Potus ???

[jomoco]

So tax cuts during wartime is now a conservative principle guys?

 

Since when, GWB n Obama?

 

Raygun who tripled our natnl debt?

 

Jomoco

[jomoco]

Meet the new boss....same as the old boss....

 

https://steemit.com/trump/@corbettreport/meet-team-trump

 

Tea Party two, treadin on you?

 

Jomoco

[agg221]

Are you seriously suggesting that there are no victims from mass migration?

 

In the UK we've had ten years of austerity. People are getting their benefits cut and they are not enough council houses to go round. It's understandable that people get angry when they are struggling and see migrants skip the queue for houses and get benefits. It's also understandable that people get angry when they lose their jobs and the next week a migrant is doing their job for less money.

 

Then there are monthly news stories about Brits from a migrant background being arrested for plotting to kill indigenous Brits. It's hardly surprising that people don't like migrants when so many of them have been arrested for plotting to kill people.

 

There would certainly be issues with uncontrolled migration, coupled with high levels of benefit. It would be inviting people with nothing to 'come and have some free money' with the inevitable consequences.

 

We do not have this situation.

 

Everyone in the whole of the EU has the right to jump on a boat/plane and come to the UK tomorrow. That's over 700M people. They have had this right since the Maastricht treaty of 1992 was enacted. Compared to this, the level of immigration is trivial - net migration to the UK in 2015 from the EU was 180,000 which, because of the way we calculate the figures, includes all the students coming here purely to pay to study. In the same year there were 698,000 births cf. 530,000 deaths so net growth of 168,000. All figures from the ONS. Notably of course, there is a right to work, not a right to benefits. Jobseekers' allowance can only be claimed for up to six months, after a residency of three months, and there is no right to housing benefit (source gov.uk website).

 

Comparing the above facts to what is often presented, I am suggesting that there is a lot of mass hysteria and inflammatory language, whipped up by the press because it makes for a good story. It is very easy to write the politics of hate. It is also very easy to take two things and write that 'the link between them has not been disproved' to create a conspiracy theory (I really wouldn't be surprised to see a headline one day that 'Immigrants Killed Princess Diana' and I know which paper I would be expecting to see it in) but that does not mean these stories are true, it just means it sells newspapers; the trouble is though that people seem to swallow them.

 

There are definitely financial issues on a grand scale and people at the bottom are not going forward - in fact they are slipping back. Immigrants make soft targets and it is so much more palatable than taking any responsibility yourself, isn't it. Ironically, in the US (which is after all what this thread is about) pretty much the entire population is made up of relatively recent immigrants.

 

It is very easy to state that 'immigrants are taking our jobs' or doing them for less money, but there is very little evidence of this beyond 'a man down the pub says so'. We have a minimum wage and we live in a free market economy based on the principles of supply and demand. There is also the practical point that simply removing the person doing the role would not necessarily result in someone else getting the position, particularly if the cost went up. Take the construction sector. Assume for argument's sake that building a house takes around 500 man-days on site. Assume that the lack of alternative labour increases the hourly rate by £5/hr. That puts £20,000 on the build price of a house, in labour alone, let alone the increased cost of all the components, deliveries to site etc, pretty much anything with a labour component. Put that much on the price of a house and what happens - does the price stay fixed by reducing profit? No, of course not, the price goes up accordingly but the developers just delay projects like they did in 2008 and fewer houses get built.

 

What I do find interesting is that what is being advocated is protectionism in the interest of workers' rights, which is a hard line socialist policy of the left. This is pretty much the policy of Momentum and was the original policy of the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known latterly as the Nazi party. Sometimes the difference between extreme right and extreme left actually does complete the circle.

 

Alec

Edited November 13, 2016 by agg221

[Big J]

There would certainly be issues with uncontrolled migration, coupled with high levels of benefit. It would be inviting people with nothing to 'come and have some free money' with the inevitable consequences.

 

We do not have this situation.

 

Everyone in the whole of the EU has the right to jump on a boat/plane and come to the UK tomorrow. That's over 700M people. They have had this right since the Maastricht treaty of 1992 was enacted. Compared to this, the level of immigration is trivial - net migration to the UK in 2015 from the EU was 180,000 which, because of the way we calculate the figures, includes all the students coming here purely to pay to study. In the same year there were 698,000 births cf. 530,000 deaths so net growth of 168,000. All figures from the ONS. Notably of course, there is a right to work, not a right to benefits. Jobseekers' allowance can only be claimed for up to six months, after a residency of three months, and there is no right to housing benefit (source gov.uk website).

 

Comparing the above facts to what is often presented, I am suggesting that there is a lot of mass hysteria and inflammatory language, whipped up by the press because it makes for a good story. It is very easy to write the politics of hate. It is also very easy to take two things and write that 'the link between them has not been disproved' to create a conspiracy theory (I really wouldn't be surprised to see a headline one day that 'Immigrants Killed Princess Diana' and I know which paper I would be expecting to see it in) but that does not mean these stories are true, it just means it sells newspapers; the trouble is though that people seem to swallow them.

 

There are definitely financial issues on a grand scale and people at the bottom are not going forward - in fact they are slipping back. Immigrants make soft targets and it is so much more palatable than taking any responsibility yourself, isn't it. Ironically, in the US (which is after all what this thread is about) pretty much the entire population is made up of relatively recent immigrants.

 

It is very easy to state that 'immigrants are taking our jobs' or doing them for less money, but there is very little evidence of this beyond 'a man down the pub says so'. We have a minimum wage and we live in a free market economy based on the principles of supply and demand. There is also the practical point that simply removing the person doing the role would not necessarily result in someone else getting the position, particularly if the cost went up. Take the construction sector. Assume for argument's sake that building a house takes around 500 man-days on site. Assume that the lack of alternative labour increases the hourly rate by £5/hr. That puts £20,000 on the build price of a house, in labour alone, let alone the increased cost of all the components, deliveries to site etc, pretty much anything with a labour component. Put that much on the price of a house and what happens - does the price stay fixed by reducing profit? No, of course not, the price goes up accordingly but the developers just delay projects like they did in 2008 and fewer houses get built.

 

What I do find interesting is that what is being advocated is protectionism in the interest of workers' rights, which is a hard line socialist policy of the left. This is pretty much the policy of Momentum and was the original policy of the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known latterly as the Nazi party. Sometimes the difference between extreme right and extreme left actually does complete the circle.

 

Alec

 

Outstanding post Alec.

[jomoco]

I don't get it.

 

There are mountains of historic precedence of what works n what sucks.

 

Dwight D worked.

 

GWB n Obama suck.

 

Tea Partiers remind me of Wilma Flintstone n Betty Rubble, off on a shopping spree, shoutin charge it!

 

Pax Americana, on credit!

 

Mighty peculiar these 21st century "conservatives"........

 

Jomoco

[matelot]

There would certainly be issues with uncontrolled migration, coupled with high levels of benefit. It would be inviting people with nothing to 'come and have some free money' with the inevitable consequences.

 

We do not have this situation.

 

Alec

 

So you've not noticed the amount of East European "Big Issue" sellers in the UK? Or do you think Big Issue sellers are net contributors to the UK?

 

I honestly don't think it's unreasonable to only allow migrants that are net contributors into the UK. In places like Japan and South Korea politicians would laugh at you if you suggested they should allow mass unskilled migration into their countries, yet British politicians bend over backwards to tell us how millions of migrants are somehow doing us a massive favour by coming here.

 

If you were honest you would admit that millions of migrants do bring "issues". Or are you happy with the greenbelt being built on to house them all? Or are you happy paying extra tax to subsidise all the low skilled migrants? Maybe you're also happy with class sizes going up due to the number of migrants?

[agg221]

So you've not noticed the amount of East European "Big Issue" sellers in the UK? Or do you think Big Issue sellers are net contributors to the UK?

 

If you were honest you would admit that millions of migrants do bring "issues". Or are you happy with the greenbelt being built on to house them all? Or are you happy paying extra tax to subsidise all the low skilled migrants? Maybe you're also happy with class sizes going up due to the number of migrants?

 

Unless the East European "Big Issue" sellers are claiming benefits, quite frankly, I have no problem with them being here selling the "Big Issue". Unless you wish to claim that they are taking the job of selling the "Big Issue" away from good honest British "Big Issue" sellers? Hardly a job though, is it?

 

Millions of migrants would bring issues but we don't have millions, we have hundreds of thousands from the EU. We also have a substantial number who we choose to allow to emigrate here from outside the EU, where we have, and always have had, full control of our borders. From memory, in 2015 that was around another 150k, again including a large number of students because for some reason we think including the students in the migrant numbers is a good idea, even though they are paying full fees and thereby subsidising British and EU students.

 

Class sizes are going up as it happens - if you want to know why, rather than (yet again) pointing the finger at migrants, try looking at the baby boom of 2008-2012. No idea why that happened but one thing is for sure, it was not driven by migrants. As it happens, my two children were born in 2009 and 2011 respectively, bang in the middle of that window. Elder is in a class of 30, younger is in a class of 23. My wife is rather looking forward to the numbers in her school going up too so that they can go back to five form entry which the school was built for but hasn't managed to achieve in many years. As the baby boom works through this should happen, which will result in the children getting proper residual funding per head once the fixed overhead is covered.

 

Alec

 

Alec

[DanClimbsTrees]

Christ, it's pretty embarrassing to see climate change deniers here on ArbTalk, the evidence for CC being caused by human activity is overwhelming!

[Richard 1234]

Christ, it's pretty embarrassing to see climate change deniers here on ArbTalk, the evidence for CC being caused by human activity is overwhelming!

 

 

Is it? Not sure myself?

Having said that chopping trees down can't help can it!

[DanClimbsTrees]

Is it? Not sure myself?

Having said that chopping trees down can't help can it!

 

Yep - the consensus is overwhelming. Depending on where you look it's somewhere between 80 and 95% of academics, people who've devoted their lives to studying climate, believe the main contributing factor to temperature raise is human activity, be that through animal agriculture or general pollution.

 

Trees aren't actually that much of a biggie, there's trillions left. Sure, it doesn't help but, for the most part, their carbon neutral.