Reply to: Benefits for immigrants from the EU

[vetran]

What's how much they can earn at home have to do with whether they get a job here?

same as Germany,Saudi & Dubai in 70s, 80s & 90's

Brits went abroad and effectively camped to earn enough to buy a house outright when they got back.

If your money has 3 times the buying power back home you are quite happy to put up with a bit of deprivation.

[VectraMan]

Of course its because the immigrants have a better work ethic that they get the jobs not because they can earn 3 - 4 times what they can earn at home almost tax free.

What's how much they can earn at home have to do with whether they get a job here?

[SueEllen]

Interesting isn't it, everyone is willing to denigrate the unemployed as lazy for not working for minimum wage not because they will take home less than via benefits.

My post you highlighted was talking about young people.

A lot of young people live with their parents - this means they are not responsible or not totally responsible for paying their housing costs. Some of these people aren't on benefits - students haven't been able to claim benefits since the 90s.

Plus the only people paper rounds will provide enough extra income for are teens in school.

Are you telling me that you have never heard a parent complaining about their child's lack of work ethic, a tradesperson complain about his/her apprentice, or someone else who has to supervise a young person in the workplace complain about their work ethic?

You hear more complaints than praise, but when you hear praise about a British young person in the workplace they get a lot.

Of course its because the immigrants have a better work ethic that they get the jobs not because they can earn 3 - 4 times what they can earn at home almost tax free.

Immigrants have a better work ethic because the people who emigrate tend to be the go getters. (It's like if you or I go and work abroad. )

slow immigration to only high value immigrants, force up the bottom wage and make benefits less comfortable, you will be surprised how many people want to work.

You can't slow immigration from the EU. Anyway there is another scandal of businesses limiting hours to part-time work to avoid paying employers NI and then not allowing their employees to take on another part-time job.

The government claims to have done this for non-EU citizens but then there is the issue of intra-company transfers...

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Interesting isn't it, everyone is willing to denigrate the unemployed as lazy for not working for minimum wage not because they will take home less than via benefits. Of course its because the immigrants have a better work ethic that they get the jobs not because they can earn 3 - 4 times what they can earn at home almost tax free.

slow immigration to only high value immigrants, force up the bottom wage and make benefits less comfortable, you will be surprised how many people want to work.

Quite apart from the fact that some immigrants are seemingly prepared to live in sheds and illegal dosshouses - it's pretty hard to compete with that if you want to live a normal family life.

[vetran]

By crap jobs I mean cleaning, care work, working in a fast food restaurant, working in a coffee shop, working in hotels, doing a newspaper round and posting leaflets.

The thing in common about lots of these jobs is the hours either early starts or late finishes.

Interesting isn't it, everyone is willing to denigrate the unemployed as lazy for not working for minimum wage not because they will take home less than via benefits. Of course its because the immigrants have a better work ethic that they get the jobs not because they can earn 3 - 4 times what they can earn at home almost tax free.

slow immigration to only high value immigrants, force up the bottom wage and make benefits less comfortable, you will be surprised how many people want to work.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

No need to go there. You need to explain to minestrone in simple terms some of the reasons for the existence of the EU and why it's lead to reciprocal treaties and agreements that look strange in isolation.

Led

[SueEllen]

Depends how sh*tty. I agree they need to do a decent day's work for their pay but I would query whether they should have to compete with those from very poor countries who have had to graft very hard simply to survive. If a nation achieves a good level of prosperity, some of that prosperity should be shared with those at the bottom of society and that means they should not have to work all hours for low pay.

By crap jobs I mean cleaning, care work, working in a fast food restaurant, working in a coffee shop, working in hotels, doing a newspaper round and posting leaflets.

The thing in common about lots of these jobs is the hours either early starts or late finishes.

[Zero Liability]

Here is more appropriate example - rare earth elements were too expensive to mine in USA, so Chinese took all the market and now they decide what quotas to introduce for foreign countries. There is nothing wrong with an import tariff on imported products that come from countries that don't give a tulip about ecology there, workers' lifes etc - short term benefit of lower prices in a long term will result in people not having jobs in the first place to afford even those "cheap" imported products.

Is there any evidence they even work to that effect, as opposed to simply making the "vulnerable" workers they're meant to protect even worse off? I have no issue with the introduction of work permits, however.

[AtW]

You need to explain to minestrone in simple terms some of the reasons for the existence of the EU and why it's lead to reciprocal treaties and agreements that look strange in isolation.

I think it's best for him to put the kettle on and let the adults do the talking

[xoggoth]

If you don't have enough British young people who have to spend a least a summer working in a sh*tty job to earn money to do things with including live

Depends how sh*tty. I agree they need to do a decent day's work for their pay but I would query whether they should have to compete with those from very poor countries who have had to graft very hard simply to survive. If a nation achieves a good level of prosperity, some of that prosperity should be shared with those at the bottom of society and that means they should not have to work all hours for low pay.

[xoggoth]

ask any historian or any MEP the reasons why the Common Market came into existence. One of the reasons was to to prevent war. You are unlikely to fight someone who you have a lot of common aims including trade links with. You only have to look at the countries who were part of the former Yugoslavia or people in Iraq to see when they had a common enemy they were less inclined to kill each other.

Some leaders were inclined to say that but even when the common market first began, let alone later when it expanded, another war between Western European nations looked extremely unlikely. Real factors in peace were probably a) not repeating the mistakes of WW1 with hugely expensive reparations and b) the common threat from the USSR, as you implied yourself with the common enemy comment.

"Preventing another European war" looks like just another bit of propaganda by our egocentric, self-serving leaders, a ploy to impose their impractical idealism on the rest of us. They benefit, the common man picks up the bill. We go on being fooled to feed their smugness.

[SueEllen]

Here is more appropriate example - rare earth elements were too expensive to mine in USA, so Chinese took all the market and now they decide what quotas to introduce for foreign countries. There is nothing wrong with an import tariff on imported products that come from countries that don't give a tulip about ecology there, workers' lifes etc - short term benefit of lower prices in a long term will result in people not having jobs in the first place to afford even those "cheap" imported products.

No need to go there. You need to explain to minestrone in simple terms some of the reasons for the existence of the EU and why it's lead to reciprocal treaties and agreements that look strange in isolation.

[SueEllen]

You seriously think that giving migrants benefits stops us from war. FFS.

The issue is a wider one than just the benefits - obviously you haven't bothered to digest other posts that point that out. Benefits are linked to employment which are linked to the trade links with other EU nations. You can't take the benefit issue in isolation which is what you, some of the press and the Tories are trying to do.

Put it this way - there are lots of working people on housing benefit. Why? To answer the why you have to look at rents, the availability of social housing, the geographical areas that have jobs, house building over the years, the size and make up of households and any population increases.

[SueEllen]

I am talking about the modern nutty middle class notions. Nobody sane can believe it literally but they certainly are prepared to spend an awful lot of money and effort to very little effect in striving towards it, and, in opposing selection in schools for example, do so at the expense of the more able.

Marx was a real socialist and much more sensible. How his mantra is compatible with the idea that people should remain in houses that are too big for them or in areas that no working man could afford to live in is beyond me.

These people and their working class counterparts are the problem though. They believe the sh*t peddled by Blair which meant their off-spring didn't have to do menial jobs as part of their CV.

If you don't have enough British young people who have to spend a least a summer working in a sh*tty job to earn money to do things with including live, then if a load of young but slightly older immigrants with the right attitude come along off course you are going to employ them for the same money if you can.

[xoggoth]

Darn it, atW thinks he's Bill Gates now!