Regarding last night : Immigration & multiculturalism

[Mandy]

[Colston]

[Mandy]

[Mandy]

[faceless]

[Mandy]

Sorry if you feel I was being patronising. That certainly wasn't my intention.

It is hard to create any lasting business when there is competition. In theory, if there is too many sellers, there would be loses (or inadequate profit, i.e. to cover someone's own time) until enough of the sellers decide it is time to withdraw from that business, to allow the other sellers to raise prices to make it sustainable. In the long run, with many sellers, the market should make a fair amount of profit, i.e. not excessive, and not too little {I believe this is even regarded as 0 excess profit } .. otherwise the number of sellers either increases or decreases to bring the marketplace back to 0 excess profit. I don't regard that as amoral.

I regard as amoral when the sellers are effectively a monopoly who can squeezes newcomers unfairly, and then hike the prices afterwards in order to generate long-term excessive profit, which should never happen in a truly competitive environment with no barriers to entry or exit. This is amoral behaviour of the few against the many, for which there should be stringent rules and enforcement.

Regarding this topic of land, the government is allowing the monopolistic existing land owners, with some notable Dukes owning huge sections of urban land, to gain excessive profits by limiting the entrance of "competition" from green-belt and brownfield land. That is why property has been rising in price so much recently : a result of increased demand, and artificially restricted supply, i.e. bad government regulations which benefits the super rich against the interests of the rest. The government could simply dictate where new properties are built, and determine at what price and to whom, thus bypassing the "marketplace". I don't mind this, though we enter the issue of how much to pay for land-lords who own their land, and my instinct is the government will mess it up, which is why I don't trust the governments in communist countries to replace the marketplace. Previous attempts at this the government sold 60K houses which within a year or two were selling for 160K .. how is that fair ?

The government should regulate market places, implement income redistribution, ensure information is widely available to reduce the chances of abuse, prevent monopolistic situations from arising, i.e. to ensure as fair a marketplace as can be reasonably achieved (and sometimes to step in and take over the "marketplace" where there is natural monopolies, such as water, trains, defense, nuclear energy, gas)

[nekokate]

Do you actually know the difference between amoral and immoral, because you seem to be tossing a coin each time you type either word?!

Please feel free to patronise me by spelling out the point you're trying to make in a really simple, concise way, because I am genuinely struggling, after reading through the entire thread, to understand the argument or proposal you're attempting to convey.

[Mandy]

[til661]

How about we deport a mail reader for every immigrant The country will be a hell of a lot nicer

[Mandy]

[nekokate]

You should see our living room coffee table; I buy The Independent and my mother and father buy The Daily Mail, and we both read both. The "discussions" between me and my dad are often quite exasperating.

Infact, a few months ago my mum had to travel to a different chemist to pick up some medication because our local Co-Op had run out, and it happened to be in a predominently Sikh area. She got back home and (I swear this isn't made up) she said "I got out of there quick incase one of them had a bomb on".

[Mandy]

reminds me of the spoof documentary "Trial of Tony Blair" where Cherie assails Tony for buying their house next to little Beirut [Edgware Road] and Tony Blair has delusions of a suicide bomber behind every post.

[til661]

that must be fun

My family has always read the Guardian so i'm quite lucky.

Overall though i think ALL refugees/asylum seekers should be let in no matter what. I haven't thought too much about 'economic migrants' previously so i don't know, maybe a points system like australia or canada.

[DavidGig]

I thought last night's show was GG's worst -- by far. So bad in fact that I'm starting to question whether this whole idea of combining politician/performer is a good idea. (And that's what got me interested in Galloway at first, whether there might be new ways of doing politics in this age of mass media.) Last night seemed like he was straining for phony talk-show "passion", but providing no light.

Anyway, GG showed he has a hard time discussing the HUGE issue of immigration (which is raging on both sides of the Atlantic). Every time someone tried to discuss limits, we got the "You're not a racist, now are you?" routine. Or, "But we're the fourth largest economy in the world." This is both false (China passed the UK a while back) and irrelevant (it's per-capita income that measures how well off people are). Unskilled immigration (which is what the immigration discussion is all about) definitely lowers wages and raises profits, and I'm sure GG knows that.

I'm confused why it's so hard for him to discuss this. Do you think it's because he sees himself as standing up for the immigrant community that's already here, and thinks that anything that's said against future immigration could be taken as an insult to them? Or is it related to the whole EU thing? I assume GG is a EU backer (although I've never heard him talk about it), and isn't the core of the EU program all about freely moving labor?

I'm very disappointed.

[Mandy]

I personally belief the whole reason the EEC expanded recently is to cement it as a white Christian "block" which would block [or if the block fails, counter-balance] Turkey's hoped for entrance into the EEC (recall that Turkey is part of Nato and has been long promised entry), and to entice these new countries into NATO (i.e. a military expansion towards Russia)

Thus Britain has migrants from recent entrants like Hungary & Romania, and less from Turkey.

The core of the EU is freedom of movement of labour, single market for goods and services .. i.e. perfect for large multi-nationals .. and awful for small companies due to increased regulation and competition. Only above a certain size does the benefits of exporting across the EEC become an advantage.

Regarding refugees/asylum seekers, Britain has a moral and legal duty to house refugees/asylum seekers, and a double moral duty when the refugees are fleeing violence instigated by Bush/Blair.