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b'The news is out! We all now know that Britain has voted to leave the European Union. Is this a big event? You betcha! And it\\u2019s going to change a lot of things.
But, first, let\\u2019s take a step back and remember how we arrived at this point. If you were brought up in the 20th century, you know that the European continent has been witness to countless wars and horrific bloodshed during the 19th century and before. So after experiencing two devastating world wars, a movement began to unite the continent through trade and institutions, which, in effect, would enable free trade laws, freedom of movement, and the reduction of barriers\\u2014all managed by technocrats and bureaucrats rather than by nationalist parties competing for resources and wealth through open conflict and misery.
What has followed have been six decades of integration and the fostering of cooperation between neighboring states instead of war and pestilence and misery.
So one can say that, in the effort to serve the goals of peace and collaboration, the European experiment has been a resounding success\\u2014 and a remarkable achievement. \\u201cSix decades ago, the Continent was at war; and three decades later, it was divided by the Iron Curtain and haunted by the threat of nuclear war. Today, one can rent a car in Portugal and drive all the way to Estonia without facing any border controls. EU citizens can study, work, and retire anywhere they want in the Continent\\u201d. So writes Stratfor Global.
It\\u2019s important to note that Britain\\u2019s role from the start has been conflicted. And according to the research company Stratfor Global, \\u201cBritain has been maintaining some distance from the Continent\\xa0as a key part of its national strategy since the beginning. London has been skeptical of the European project from its inception, interested more in the bloc\'s common market than in any federal aspirations.\\u201d
These feelings have been nascent and a great deal of Euro-scepticism has been present, as I said, from the very beginning.
So, importantly, this vote to \\u201cLeave\\u201d has crystallized the concern that attempts to centralize the European bloc may be doing member states more harm than good and that, to varying degrees, the feeling is that countries may be losing their identities and control of their own destinies.
Whether this is actually true is cause for much debate. But, nevertheless, it has fostered some feelings of xenophobia and rumblings from other nationalist parties, which is a movement, in my opinion, toward darker times once again.
Perhaps it is correct that individual states have lost some control over their own destinies and that restoring rights that these countries should not have lost in the first place is a positive step, which could explain why the European Union is losing the battle for its citizens\\u2019 hearts and minds. Perhaps the European Union is at once too centralized and not centralized enough, and this middle ground is becoming increasingly untenable.
Okay, let\\u2019s talk right now about what this means to US investors.
Up until this vote, stocks were vacillating significantly. If the vote leaned toward \\u201cLeave\\u201d, the market went down 150 points. If it tilted toward \\u201cRemain\\u201d, it would jump 200 points, and, as a matter of fact, the night of the vote the US market increased by 230 points.
Now that the \\u201cLeave\\u201d vote has been cast, the markets are wildly gyrating to the down- side.
Are there serious implications for the US? The answer is yes but not nearly as much as the repercussions Britain may feel when things begin to settle out.
Our Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen\\xa0recently stated that a British exit from the EU "could have consequences in turn for the U.S. economic outlook."
Stocks will decline as uncertainty mounts and the future becomes cloudier.'