I was due on April Fools’ Day 1981 but the Doctor told my mother that he would write down 31st of March on her chart instead. I wasn’t born on the 1st but the 11th which only shows that I’m not very punctual either. I am an April Fool and let me tell you why.
For the last six months, I have been telling my friends that we were facing a Financial Crisis on April Fools' Day if England went ahead with Brexit on March 29th.
I have been proven the April Fool and will gladly put up my hand and admit that.
My thinking, of course, was that if Brexit kicked in on Friday 29th of March like it was supposed to, the markets would have woken up on Monday the 1st of April with a lot of uncertainty and the chaos would, of course, be branded the April Fools’ Day Financial Crisis.
The pound would have fallen hard against the uncertainty and brought the Euro down with it, Asian markets would quickly rebound the next day but there would still be a lack of uncertainty in all markets as people tried to realise how exposed they were to investments in England and Europe. My thinking is based on the fact that the markets didn't react well to the initial news about the Brexit referendum in 2016 and uncertainty is never a sound investment.
Nothing has been clarified in that time and Brexit still means Brexit even if we know that England cannot negotiate amongst themselves never mind bringing confidence to the markets and according to Goldman Sacks, Brexit is estimated to be costing the UK, 600 million pounds per week in lost economic growth.
The fact that all of this would have happened on April Fools’ Day would have created no confidence and worse, no one could believe a word from the radio or news outlets or from politicians and commentators. This could have turned into a modern day version of Orson Wells' 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast where people are reported to have panicked at the news of an alien invasion.
UKanians have certainly panicked at the thought of illegal aliens invading Great Britain but there could possibly have been a paralysis as people second-guessed the seriousness of the situation if people couldn't trust any announcements being made on April Fools' Day.
Months ago, I explained to my girlfriend that we could see a run on the banks and she argued that that wouldn't happen in Spain but forget Bull Runs, Madrid's city centre is full of Americans and English people and one English teacher waiting in a long queue at the bank could panic an American amigo into thinking that they needed to take all their money out quickly and then some watsapp messages and social media mentions later and everyone is queuing at an ATM that quickly runs out of money. The scene could be repeated all over tourist destinations where Spanish people start queuing up because everyone else is and suddenly we have a zombie banking apocalypse.
Banks don't have billions of cash to pay out as deposits are quickly turned into loans so banks could easily run out of money if everyone tried to access their money at once. Perception is reality and no amount of words can calm people looking for their hard earned money.
My understanding of stock markets, bull markets and general economics are that they suffer severely under uncertainty and Brexit means Theresa May doesn’t know what Brexit actually means because nobody does.
There are economic uncertainties coming that is for sure but I was 100% wrong in my April Fools’ Day doomsday prediction.
Born 24 hours before NASA’s first shuttle launched which came 20 years after Yuri Gagarin's first space flight.
I always talk with students about International Space Day which is celebrated on the 12th of April. Will Europe finally give England the space it wants on the 12th of April?
I don’t know, my predictions have been very wrong recently but I’m guessing that Brexit will be remembered as a fools’ day no matter what day it falls on and no amount of doctoring can change the disaster due date for this May madness.
FAKE NEWS: Orson Wells' declares a War of the Worlds and not just with Europe.
¿QUE? Get in line if you expect an orderly queue.
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