Google’s advertising business

The data for Google’s advertising business was disappointing and drove the after-market price down by 7 percent. The strong results from Facebook had increased people’s expectations for the tech giant before the release. I always have some questions about Google, though these questions can be stupid and irrelevant, given I have no industry experience.

The search engine is able to generate profits for advertising. The companies which pay Google for advertising their companies are listed above the search results when relavent words or phrases are searched. However, for some influential and well-known companies, does advertising on Google make sense? When we search the word, ‘Facebook”, Facebook will definitely be displayed on the top of the search result, and there will likely be an advertise from Facebook just above the search result. Then is there a point for Facebook to pay Google for advertising since it is already on the top of the list? Of course, there are some cases where Facebook wants Google users to see its name. For example, when people search “social media”, Facebook wants its name on the top of the advertising list.

In addition to advertising via Google, how much advertise do those influential and well-known need to let people see? Do they really need such public attention when they cannot be ignored in the market?

The next US presidential race

There have been many Democratic politicians entering the presidential race at the moment. Barack Obama’s Vice President, Joe Biden, announced his entry to the race; he has been considered as an influential candidate who has got a very high chance (maybe the highest) chance to win the Democratic inner presidential race.Maybe many Democratic Party candidates believe that if they can win the party race, the chance of winning against Donald Trump, the automatic Republican president candidate for 2020, is extremely high, even 100%; this may be the reason that there are so many candidates for the next president. Furthermore, Donald Trump also set an example for all politicians and people who want to be politicians that everyone has a chance to win despite their background or experience. This can inspire more people entering this race. The diverse in the US also make more politicians, particularly the Democratic politicans, feel a need to be the next president to unite the nation and bring the US back to its pre-Trump track.

On the other hand, Donald Trump is not someone who likes to be challenged, he has posted many tweets attacking the other side’s candidates. Trump has his advantages in the presidential election. First, the US economic performance during his term so far is relatively good, and beats many other major economies’ performances. Secondly, the unemployment rate is dropping and the wage level is increasing. This will make him popular with some working class. Thirdly, the stock market performance has helped to generate huge returns for many wealthy people, and he also issued tax cuts, so the wealthy class has multiple reasons to love him. Fourthly, his Republican Party has given him the full support while the Democratic Party has some degree of disagreement inside its party.

Overall, the race for the 2020 US president has begun. Despite the wide unpopularity about Trump on most US news media, there is a chance which cannot be ignored for Trump to win the election next year.

May’s Brexit plan

The UK Prime Minister, May, has dropped her plan of trying to get her Brexit plan passed next week; instead, May only seek the Parliament vote on approving Britain’s exit from the European Union. I think that this is a smart move for May to get her own deal passed by the Parliament. At the moment, May is almost impossible to gain sufficient support for her Brexit in the Parliament, which can be proven by the previous vote results. Therefore, if May wants to get her deal passed in the Parliament, she has to find another way to make her deal more appealing.

If May can get the parliamentary approval of Britain’s exit from the EU, it means that there is not much time for the UK to negotiate a new deal with the EU. Moreover, because of the disagreement within the UK, it takes much time for the UK itself to figure out a suitable deal for Brexit. So far, there is no deal which gets the majority’s support in the Parliament, then when there is no time for getting a deal, the Parliament has to choose the most favoured deal among the unpopular deals, if the majority of the MPs agree no-deal Brexit is worse than any deal Brexit. This will make May’s deal more likely to be accepted by the Parliament.

Although such strategy has risk that the UK Parliament fails to approve any deal and makes the UK exit the EU without a deal, I cannot see any other option that May is able to get her deal passed by the Parliament.

Can Huawei successfully win the UK 5G deal?

There is an increasing resisting attitude towards Chinese business expansion in the Western world, especially the state-owned and state-influenced companies are treated very harsh. The 9 billion euro bid placed by China Three Gorges for Energias de Portugal was killed by voting. However, Huawei has made some progress in the overseas market. According to Daily Telegraph, In the meeting of the UK's National Security Council, the Prime Minister and her senior ministers decided to allow Huawei to build some parts of Britain's 5G networks.

This should be good news for Huawei; however, actually no, this is very bad news for Huawei. The information is known by the public via leaks. The leak of the most sensitive inner council of government is a national security issue; therefore, the UK government may conduct an inquiry. Moreover, if anyone relating to Huawei has anything to do with this leak, the decision of letting Huawei build part of the 5G network can be overturned.

Therefore, the information leak increase the uncertainty of Huawei's 5G deal in the UK market.

The deficit problem in the UK

It is the first time for households, companies and government to be in deficit at the same time since the 1980s. This could be a critical risk at the moment, as the date of Brexit is coming and the future of Britain is uncertain. Deficit is not an emergence when the economy is growing fast, because the deficit at this period can be paid back in the next period by the increased incomes generated by the fast expanding economy. However, when the economic growth is slow or even negative, the deficit becomes a serious issue.

When individuals are in deficit, they will borrow from their future incomes to spend; however, when the economy is growing slowly or even contracting, the future income growth is still possible but much harder, so individuals are more likely to bankrupt. For companies, the story is very similar that companies become harder to pay back their debts when the economy is growing slowly. Although some companies can operate on rollovers, not all companies are lucky enough to borrow from banks when the economy is not performing well. For the government, when the government is in deficit and the economy is not performing well, there are two strategies for the government - one is to keep borrowing and use expansionary fiscal policy to stimulate the economy, the other is to use contractionary fiscal policy to save spending and pay back debts. The first choice is risky because the effectiveness can be affected by the poor economic performance and the government deficit. The other choice is more conservative but may be bad for the economy since the economy will not gain any stimulation from the government side.

Overall, it seems that the current UK economy is very vulnerable towards economic risk.

Compensation and Punishment

When we experience something bad or unpleasant, we want the party which causes the accident to pay compensation and/or get punished. Sometimes it is not so easy to tell the differences between these two terms. I think that the main difference is compensation is a transfer of benefits and punishment will generate a loss-loss result.

When a compensation is paid, a benefit of a payer is transferred to the payee to make the gains of both parties more fair. However, punishment is different. The party who wants to punish the other party or a third party (e.g. a regulator) has a cost to punish though the negative effect of punishment can be greater than the cost.

Then frequent punishment will reduce the entire welfare, since punishment does not produce any positive output for any party. However, we know punishment is necessary in the real world. This is because the existence of punishment allows people to re-evaluate the payoff from misconduct and reduce the probability of misconduct. It may not completely eliminate misconduct because some people may feel there is a probability that their misconduct will not be observed.

Some chat about AI

AI has been a hot topic for a while and there have been some well known firms and individuals participating in this sector. DeepMind and OpenAI may be the two best known AI firms; one developed AlphaGo and one of the other's founders was Elon Musk. Both companies are developing AI which can play video games that DeepMind is focusing on Starcraft II and OpenAI is focusing on Dota 2. The two firms definitely considered their choices very carefully that I believe the reason for choosing Starcraft II was to design an AI that can work on several tasks under uncertainty and the reason for choosing Dota 2 was to design an AI that can cooperate in a complex environment. If they can succeed (they are both now close to success), it will be a big step in the AI sector.

Based on what we have seen about AI performances (such as AlphaGo), AI often shows its difference from our human beings. Sometimes we feel our intelligence is challenged by AI, for example the Go strategies which have been studied for thousands of years are definitely challenged by AlphaGo. Some people think that we may be able to learn from AI and through learning, we can improve our thinking further. This is definitely a reasonable argument. However, the difficulty is that machine learning does not really tell us what is really in AI's mind. Furthermore, because of the speed of AI's learning process, we are not possible to monitor every stage of its improvement. The most possible and straight way is to study the final outcome and try to draw some reasonable conclusions.

Then such study becomes like empirical studies that we do not exactly what is in the process and try to guess the process by using statistical tools and other tools. The study on AI is like this but with a relatively simple system.

Apple was cornered

Over the last three days, the share price of Qualcomm jumped by more than 30% due to the legal settlement between Apple and Qualcomm. A UBS analyst estimates Apple paid $5B to $6B to Qualcomm and agreed to pay $8 to $9 per iPhone in patent royalties given Qualcomm's post-deal guidance expects EPS will increase by $2. Apple was fighting a legal battle with Qualcomm in a global scale. If Apple could win the legal fight with Qualcomm, Apple would be able to significantly cut its costs for its devices. However, the legal fight did not go in the way Apple wished, Apple was defeated in several countries, including China and Germany. These defeats mean that Apple could lose the legal fights completely in a global scale if it insisted fighting Qualcomm; therefore, it was smart for Apple to stop the fight with Qualcomm.

There was another important factor forcing Apple to reach a settlement with Qualcomm. Qualcomm is a major player in the 5G industry. Without using Qualcomm’s 5G chips, if Apple does not want to miss or be late to the 5G era, Apple needs to consider using 5G chips from Huawei or Samsung. Samsung is a possible choice but since Samsung’s own smartphones need its 5G chips, the supply is much more limited and may not be able to meet Apple’s demands. Huawei is not possible at all given we cannot even see Huawei’s smartphones in the US market, Huawei is blocked outside the US market. Then the only way for Apple to avoid missing the 5G was to reach a settlement with Qualcomm and use Qualcomm’s 5G chips.

The defeat is a big win for Qualcomm, but a loss for Intel. Since Apple has reached a settlement with Qualcomm, it means Apple will continue using Qualcomm’s chips and reduce its demands fro Intel’s chips. It can mean that Intel has lost its chance of strengthening itself in the smartphone chip industry.

To conclude,  we can say that Apple was cornered by Qualcomm mainly because of the timing. The 5G era is just ahead of us, and Apple just could not bear the potential losses of keeping fighting with Qualcomm and missing the 5G. 

Working hours and wages III

After discussing the "elite" labour market, let's dive into the general labour market. In the labour market, if firms are able to form a union to create an oligopolistic market and create an excess of labour supply, they will do so. I personally believe that this happens in almost all industries, even those which do not offer descent wages. If this only happens in the "elite" labour market, then it is not a significant problem; however, if this happens to most industries' labour markets, then this is a serious social issue. Is it possible to occur in all sectors?

This is very likely to happen in a society where the population size is large and the social benefits are low. When the population size is large, it means that even if there is a tiny increase in the market wage, the excess of labour supply can be significant. Moreover, the larger the population size is, the less likely the firms are to face labour supply limitations, they are easier to find substitutes for their labours. The social benefit is important, a better welfare system means labours are easier to reject requests from their employers, because the costs of quitting their jobs are lower when they can be provided with better benefits which are crucial for low income labours. When the social welfare is improved, firms will have less power to exploit their labours.

Overall, improving social welfare is important for the entire population including both employed and unemployed populations.

Working hours and wages II

Based on what was discussed yesterday, I think that in the most attractive industries and firms, the labour market is oligopolistic and the firms have some degree of market power. As long as there is no labour supply shortage, there is no reason for these big firms to compete for these entry level labours. These large firms often have similar wages; they do not need to meet in private and discuss what levels of wages they agree to offer, the wage information is very open and they can match their wage offers to each other.

There is a piece of good news for those who are employed. Those who are employed are offered higher wages than what they could get in a perfectly competitive labour market. This may sound a bit strange to some people that the firms who have market power but offer higher wages. However, by offering a higher wage level, it can automatically produce an excess of supply in the market. The excess of supply can give labours more incentives to work harder because the labours know they can be replaced; they may not have proactive incentives to work harder, but when they are asked to work longer or harder, they are much more likely to accept these requests. Can they reject the requests? No, most of them will not reject these requests. Because they do not want to lose the wages, or we can say the high wages can compensate their longer working hours. However, the wage is not the only reason, the opportunities that working for large firms can bring are incredibly attractive. When they enter large firms, they become easier to succeed in the future, the expected future incomes of working in a large firm at the moment are higher than of working in a small firm, because of the networks formed in large firms and opportunities that they may have.

Overall, it is just inevitable for the workers in large firms to accept requests from their firms since they are enjoying higher incomes and greater opportunities, though they may have complains.

Working hours and wages

Some people complain about their long working hours with unsatisfying wages. Today I want to discuss what can lead to long working hours. I do not want to discuss this topic in a perfectly competitive market situation, I think that it is probably more suitable to discuss this topic using an oligopoly market model. Why is an oligopoly market more suitable in this case? This is because the people who complain this problem are from urban areas(or at least have been educated in urban areas) and usually have good education background. When they look for jobs in the labour market, they want to enter the industries which can provide higher incomes and more opportunities, so basically they want to enter good firms. How many good firms are there? Maybe there are many good firms and firms with great potentials; however, there are not so many obviously good firms and opportunities out there in the labour market.

Firstly, it is easier to get into the big companies rather than small companies if we hold other factors the same. This is because the hiring environment is more open in large firms than it is in small firms (many small firms’ hiring processes are very exclusive). It is easier for job seekers to get information access to big firms, so they are more likely to know about hiring information (including hiring opportunities) in large firms rather than in small firms. But there are so many large firms out there in the labour market for each individual industry. Secondly, although there are many opportunities out there, it does not mean all these opportunities are de facto open to you. For example, although you may hear people with various (education) backgrounds enter the banking industry and succeed, when opening the hiring websites, having a maths or finance related degree is absolutely required for almost all kind of graduate schemes in the banking industry. Since even an industry like banking sets some entry barriers, the industries requiring more technical skills can have much higher bans for many people. Therefore, it restricts the supply of jobs at the individual level. Thirdly, when having a large population size, a tiny proportion of the population which meets the entry bans set by companies is enough for firms, especially the large firms. When an economy is becoming more productive, it means producing a same level of output requires fewer labours now.

Overall, in the job market, especially in the market with only large firms, the number of suppliers is limited while the number of demander is enormous, this is definitely an oligopolistic market.

Trade between the US and the EU

China and the US are seeking to create a trade deal to resolve the existing trade tension between the two countries. Meanwhile, the US is fighting the EU on trade, especially in the aerospace industry. The two major players in the aerospace industry are Boeing and Airbus, one from the US and the other from the EU. The US and the EU have fought in the World Trade Organisation and the results have shown no one has clean hands. My personal feeling about the timing is that at the moment Boeing needs some more time to restore the market trust.

Anyway, the trade tension between the US and the EU is stronger than previous. The EU and the US have already had some friction in terms of trade that Trump has repeatedly brought up German cars as a threat to the US auto industry as well as the national security. If we treat the EU as a single economy, this is the world largest economy which is even larger than the US economy in terms of GDP. The trade tension between the US and the EU is different from the trade tension between the US and China.

China and the US have different political systems and the EU share similar political systems with the US. Moreover, many EU countries are also NATO member countries. It means the differences between the US and the EU are smaller than the differences between China and the US, this may imply it is easier for the EU and the US to achieve an agreement than for China and the US. Therefore, though the tension between the EU and the US seems growing, the disagreement between these two Western powers could take less time than the disagreement between the US and China to be resolved.

Listed company executives' enemies

Elon Musk, an entrepreneur with a brilliant mind, is not having a good relationship with the SEC at the moment; moreover, he is not enjoying dealing with the shorters in the market. The share price of Telsa is not performing very well, because of the news and reports about car deliveries and demands and the fight with the SEC.

The duty of an executive of a listed company is to earn profits for its shareholders, which means pushing its share price higher and/or delivering a good dividend rate. However, the market will move in its own will, the price can skyrocket if the market hears stories which it likes and the price can dive if the market hears stories which it dislikes. Therefore, the executives want to deliver as much good news as possible but they have to release only true information to the market according to the law.

Of course, the executives have some strategic moves to draw the market's attention more onto the positive side news away from the negative side news. It may be able to fool analysts but it cannot fool a well designed algorithm. Many big players in the financial market are using algorithms to boost their profits; therefore, with a wider use of algorithms in the financial market, the executives will have to face more challenges to boost their companies' values and their shareholders' incomes, which means they will have tougher jobs to do.

Brexit extension

May has been seeking for a short extension for Brexit. May does not want a long extension because a long extension will face that the UK has to hold the European parliamentary election, which is expected to be held between 23rd and 26th May; after having a new parliament after the election, it can mean that the EU that May has been dealing with for so long is different, what the EU wants for the deal can change and the effectiveness of the efforts she has put will be limited. In addition, May also wants to end this Brexit chaos as soon as possible and show the UK population about her leadership and capability in leading the UK out of the Brexit mud. She is trying to seek support from the Labour party to draft a deal that she can negotiate with the EU. However, so far this does not seem to work. Although the Conservative Brexit secretary says that the deal is completely open for discussion, the comment from the shadow secretary from the Labour party shows the cooperation between these two parties does not work very well.

The opinion about whether or not to give Britain an extension for Brexit within the European Union is divisive. The French president Macron said "the time for decision is now" while German Chancellor Merkel called for leaders to have more patience and avoid a chaotic Brexit. If the EU does not allow an extension, it means the probability of a no deal Brexit is very high, because within such a short period, it is unlikely for both sides to produce a valid deal, especially for the UK, the UK parliament does not seem capable of passing any Brexit deal within such a short period. On the other hand, even if the EU allows an extension, how much can this extension change the Brexit fortune? I personally do not see there is anything critical that can be changed by the extension, because as I said before, the Parliament seems to dislike all potential deals while disliking a no deal Brexit.

Overall, I personally do not hold any optimistic view on Brexit.

Monetary policy

The growth rate of the UK labour costs in 2018 was the fastest over the last 5 years, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. This may put pressure on the Bank of England to increase rates, since wages grew faster than labour productivity, adding more inflationary pressure. However, on the other hand, the uncertainty due to Brexit is ahead of the UK economy. The Bank of England wants to mitigate the negative effect from exiting the European Union on the UK economy while increasing base rates may do the opposite.

If the Bank of England has its own objective function (as what many economic theories say so), the Bank of England is still able to find an appropriate rate that balances the economic outcome as well as the inflation rate. However, the market does not exactly know the Bank of England’s objective function and many people often see the monatary policy in a very simple way that they see rate cuts as the Bank of England stimulating the economy and rate hikes as the Bank of England mitigating economic expansion. If the entire economy and the market see the Bank of England’s strategy in such a simple way, then it is very likely for the market and the economy to misunderstand the interpretation and implication behind the Bank of England’s monatary policy, and this is why central banks always make detailed statements regarding their monatary policies.

There is a problem in central banks’ statements. Sometimes, central banks’ statements are quite technical that only experts can fully understand the statements; however, not all people have the time to read through the statements and try to fully understand the statements immediately (maybe with the help of experts) after the statements are released. Then what they will do is often they try to seek the most crucial decision, the rate, to try to have some sense about the central bank’s expectation of the market and the economy. The conclusion drawn in such simple and rush way is highly likely to be inaccurate but can cause herding effects in the market since others may believe the first movers or information spreaders (such as news media) have the accurate information.

Therefore, monetary policy is something very complicated and even possible to cause high volatility in the very short period once central bank statements are released.

Trump’s influence in the Fed

Despite the independence of central banks, Donald Trump is trying to plant his influence in the US Federal Reserve. It is not odd for any president to choose candidates based on his preference and want the Fed to work with the government to produce positive economic growth; moreover, the independence of any central bank is always questioned because a government always has some power such as nomination power over the central bank in its country. However, in the US, the potential candidates who might be nominated by Donald Trump have raised much attention and critics because the two candidates are not qualified for this job based on their backgrounds and experiences.

There is one key and the most important character that a central bank must has, this is credibility. Central bank is not only the institute which set the basic rate, it is also the saver when an economic crisis comes. Central bank plays a role as a moderator in our economy that it does not want the economiy to grow above its sustainable rate and increase the bubbles but it does not want the economy to decline at a sharp rate; central bank wants to produce a growth trend which is sustainable with a reasonable inflation rate. This can only be achieved if the economy believes what the Fed says based on the current macroeconomic theories despite how the market forms its expectation. However, once the Fed cannot produce a credible guidance and does not have a clear goal, the market cannot produce any outcome which the Fed wants if it knows what it wants and this outcome is very likely to be unflavoured by the economy in both long run or short run, especially in a crisis.

Overall, choosing wrong people to central bank can damage the central bank’s credibility and cause ineffectiveness of the monetary policy.

Trump's influence over the US Fed

Since Donald Trump became the US president, it is the most controversial administration in the US history and I think many of you agree with me. Not only Trump himself is very controversial, the people he pointed to key positions are also very controversial. At the moment, the potential people who Donald Trump says he is planning to nominate for the Federal Reserve's board of governors are Stephen Moore and Herman Cain. Neither man is believed by many economists and experts to be qualified to sit in the central bank of the world largest economy.

The motivation of nominating people for the US Federal Reserve is to plant his influence inside the US Federal Reserve. The independence has always been claimed to be important but is almost impossible to be ensured in the real world, since governments often have the power to nominate the key positions in central banks.

Trump is known to be unhappy about his current Fed chairman. In the short term, the current chair, Mr Powell, can handle two dissonant and eliminate the president's influence in the Fed; however, he can be replaced in the future, and by that time, Trump is possible to choose someone who is more likely to take instructions from him.

The way to Brexit

Brexit is a term that is made for Britain exiting the European Union, this will be recorded in our future history book but disappear in our daily life after this crisis passes away (I think some people can agree with me that Brexit now turns to be a crisis as it has already created enormous chaos as well as political and economic uncertainties). After the Parliament failed to deliver any useful suggestion for the exit deal with the European Union and rejected the plan proposed by the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has not given up processing her deal but tried to find a new way to make Britain avoid a no deal Brexit which is utterly irresponsible. The Prime Minister is now trying to negotiate with the Labour party leader in order to produce a plan that can gain the support from the Labour party and become possible to be passed in the Parliament.

The Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, may not be interested in cooperating with the Prime Minister, Theresa May. He has proposed several non confidence votes several times; moreover, he and his party previously supported the idea of a second referendum, therefore, if there is a market for a second referendum in politics, he and his party are very likely to re-support a second referendum. Furthermore, at this moment, May's government is very vulnerable that she cannot gain sufficient support from her own party and gain wide opposition in the Parliament. Moreover, the Conservative party is internally divisive that multiple Conservative party MPs resigned from their party. It is almost the perfect time for the Labour Party to regain the power and for Corbyn to make himself the Prime Minister since he is the leader of the second largest party in the Parliament.

To conclude, although the Prime Minister is actively seeking for support outside her own party, I still cannot be optimistic about the future of Brexit.

The US is different from what it was meant to be?

I think that today's United States is definitely not the one that the founding fathers wanted it to be. What is today's United States is like? First, the United States is very active on the world politics stage. Secondly, the US president has incredible power over the US domestic as well as foreign policies. Thirdly, the US national debts are growing bigger and bigger. To me and my understanding of the US constitution as well as the US history, this is not what the founding fathers wanted the US to be.

Why was the US founded in the first place? The US was founded because the tax hike in America was passed by the British government in London without consulting the Americans beforehand. The founding fathers did not like a powerful central government which could control individuals people as well as regions too much. This is why states were allowed to leave the United States and become independent; however, after the central government won the American Civil War, the states no long have the power to leave the states if they wish, of course, since the US is so powerful today that no state has the willingness to leave the US. In addition, the designs of the Congress and the electoral college system which the Democratic Party is crying to abolish aim to balance the power of individual states in the Congress that states with larger populations can have more influence than states with smaller populations but not too much influence that allows them to exploit small states. Furthermore, the founding fathers clearly stated that they did not like the idea of political parties; however, soon after the US was initially founded, the Republican and the Democratic parties were founded. Moreover, the world wars, especially the Second World War, and the later Cold war gave much more power to the US president to control the US foreign policies.

Overall, the central government has grown too much more powerful, though this is something that the founding fathers did not want to see.

Chat: teenage rebellion

It is a chat, so what I am about to say is nothing to do with scientific proofs, it is just something that comes out of my mind. I personally do not think I made too many troubles during my teenage rebellion period because I was studying aboard and far away from home. I think that it is completely normal for any one to rebel during their teen years; moreover, not only our humans have teenage rebellion, other animals also have. People who have raised a puppy knows dogs also have their teenage rebellion and are also difficult to deal with. It is made by the nature. Why do we have teenage rebellion?

I think it is a necessity for animals to survive in the nature. Parents protect their children from the outside danger when they are young and vulnerable; however, parents will become old and incapable of feeding their children, so the children have to become independent before their parents become old. Teenage rebellion is a necessary process that forces parents to give up their control over their children and makes children come out of their parents' protection and eventually become independent.

Another Brexit vote

On Monday evening, another Brexit vote was held in the UK Parliament. There have been several votes on the issue of Brexit already. The Prime Minister May won 286 votes for her deal but failed to win the majority in the House on Friday; besides the PM's deal, other alternatives had been made available for the Parliament to vote on, no deal had been able to win a majority in the House. Even on Monday evening, no deal won a majority in the House. The UK is expected to leave the European Union on the 12th of April, so there are only 11 days left and the UK will avoid the European Parliamentary election.

On Monday, new customs union with the EU, common market 2.0, a second referendum and revocation of Article 50 were rejected by the House. The new customers union vote was the closest  and the revocation of Article 50 was defeated the most widely by 101 votes. This is so ironic that the House has shown it strongly opposes a no-deal Brexit by the previous vote on no-deal Brexit; however, no deal was favored by the majority. I previously believed that the UK wanted to stay in the single market because of the economic opportunities; however, the vote result shocks me and implies that the single market is not something that the UK politicians want. The vote results on Monday should destroy any optimism in any one's mind about Brexit; I personally now believe that a no-deal Brexit is the most likely future ahead us among all possibilities, because maybe the UK politicians want to negotiate a deal with the EU, but there may be no deal that can win the majority domestically in the UK itself, eventually no deal is the outcome that delivers the worst payoff but is the choice of the majority.