the Migrant Crisis

Except he did so in a really unhelpful, divisive way. He's exactly the kind of guy who's part of the problem.

The Paranoid Pineapple said:

Except he did so in a really unhelpful, divisive way. He's exactly the kind of guy who's part of the problem.

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So is the woman who scoffed at him, they're both sides of an equally toxic and unhelpful coin interested in pushing their own ideologies.

The Paranoid Pineapple said:

Except he did so in a really unhelpful, divisive way. He's exactly the kind of guy who's part of the problem.

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Do you mind explaining how? I don't think it was an unhelpful or divisive way.

Captain Scumbag said:

I actually agree with most of that. More social housing and affordable housing needs to be built, and there needs to be some way of preventing buy-to-let wankers (who are no better than ticket touts, IMO) gobbling up the latter as that's the main cause of inflation in the rental market. Another possibility is some kind of arrangement whereby the government part subsidises the building of affordable 1-2 bedroom housing on the strict condition that it's sold at fixed price and can be only purchased by first-time buyers, people under 30 or whatever.

Can't quite get on board with the idea that the state should take (or "expropriate" if we must indulge in polito-legal euphemisms) empty property. Call me old-fashioned or selfish, but I don't want to live in a society in which the state can help itself to things I've legally purchased and own on the basis that (a) it doesn't think I use them sufficiently, and (b) someone else could use them more. Individual property rights are a key component of a free and law-governed society, and we shouldn't just toss the idea on the scrapheap because we want to stick it to the minority of twats who abuse some of the freedoms.

I might be more sympathetic to the idea if suggested with regard to a specific set of circumstances (e.g. no one in the property for X years), but generally I think what an individual does with his/her unneeded but legally owned possessions should be a matter for their conscience, not the state.

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I live in London. Currently, rental of a fairly grotty two-bed flat in one of the less fashionable areas of the capital (Tottenham) will set you back pretty much the median salary in the UK. So tenants (and in a lot of cases the government) pay out vast sums of money each year directly to landlords for fuck-all useful or productive. Who, of course, can you that unearned income to buy shit loads more property.

Meanwhile, homeowners who bought under right-to-buy in places like Heygate and Aylesbury find themselves subject to CPOs and evictions (where the payment to buy out their lease is vastly less than the price of the replacement luxury flats) - suggesting the state already has a pretty cavalier attitude to individual property where that individual property is inconvenient for developers. And those luxury flats will remain empty as they're bought by Chinese or Russian investors.

I think you're probably right that expropriation wouldn't be the best way to prevent second-home ownership or rent-seeking (I'm not quite as wedded to the idea of individual property rights as you, but state violence is probably not the best way to achieve housing justice) - there would probably be fairly negative consequences. That said, something needs to happen because London is rapidly becoming uninhabitable.

G-Dragon said:

How is it anti-islamic? I am just looking at the other side of the coin like you said. Just not the side you want everyone to look at. Most people from 3rd world countries don't have and will never have all the things they are demanding. Slow internet? no TV?? 30 minute walk to supermarket??
They are going to have to endure longer for all the things that they are demanding. Things that most people do not, certainly not me, take for granted. They have to work for it.
The question is how the government is going to create jobs for all these people.

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Why is it anti-islamic? Because almost every single video posted and liked on that repulsive channel is anti-islamic. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck..... I didn't actually find a single video on that channel that didn't have, as it's main theme, the purpose of belittling Muslims, mocking Muslims, blaming Muslims or highlighting their faults.

It's not "showing the other side of the coin": plenty of people propose alternative views here and do so strongly without resorting to videos prepared by the far right.

Most people in most poorer countries work far harder than you will ever do for far less than you receive. Many in the poorest country work far harder simply to survive. Do females in your family walk for up to 6 hours a day carrying water? Do your family lack access to running water, basic sanitation, basic medicine, even basic nutrition? Yet all you can do is focus on a few hotheads and people caught on video saying regrettable things. Every day, around the world, 32 busloads of children die from diarrhoea, families flee terror, and more than 1.3 billion people survive on less than $1 a day. Many of these suffering are among the refugees.....and you highlight a couple of blokes complaining about the internet. Way to go, you hero.

If these people could work, they would work. Do you really think the vast, vast majority of these proud people are happy receiving handouts, charity and small change from others?

There has been barely a single thing you have said in this entire thread that has an ounce of compassion, warmth or humanity.

I see no point of disagreement here, Ian. I live in North Berwick, which isn't far South of Edinburgh, which is probably the most expensive place to live in the UK outside the South East. People experience the same problems here. I haven't personally because I cunningly shackled myself to a woman who earns double what I do, but not everyone can do that. I know plenty of people in their 20s or 30s who are in reasonably well paid jobs (ones that pay slightly above the national average) but who can't even afford a modest 1-2 bedroom flat.

They bid for them, but someone else always bids higher. And then, 2-3 weeks later, they see the same property on the rental market for £750-£1000 per week. They could afford the lower end of that, but renting the property only lines the pocket of the buy-to-let wanker who priced them out at the purchase stage. And, as you acknowledge, that strengthens the buy-to-let wanker's ability to price them out the next time an overpriced 1-2 bedroom flat comes on the market. And so it continues.

It's difficult to see how the market fixes itself in this instance. Regulars here know my intuitive preference is for a small state and free markets. I want there to be a free market solution to this, but I honestly don't think there is. Left to its own devices, the market is going to get worse: buy-to-let wankers fattening their wallets with exorbitant rents and then outbidding those renters every time they try to get a foot on that first rung of the property ladder. And this is only to consider people who are at the lower end of the "decent salary" spectrum. What about the millions and millions of people who earn below the national average? It's a mess, and sensible government intervention is required to fix it.

A bit of an aside to end on: Jeremy Corbyn ought to talk A LOT more about this stuff.

There are ways that empty houses can be used effectively and the IPPR published a report "Back on the Market: Bringing Empty Houses Back Into Use" in December last year. While the report doesn't actually propose much - it is more of a review of the situation - it does provide some form of context to the problem.

• Encourage councils to build social housing
• Laws that improve protection for both landlords and tenants to encourage the addition of houses to the market and reduce abuse of the system.
• Change law to discourage and prevent squatting (as this discourages many property owners from letting)
• VAT exemptions for improvement work for properties in bottom 25% of rental pricing in an area
• Appointment of local Independent Housing Commissioners to oversee social housing issues, arbitrate in disputes, advise on travellers' sites, determine council tax premiums on unoccupied properties, etc.

Just some thoughts.

Captain Scumbag said:

It's difficult to see how the market fixes itself in this instance. Regulars here know my intuitive preference is for a small state and free markets. I want there to be a free market solution to this, but I honestly don't think there is. Left to its own devices, the market is going to get worse: buy-to-let wankers fattening their wallets with exorbitant rents and then outbidding those renters every time they try to get a foot on that first rung of the property ladder. And this is only to consider people who are at the lower end of the "decent salary" spectrum. What about the millions and millions of people who earn below the national average? It's a mess, and sensible government intervention is required to fix it.

A bit of an aside to end on: Jeremy Corbyn ought to talk A LOT more about this stuff.

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I think there's a danger assuming that this problem is caused by the free market. There has been a great deal of government intervention into superheating the housing market. Whether that's by selling off council houses to better-off tenants at well under market rate (40% of right-to-buy sales are now privately let) or providing tax-breaks for buy-to-let mortgages (or, and I'm less bothered about this one, preventing greenbelt development)

There has been an interventionist policy over the last 30 years, but it's been in favour of higher rents, higher house prices, less housing supply. And policies such as help-to-buy (aimed at people like me rather than those who are actually on the sharp end of the housing crisis) only exacerbate this. Given the time to correct itself, I reckon a free-market would do a much better job than what we have now.

Of course, housing being a human necessity means that some stuff that has a distorting effect, like housing benefit, is also necessary to prevent homelessness/unsuitable housing, so an equal and opposite intervention - like rent controls or subsidised council housing - clearly needs to happen.

But yeah, it's a proper damning indictment that Labour don't have a plan to address housing injustice; and also that their councils engage in policies that make people's access to housing more difficult. It's one of the reasons I can't really support Labour.

TheMinsterman said:

So is the woman who scoffed at him, they're both sides of an equally toxic and unhelpful coin interested in pushing their own ideologies.

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I don't think she is tbh. She laughed at him because he had explicitly framed the idea in terms of gender equality and because he suggested there wasn't sufficient opportunity to discuss male issues (I think I'd also find this a bit rich if I was a women sitting on a committee full of men, in a male dominated workplace). She was quite happy to concede that the issues surrounding mental health and suicide were worthy of attention and suggested that he "put in for a debate on an actual motion so that the government has to actually do something about an issue - for example the very poor targeted services for men in mental health".

MorDon said:

Do you mind explaining how? I don't think it was an unhelpful or divisive way.

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http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ly-correct-males-pander-to-militant-feminists

Division between men and women is stirred up by “militant feminists” and overzealous “politically correct males”, Conservative MP Philip Davies has said in a parliamentary debate to mark International Men’s Day.

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Definitely the mark of a man whose primary concern is the high rate of male suicide!

Did

The Paranoid Pineapple said:

I don't think she is tbh. She laughed at him because he had explicitly framed the idea in terms of gender equality and because he suggested there wasn't sufficient opportunity to discuss male issues (I think I'd also find this a bit rich if I was a women sitting on a committee full of men, in a male dominated workplace). She was quite happy to concede that the issues surrounding mental health and suicide were worthy of attention and suggested that he "put in for a debate on an actual motion so that the government has to actually do something about an issue - for example the very poor targeted services for men in mental health".



http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ly-correct-males-pander-to-militant-feminists



Definitely the mark of a man whose primary concern is the high rate of male suicide!

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Didn't see that bit of the debate, seems you might be correct.

The Paranoid Pineapple said:

I don't think she is tbh. She laughed at him because he had explicitly framed the idea in terms of gender equality and because he suggested there wasn't sufficient opportunity to discuss male issues (I think I'd also find this a bit rich if I was a women sitting on a committee full of men, in a male dominated workplace). She was quite happy to concede that the issues surrounding mental health and suicide were worthy of attention and suggested that he "put in for a debate on an actual motion so that the government has to actually do something about an issue - for example the very poor targeted services for men in mental health".

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Again, that is the fallacy of "high numbers of men automatically equates to high numbers of opportunity to discuss men's issues". They rarely do, it doesn't matter what they have between their legs, I'd criticise a largely female Parliament for ignoring the issues the same as I do a largely male. She scoffed and put forward the exact sort of attitude that dissuades people from speaking about it (you men have plenty of privileges, you have it so good, you have had more than enough chances to talk about your issues etc), that she was then reasonable after wards doesn't escape the fact she re-enforced this idea that the demographics of a body necessarily influences the topics it discusses or the opportunity it has to do so. I, personally, think that is demonstrably false or these issues would be discussed more frequently.

I really wish we had a whole other thread for this . Maybe its wise to set one up to talk about the topic on a wider scale so the migrants get their thread back and we can post "witty memes" denigrating each polar extremes view of them...

Ian said:

haha ffs. first bit's good, second nah. this current regime is the worst turkish regime in at least a couple decades. [...]

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I don't even know how they could justify a Turkish accession at the moment. Turkey isn't a free democracy any more. The elections were obviously rigged and journalists are getting arrested left, right and centre. A doctor is currently on trail for sharing a meme that makes fun of Erdoğan for looking like Gollum. An expert panel is to decide whether being likened to Gollum is an insult or not...

Ian_Wrexham said:

I think there's a danger assuming that this problem is caused by the free market. There has been a great deal of government intervention into superheating the housing market.

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Sure, but I never asserted that untrammelled free market capitalism caused all the problems (even Thatcherites tend to be equivocal about right-to-buy these days); merely that laissez-faire economic policy very obviously isn't the remedy because a genuinely free market doesn't address one of the main problems, which is the obvious financial incentive for affluent home owners to buy 1-2 bedroom properties they don't need.

Ebeneezer Goode said:

I don't even know how they could justify a Turkish accession at the moment. Turkey isn't a free democracy any more. The elections were obviously rigged and journalists are getting arrested left, right and centre. A doctor is currently on trail for sharing a meme that makes fun of Erdoğan for looking like Gollum. An expert panel is to decide whether being likened to Gollum is an insult or not...

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plus the state staged a false flag terrorist attack against it's own people

Angela Merkel has said at party conference in Germany that she will reduce migrant levels into the country. It's reported she's under pressure from within her own party to do so, after the figure of 1 million migrants accepted into Germany was released just prior to the conference. She has stressed that it needs a European and international solution.

Ebeneezer Goode said:

e. If all you and the ethnic studies lecturers posing as serious academics .

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You can be a right pompous twat sometimes. My race and ethnicity lecturer was a serious academic and wrote several books that were very well recieved.

Red said:

You can be a right pompous twat sometimes. My race and ethnicity lecturer was a serious academic and wrote several books that were very well recieved.

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Nah, EG's vague feelings about race are far more valid than half a century of serious academic study. Heard Edward Said used to throw darts at pages of an art encyclopaedia, label whatever he hit "racist" and then sat around watching cartoons for the rest of the day, watching the grant funding roll in.

Red said:

You can be a right pompous twat sometimes. My race and ethnicity lecturer was a serious academic and wrote several books that were very well recieved.

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By whom? Those inside the echo-chamber? I'm generalizing of course, but broadly speaking when work within the radical end of the race/gender/sexuality racket is challenged academically, that challenge is met with extreme hostility and wilful ignorance. I mean hell, feminist lecturers are still teaching people that a gender pay gap exists for crying out loud.

cough cough feminazis

Whether through ignorance or deliberate misinformation, these outlets are conflating an earnings gap with a pay gap. Women earn less than men do, but the key word is earn. When you control for overtime worked, time taken off, the lower-paying fields that women go into and negotiated contracts, the gap evaporates.

Women earn less because of their own life choices, not because employers are arbitrarily seeking to pay men more than them. At most what we should take from this is that we should perhaps raise young girls to be more assertive and more open minded about their job prospects, and teach them that going into a STEM field would perhaps be a more useful use of their education than getting a Gender Studies degree and then whining about the lack of women in STEM fields later.

tried to make a doctors appointment and was quoted 2 weeks............never used to be that long.

johnnytodd said:

tried to make a doctors appointment and was quoted 2 weeks............never used to be that long.

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Really? I normally get one the next day. Perhaps you should consider moving to the socialist paradise of South Wales. Wait, on second thoughts don't. It's shit here, loads of Muslims. You'd hate it.

Ebeneezer Goode said:

Whether through ignorance or deliberate misinformation, these outlets are conflating an earnings gap with a pay gap. Women earn less than men do, but the key word is earn. When you control for overtime worked, time taken off, the lower-paying fields that women go into and negotiated contracts, the gap evaporates.

Women earn less because of their own life choices, not because employers are arbitrarily seeking to pay men more than them. At most what we should take from this is that we should perhaps raise young girls to be more assertive and more open minded about their job prospects, and teach them that going into a STEM field would perhaps be a more useful use of their education than getting a Gender Studies degree and then whining about the lack of women in STEM fields later.

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Women earn less because they disproportionately shoulder the burden of emotional labour.

Your feminist studies lecturer would probably have explained that to you if you'd listened.

Ian_Wrexham said:

Women earn less because they disproportionately shoulder the burden of emotional labour.

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Which are the lower-paying fields I referenced in the post you're quoting.

Ebeneezer Goode said:

By whom? Those inside the echo-chamber? I'm generalizing of course, but broadly speaking when work within the radical end of the race/gender/sexuality racket is challenged academically, that challenge is met with extreme hostility and wilful ignorance. I mean hell, feminist lecturers are still teaching people that a gender pay gap exists for crying out loud.

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By other academics in and outsdide his field of work.

Ebeneezer Goode said:

Which are the lower-paying fields I referenced in the post you're quoting.

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So work is gendered and work gendered as feminine pays less than work gendered as masculine (or is not paid at all e.g. women do the bulk of childcare).

How does this not equate to a "gender pay gap"?

Manual work is more often done by men and pays less than non-manual work. I don't see you complaining that there aren't enough female bus drivers or builders though.

Manual jobs like cleaning are overwhelmingly female (and are often some of the lowest paid, least secure jobs going). Bus drivers and builders get much better pay, more control over their hours, more employment rights.

Ian_Wrexham said:

Manual jobs like cleaning are overwhelmingly female (and are often some of the lowest paid, least secure jobs going). Bus drivers and builders get much better pay, more control over their hours, more employment rights.

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Do you at least accept though that a huge reason for pay inequality is because women drop out the workforce to have kids.

You state that women aren't paid for their childcare. In an era where women have strong reproductive control by making the decision to have children they are accepting that responsibility.