Millhouse

weasel decentral

I think we are all too jaded to take a bite on that

But you are right, Johnny Foreigner is denying John Bull his enshrined British (God save the Queen) right to sweep the streets, work in the service industry, unblock toilets, and drive a minicab.

Millhouse

DXBtoDOH

It's always hard to tell if you're sincere or not but I'm old enough to remember when these jobs were mostly done by Brits. It was not that long ago either. Just pay them well enough and they'll do it.

But employers would rather pay peanuts to Eastern Europeans. The whole economic model of the UK of the past 20 years has been based on the steady supply of cheap labour rather than increasing productivity with the same numbers of people. It's my Costa theory. Costa opens a coffeeshop and employs a bunch of immigrants to work behind the counter. The immigrants use their salaries to buy, among other things, coffee at Costa. Costa sees their sales go up. So they open more coffeeshops and recruit more immigrants. Because it's cheaper to hire a bunch of people fresh off the plane for peanuts rather than invest in technologies to manage with fewer people. Costa gets richer, the population keeps growing, but wages remain flat, demand for housing intensifies, the tube gets more crowded, competition for social goods increases and overall quality of life declines.

And we're seeing the consequences of that. Rapid population growth of low wage people driving up the cost of living (housing especially) and burdening the welfare state which means the average working Brit is not better off today versus 20 years ago when you factor in everything. In fact, he/she is likely worse off given the higher cost of housing and the decline in social services. And therein lies the crux of the matter. Take away the iPhones and Ryanair flights to Spain, what has really improved for your working Brits? Ok, better quality ethnic food. But I can live without that.

Millhouse

DXBtoDOH

What has also changed in the past 20 years is that opportunities gap between the haves and have-nots have greatly exploded too. I'm not necessarily talking about income gaps or wealth gaps, but something I term as opportunities. I was thinking about this last week in Germany, when chatting with an Australian living in Berlin. I'd assumed he had some kind of ancestry based UK passport and that was how he was able to live and work in Berlin but it turned out he had a Greek grandmother who'd moved to Australia as a baby but he was able to use her to get a Greek passport and thus made the move to Europe. I did think that it seemed unfair there were those who could game the system by virtue of luck. After all, he's not really European, or even Greek.

And I realised that's true for many things in this modern world of ours. FOM is a perfect example. In theory it's an opportunity granted to everyone in the UK, but in reality only a small minority (and it's really a very small minority) would ever be able to take advantage of it in a meaningful way due to employment, language and economic factors. But what makes it worse is that it's an opportunity mainly to those who already have lots of opportunities. I find that very interesting, and much of the rewards of the past 20 years has been reaped by those who already have lots of rewards.

Much of the clash in the UK is now between people who feel they don't have much opportunities and people who thrive off having as many opportunities as possible that they come to see any restrictions, even for the greater social benefit, as a severe violation of their well-being. The psychology behind it all is fascinating, including the way it makes hypocrites out of many people.

Arnold S

I'm not sure I understand, isn't having a workforce on the smallest wage bill possible a central tenet of right wing economics?

weasel decentral

Its FOM for goods and services also, which supports the local businesses and their employees. You don't have to physically move to Europe to benefit from that.

Millhouse

The haves have always had more opportunities than the have-nots. Nothing new there. The issue is now that they have a forum to complain about it through social media.

QE has been the biggest driver of the wealth gap over the last ten years. Those with assets have done extremely well, those without assets have seen opportunities erode though inflation of assets that was not recorded in the general inflation numbers - thus monetary policy was completely inappropriate for them. The chances of the poor (or even those new to work) being able to buy a house for instance is now negligible.

Interestingly this is all coming to head at a time when the economic cycle is late stage - temptation will be again to cut rates in the next couple of years, re-inflate the assets and misreport inflation - making the masses poorer. They missed out on the boom but will be punished in the next recession.

Immigration has nothing to do with all of this - in fact it probably made the situation less worse. The solution is probably for rich countries to have shit loads more kids and adjust their expectations.

scrubbedexpat141

Don't be silly, they're only there to keep our bananas the right shape.

Hardened Brexiteer changing their mind? Never....

DXBtoDOH

Oh, my attitude towards the EU hasn't changed, not one whit. I still think it's an extraordinarily undemocratic entity cobbled together by a bunch of people who didn't trust themselves to rule themselves with the end result that a faceless bureaucracy of smug self-entitled neoliberal Continental bourgeoisie have turned it into little more than a benevolent dictatorship where the people aren't trusted and everything is sacrificed for some weird artificial 'European' solidarity and identity.

But between remaining a EU member and accepting this deal, I obviously know which is better.

dominoman

This deal (which isn't even a deal but an agreement to seek a deal in the next 2 years) seems to offer most of the downsides of being in the EU without any formal representation.

My reasons for voting Leave were not about freedom of movement (which I approve of) but primarily about escaping the restrictive anti-business, anti-free-trade, undemocratic political union that disregards the wishes of it's citizens. This "deal" keeps us in a limbo state where we can't compete by lowering taxes, changing standards and environmental laws (for example to get rid of the EU-sponsored destruction of wild habitats), or negotiating bilateral trade deals (because EU equivalence rules would prevent us adopting non EU standards).

It's worse than staying in. If the deal in the current form passes parliament it will cause resentment and political fracture way beyond anything we have seen so far.

Millhouse

What are we all going to chat about when we bomb out in March?

DXBtoDOH

Probably me looking for a new job And I'll end up having to take a role in some craphole in China.

Millhouse

I think that is unlikely, but it would make me feel marginally better about it.