Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)

[billybong]

40 minutes ago, DrBuyToLeech said:

Immigration has always existed. It's the step change in the rate of immigration that is the issue, and to suggest that the situation in the 90s is similar to the situation now is disingenuous. 

In any case, we built enough homes to house everyone who came. We have far more homes now than we did then, and more than other similar countries (more than the US, for example). 

The housing crisis was caused by a debt binge that enabled land speculation that drove a debt binge.

If you actually read what I posted on the subject in response to HairyOb1 you would see that I was not claiming that and my post was in this instance nothing at all to do with housing - it was about food vouchers. 

For you to even suggest what you did is very disingenuous on your part.  You've gone off at a real tangent.

I'm questioning whether using food vouchers for migrants who don't contribute is likely to be any more successful now when it failed when tried in the past - when one considers the extremes they were prepared to go to get their own way - and taking into account the evidence inside the eu mainland in recent years.  Isn't there a saying about repeating the same mistake once, twice or more times.

If you think it's a feasible idea then fair enough but I have to question it.

Edited March 21, 2017 by billybong

[HairyOb1]

4 hours ago, billybong said:

If you actually read what I posted on the subject in response to HairyOb1 you would see that I was not claiming that and my post was in this instance nothing at all to do with housing - it was about food vouchers. 

For you to even suggest what you did is very disingenuous on your part.  You've gone off at a real tangent.

I'm questioning whether using food vouchers for migrants who don't contribute is likely to be any more successful now when it failed when tried in the past - when one considers the extremes they were prepared to go to get their own way - and taking into account the evidence inside the eu mainland in recent years.  Isn't there a saying about repeating the same mistake once, twice or more times.

If you think it's a feasible idea then fair enough but I have to question it.

In all fairness, I wasn't suggesting it for migrants per se, I was suggesting it for any non contributory claimants, regardless where they come from: Clacton or Clug.

[billybong]

3 hours ago, HairyOb1 said:

In all fairness, I wasn't suggesting it for migrants per se, I was suggesting it for any non contributory claimants, regardless where they come from: Clacton or Clug.

Ok and fair enough.  To clarify in fairness - the sentence in your post before the one I replied to was

Quote

I agree completely.  But I also don't mind mosques being built, nor people wearing veils

and you were also quoting a post which touched on the migrant issue.  

To clarify further I still think the point I raised is a relevant one for the reasons I detailed earlier (the point I raised being basically on the principle of a reminder and something to be considered) although I realise that you might already have been aware of it - and I'm not in any particular disagreement with your general idea as I pointed out earlier but vouchers in the way you described might for some be even more provocative than in the past if it was applied to people who were already officially established citizens whether from Clacton or Clug.

Edited March 21, 2017 by billybong

[HairyOb1]

11 hours ago, billybong said:

Ok and fair enough.  To clarify in fairness - the sentence in your post before the one I replied to was

and you were also quoting a post which touched on the migrant issue.  

To clarify further I still think the point I raised is a relevant one for the reasons I detailed earlier (the point I raised being basically on the principle of a reminder and something to be considered) although I realise that you might already have been aware of it - and I'm not in any particular disagreement with your general idea as I pointed out earlier but vouchers in the way you described might for some be even more provocative than in the past if it was applied to people who were already officially established citizens whether from Clacton or Clug.

Well, to be frank, I think it's a bit of a shame folk see this as the way forward; I'm reminded of a cartoon of there being a banker, a Brit and an immigrant at a table with £10 in £1 cons on the table.  The banker grabs 9 of them and warns the Brit that the immigrant is going to take the other one; I think we're all getting to close to the stage where we're not looking at the real crooks in the country and being divided by government in order they can make some very unpalatable decisions seem ok in the eyes of the majority.

I think that's almost criminal.  Were the top 100 global organisations to actually pay their way, if we all did properly, we'd have no deficit, we'd have no debt and we'd have good public services, but it seems the government is quite content to pitch us against each other, while the elite hoover up more of our wealth, more of our assets.

[LC1]

24 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

I think that's almost criminal.  Were the top 100 global organisations to actually pay their way, if we all did properly, we'd have no deficit, we'd have no debt and we'd have good public services, but it seems the government is quite content to pitch us against each other, while the elite hoover up more of our wealth, more of our assets.

Morally it is criminal. Technically? Laws are for the little people, sadly. Until the revolution comes.

[iamnumerate]

2 hours ago, HairyOb1 said:

Well, to be frank, I think it's a bit of a shame folk see this as the way forward; I'm reminded of a cartoon of there being a banker, a Brit and an immigrant at a table with £10 in £1 cons on the table.  The banker grabs 9 of them and warns the Brit that the immigrant is going to take the other one; I think we're all getting to close to the stage where we're not looking at the real crooks in the country and being divided by government in order they can make some very unpalatable decisions seem ok in the eyes of the majority.

I think that's almost criminal.  Were the top 100 global organisations to actually pay their way, if we all did properly, we'd have no deficit, we'd have no debt and we'd have good public services, but it seems the government is quite content to pitch us against each other, while the elite hoover up more of our wealth, more of our assets.

We don't have a shortage of £ coins we have a shortage of housing - also I am not sure that bankers have ever said against immigrants, it would be difficult for Bob Diamond, Mark Carney and other immigrant top bankers to do so.  Saying that if anyone can prove me wrong feel free.  (BTW Farage was a metals dealer not a banker).

When I bought my first flat, I saw a bogus asylum seeker* living near us given rent free a house to live in.  If she had not been here I could have bought that, but the owner got money from the tax payer renting it to her.  A few years later she told me "I wouldn't live in this area".  I was speechless and didn't say anything.

In London there is a problem with people on benefits getting housing that people who work can't afford, moving them to other parts of the country (before Brexit we could have sent them to Spain) would help provide housing for those there.

 

*A friend of my wife, she was quite open about lying to us.  I should have shopped her but I doubt anything would have happened.

[HairyOb1]

43 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

We don't have a shortage of £ coins we have a shortage of housing - also I am not sure that bankers have ever said against immigrants, it would be difficult for Bob Diamond, Mark Carney and other immigrant top bankers to do so.  Saying that if anyone can prove me wrong feel free.  (BTW Farage was a metals dealer not a banker).

When I bought my first flat, I saw a bogus asylum seeker* living near us given rent free a house to live in.  If she had not been here I could have bought that, but the owner got money from the tax payer renting it to her.  A few years later she told me "I wouldn't live in this area".  I was speechless and didn't say anything.

In London there is a problem with people on benefits getting housing that people who work can't afford, moving them to other parts of the country (before Brexit we could have sent them to Spain) would help provide housing for those there.

 

*A friend of my wife, she was quite open about lying to us.  I should have shopped her but I doubt anything would have happened.

 

You miss the salient point of my post....

 

[iamnumerate]

2 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

 

You miss the salient point of my post....

 

You missed my point that this

" The banker grabs 9 of them and warns the Brit that the immigrant is going to take the other one "

Is not true - bankers are not anti immigrants.

And sometimes the real enemy is people on benefits demanding free housing.  There was a BBC programme on the benefit cut and these people were talking about having to move to Milton Keynes as if they were going to Siberia or a concentration camp.

[malk]

10 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

You missed my point that this

" The banker grabs 9 of them and warns the Brit that the immigrant is going to take the other one "

Is not true - bankers are not anti immigrants.

And sometimes the real enemy is people on benefits demanding free housing.  There was a BBC programme on the benefit cut and these people were talking about having to move to Milton Keynes as if they were going to Siberia or a concentration camp.

The point isn't that bankers are anti immigrant, it's that they want all of the money and don't care about much else one way or another.

[HairyOb1]

5 minutes ago, malk said:

The point isn't that bankers are anti immigrant, it's that they want all of the money and don't care about much else one way or another.

Thanks Malk.

And also that the government are always looking to divide people, and they're doing just that with their anti benefit and anti immigrant rhetoric and so many folk simply suck on that nipple and feed from it.

[iamnumerate]

5 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

Thanks Malk.

And also that the government are always looking to divide people, and they're doing just that with their anti benefit and anti immigrant rhetoric and so many folk simply suck on that nipple and feed from it.

People dislike of benefit seekers doesn't come from the Government it comes from their own experience, unless you think that in this case

" When I bought my first flat, I saw a bogus asylum seeker* living near us given rent free a house to live in.  If she had not been here I could have bought that, but the owner got money from the tax payer renting it to her.  A few years later she told me "I wouldn't live in this area".  I was speechless and didn't say anything. "

She was a Government agent trying to make me dislike people on benefits, but why would they do that?

 

  Believing that immigration causes house prices to rise doesn't make you anti immigrant, I would guess that a higher % of immigrants think that, than Brits because more Brits read and believe the Guardian than immigrants.

[AvoidDebt]

Higher inflation has increased the chances of an interest rate rise, and more than half of households (58%) are expecting the Bank of England to raise interest rates in the next 12 months.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/mar/22/uk-households-finances-consumer-spending-inflation-ihs-markit

[billybong]

5 hours ago, HairyOb1 said:

Well, to be frank, I think it's a bit of a shame folk see this as the way forward; I'm reminded of a cartoon of there being a banker, a Brit and an immigrant at a table with £10 in £1 cons on the table.  The banker grabs 9 of them and warns the Brit that the immigrant is going to take the other one; I think we're all getting to close to the stage where we're not looking at the real crooks in the country and being divided by government in order they can make some very unpalatable decisions seem ok in the eyes of the majority.

I think that's almost criminal.  Were the top 100 global organisations to actually pay their way, if we all did properly, we'd have no deficit, we'd have no debt and we'd have good public services, but it seems the government is quite content to pitch us against each other, while the elite hoover up more of our wealth, more of our assets.

Just to be clear again - you're not commenting on my post in saying "I think it's a bit of a shame folk see this as the way forward" because I haven't suggested a way forward, not yet although like many other people I don't like the general direction that the UK has been going in - and I didn't want to interfere with your overall discussion with others except to make the reminder point I made about your idea of food vouchers. 

You're saying that not building mosques, nor people wearing veils etc is not the way forward.  That is from your earlier post

Quote

But I also don't mind mosques being built, nor people wearing veils

I guess that depends to what extent.  Presumably not everywhere and not everyone.

I agree with your point about divide and rule. 

Edited March 22, 2017 by billybong

[HairyOb1]

20 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

People dislike of benefit seekers doesn't come from the Government it comes from their own experience, unless you think that in this case

Again, you miss my point.

20 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

" When I bought my first flat, I saw a bogus asylum seeker* living near us given rent free a house to live in.  If she had not been here I could have bought that, but the owner got money from the tax payer renting it to her.  A few years later she told me "I wouldn't live in this area".  I was speechless and didn't say anything. "

She was a Government agent trying to make me dislike people on benefits, but why would they do that?

  Believing that immigration causes house prices to rise doesn't make you anti immigrant, I would guess that a higher % of immigrants think that, than Brits because more Brits read and believe the Guardian than immigrants.

It doesn't make sense.

[HairyOb1]

18 hours ago, billybong said:

Just to be clear again - you're not commenting on my post in saying "I think it's a bit of a shame folk see this as the way forward" because I haven't suggested a way forward, not yet although like many other people I don't like the general direction that the UK has been going in - and I didn't want to interfere with your overall discussion with others except to make the reminder point I made about your idea of food vouchers. 

Wasn't aimed at you, not directly I guess.

18 hours ago, billybong said:

You're saying that not building mosques, nor people wearing veils etc is not the way forward.  That is from your earlier post

I guess that depends to what extent.  Presumably not everywhere and not everyone.

No, as it stands, no, that would be crazy.  But if someone wants to build a mosque, and it passes planning, it should be ok to build it.  As for veils, no issues at all, as it's up to the individual.

However, with everyone crying out about democracy, were the UK to one day create a majority Muslim government, and they brought it in, we couldn't argue about it (more a jab at brexiteers by the way, a bit of parody as it is never goign to happen).

18 hours ago, billybong said:

I agree with your point about divide and rule. 

It's sometimes so obvious, it surprises me people do not see it and simply suck up their rhetoric.

[billybong]

38 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

Wasn't aimed at you, not directly I guess.

 

Likewise my reminder about food vouchers wasn't aimed at you, not directly or indirectly.  

As for the rest I believe in free and civil expression of opinion whether you agree or disagree and then putting it to the vote.  

Edited March 23, 2017 by billybong

[iamnumerate]

22 hours ago, HairyOb1 said:

 

You miss the salient point of my post....

 

Your point is that we are looking at the wrong targets - I understand it but it is wrong.  For two reasons

Firstly imagine the following scenarios

1) all single mums had to share housing

2) For every new immigrant in an area the council had to build more council housing

3) All bankers had a pay cut

 

Which ones would cause prices to fall most - 3 would only help people in Mayfair.  1 and 2 would cause prices to fall/stop rising - 1 would probably cause a massive drop.

Secondly it is factually wrong because anti immigration rhetoric doesn't come from bankers, so it is not true.

FWIW I don't blame immigrants* for prices rising, politicians let people come here -so people are allowed to come here and no one can blame people for something that is legal.  I blame those who let people come in but don't let us build enough homes.

 

*Apart from those who lie to get asylum and housing benefit of course.

Edited March 23, 2017 by iamnumerate

[HairyOb1]

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

Your point is that we are looking at the wrong targets - I understand it but it is wrong.  For two reasons

Firstly imagine the following scenarios

1) all single mums had to share housing

No, I refuse to imagine it as it's morally repugnant.  What next, workhouses for single males on the dole?

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

2) For every new immigrant in an area the council had to build more council housing

Nice if true, but never happening, so worthless to consider; they're not building enough for any peoples.

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

3) All bankers had a pay cut

It has happened.  Prices in London are falling.  Not necessarily caused by this, but it will do in parts at the higher end.  Also, not all bankers live in Surrey, not all of them live in London.

I don't welcome strawmans.

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

 

Which ones would cause prices to fall most - 3 would only help people in Mayfair.  1 and 2 would cause prices to fall/stop rising - 1 would probably cause a massive drop.

Secondly it is factually wrong because anti immigration rhetoric doesn't come from bankers, so it is not true.

Are you being intentionally dim?  It isn't about the bankers, it's about the rhetoric, that we should turn in on one another.

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

FWIW I don't blame immigrants* for prices rising, politicians let people come here -so people are allowed to come here and no one can blame people for something that is legal.  I blame those who let people come in but don't let us build enough homes.

I was an immigrant.  As are two of my best friends.  All three of us earning, I would venture, in excess of the 97th percentile, one a director at an F1 company.

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

 

*Apart from those who lie to get asylum and housing benefit of course.

My point is, that we are being told to fight amongst ourselves.  Most immigrants come here to get on in life, to take advantage of opportunities.  They're also, in the main, the ones most likely to support their community.  This inward looking at targets that shouldn't be targets gets in the way of whatw e all should be complaining, and that is the attack on anyone not in the minted classes.  Don't look to benefits as the reasons behind the issues of the day, look at Global cartels not paying their way, look at asset stripping by the rich, look at illegal money in the banking system, look at cronyism in big business, look at political assistance for these global companies who seem to operate to their own rules.

If we taxed every body fairly, we could afford a welfare system to be proud of.

As for the housing issues, blame government for not forcing companies to build, stop land banking, stop planning being the mess it is, stop nimbyism, stop a lot of stuff that's holding back this country.

If you fly a lot, as I do, you'd realise quite quickly we have an awful lot of land, some ~95% of it non urban.  You are falling into the we've got no space, we don't have the infrastructure that's baloney, as the problem lies in the wrong people being targeted to fund the growth of the country; we have enough potential money to sort everything out.  

The problem we have, and always have had, isn't that we let too many people in.

 

[HairyOb1]

My final note in all of this, is my point was, is and has always been that we’re being robbed blind by lots of entities, yet we’re being told to look more at each other; we’re falling for very right wing rhetoric.  The problem isn’t benefits, it isn’t immigration.  Look elsewhere for what the real issues are that hold back the UK.

[iamnumerate]

5 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

No, I refuse to imagine it as it's morally repugnant.  What next, workhouses for single males on the dole?

 

 

A prime example of reductio ad absurdum, why is it mortally repugnant?  A lot of people have to share housing.  Was it morally repugnant that during my first job I had to share housing? 

7 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

My point is, that we are being told to fight amongst ourselves.

Yes but it is not true, people dislike x or y because of their experiences not because "the man", "the Daily Mail" or "Bankers" tell them to fight against themselves.  My views don't come from the Mail - I used to hate it - but seeing people being given housing on benefits given housing that I can never afford.

 

12 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

 

 

8 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

I was an immigrant.  As are two of my best friends.  All three of us earning, I would venture, in excess of the 97th percentile, one a director at an F1 company.

 

Where from out of interest?

 

14 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

Are you being intentionally dim?

 

Have you looked in the mirror recently?  Calling people insults when they don't agree with you shows the weakness of your argument.

[iamnumerate]

3 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

My final note in all of this, is my point was, is and has always been that we’re being robbed blind by lots of entities, yet we’re being told to look more at each other; we’re falling for very right wing rhetoric.  The problem isn’t benefits, it isn’t immigration.  Look elsewhere for what the real issues are that hold back the UK.

My final point is that I don't agree with you and my views come from my experience - not right wing rhetoric.  I used to read the Guardian but I stopped when I realized that it was not reporting what I saw day to day.

[HairyOb1]

2 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

Have you looked in the mirror recently?  Calling people insults when they don't agree with you shows the weakness of your argument.

I'm sorry, but you've continually avoided what my point was, and it seemed you were deliberately doing so.

My argument hasn't weakened, and I haven't put up a strawman.

Why is it morally repugnant?  I am guessing you, like I did, chose to live in a HMO as a young man?

Germany.

[HairyOb1]

1 minute ago, iamnumerate said:

My final point is that I don't agree with you and my views come from my experience - not right wing rhetoric.  I used to read the Guardian but I stopped when I realized that it was not reporting what I saw day to day.

Ah, so now you're labelled by what you read?

I chose to read lots of different papers, different media outlets as then you can separate the wheat from the chaff and make your own decision on what's going on.  Is this not a little bit like the "I'm not racist, I have a muslim friend" argument?

[iamnumerate]

2 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

I'm sorry, but you've continually avoided what my point was, and it seemed you were deliberately doing so.

My argument hasn't weakened, and I haven't put up a strawman.

Why is it morally repugnant?  I am guessing you, like I did, chose to live in a HMO as a young man?

Germany.

No I was forced to live in an HMO by a morally repugnant system.

I didn't put up a strawman I was pointing out by a thought experiment that bankers' pay (although probably too much and in many ways not ideal) is not responsible for high house prices.

[iamnumerate]

3 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

Ah, so now you're labelled by what you read?

I chose to read lots of different papers, different media outlets as then you can separate the wheat from the chaff and make your own decision on what's going on.  Is this not a little bit like the "I'm not racist, I have a muslim friend" argument?

1) Islam is not a race

2) More insults, implying that someone is racist - another sign that your argument is very weak.

FWIW I do think bankers get paid too much but I don't think it is really relevant to house prices.

3) I was trying to point out that my views don't come from the news but from my experience, you are really trying very hard not to understand now.  There is no point in discussing with someone who insults people, I will have to put you on my ignore list.