The EU: IN or OUT?

HornetSaver

If this were on a general discussion board, I'd respect whatever conclusion people came to regardless of what factors they used to reach that decision. However, this is on the savings and investments board.

So, can the 59% who voted out on this poll please enlighten me on why immigration of large numbers of Polish plumbers or Romanian retail workers would have a detrimental impact on the majority of people's savings or investments?

veryintrigued

veryintrigued wrote: »

The BBC seem to have them neck and neck.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36271589

Looking at this just a little more closely the BBC seem to be missing 5% don't they?!

41 + 41 + 13 = 95

PenguinJim

The more I see the arguments about the Brexit, the more one particular thing stands out to me - this idea of "control". blutto's just brought it up again at the top of the page (I think - their English was quite difficult to parse). It seems to be a cornerstone of the Out campaign.

But I just don't get it.

What control will we, the posters here, have if we leave the EU? It's not as if we're each suddenly going to be made Prime Minister. We're in thrall to a group of people we'll never meet, slaves to their actions. Those people being British... why does that automatically make it better? Why does it give me more control if the people running the country coincidentally happened to be born slightly closer to where I happened to be born?

But, then again, that connects directly with another (or perhaps the other) Out argument - that we shouldn't want people who were born in France or people who were born in Poland or people who were born in Germany living and working in the UK. Why? Because they weren't born here? I don't follow why the best people for a job can't get that job because of the fact of where they were born - a detail that, as far as I'm aware, none of us can personally control.

So we don't want those people coming here and taking our jobs because they are different, I suppose - somehow less than human, or worse than us, because they weren't born within certain to-a-degree-arbitrary lines on a map.

So here we are, British and proud, and there they are. I recognise this primitive tribalism, of course - it appeals to almost everybody on some level, surely, whether it's through football teams, console wars, or nationalism. Proud to be British - this is our team, it's better than your team, even though we've done nothing to earn our place here. Maybe I'm overstating it, or maybe it's all in my mind, but most times when I see someone making the case for leaving, there's always a suspicion in my mind that it's simply about nationalist pride.

Because it's not about control. A Brexit doesn't come with the proviso that each of us can be PM for a day. And being born closer to someone doesn't necessarily make us more like them, or to share the same wants or goals. We, the people, don't get any more control whether we're in or out.

I've been lucky enough to travel the world. I've been lucky enough to live in three different countries, and work in many more. People outside Britain are not sub-human. I probably have more in common with a 30-year-old French person than a 60-year-old British person. Certainly I know a few French people whose English puts a lot of posters here to shame.

Seeing people like kingrulzok claim things like "If we vote OUT we will suffer for few years but things will be good for our children’s and our grandchildren’s. If we vote IN everything will be the same for now but years from now our children’s and our grandchildren’s will suffer. [sic]" - I don't follow this at all. We're facing global catastrophes, problems that could have been resolved years ago with a united approach, but instead linger on and genuinely threaten the lives of our "grandchildren's". Separating into isolated states to preserve an illogical pride, a misplaced sense of control, and protect our jobs from people who can do them better...? Haven't you seen how the world has changed in the last 30 years? Don't you understand the root of the problems in Syria?

People are people. The more we divide ourselves into meaningless subgroups, the more we fracture our species, which is something we can no longer afford to do. The idea that the only people who are best for a job are those who were born closest to where the job is... well, that's mathematically unsound, to say the least. And having pride or a sense of belonging based on our dedication to being born in a certain place... well, again, I understand the anthropological reasons behind it. But isn't it about time we grew out of that?

Having said all that, the Out campaign isn't without its appeal for me. The only problem is that it's yet another half-measure. For me to vote Out, I'd want everything in the Out campaign done properly. That means tests and appraisals for everyone currently living in the UK, and expulsion of those who don't meet our standards of language and culture. A quick glance at the Topic Review shows that we'd probably lose 'blutto', 'kingrulzuk', and 'savings my hobby' - they wouldn't be allowed "in" to the UK anymore. Is that a coincidence, or an irony?

Anyway, apologies for waffling on. Don't read too much into this post, as I'm sure it's dreadfully structured - it was just stream-of-consciousness stuff. :A

savings_my_hobby

PenguinJim wrote: »

Having said all that, the Out campaign isn't without its appeal for me. The only problem is that it's yet another half-measure. For me to vote Out, I'd want everything in the Out campaign done properly. That means tests and appraisals for everyone currently living in the UK, and expulsion of those who don't meet our standards of language and culture. A quick glance at the Topic Review shows that we'd probably lose 'blutto', 'kingrulzuk', and 'savings my hobby' - they wouldn't be allowed "in" to the UK anymore. Is that a coincidence, or an irony?

Anyway, apologies for waffling on. Don't read too much into this post, as I'm sure it's dreadfully structured - it was just stream-of-consciousness stuff. :A

Since the Government cant stop "British" citizens going to fight in Syria and pledging their loyalties to a terrorist group coming back to the country because we will make them stateless , I think us three will be ok for now;)

savings_my_hobby

HornetSaver wrote: »

If this were on a general discussion board, I'd respect whatever conclusion people came to regardless of what factors they used to reach that decision. However, this is on the savings and investments board.

So, can the 59% who voted out on this poll please enlighten me on why immigration of large numbers of Polish plumbers or Romanian retail workers would have a detrimental impact on the majority of people's savings or investments?

It depends what you are saving/investing for. If you are saving for a House and the prices are going up due to unprecedented demand then surely it is natural to want less demand.



Perhaps you want to begin saving a deposit for a home but you can't get a full time job, yet it appears half of Europe can come to Britain and get work but you are left and the sidelines doing community work (the same as a convicted criminal would except they would have "community payback" on their Hi-viz) just to get your £10 a day JSA and when you do finally get a job you have to work so hard in a manual job on a zero hour contract for NMW, no wait NLW and prey you are getting more than you would on JSA. Thank god you and I are not it that situation, else we might think perhaps this immigration experiment is not for us after all.



Or perhaps you are a casual investor and you are worried about the value of your FTSE100 tracker (or whatever) because this Brexit "leap into the unknown" will cause a "DIY recession" and wipe some of the value off your portfolio, just because our elected government cannot get a grip on immigration, as promised, at the last TWO general elections.

There are two reasons for you, the third is somewhat of a stretch as it is built on the assumption there will be a brexit that will cause a recession and the investor has all their eggs in one basket.

savings_my_hobby

atush wrote: »

What is biast?

No idea (mainly because I did not write it) but common sense would say a typo.

savings_my_hobby

masonic wrote: »

I'm not sure things would have been so different. Despite "12 years of uncontrolled mass immigration", unemployment is at record lows. Without that immigration, presumably the UK would have been in a similar state, but with a smaller economy owing to fewer jobs having been created and filled by the immigrants. No doubt there would have been even less house building going on as demand would have been lower, and given that most immigration has occurred from countries where we are able to exert controls, the overall effect is not likely to be very significant in any case.

Underemployment is at record highs without uncontrolled immigration perhaps people could get more hours at work or work in the field in which they are trained.

I know my industry (electrical installer) has seen the cream scraped off, instead of eight or nine electricians and a few apprentices on a project it is often reduced to three or four electricians and the rest of the team made up with semi-skilled laborers (of any nationality) with the electricians checking the work of the semi skilled and amending where necessary. What are the other electricians doing?
sofa surfing waiting for the agency to throw them a meatless bone?
finding financial stability where they can and taking lower paid, lower skilled work?
not exactly a ring endorsement for apprenticeship schemes when you can serve your time working for peanuts thinking one day you will earn a decent salary only to end up being grateful having a full-time low skilled job instead because the work is there but it is being given to cheaper people.

I know so many people who have left the trades and the quality of projects just seem to get worse, because of the skillset of the workers not necessarily the nationalities.

jimjames

veryintrigued wrote: »

Looking at this just a little more closely the BBC seem to be missing 5% don't they?!

41 + 41 + 13 = 95

I think you'll probably find it's not the BBC, they just report the numbers from the pollsters. Some include, some exclude don't knows or likelihood to vote which would affect numbers

SavingFish

blutto wrote: »

Also what people voted for on the 1970's is nothing compared to what the EU is today! It was suppose to be a a free trade community not a federal union governed by the 'Franco,German alliance"!

Whilst the EU has changed, at this point it is quite instructive to read the original 1975 referendum leaflet (it's freely available online). The arguments within are actually startlingly similar to the ones we hear today. (Including dealing with concerns about "unelected faceless bureaucrats" in the section about sovereignty.)

blutto wrote: »

Lastly Remain keep saying a 'leap into the dark' I say a GIANT Leap 'into the light' ! Don't believe elitist's! They are only in it for themselves and ofcourse they depend upon the Eu existing o keep their 'job worth jobs' !

Sadly there are self interested elites on both sides. UKIP, Gove and IDS are all to the right of the political spectrum. Given the policies UKIP especially has come out with in the past, it seems exceedingly unlikely that they're doing this for the benefit of "ordinary" people.

(Having said that, ideally people will do their own research rather than voting based on personalities. May be a vain hope though.)

PenguinJim

savings_my_hobby wrote: »

No idea (mainly because I did not write it) but common sense would say a typo.

No, if you look at the context, it's clearly not a typo. It's far more likely to be their own misunderstanding of how to spell the word correctly. (Unless they're using one of those funny Polish keyboards with the "T" key right next to the "ED" key..? )

This does beg the question of just how many words you're using where you don't understand the meaning.

savings_my_hobby wrote: »

Since the Government cant stop "British" citizens going to fight in Syria and pledging their loyalties to a terrorist group coming back to the country because we will make them stateless , I think us three will be ok for now;)

Say again? :question:

I'm not sure if the terrible level of English in your posts is a result of a poor education, or English being your second language, or if you simply don't respect the others on this forum enough to bother. Can't you see how unreadable posts waste your time and ours?

Hit the "Preview Post" button next time. If you're not sure, perhaps ask a friend or native speaker to check.