>It's worth noting that we are still in that period and we've only just started to see the economic slow down effects

We've been in the transitional period for over a year now. The whole period is only supposed to last about 30 months or so.

Moreover, as far as I can tell zero of leading indicators (shipping, retail, etc.) indicate that this cataclysmic 20% drop will ever come.

We haven't even had a quarter of contraction that can be blamed on Brexit - and we had one of those in 2013!

At what point do you stop saying "too soon to tell"?

At the point where businesses have to make serious decisions. Currently they're almost all saying they're waiting and seeing. Once they stop waiting and start doing we'll be able to tell.

The "wait and see" approach was exactly what was supposed to precipitate the sudden decline in investment and spike in unemployment.

It sort of sounds like you're still trying to argue that the prediction was correct. Are you?

A lot of people derive enormous comfort and security from the belief that there's a social class who can predict the future. In the past they were shamans and oracles reading goose entrails, nowadays they're analysts and economists reading Excel entrails. In the Foundation trilogy they were psychohistorians, basically economists on steroids.

I think it takes a certain amount of bravery to accept that there are no "experts" when it comes to predicting the future.

How was the wait and see approach supposed to drive a spike in unemployment? They're waiting not moving so jobs aren't moving yet. As for a decline in investment we are seeing that and you'd expect the resulting decline in the economy to lag behind that.

Unless you want to argue that the recent economic signs are positive?