bassbeyondreason
Chtonic Fatigue Syndrome
Stop my dole and I'll be shottin' brown.
do you mean excluding people who are incapable or to old to work? sounds like a pretty random approximation you pulled out there. The amount of people at state pension or over in 2005 was around 11 million not including people with disabilities or musicians.
Don't get this whole 'indigenous' thing either, I have nothing against having controls on immigration but to say you are indigenous to anywhere is a bit short sighted unless you believe we just popped out of the ground made a union jack 2.5 million years ago and then stayed put.
I'm talking about people who count as unemployed (not pensioners or incapacitated), which I think stands at about two million. It's hardly 'random', these are official figures that anyone can look up.
Hang, on I stand corrected: 2.47m unemployed, 1.63 claiming "jobseeker's" by late summer this year.
Well let's say "native" in the literal sense of having been born here, as opposed to having come here as an immigrant.
But is racist to point out that Britain (and England, even more so) is an exceptionally crowded country already with a desperate shortage of social housing and that most of our population growth is due to immigration? Is the only officially non-racist position to take that of supporting immigration for ever and ever, regardless of its effects on the demand for land, housing, resources and services?
Doesn't it? If you assume each employed person has one job, and there are X people and Y of them are unemployed, what's wrong with drawing the conclusion that there are (X-Y) fewer jobs than people?ok I see where you got that from but that doesn't mean there are two and half million less jobs then people.
sorry but still going by that then you would be drawing an arbitrary line in time for being someone who has been allowed into this country but is classed as a citizen and is more worthy of employment and someone who is not. Doesn't really make sense.. but I do think we need a better system for immigration, controls over illegal immigration etc
baboon2004 said:To my eternal discredit, I've not yet read it, but apparently 'Who Owns Britain?' makes a pretty good case that Britain is not in fact crowded, but rather beset by the problem of too few people owning too much land.
One suggestion is a land value tax.That may well be the case, but short of all-out revolution I can't see the situation being improved any time too soon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/jan/08/tax.businessMr Harrison, Mr Weale and other economists say the burden of taxation needs to be shifted off income and profits and on to those untaxed gains in property values. In short, we need a land value tax.
...
Mr Harrison, and others such as David Reed at the Labour Land Campaign and Dave Wetzel of the Professional Land Reform Group, argue for a tax on all land to encourage its more efficient use.
Think of the 13-hectare Battersea Power Station site, which has stood derelict since 1982. It was sold last month for £400m by a developer who bought it for £10m in 1993. A yearly tax on its value would have focused owners' minds on making better use of it.
House buyers would factor an annual tax on the value of the land under the house into calculations of what they would be prepared to pay for it. This would lower prices and discourage speculation. Second homes would carry a higher cost than they do now.
This is not about raising more tax revenue. The revenue from a land value tax would be used, for example, to scrap stamp duty and/or council tax or to reduce income tax or VAT, which is highly regressive. Many countries, such as Denmark and Australia, already have some form of value tax.
Given complete freedom of movement, people will enter the country until that point at which any comparative advantages to living here have been lost - logically speaking, sooner or later, conditions will inevitably get worse.
That may well be the case, but short of all-out revolution I can't see the situation being improved any time too soon. Anyway, it's an undeniable fact that Britain is crowded, simply going on population density compared to most other countries. There was something in the news recently about how new houses being built here are the smallest in Europe.
To my eternal discredit, I've not yet read it, but apparently 'Who Owns Britain?' makes a pretty good case that Britain is not in fact crowded, but rather beset by the problem of too few people owning too much land.
well one argument against it is that we're entering a period of mass unemployment. either we provide jobs for people who live here, or we face the consequences in terms of crime, welfare dependency etc etc
you reading these from the BNPs manifesto, crackerjack?
Look at it this way: a nightlcub has a (to a degree arbitrary) maximum capacity of say, 300. The first 300 hundred people to turn up that night have the "right" to get in, and people who turn up later don't. If the club decides to let more people in after that, then apart from risking legal action it means the club is now uncomfortably crowded for the punters, it takes half an hour to queue for the bogs and in the event of a fire it's going to be absolute carnage. Note that none of this argument hinges in the least on the skin colour or religion of any of the punters, either those who got their first or the late-comers.
What is the point of a comment like that, seriously? Go fuck yourself.
alright dear, calm down.
the point is that your arguments against immigration could be lifted wholesale from their material, got a problem with that?
you want to engage with my refutation of your argument, be my guest.
In an attempt to help you with this laboured analogy, you may wish to add the following amendments:
1. No-one knows the capacity of the club, because a club has never been full before.
2. Large swathes of the club are roped off VIP areas with nobody in them.
3. Some bits of the club are busy, because that's where the sound is best.
4. Other bits are almost empty, but the floor has collapsed and the speaker cones are ripped.
For starters
You haven't refuted my argument - you haven't even touched on the consequences of long-term mass unemployment - you've just made the case for managed immigration, which I support. Specific skills shortages? Then let's fill them from wherever.
But if you're going to maintain the near hysterical tone you've shown throughout this thread, my last comment stands.