EU membership referendum debate thread

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 09 Jun 2016, 11:04

biffvernon wrote:
BritDownUnder wrote:I would put most of the UK civil servants in the Monty Python upper class twit of the year category.
How many of them do you know personally? I guess they can't be the ones I know.

I know one Whitehall civil servant. My father's cousin. Works for the Home Office. Acts and appears like an upper class twit.

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 09 Jun 2016, 17:38

The backlash will not be directed at the government because the people have no democratic alternative offered. All political parties are run from from the MBA, PPE marketing, career politician crap. The backlash will be against poles etc in factories, in an attempt to drive them out. Many will have done their 10 years in the UK to qualify for their UK pension. So maybe they will leave to a turnover of the rest of the planet's grifters and grafters. Eventually, even the most media-addled adults must twig that they and their kids will not get jobs because of overseas workers. Politicians will always play the crowd, like our brummy politician pretending ignorance of naturalisation and citizenship. Look how they play the 'unskilled' jobs card to try and embarrass into silence anyone complaining at their lack of work. As if you have to admit to wifebeating - 'I am unskilled!' Workers know this is total BS. There are people at all skill levels driven out by immigrants, many of whom are probably no more suitable, but fawning employers love the moonbeam chasing 'flexible' workers.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 09 Jun 2016, 21:16

I'm not watching any of the television debate programs. Too many opinions dressed up as facts, I've made up my mind and don't want to be confused by facts.

When you see Bliar and Major brown nosing each other, you know there is nothing like the truth being told.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 09 Jun 2016, 21:28

fuzzy wrote:like our brummy politician pretending ignorance of naturalisation and citizenship.

I presume you are referring to me. What do you mean by this and what evidence do you have about this. I have done years of immigration casework and know how the immigration system works.

Post by **clv101** » 09 Jun 2016, 21:42

Somewhat interesting result might be England voting slightly for leave, Wales voting moderately for leave and Scotland voting so strongly for remain that they more than compensate for the others. Scotland (with a little help from NI) could keep England in the EU despite voting leave.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 09 Jun 2016, 23:26

If that was the case there would be a clamour from English voters to have a referendum to leave the UK.

The reason for Scotland wishing to remain is Scotland has had so much "EU" money for various improvements to allow them to have an apparently viable economy.

Post by **clv101** » 10 Jun 2016, 07:26

I rather like the idea of richer areas transferring money to poorer areas. It works between EU members (actually to a pretty small degree), it works between US states to a far greater degree. It also works between richer and poorer people.

The idea that the UK as a rich country shouldn't be a net contributor to the EU seems rather selfish, not wholly dissimilar to a rich person saying they shouldn't be a net contributor through their higher tax payments.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 10 Jun 2016, 08:47

clv101 wrote:I rather like the idea of richer areas transferring money to poorer areas.

Such transfers are absolutely essential to any economy. They must happen, both within and between nations.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 10 Jun 2016, 09:09

The problem of redistribution of wealth facing the world as a whole is an order of magnitude more intractable than redistribution of resources within a given nation state or, even, within a continental region. However, it's worse than that because there is already an overshoot of humans globally such that there is little point in trying to redistribute since it merely serves to delay the inevitable readjustment of the global human population size and, in doing so, likely makes the readjustment more terrible still.

Secondly, we are not a rich country. We are a highly indebted country who uses that debt as if it were wealth. To the extent that we do actually "generate" wealth, a lot of this is via financial shenanigans in the city of London and so, again, does not count are proper primary activity. Or, at least, not when the shooting starts (and we don't have too long to wait for that). What little genuine primary and secondary activity that we are engaged in that generates actual wealth in the country is born on the back of the one time draw down of the stored solar energy of millennia which is now, itself, largely imported. Thus, even our primary activity is vulnerable to supply chain interruptions.

The whole world is living beyond its means and a reckoning is coming. Lots of humans are not going to survive it and the only thing we get to make any difference about, if we make the right choices, is which side of that terrible equation we end up on. We all know it's coming.

And yet, there is a self-destructive, self-loathing, soft-left, liberal chattering class in Europe and the West more generally that are quite prepared to F--k up what civilization we have built up all so they can salve their pathetic liberal consciences. This cultural self-loathing is a cancer in our culture and, if the rest of us do not cut these ideas back down to size, they will be the death of Western civilization. Well, I can tell you now, if me and a growing number of people like me have anything to do with it, we are not going to let that happen and will do whatever it takes to ensure it does not.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 10 Jun 2016, 12:26

clv101 wrote:I rather like the idea of richer areas transferring money to poorer areas. It works between EU members (actually to a pretty small degree), it works between US states to a far greater degree. It also works between richer and poorer people.

The idea that the UK as a rich country shouldn't be a net contributor to the EU seems rather selfish, not wholly dissimilar to a rich person saying they shouldn't be a net contributor through their higher tax payments.

Rich? The UK has a debt nine times GDP, greater than the Weimar Republic. How is that rich? Though money distribution is not of much interest, whereas space distribution is. The south east is one of the most densly popupated areas on earth, and unthinking peole think we should allow the equivalent to a large town in EVERY YEAR. They might think it nice, but it indicates a total inability to comprehend real world problems.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 10 Jun 2016, 18:43

woodburner wrote: Rich? The UK has a debt nine times GDP,

Yes, very rich. The national debt has little to do with it. If you own a premium bond you own part of that debt. It just shows a lot of people are willing to lend the government their money. The world's richest nations tend to have high national debts - because they can.

https://goo.gl/maps/4MxRGmnwCMN2

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 10 Jun 2016, 18:57

We're rich while the PONZI scheme to which we belong keeps going. When it fails. as all PONZI schemes fail, the only things that will be worth having is a house over your head, some fuel and some food in the garden and cellar.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 10 Jun 2016, 20:34

biffvernon wrote:
woodburner wrote: Rich? The UK has a debt nine times GDP,
Yes, very rich. The national debt has little to do with it. If you own a premium bond you own part of that debt. It just shows a lot of people are willing to lend the government their money. The world's richest nations tend to have high national debts - because they can.

https://goo.gl/maps/4MxRGmnwCMN2

What an idiotic argument. By that mangled logic, the Greeks should be living the high life.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 10 Jun 2016, 21:06

kenneal - lagger wrote:We're rich while the PONZI scheme to which we belong keeps going. When it fails. as all PONZI schemes fail, the only things that will be worth having is a house over your head, some fuel and some food in the garden and cellar.

Some people, for instance those who attended the school for mangled logic, have a house of significant proportions, have heavily subsidised solar panels, and would like to remain in the EU so that all the eastern Europeans can come over to live in his house, or perhaps he wouldn't.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 10 Jun 2016, 21:57

Little John wrote:
biffvernon wrote:
woodburner wrote: Rich? The UK has a debt nine times GDP,
Yes, very rich. The national debt has little to do with it. If you own a premium bond you own part of that debt. It just shows a lot of people are willing to lend the government their money. The world's richest nations tend to have high national debts - because they can.

https://goo.gl/maps/4MxRGmnwCMN2
What an idiotic argument. By that mangled logic, the Greeks should be living the high life.

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/u ... onal-debt/

In Dec 2015, Public sector net debt (ex. public sector banks) was £1,542.6 billion, equivalent to 81% of GDP,

There is, of course, also private debt, but a lot of that is mortgages owed to other people in the UK and secured on land.