The Future

Looks like this is turning into a debate on the EU :roll:
I guess the thread itself opens up many questions though.. with politics in general and Europe in particular playing a significant part in fairness.

We go to the polls on May 31st.
Looks like it may pass.. Only just.

wow, who to answer in a serious political/economic discussion????

Terry, the UKIP is a right-wing nationalist party. I said that neo-Nazi and nationalist politics were on the rise in Europe in reaction to the crisis – I don’t see the UKIP as neo-nazi, but I don’t see the majority of BNP supporters (or Le Pen supporters) as neo-Nazi – voting for disaster in a gut reaction, yes. Our long-term future lies in Europe, which means fighting to make the EU democratic anbd the Euro (or its successor) a viable currency. A little England would go under economically, and then we would have poverty on a scale we haven’t known for a long time.

I’m sure I remember voting oin a referendum on joining the EU.

Kenty and Mrs T, I gather that this is the first generation where younger people are doing worse than their elders – according to research by the Financial Times. That doesn’t contradict Mrs T – parents are helping their kids in buying houses, and unemployment isn’t universal – but among younger people it’s very bad (memory tells me 24% of 16-24 year olds, though that is memory).

Sgt Pepper, Ireland may well vote against austerity. There is a growing sense of hostility among ordinary people against having to suffer for a crisis which they didn’t really cause. Unfortunately, it’s the hard right-wing nationalists etc who are taking advantage of this. But events this week in Greece and especially France, and this month is Ireland, could throw it all in the melting pot.

A policy of growth is being advocated byt eh left centre – Miliband, Hollande, etc. If Hollande wins, we could see an interesting experiment. If his grrowth policies end in a mess (as I suspect) then we’re in problems. If they succeed, we’re out of the woods and Labour is in at the next election. I do hope so, but fear not.

It’s not a debate on the EU, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the EU has burdened us with problems.

Employment, housing, immigration and education are some of the issues touched upon by Kenty. Each of those areas has been affected by controversial government policy towards European integration. And not in a good way.

I long for the time when I can go a whole day without hearing a Polish accent.

If we get Europe sorted then we can do whatever else needs to be done to clear up the mess of the last Labour government. But, like I said, it needs a strong leader with vision to sort the mess out and Cameron doesn’t even come close.

Surely immigration (and indeed emigration) are crucial factors in most (if not all) things socio-political panda?

But, a statement like this should be deemed reasonable to debate as opposed to dismissing it as some form of taboo subject no?
It’s relevant.

Tel, I’m not getting into a yes it does, no it doesn’t debate. That’s for morons.And I welcome the cosmopolitan nature of the economy. I maintain good relations with Polish people, who are good people on the whole. Their accent doesn’t bother me.

The main problem lies in regulating a decent wage for all to make sure everyone’s wages aren’t reduced to the lowest level. That’s a general problem with markets, not with Europe. In the US black migration to the North a century ago threatened white workers wages, and the whites reacted with vicious racism, killing many in pogroms.

Regulating wages, not a vicious nationalist politics, is the answer.

Sgt pepper, it’s not immigration which is the problem but a financial crisis which has hit all the developed Western world – the US, Britain, the eurozone It took everyone by surprise, and in reaction neo-Nazi groups like Golden Dawn in Greece and a nativist right-wing politics in France and here are making headway. I feel sure this nativcist resurgence can be eventually contained – for all our sakes, I hope it is.

The real problem is understanding why the financial system crashed and, most worrying, whether there’s a tendency for it to keep crashing, which is my fear (there’s been increasing evidence of that in the past 30 yrs). Then how do you move to a situation where we are much more secure in our social environment.

The nativist politics which blames it all on immigrants doesn’t even address the question – we can kick out everybody who seems ‘different’ and still end up in a financial catastrophe.

The problem isn’t Poles (here) or Afghans (in Greece) or gypsies (in France and Italy) – it’s a problem in the banking system, and we’d better see to it pdq.