing through a thesaurus as you type.

You can clearly state as many times as you like why you don't think that's what this referendum is about, but that doesn't change the fact that there are dozens of quotes from the upper echelons of the EU stating very clearly that the end goal of the project is a federal United States of Europe.

“National sovereignty is the root cause of most of the evils of our time. The only final remedy for this supreme and catastrophic evil is a federal union of the peoples.” - Quotation on the wall at the EU Visitors Centre in Brussels

“Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire.” - Jose Manuel Barroso, 2007

“The Constitution [now the Lisbon Treaty] is the capstone of a European Federal State.” - Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian Prime Minister

If we stay, we are pooling our sovereignty. Worthless promises made to Cameron by faceless bureaucrats who will mysteriously vanish if you ever try to hold them to their word don't cut the mustard.

I'd be willing to bet you've never worked a single day in the private sector; you're all theories and statistics and analysis. I have worked in international shipping since I was 18. I know exactly how businesses and markets (read: collections of individuals) are reacting to this. For every person who's concerned about Brexit, there are half a dozen more looking to capitalise on the shifts in trading patterns it will bring. My phone has been ringing off the hook with people from Commonwealth countries and the US wanting to lay the groundwork for new opportunities that will arise once the trade barriers come down.

I'll repeat again, neither you nor anyone else can claim 100% certainty on the economic impact of Brexit. It is dangerously misleading to claim that you can. You have far too much faith in your own precognitive abilities.