Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
If it's policy only suits France and Germany how are they net contributors to its budget. Surely they should be getting more out of the EU than they put in?
You think they don't ?
Like I said earlier, it's not all about money....
You think they don't ?
Like I said earlier, it's not all about money....
Its probably not the thread for this but it is an interesting debate. For full disclosure, I'm 51 years old with two sons in their early twenties and a father in his eighties.
The first question my father would ask is why you think you have the right to compare your situation with his. As my father said, you were not born when he/they earned that house and the reason you can't afford it is you don't earn your way in the world like he and my mum did. He left school at 15 and it took him his whole life to pay off his home? If you want what he has you need to earn it in the world like he did, he wasn't given it. If you can't then you have no more right to it than anyone else in the world and you have it better than he did at your age.
I don't agree with him by the way but I am interested your response and I could use some fuel in the counter arguments when I visit him each Sunday.
I'm sure your dad is a nice bloke but god old people are just awful. Even if his argument was true and it's not, he's arguing for continual hardship. ''Why shouldn't you have to work as hard as me'' while because working hard is really exhausting and time consuming, having to use so much of ones life for such a basic necessity seems like a very bad idea.
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I think every nation benefits from the EU, whether a net contributor or not
The EU army is an extension of that concept. Look who America has elected, do you think they can rely on America for defense?
I wouldn't really be able to answer him, both because I don't know enough about his personal situation including his age, and because it sounds like he wouldn't want to listen anyway! Or your personal information, because it's maybe your generation that get's mostly compared too.
But for a start, House Prices
House Prices are traditionally around the 3 x to 5x annual earning ratio. They are now up to 7.6 x the annual earning ratio.
When did your you or your dad buy your first house? Was it when house prices were literally half the price they are today?
Next, student debt and the first job.
Your dad left school at 15. Probably got a job at a factory or a plant with union membership and earned. He probably worked hard, no denying that, but he started with no debts and earned real money with a union looking after him.
By the time he reached the age of 23, he may have even bought his first home.
(struggling to find a decent graph here, but that'll do pig)
20 years ago, even those going to University left with no student debt. Now a higher percentage of young people than ever (nearly) go to uni, don't start earning real money until the leave aged 21-23, and have large debts to go with it.
So let's recap
1) Young people don't start earning until their early 20's due to University, reflecting the move from manufacturing jobs to service jobs.
2) When they do leave, they have large student debts, which most will never pay off.
3) They then immediately rent, which is even more expensive than buying a property. Most of their income gets eaten up by rent.
4) And they try to get the deposit to buy a property, but can't, because house prices are at historic highs, and rising (maybe have levelled out).
All I would say is, although life has obviously improved, the prospects for young people are much much worse today
And actually it's really sad. Old people like to have a go at millennials for some unknown reason, but they are victims of the environment created by the previous generations.
The average age of someone buying their first home is now over 30 years old. Manual jobs have dried up (there are loads available these days, but far less than their used to be), what are people meant to do?
The average age of someone buying their first home is now over 30 years old. Manual jobs have dried up (there are loads available these days, but far less than their used to be), what are people meant to do?
This is a personal choice, most people I know that went to uni are doing nothing in the field that they gained their degree in. Basically they went to uni to piss about and have a laugh.
Sometimes he is some times he's a stubborn old goat.
He doesn't want hardship to continue but he isn't enamored with the idea that the present generation has it so much harder because he thinks you really don't.
He was almost three years old when the second world war broke out and didn't get to eat a banana until rationing ended when he was about fouteen. Trust me when I say you are not winning the hardship debate with him.
That's too simplistic a view Stanley.
My school told me in no uncertain terms that if I didn't go to uni I would be stuck in a low paying job for the rest of my life.
We had people come round and gave us a presentation about going to Uni vs not going to Uni. There were big slides showing how much less the people not going to Uni would earn, even factoring in the student loans and loss of earnings. When I spoke to my teacher about my misgivings in going to University (more to do with my chosen degree) I was told I needed to go because otherwise I would waste my life and my potential.
In hindsight it's a sick joke.
You expect the majority of 17 year olds to have everything worked out? It's not a personal choice at all, it's a societal choice.
I'm nearly 30 and still haven't worked it out.
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Life is much better for our gen.
But being forced to wait until mid 30's to have kids (how many times have you heard someone say that people need to be able to afford the kids they look after) and being forced to wait until their 30 to buy a house and then be paying it off for the next 30 years, and having to work until we're 75....
Life
I know the housing thing is total shite but then his first house was a two up two down terrace in Eastwood Rotherham and they didn't have fridges, washing machines, cars, phones let alone mobile phones. They kept chickens in the back yard because they needed the protein from their eggs. You had to put a pot on the coal fire for hot water.
I could go on and on about the differences your generation takes for granted in your lifestyle. Its a generational divide which I guess is unbridgeable.
Hey, I'd love to have chickens! My current house is a two up, two down and has no garden whatsoever. My next house will have a tiny tiny tiny garden, and im going to grow some runner beans in pots. Im 27-30 and renting.
I can't improve the house because renting. I can't put pictures on the walls because renting. I cant do anything except basic maintenance because renting.
We have a chimney but its blocked off. Instead we rely on radiators that barely work. We have a washing machine but take our clothes to my mither in laws to dry every day because we arent allowed a drier indoors
Dont get me wrong, life is generally improving, but thats no reason to be resentful. Likewise its an extremely frustrating experience for young people. I asked my landlord if we could extend the lease so i could buy more furniture and she said they wanted us to leave at the end of our tenancy.
Imagine you started work at 15 and when you got to 18 they made you join the army for two years and stationed you in Germany with the Royal artillary.
National service you had no choice about going to university you very clearly do have a choice about
I was raised in such conditions (not banana but other things like decent chocolate, decent toothpaste etc). Let me share a little secret with you. If others around you dont have it then you wont miss it..
I think the young generation here got a raw deal. The property is prohibitively expensive same as tertiary education and rent. Add brexit, the end of the nhs and the same work conditions of the US and things will get worse. Oh well they can still eat bananas
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True. I'm not saying there is "no choice" not to go to university, but the reason kids go to Uni is a societal one. Unless my kids know exactly what they want to do, (doctor, lawyer, etc) and need to go to uni to do it then I won't send them.
National Service... Yeah I'm glad that's gone to be honest. I'd make a quip about at least you earn some money rather than pay thousands of pounds...
But yeah glad its gone
My dad hated every single moment from basic training on. He said he had nightmares that the govt extended it which they could if there was an emergency. Germany wasn't the worst place you could end up either although with the whole cold war thing going on it was quite risky.
The money was very poor and he had just got on to full pay in the steel plant when they conscripted him. He was supporting his family as the main earner at the time as my grand father had MS and was in a wheel chair. His youngest sister was deaf and blind after contracting scarlet fever as a baby which meant all his pay went home, they called that tipping up believe.
To get back on topic, I think the stupidest thing about the Brexiters vs Remainers debate is the lack of any middle ground.
- Free Movement of People (Wanted by Remain)
- Reducing Immigration (Wanted by Leavers)
- Preventing the reduction of wages (Wanted by the Left)
- Taking back sovereignty (wanted by the Right)
There is no reason you can't have all 4 of those things at once, and more.
All sides need to compromise.
- Free Movement of People (Wanted by Remain)
- Reducing Immigration (Wanted by Leavers)
- Preventing the reduction of wages (Wanted by the Left)
- Taking back sovereignty (wanted by the Right)
There is no reason you can't have all 4 of those things at once, and more.
All sides need to compromise.
Yeah, I'm glad that's gone. I don't thing young people can compete with the 70 year old in hardship battles.
50 year olds on the other hand
It seems im not the only one sharing these views
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...l-europe-clean-break-fractious-talks-brussels
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...l-europe-clean-break-fractious-talks-brussels
In contrast, my father loved his national service. He was stationed out in what was then Malaya with the RAF in the early 1950s. His only regret was that his poor eyesight prevented him from being able to train as a pilot.
The problem is, you can't really. Cameron tried to get reduced immigration while staying within the EU and they spat in his face. You also can't stay within the single market while removing yourself from the jurisdiction of the ECJ. I really wish there was a tier of membership where you could be part of the trading bloc, agree to certain rules about products and competition etc, opt-in to things like the research schemes etc and forgo this fetish Brussels have for making it this huge political orgy. There are plenty of trading blocs and custom unions that don't have nor want this layer of political rubbish.
They really didn't though, they gave him concessions which were never put in to practice because of the Leave vote. Maybe they wouldn't have been enough, maybe they would have, but to argue that he got nothing is the height of Leave campaign wankery.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35622105
None of the concessions in anyway gave the UK the ability to reduce immigration though did they? They put some limits on when people coming could claim welfare, a lot of which would only have been in effect for 7 years. That's not what was asked for, that's not even a compromise, it gave the UK no means by which to reduce EU immigration.
As far as I am aware Cameron never sought a deal on the reduction of the number of migrants so the failure to achieve this can't be laid at the foot of the EU. At any rate, even if he had done, he was offered significant concessions on virtually all areas where they were sought; in one case the EU went beyond what was initially asked. To describe what he was given as 'a spit in the face' is demonstrably untrue.
You may argue, perhaps with some justification, that Cameron did not go far enough in what he asked for. You may equally argue that he didn't do this because he knew the EU wouldn't agree to it, but you can't criticise the EU for not giving Britain what it hadn't asked for.
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Oh for goodness sake, the U.K. Already HAD the power to massively reduce non-EU immigration and to clamp down on EU immigration and chose to never use it. So please spare me from this 'it was the EUs fault!' crap. Successive U.K. governments have been right at the forefront of pushing EU agenda and then coming home and lying to the public about it, using the EU as a convenient scapegoat instead of just explaining why they thought their decisions were the right ones.
You have a point, but from my understanding of what I read, Cameron didn't ask for it because it was basically a non-starter. The idea was to try put off EU immigration by making the welfare system less attractive, but the vast majority of what was agreed there was timebound and had an expiry where it would have returned to normal.
A lot of what he asked for, was pretty much rubbish, I agree that Cameron was far too weak, what he got/went for was in no way going to satisfy people.
- Being able to opt out of further integration - Britain, like every other country, had a veto on treaty change, further integration involving Britain couldn't have happened without Britain's approval regardless
- Migrants and welfare - Much of what was agreed was time limited, not a permanent solution
- Eurozone issues - Again, such decisions would/will likely require treaty change and not be something the EU parliament could do unilaterally, again meaning Britain could have stopped this or forced for it to be removed regardless of the negotiations
- Competitiveness - Vague text that there will be an attempt for feasible burden reduction - No actual explanation or description of even potential ways in which it would be done.
What power is that?
You basically don't want to be part of this trading bloc which is fine.
Edit: British welfare have nothing to do with the EU.
Actually EU residents entitlement to welfare when in Britain does come under EU legislation http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-13_en.htm
We're arguing about a counterfactual which we can't ever get to the heart I suspect. I think we agree though that the real criticism here lies with Cameron – although perhaps for different reasons. He badly misjudged the public mood sought a series of concessions that made him look weak (although I suspect would have achieved far more than you would allow), gave ammunition to the EU's detractors (who bent the truth to fit the narrative), and ultimately painted himself as a reluctant remainer who struggled to make a positive case for the EU.
You read the article? It's about the determination of the residence, not the actual welfare. If the UK wants to have non attractive welfare it's on them but logically they can't discriminate their own residents, nationals or non-nationals.
You can! It's easy! Maybe not within the strict rules of the European Union, but free movement doesn't depend on that. We can allow European nationals to live here permanently without the EU getting involved. And we can reduce immigration whilst doing it. How?
Keep "free" movement, but make the Personal Allowance something that is earned over time; not an automatic right.
Anyone from Europe can come to work here, but they would be paying a high level of tax, so wage deflation would be much less of a thing. And of course, because someone previously earning £18,000 a year would take home only £11k instead of £15.5k, immigration would be reduced. You can make certain vital jobs like Doctors, Nurses and Scientists automatically get the Personal Allowance, and even extend that to cherry pickers if you want...
Now before the Left jump on me as saying this is "modern slavery"; it's surely better than having a red-line "NO YOU CANT WORK OR LIVE HERE".
This is how the Left and Right has to come together to sort this mess out. Keep "Free" movement, but reduce the incentive for low wage (depreciating wage) workers to do so.
And whilst we are at it, why not open up free movement to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere? Increase the labour pool from 750 million, to over a billion. Cut red tape - allow employers to bring in workers from all these countries without needing to complete complicated Visas!
The UK Tax system is one of the most robust in the world. We don't need to create entire departments to sort out who can work here and who can't. Let the markets decide!!!
Aye, I agree Cameron handled the whole situation in an awful fashion. I lay most of the blame on people like Brown and other former Prime Ministers though, who signed us up to treaty change with no referendum and basically caused the situation for Cameron where he was caught between a rock and a hard place with the UK having been signed up for something the majority of the population didn't want. I also hold the EU in distain for the fact they know full well that these treaty changes that have turned the organisation from the Common Market into what it is now were never voted on by the British people, heck I don't think it was even in party manifesto's. When things like the Maastricht Treaty were introduced it should really have been handled differently by the UK, who then held all the cards. A position of we are very happy to trade with you, we are very happy to make it easier for EU citizens to come to the UK, we're very happy to contribute to a budget, to agree to participate and fund things like the ESA and to participate in agreements where we share information and research . What we're not happy to do is to have it dictated that we can't put limits on immigration if we wish, to allow the ECJ power over UK civil matters, only to be arbiters for disputes between countries or for policy to be decided by a EU parliament and not by elected domestic officials of the member countries. That to me would have been a cracking organisation that a referendum wouldn't have even come about over.
That's the entire point, not that I paticularly agree with the logic of it. The UK wanted EU nationals to have spent more time in the country paying into the system before they were entitled to claim the same benefits British citizens are entitled to as a way to attempt to stem in the inflow since Britain actually being able to limit the amount of people coming wasn't ever going to work within the EU. The ability to do that is governed by the EU at present.
I agree that would probably have been helpful, but as JPRouve said, the UK within the EU could not discriminate between British and EU citizen's on things like the personal allowance without the EU's agreement, which it doesn't seem they wanted to give on a permanent basis.
Yeah probably not possible within the EU (maybe, taxations is a sovereign issue, but its arguable...so lets assume not).
Also, taxing eu nationals (not discriminately, everyone else would be taxed like that too) in such a way would almost certainly result in receprical taxation.
But that would actually be good.
I have no real problem with immigration, my issue is that it seems obvious to me that a country should be able to control and manage that inflow to a reasonable extent. The UK needs immigration, we have skills shortages. It is just in my mind plainly obvious that if a country has a saturation in certain jobs or industries that it should be able to turn people away, because otherwise you end up with wage depression with a bigger demand for jobs in certain areas with not enough supply to employ everyone. It just seemed absurd to me that during the financial crisis, as unemployment went up and we didn't have enough jobs as it was, that the goverment couldn't limit the amount of people coming to seek work.
I also don't see why there should be one set or rules for EU nationals and one set for the rest of the world when coming to the UK. And I don't see why I should get special treatment if I decided to go set up shop in France compared to someone from India.
The problem really surfaced when the EU started to include ex-Soviet bloc countries. I have nothing against them, but there was a clear difference in wages and economic conditions between countries such as the UK, France, Germany etc and them. If you added for example Canada into the EU, then you keep everything in balanace, there are some specific jobs such as oil/gas that Canada has more of, there are more jobs in professional services etc that the UK has. Wages and welfare are roughly similar so you won't expect a one way exodus from one country to another. But the Soviet-bloc countries created a pretty much exclusively one directional flow on a scale that has rarely been seen in peace time Europe. It was a horrible cock up by the EU, and a horrible cock up by the UK to consent. Pretty much any 1st year undergrad economics textbook will have in it under criteria for efficient single market operation "Minimal disparity in income and levels of state welfare."
EU citizens aren't entitled to benefits until they are permanent residents though which is 5 years, before that they can be deported on the ground that they are a burden on the welfare system.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36449974
I mostly agree with the bit in bold, and disagree with the bit in red.
The problem is, its rarely "managed" well. Take the example of Shane Ridge. Here is someone who was born here, grew up here, went to school here, works here, British parents.... And hes asked to leave. Why? Because the government thought his grandmum wasnt British when she gave birth to his mum, so she wasn't British at the time, so he wasnt British.
What, the, feck.
Forget that it turned out to be an error; he is actually British, because his grandmum was, why does that matter? Hes as British as you or I!
No. The government cannot run immigration like that. Its impossible. There are too many fringe cases.
The best option is to use taxation to make immigration either economical or not. You can have every individual case being checked or you break up familes
My understanding is that without the emergency brake, EU citizens providing they have a legit prospect of finding work and have shown themselves to be living here were entitled to working tax credit, child tax credit, child benefit and housing benefit if they were employed. http://www.itv.com/news/2016-02-03/what-benefits-can-eu-migrants-claim/
Like I said, I see holes in the logic. It seems much fairer and more logical for EU countries to have the ability if they have saturation in specific jobs or industries to simply stop people coming looking for work in those areas instead of having to fiddle around with the taxation and benefits system which is unfair on others. You can even have the ECJ look at the data to ensure countries are simply not playing the system. If someone comes here to be a nurse, a profession we need people in and gets sick after a few months then I am all for them receiving sickness benefits during their illness etc. If someone comes trying to get a job in an area that is seeing wage stagnation and is on the verge of seeing a rise in unemployment, I really don't see why they should be paid JSA etc, or even be allowed in the first place.
Yes, the Shane Ridge thing is stupid. I'm in no way advocating for something that harsh. I guess I am maybe looking at it through the lens that we'd have competent goverment and civil service capable of managing it properly and effectively. People that are already here, are already here. I'm not saying to go back through everyone and analyse if they should be able to stay.
Australia and a number of other countries have systems that looks at if a person coming to the country has skills in areas that the country requires as part of applying, it's not impossible to implement.
Like I said, I see holes in the logic. It seems much fairer and more logical for EU countries to have the ability if they have saturation in specific jobs or industries to simply stop people coming looking for work in those areas instead of having to fiddle around with the taxation and benefits system which is unfair on others. You can even have the ECJ look at the data to ensure countries are simply not playing the system. If someone comes here to be a nurse, a profession we need people in and gets sick after a few months then I am all for them receiving sickness benefits during their illness etc. If someone comes trying to get a job in an area that is seeing wage stagnation and is on the verge of seeing a rise in unemployment, I really don't see why they should be paid JSA etc, or even be allowed in the first place.
Yes, the Shane Ridge thing is stupid. I'm in no way advocating for something that harsh. I guess I am maybe looking at it through the lens that we'd have competent goverment and civil service capable of managing it properly and effectively. People that are already here, are already here. I'm not saying to go back through everyone and analyse if they should be able to stay.
Australia and a number of other countries have systems that looks at if a person coming to the country has skills in areas that the country requires as part of applying, it's not impossible to implement.