Immigration thread to re-balance the forum

[Board Game Geek]

Ah the south east, that cultural oasis in the desert that is England.

Sadly, this does ring true.

I grew up in Stock, near Billericay, both of which were pleasant places to live at one time.

Billericay has now become a extension of Basildon, and gone are the days of smartly dressed mature ladies in their tweed jackets shopping in Billericay High Street.

Now you'll find gangs of feral youths, pregnant mums with massive oversize prams (and tummies from number 4 on the way), and neanderthal partners dressed in reeboks, sports tops and jogging bottoms, queuing outside the DSS for their giros.

Fortunately, Stock has survived the worst of these degredations, but it is only a matter of time...


(P.s. if you are wondering what I am doing up at this ungodly hour, it has something to do with Camplobacter Food Poisoning. Monday night was the wost. Everytime I rushed to the loo with diarrohea, I also needed to vomit at the same time. Juggling the two in tandem was quite an excercise (puke in the loo and poo on the bathroom floor, or poo in the loo and puke in to the bath. Horrific.)

[expat]

She has a degree and a masters, she pays her taxes and bills promptly, has private healthcare as she doesnt trust any state healthcare anywhere, she beat several rounds of other interviewee's to get the job and works a lot harder than others in her position.

Yes she's an immigrant, but what's wrong with her being here and working?
isnt she simply helping to improve the british economy slightly?

I'm happy she's here and I'm sure she's an asset to our country in many ways, but I'm afraid that it is not self-evident that she is improving the British economy at all. An immigrant worker adds 1 worker but at least 1 consumer, so is at best neutral. If incomers' economic activity raises the GDP, but because of the increased population does not raise the GDP per head, it has not really improved the economy.

Indeed, if she has had to beat other interviewees to get the job, she has increased the number of consumers without increasing the number of workers, then she has made the British economy worse.

NB I am not against immigration, or the EU, or you and her personally.

[Board Game Geek]

Expat,

On your analysis, you infer that essentially any immigrant is therefore "neutral" in the benefit they provide to their adopted country.

Commonsense would indicate that this cannot be the case.

Who do you think provides a more positive economic benefit to the country from the following 2 people.

a)

Gregor, a Romanian plasterer, has heard about the excellent wages in the UK, so via a friend of a friend he hitches a ride in the back of a lorry and enters the UK illegally.

He arrives as Dover, meets a contact and the 2 of them travel to Nottingham, where he is show his accomodation, a sleeping bag on the floor of a run down flat shared with 8 other immigrants.

Gregor gets up at 5am with the rest of his chums and they lurk in the car park of a local Tescos, waiting for the men in the white vans to pick them up for their day's work. Cash in hand, of course.

Naturally, if Gregor falls ill, he will visit a local doctor or attend an NHS hospital. Yet he pays no N.I. Lucky old Gregor eh ?

At some additional expense, the GP and or the Hospital provide a translator since Gregor speaks virtually no English.

Any money he does earn either pays for meagre food, rent or is sent back home.

b)

Ivana is a young, well educated woman, with the equivalent of a degree education in her home country. She studied Law and Medicine.

She comes to the UK to earn more for her qualifications, since wages are very low in her home country, even for a highly skilled woman such as herself.

She arranges her travel papers officially and gets a 2 year visa to enter the UK. She gets offered a job as a trainee Nurse in Nottingham General Hospital.

She works long, ardous hours, but the fruits of her labour are self-evident. She pays full taxes and N.I. She also has more disposable money each month than she ever has had in her life...and their certainly is a much better range of shoes, cosmetics and fashions available in the UK than back in her old country.

Plus she is better looking than Gregor

Seriously Expat, if you cannot make the distinction between the two immigrants, then I think you should have gone to Specsavers.

[hyperD]

(P.s. if you are wondering what I am doing up at this ungodly hour, it has something to do with Camplobacter Food Poisoning. Monday night was the wost. Everytime I rushed to the loo with diarrohea, I also needed to vomit at the same time. Juggling the two in tandem was quite an excercise (puke in the loo and poo on the bathroom floor, or poo in the loo and puke in to the bath. Horrific.)

Chinese food?

Sorry to hear that - I had that and found it was the quickest way to lose 2 stone in 2 weeks with a haemorrhaged bowel. Closed the chinese restaurant down as it had been reported as an outbreak to the local authorities as so many people were ill at the same time.

Opened up again a month later by the previous owner's brother-in-law.

[tim123]

2 different subjects. The arrival of people from the EU does not constitute "immigration", it is internal movement, just as if someone from Yorkshire moves to London, or a Londoner moves to Dorset.

These are citizens moving freely from one part of their area of citizenship to another. Yes, they are EU citizens: that is the important polity and the important citizenship now.

That is firmly embedded in what the EU is. If you didn't want that, you shouldn't have joined the EU.

I agree with the first half, but not with the second.

80% of the EU countries aren't swamped with Poles etc because they refused to let them in to work.

So, (1) if we don't want the Poles here we could have said no without leaving the EU, (2) we must be getting more of them here because they can't go to most other EU countries.

tim

[Board Game Geek]

Chinese food?

Sorry to hear that - I had that and found it was the quickest way to lose 2 stone in 2 weeks with a haemorrhaged bowel. Closed the chinese restaurant down as it had been reported as an outbreak to the local authorities as so many people were ill at the same time.

No idea. It came on very quickly on Monday evening. Missus has been unaffected so it's something I have eaten.

All I had on Monday night was egg, ham and chips. The ham was sourced from a local farmers market, as were the eggs. We both had some of the eggs on Saturday as well as some ham, so it cannot be that.

The only other thing I ate Monday was a Sainbury's Wilshire Ham and Mustard pre-packed sandwich.

Whatever it was, it has been blimming awful and the doc reckons 5 days to get back on track (or longer for those with immuno suppressed illnesses)

[hyperD]

The only other thing I ate Monday was a Sainbury's Wilshire Ham and Mustard pre-packed sandwich.

Feel for you... not a pleasant illness..

I fear though that it could be in the sandwiches... and probably through transference. The specialist reckoned it was the chinese waiters using their hands to pick up ice cubes to make our drinks.

Who knows... it was only a few months ago that the supplier, London-based Katsouris, a unit of Icelandic food group Bakkavor, provided salmonella infected hummus to Sainsbury's, Somerfield, Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-op.

hyperD's top gastronomic tip: never eat processed food - spend a few mins and make it yourself. It's cheaper and you won't get minimum waged employees rubbing their sticky fingers over your food.

[oracleslave]

Feel for you... not a pleasant illness..

I fear though that it could be in the sandwiches... and probably through transference. The specialist reckoned it was the chinese waiters using their hands to pick up ice cubes to make our drinks.

Who knows... it was only a few months ago that the supplier, London-based Katsouris, a unit of Icelandic food group Bakkavor, provided salmonella infected hummus to Sainsbury's, Somerfield, Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-op.

hyperD's top tip: never eat processed food - spend a few mins and make it yourself. It's cheaper and you won't get minimum waged employees rubbing their sticky fingers over you food.

your

Unless you're doing something unusual with the food

[hyperD]

your

Unless you're doing something unusual with the food

Curses!

Should have used the <Fleetwood> spelling shield!

Nice avatar btw oracleslave!

[xoggoth]

Depends who the min waged employees are. Large bottomed nubile ladies rolling in my food would be brill.