I wouldn't go that far if I am honest but it is certainly the case that there are a lot of people many in the UK who buy into a false defeatist view. We can see it in this thread and I think leaving and thriving outside the EU, which I think the UK is perfectly capable of doing, would help no end in changing this type of attitude.
EU Referendum | UK residents vote today.
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I wouldn't go that far if I am honest but it is certainly the case that there are a lot of people many in the UK who buy into a false defeatist view. We can see it in this thread and I think leaving and thriving outside the EU, which I think the UK is perfectly capable of doing, would help no end in changing this type of attitude.
Not sure I buy into this. Also, while we have British people sitting unemployed at home. We decide to hire foreigners, that's the answer? How does this play out. No wonder the kids these days are so disheartened. If there were a whole bunch of vacancies for a while, guess what, I'm guessing British ppl will see the opportunities and attempt to train up in those areas IMO.
If you're willing for the trains to grind to a halt when demand exceeds capacity in order provoke people into getting trained in the area, then okay, but many people aren't (and our economy would go to shit if it happened, likely making yet more British people have to sit unemployed at home).
Hmm I see your point, and maybe I'm too naive or optimistic. But the bottom line for me is the knock-on effect of having a population (due to open borders) of 70m and growing so fast is huge: housing crisis, job shortage, welfare uptick, etc.
Also, I think wouldn't it be neat if we could actually choose what skills we could 'import' rather than have have an open door for basically 500m people to enter to sell flowers, wash cars, or work in a bank for that matter....
Also are they coming because we need them or because its easier and cheaper to use foreign rather than train domestically. If it is the latter then it is the route cause of the problem Ubik highlights.
Yeah agreed and understood. But this is just kicking the can down the road isn't it?
In the work I do, that is very much the case.
But shhhh, don't say it out loud!
The idea of this bunch of fecktards in Westminster at the minute running around without any oversight is a scary thought.
There's also the beneficial side to that immigration - namely the tax intake (not insignificant) and maintaining a lower average-age, important to be able to actually pay for the pensions and care of the retired. One reason Germany was willing to take in so many refugees last year was because its population is rapidly ageing and they're struggling to pay for it. I imagine the drawback of having to give a visa to all those whose labour we need to use would be the costs and bureaucracy involved, though I don't know the figures.
I also find the 500m number to be a bit disingenuous, it's like saying that due to the open borders, the UK is in danger of everyone in the UK except those in Liverpool decamping to the continent, meaning we'd all become scousers if we didn't leave with them. The reality is, the vast majority of those 500m don't want to come here, just like the vast majority of Brits don't up and leave to Spain.
It's essentially because they're just coming off their own large-scale infrastructure upgrades, so have high skill levels and direct experience, available immediately. They're working for contractors through Network Rail, so it's not like they're an example of people getting paid below minimum wage to undercut those who comply.
When people moan about how we don't make our own laws these days, I do tend to think I rather like the idea that there is a limit to how much control our government/our fellow member states governments can do unrestricted.
Check it per capita though and we're in 27th behind Luxembourg, Norway, San Marino, Ireland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, Finland and France from within the EU and a good 16 places behind your example of Saudi. We're down around the Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Portugal and Greece end of the GDP per capita range.
The UK is a sick country that killed off all it's remaining struggling industry and sold the population on a dream of all being middle classed, working in cozy warm offices and living in our privately owned dream homes whilst our kids all gained multiple degrees and all became global president. The infrastructure is underfunded and decaying to the point where it's little better than the likes of India (not surprising as theirs was last maintained under Queen Victoria too) whilst the industries that are needed to maintain and upgrade the infrastructure are in terminal decline with those who are qualified clearing off for better prospects elsewhere and us needing to recruit low cost European labour to make do and mend since our own labour force quite simply do not want to work outside for the rates the clients are willing to pay.
Don't let them kid you that the UK is a global superpower held back by Europe any more, we're a sad shambles who would lose any remaining semblance of global relevance if we were to exit the EU. As for all the migrants coming over here stealing our jobs, you are aware that there's as many Brits abroad in the EU as there are EU migrants in Britain aren't you?
What has per capita income anything to do with potentially doing a deal (negotiating) with other countries and trade agreements.
I see the argument as:
1. Businesses (typically Pro EU)
1. Businesses (typically Pro EU)
- The get to choose from a larger pool of ppl (i.e. could be upto 500m! vs 60m Brits only)
- Therefore can get people for cheaper
- Competing with upto 500m ppl vs 60m Brits, i.e. their own country-folk, like most other nations
- Therefore lower wages, tougher to get a job, disheartened to even skill-up due to the intense competition
I don't get your point Ubik. Are you saying that we couldn't hire these people if we were not in the EU? It would preferential to the UK if we trained our own people up to do this kind of work but if we don't then leaving the EU doesn't stop us from hiring them it just means we can make our own mind up about each case rather than being forced to de-skill our workforce under the right to work regulations.
Just makes it easier, saves time, money and bureaucracy. That's the entire point of free movement, right?
But still, my original point was to chuckle at the idea of us funding Romanian infrastructure, when they're actually contributing directly to ours.
You listed the GDP of the countries as the ranking of our economy globally as 5th. Which is correct behind the US, China, Japan and Germany. But once you factor in the number of people that economy is taking care of/number of people generating that economy we drop rapidly down the same IMF tables. Our celebrating 5th on that table is the same bull the Indian government pulls when it trumpets their 9th position despite the fact that when you factor in their population they drop to 125th. GDP per capita is the real feel of how well an economy is doing and ours does not compare well with much of Europe despite people trying to kid themselves that we're number 1.
All this has happened while we were in the EU, so a fat lot of good it did us. We are also unable to change this pattern while we remain inside.
So Davey C didn't get much of a deal, unsurprisingly really. Will likely still vote to stay in though.
Got it.
It seems you're almost makng my point for me, in that case! Our open borders (to EU) seems to be hindering us.
Our population explosion in recent years surely is just unsustainable!
I don't deny that we got stupid, greedy and lazy whilst within the EU but we managed that mostly by following our American cousins down the capitalist yellow brick road rather than through our ties to Europe. If we'd never joined the EU and had remained globally relevant, maintained our industry and pursued our own policies then maybe we'd be in a better position today although I seriously doubt it (especially when you look at US industry). Leaving now certainly won't give us some magic solution to over 40 years of our cyclical decline and stagnation with occasional false dawns, if anything our EU membership anchoring us to the single largest GDP blcok globally is the thing stopping us from sinking without a trace.
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Our population hasn't actually increased that much (check it against France or Germany and we're all usually hovering around the same 0.5-0.6% growth per yer rate), in fact our economy is decreasing per capita at a far greater rate than our population is increasing. As Ubik says, if we doubled the number of young migrants coming in and had them gainfully employed and paying tax then we might actually see the economy start to improve in real terms but until that happens it will continue to sink and it's not the fault of the migrants, it's the fault of the pensioners living too long and taking the money they are rightfully owed, it's the fault of the young not wanting to knuckle down, train and do the unpopular jobs and it's the fault of decades of idiotic Westminster policy.
Hmm double-edged sword. Surely an influx of people = housing crisis, massive competition in the jobs market (inevitably people will miss out), infrastructure crumbling, etc.
Not even getting into the social side of things, etc.
fundamentally disagree mate!
That is possibly true and along with the threat to investment in the UK its the main reason I'm still undecided. The other possibly true argument is we are tied to fundamentally different economies and the rules to suit those are detrimental to us.That the EU rules are stopping us from finding long term solutions to our problems.
If I knew for certain which was true then obviously I would vote accordingly. There is no consensus on the point and I have given up waiting for one to emerge, we are going to have to vote on this blind.
We could build affordable social housing for the workforce we need and increase the economy through doing so, or we could continue building overpriced executive condos for the Far East and Middle Eastern Investors to continue to snap up and help to increase our already insane housing inflation rates and make it harder for any youngster to get a foot on the property ladder. That's the sort of Westminster idiocy I refer to.
As for crumbling infrastructure, it's been allowed to deliberately crumble. They make sure they gather the taxes every year and put the most urgent schemes out to tender and then year in year out they scrap them on some jumped up objection only to retender it the following year costing the sad saps in the construction industry just for participating in the game. My first major civil bid when I left Uni was on a stretch of the M60 motorway that was raised in planning and blighted the house we were living in some 21 years earlier, I bid the A21 dualling 6 times in 7 years before growing sick of the game and pissing off overseas to do some real work for 15 years and have now returned to discover it's finally being built and there's a thousand other infrastructure projects gone the same way without even starting into the rail industry and the government scapegoat that was Railtrack.
You may disagree about the stability the EU brings Britain but without our status as a financial hub, because the likes of the HSBC find it easier basing their Euro offices in London, we'd pretty much look like one large version of Detroit or Flint nowadays as there's not a single one of the industries that existed and prospered in my youth that has not been bankrupted or sold off and outsourced.
The debate will hot up now, I'll be interested to hear the views of our largest exporters and foreign-currency earners, and also potential foreign investors.
Which we can still do if we leave the EU.
I can't understand this argument at all. We live in a democracy, if the electorate doesn't like what the government does regarding lawmaking then the people can vote them out. If you vote to stay in the EU the you are diluting your democratic rights by handing that power over to unelected bodies. You might think that the EU is more liberal in that regard but recently it has approved legislation that allows employers to spy on their employees private email and Internet use during working hours. Lawmaking within the EU could very feasibly follow a more conservative trend in the near future and you would be powerless to do anything about it, if you vote to stay in that is.
Quite simply, I do not think more democracy is always a good thing and lawmaking is an area I'd rather its power wasn't absolute.
That's ironic given that the UK company I work for has recently implemented rather draconian IT regulations relating to monitoring of our e-mail and internet usage during working hours which we all objected to and were forced to sign however our Dutch, Belgian, German, French, Slovakian and Hungarian offices were all issued with much more liberal formats due to the varying EU legislation on privacy in each country.
Sadly we live in a democracy where the balance of mediocrity and least incompetence generally selects the winner, usually with far less than 50% of the popular vote, where none of our viable parties could frankly run a piss up in a brewery. On those grounds, I've no objection whatsoever to the EU keeping a watching eye over our legislation in the hope that the dafter infringements on our liberty are blocked or watered down. Let's face it, we have had a left wing government in the UK that signed off on wars, extraordinary rendition and unlawful internment without any public mandate to do so based upon a tissue of lies whilst most of Europe told us we were bang out of order. The great shame is, we tend to be so arrogant as a nation that we ignore our neighbours words when we really should be listening to their wisdom.
See - the highlighted part is where I think you're a little naive.
So we should build 'cheaper' (i.e. subsidised housing) houses to ensure we have a glut of low-skilled people on low-wages able to live in the city (guessing you're refering to London in general)?
Meanwhile, ignore actual capitalism, supply/demand and all that - and ignore the obvious appetite.
I'm not sure it's as simple as you say, and I certainly don't think it's Westminister idiocity. I mean Obama would've changed the world if it was that simple, but he hasn't even been able to close Gitmo, which makes me chuckle!
haha - lulwut?!Can we add a poll to this thread, now that we have a deal?
It's not a desperately unusual stance, I don't think (though certainly not one politicians are prone to championing).
The overused example is that if we wanted our legal system to be as democratic as possible, we would be having a referendum on bringing back hanging. I'd very much prefer such decisions weren't based purely on what us uninformed idiots think.
The EU allowed that infringement on your liberty so I am not really clear on the crux of your point.
No market is free if you are not able to refrain from purchasing. Housing should never be left to the whims of the market because everyone needs housing. One cannot choose to opt out and not have a house (whether rented or purchased). The application of capitalist supply and demand housing policies has led to the collapse of home ownership among young people and the greatest financial crisis in history.
It is too soon surely. I haven't decided yet.
I'm certainly not referring only to London. The Londoncentricity of the UK is another problem brought on by the systematic dereliction of all our regional industries and the overeliance on the banking and investment industries primarily in London. The fact is that it's practically impossible for young, educated workers to get on the housing ladder anywhere in the UK. My daughter and her boyfriend graduated together 3 years ago and reckon they'll be saving for another 5 years at least before they can get a government subsidised starter mortgage despite them both having decent graduate jobs, if they decide to have kids the wheels come off that plan completely.
As Untied says, allowing capitalist market forces to reign in an area of necessity such as housing is a recipe for disaster and has put us in this mess, I wouldn't just ignore capitalism, I'd outlaw it where it concerns things like basic accommodation, food, education, healthcare and welfare for the aged. I'm glad you can raise a chuckle at Obama's failure to close Gitmo though, frankly it makes me weep that even a well intentioned man when given the supreme authority can be prevented from acting in any meaningful way by the closed minded jerrymandering, filibustering and general bullshit of general political idiocy (be it Washington or Westminster).
How would you strip capitalism out of the housing market though? You can't do it without bankrupting millions.
My wife and I both have decent enough jobs, but we couldn't get on to the London housing market until our mid-30s. If you wanted to introduce a price cap or set prices, for example, you'd risk sending millions into negative equity. Millions of people who did nothing wrong, just worked hard for years to buy a place.
I don't think the market is sustainable. I'm sure there'll be a correction soon, probably when the end of QE comes home to roost.
Agreed with @Jippy - why are people suddenly so entitled? Ironically it's because of this hyper-compeition from Europe, from the US, from other emerging markets that cause people's wages to be depressed....
The whole artificial management based on, what, some people's idealistic left-wing ideas scare me more IMO!
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