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On July 07 2021 17:18 Simberto wrote:
Yeah, that is the typical kind of bullshit that lobbyists push through and subvert our democratic processes.
I don't get why these corrupt assholes always get to put in exemptions into everything. And in this case, exemptions that are utterly not explainable in any reasonable fashion except that the rich get what they want.
I don't get why cargo is excepted either. This should be no exceptions at all. Truck diesel is taxed, at a lower rate than for consumers, but it isn't fully exempted. Tax jet fuel for cargo flights at that rate too (or higher, because insofar as I know, kerosine combustion in flights is more polluting than diesel in trucks per kg of cargo).
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I'd love to hear the people who wrote these exceptions in explain why they are there. But of course, they won't have to do that, and just hide their corruption in the anonymity of a group decision instead.
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Any thoughts about Afghanistan from a European perspective? I fear we have to prepare for another refugee crisis. Already a large part of the refugees consists of Afghans and it will only get more.
To me it also shows once again Europe has to get more independent from the US. They're too unreliable and their isolationism didn't end with Trump.
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On August 17 2021 14:20 RvB wrote:
Any thoughts about Afghanistan from a European perspective? I fear we have to prepare for another refugee crisis. Already a large part of the refugees consists of Afghans and it will only get more.
To me it also shows once again Europe has to get more independent from the US. They're too unreliable and their isolationism didn't end with Trump.
The problem is being independent from the US doesn't help when they fuck up the middle east.
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Feels like Europe will have to start close borders for the refugees eventually, due to many reasons. Otherwise the whole region would be destabilized both economically and socially. It's already begun with the Brexit to some degree. In addition - I see hints of rising nationalism across EU lately, especially since Syrian crisis. Some people are legitimately afraid of living with the refugees from the islamic/african countries
Plus there is a big chance of even bigger refugee crisis originating in Egypt due to water problems. Europe with it's current political and social views will not hold that enormous pressure from outside.
Syrian crisis resulted ~1 million of refugees moving to Europe? And we remember how many countries were unhappy by this. Now imagine Egypt collapses with it's 150 million population and being so close geographically -.- What's next?
Sure I'm hoping for the better results, but this does not look very optimistic so far in a long run
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On August 17 2021 19:15 Dav1oN wrote:
Feels like Europe will have to start close borders for the refugees eventually, due to many reasons. Otherwise the whole region would be destabilized both economically and socially. It's already begun with the Brexit to some degree. In additiona - I see hints of rising nationalism across EU lately, especially since Syrian crisis. Some people are legitimately afraid of living with the refugees from the islamic/african countries
Plus there is a big chance of even bigger refugee crisis originating in Egypt due to water problems. Europe with it's current political and social views will not hold that enormous pressure from outside.
Sure I'm hoping for the better results, but this does not look very optimistic
Can't blame them for choosing their own people over refugees.
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On August 17 2021 14:20 RvB wrote:
Any thoughts about Afghanistan from a European perspective? I fear we have to prepare for another refugee crisis. Already a large part of the refugees consists of Afghans and it will only get more.
To me it also shows once again Europe has to get more independent from the US. They're too unreliable and their isolationism didn't end with Trump.
Depends a lot on what the new Afghan government will look like and how far they'll go into fundamentalist theocracy I'd say.
Funnily enough I think the stricter the Taliban rule, the less it'll be felt in Europe, because if people just cannot leave the country it'll mean less arrivals to Europe. If they allow people to leave and/or cannot successfully hold the borders the impact here could be bigger.
On the immediate it seems and sounds like most countries are trying to just evacuate 1) their own citizens and 2) the locals who worked directly for their military (plus their families). At least based on the Finnish and British papers I read that has pretty wide support even from the conservative right. It's mostly the usual far-right crying that this is already a mass invasion or something similar.
TL;DR too early to say.
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In my country they are setting up some temporary settlements. I live in a small town on the border with Greece and the previous refugee crisis my town had at least 10-20k people passing through every day, which is more than the whole population of the town. There's also an increased presence of police officers from EU like Poland, Czechia and Austria, they've been here for 3 years but I see more and more now, so I think they are also expecting waves of refugees.
Greece will probably bear the brunt of it once again. The first time they were dealing with a devastating economic crisis and now they have a huge wildfire problem, which on second thought could be a blessing in disguise for both Greece and Turkey if they decide to avoid that route. But that would mean they will go through Italy and/or Spain, two countries which aren't doing that great either.
On one hand, these people should be helped, but on the other hand, except Europe no one is doing a damn thing for these people and yet again Europe will be criticized for not doing enough. Murica for the second time in 6 years causes the same effin problem, which Im pretty sure they know that it indirectly weakens Europe.
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I certainly hope that this time around we send them straight back. At the very least any male over 12.
It's one thing if they're fleeing from war - the war has ended, and nobody raised as much as a finger (let alone a weapon) to "defend" the values they're now claiming to yearn for so much.
And since that is of course not happening, instead of money, give out food stamps, clothing tickets etc. Because that's why they're coming here, right? Safety, future prospect. You get a future once you earn money. Don't speak the language? Yeah not my problem, learn it then, sucks to be you for a year on food stamps. Of course, that's also not happening.
So the circle continues, refugees scratching at the door of europe rather than Pakistan etc because that's where the money is, and people like me watching how my 71 year old father can't live/support himself with his pension after over 50 years of rebuilding his country, needing "subtle donations" by me to make it proper.
To the point where the wrong people don't want to watch that shitshow anymore. And by wrong i mean a charismatic enough xenophobe who makes it to the top. And i'll be honest, by this point in time, i'd probably vote for him too. Enough is enough. If you can't support your own elderly properly, the people who made your country wealthy and worth living in, discarding them with "yeah cheers mate, now go and see to it or something, w/e, pensions frozen for another 10 years lolz", don't you dare sprinkling that sweet money over people who haven't done anything for the country that they went to, nor the country that they came from.
There's zero moral obligation for taking in refugees, if there's zero moral obligation to make sure your own people get by. That's how i see it, and that's what will influence my voting pattern in the future.
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On August 17 2021 21:49 m4ini wrote:
I certainly hope that this time around we send them straight back. At the very least any male over 12.
It's one thing if they're fleeing from war - the war has ended, and nobody raised as much as a finger (let alone a weapon) to "defend" the values they're now claiming to yearn for so much.
And since that is of course not happening, instead of money, give out food stamps, clothing tickets etc. Because that's why they're coming here, right? Safety, future prospect. You get a future once you earn money. Don't speak the language? Yeah not my problem, learn it then, sucks to be you for a year on food stamps. Of course, that's also not happening.
So the circle continues, refugees scratching at the door of europe rather than Pakistan etc because that's where the money is, and people like me watching how my 71 year old father can't live/support himself with his pension after over 50 years of rebuilding his country, needing "subtle donations" by me to make it proper.
To the point where the wrong people don't want to watch that shitshow anymore. And by wrong i mean a charismatic enough xenophobe who makes it to the top. And i'll be honest, by this point in time, i'd probably vote for him too. Enough is enough. If you can't support your own elderly properly, the people who made your country wealthy and worth living in, discarding them with "yeah cheers mate, now go and see to it or something, w/e, pensions frozen for another 10 years lolz", don't you dare sprinkling that sweet money over people who haven't done anything for the country that they went to, nor the country that they came from.
There's zero moral obligation for taking in refugees, if there's zero moral obligation to make sure your own people get by. That's how i see it, and that's what will influence my voting pattern in the future.
Refugees are often not allowed to legally work for money. So keep that in mind.
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It looks pretty unlikely that there'll be a influx of refugees in my opinion. The previous refugee influx has essentially ended a year ago. Syria is a Meditterrean country and Turkey had prevented most of the influx, and Libya's war has ended which closed off another avenue for those from Africa. The route they have to take to Europe would cause them to pass through countries with a strong centralised government with no real interest in letting them pass. As with suchlike predictions, only time can tell whether it'll be a problem or not.
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On August 17 2021 21:59 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It looks pretty unlikely that there'll be a influx of refugees in my opinion. The previous refugee influx has essentially ended a year ago. Syria is a Meditterrean country and Turkey had prevented most of the influx, and Libya's war has ended which closed off another avenue for those from Africa. The route they have to take to Europe would cause them to pass through countries with a strong centralised government with no real interest in letting them pass. As with suchlike predictions, only time can tell whether it'll be a problem or not.
With the climate change, it'd be highly irresponsible to not take into account futur influx of refugees tbh. Might as well cross that bridge now, but governments don't act until the situations awful.
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On August 17 2021 21:59 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It looks pretty unlikely that there'll be a influx of refugees in my opinion. The previous refugee influx has essentially ended a year ago. Syria is a Meditterrean country and Turkey had prevented most of the influx, and Libya's war has ended which closed off another avenue for those from Africa. The route they have to take to Europe would cause them to pass through countries with a strong centralised government with no real interest in letting them pass. As with suchlike predictions, only time can tell whether it'll be a problem or not.
Yeah, I can't see how they'd get to the EU either. Pakistan into boat into EU? Iran into Turkey into EU? Central asian republic into Russia into EU? That's just too much of a trip. I'd guess the neighboring countries will end up dealing with the refugees.
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On August 17 2021 21:59 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It looks pretty unlikely that there'll be a influx of refugees in my opinion. The previous refugee influx has essentially ended a year ago. Syria is a Meditterrean country and Turkey had prevented most of the influx, and Libya's war has ended which closed off another avenue for those from Africa. The route they have to take to Europe would cause them to pass through countries with a strong centralised government with no real interest in letting them pass. As with suchlike predictions, only time can tell whether it'll be a problem or not.
Take a look at Egypt/Ethiopia issue with the Blue Nile dam, it's a recipe for a huge refugee crisis considering how much Egypt is dependent on it's agriculture, without proper irrigation what will they do? This is your next possible refugee influx, but this one might be a real disaster in comparison to what we already had
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On August 17 2021 23:09 Sbrubbles wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2021 21:59 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It looks pretty unlikely that there'll be a influx of refugees in my opinion. The previous refugee influx has essentially ended a year ago. Syria is a Meditterrean country and Turkey had prevented most of the influx, and Libya's war has ended which closed off another avenue for those from Africa. The route they have to take to Europe would cause them to pass through countries with a strong centralised government with no real interest in letting them pass. As with suchlike predictions, only time can tell whether it'll be a problem or not. Yeah, I can't see how they'd get to the EU either. Pakistan into boat into EU? Iran into Turkey into EU? Central asian republic into Russia into EU? That's just too much of a trip. I'd guess the neighboring countries will end up dealing with the refugees.
Didn't stop them to come in 2014-2015, in fact the biggest part of those refuges were of Afghan origin, so Im curious why you think that now they would flee to neighboring countries? Not saying they wont, they may do that, but why this time you think its going to be different?
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Northern Ireland26955 Posts
On August 17 2021 21:49 m4ini wrote:
I certainly hope that this time around we send them straight back. At the very least any male over 12.
It's one thing if they're fleeing from war - the war has ended, and nobody raised as much as a finger (let alone a weapon) to "defend" the values they're now claiming to yearn for so much.
And since that is of course not happening, instead of money, give out food stamps, clothing tickets etc. Because that's why they're coming here, right? Safety, future prospect. You get a future once you earn money. Don't speak the language? Yeah not my problem, learn it then, sucks to be you for a year on food stamps. Of course, that's also not happening.
So the circle continues, refugees scratching at the door of europe rather than Pakistan etc because that's where the money is, and people like me watching how my 71 year old father can't live/support himself with his pension after over 50 years of rebuilding his country, needing "subtle donations" by me to make it proper.
To the point where the wrong people don't want to watch that shitshow anymore. And by wrong i mean a charismatic enough xenophobe who makes it to the top. And i'll be honest, by this point in time, i'd probably vote for him too. Enough is enough. If you can't support your own elderly properly, the people who made your country wealthy and worth living in, discarding them with "yeah cheers mate, now go and see to it or something, w/e, pensions frozen for another 10 years lolz", don't you dare sprinkling that sweet money over people who haven't done anything for the country that they went to, nor the country that they came from.
There's zero moral obligation for taking in refugees, if there's zero moral obligation to make sure your own people get by. That's how i see it, and that's what will influence my voting pattern in the future.
I would assume this is something approximating the majority viewpoint.
I think it’s wrong, in many ways, but it’s rather politically powerful and influential.
To the degree I don’t think we’ll see much of an extension to refugees this time around.
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On August 17 2021 21:49 m4ini wrote:
I certainly hope that this time around we send them straight back. At the very least any male over 12.
It's one thing if they're fleeing from war - the war has ended, and nobody raised as much as a finger (let alone a weapon) to "defend" the values they're now claiming to yearn for so much.
And since that is of course not happening, instead of money, give out food stamps, clothing tickets etc. Because that's why they're coming here, right? Safety, future prospect. You get a future once you earn money. Don't speak the language? Yeah not my problem, learn it then, sucks to be you for a year on food stamps. Of course, that's also not happening.
So the circle continues, refugees scratching at the door of europe rather than Pakistan etc because that's where the money is, and people like me watching how my 71 year old father can't live/support himself with his pension after over 50 years of rebuilding his country, needing "subtle donations" by me to make it proper.
To the point where the wrong people don't want to watch that shitshow anymore. And by wrong i mean a charismatic enough xenophobe who makes it to the top. And i'll be honest, by this point in time, i'd probably vote for him too. Enough is enough. If you can't support your own elderly properly, the people who made your country wealthy and worth living in, discarding them with "yeah cheers mate, now go and see to it or something, w/e, pensions frozen for another 10 years lolz", don't you dare sprinkling that sweet money over people who haven't done anything for the country that they went to, nor the country that they came from.
There's zero moral obligation for taking in refugees, if there's zero moral obligation to make sure your own people get by. That's how i see it, and that's what will influence my voting pattern in the future.
Sorry to hear about your father's difficult situation. Which country in Europe do you live in?
I have a very hard time seeing any political will to let more refugees come to Sweden either now.
Interestingly, the social democratic minister of justice tweeted out the other day that it would be unacceptable to even give asylum to the interpreters that helped the Swedish soldiers during the war with the Taliban. Almost all other parties (including the right wing "Sweden democrats"!) criticized his statement. But the funny this is that he is a minister form the same social democratic party that has for years changed innumerable laws to help specifically Afghan refugees stay in the country. Now they use any opportunity to distance themselves from that position.
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My opinion of refugees does no longer seem to be the main view in Europe but I can state it. Why are we so restrictive? Why are we talking about becoming more restrictive?
All studies I find when doing fact checks show an economical net positive from refugees. If you promote them into the job market as quickly as possible. Remove as much red tape as possible here. Let them work from day one if they can find a job. Most people will require some investment in language and social classes, allowing parity in educations and similar actions. This is much less costly than educating somebody from age 2 to 18, 21 or 23.
Large parts of Europe has an ageing population, many even have negative population growth without immigration. Refugees help offset this.
The people actually managing to get this far are often the more well educated and connected, thus freeing up the economic cost of 18 years of raising them. Basically stealing money from the country they are emigrating/fleeing from. Secondly they often had help, connections they can use to start import/export or similar business.
I am also a fan of having more types of food. If we could eliminate the local cuisine fully it would be a massive improvement.
The final argument if they can apply for asylum is that they are people to. What is the relevant difference between you, me, her or him?
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On August 18 2021 00:46 Yurie wrote:
My opinion of refugees does no longer seem to be the main view in Europe but I can state it. Why are we so restrictive? Why are we talking about becoming more restrictive?
All studies I find when doing fact checks show an economical net positive from refugees. If you promote them into the job market as quickly as possible. Remove as much red tape as possible here. Let them work from day one if they can find a job. Most people will require some investment in language and social classes, allowing parity in educations and similar actions. This is much less costly than educating somebody from age 2 to 18, 21 or 23.
I am struggling to find the specific post, but WhiteDoge posted a pretty interesting study a couple years ago in this thread from the UK government that was one of the rare ones with a lot more nuance - that there are good and bad immigrants, and that to benefit from taking people in you should be selective. I know that your generic web search or cursory glance at the topic will give some story along the lines of "people thought immigration was bad in X era, but it actually eventually turned out to be good." I suspect that if you follow the trail of who funded these studies, you'll find enough of a conflict of interest to put the rationale, and maybe the overall conclusion, into question.
Being selective is difficult, but worth it. The alternative is something akin to what we saw with Europe's "open the floodgates" approach - massive political strife, strain on already struggling budgets, and so on. It would be interesting to see a 2021 or so study of the 2014 migrant crisis, but I couldn't find any nuanced ones with a quick look.
Frankly, to believe the "migrants are all good" story was naive at best in 2014, but I could think of less flattering words for holding the same sentiment in 2021.
On August 18 2021 00:46 Yurie wrote:
Large parts of Europe has an ageing population, many even have negative population growth without immigration. Refugees help offset this.
The people actually managing to get this far are often the more well educated and connected, thus freeing up the economic cost of 18 years of raising them. Basically stealing money from the country they are emigrating/fleeing from. Secondly they often had help, connections they can use to start import/export or similar business.
I am also a fan of having more types of food. If we could eliminate the local cuisine fully it would be a massive improvement.
With proper selection, you can pick the young, well-educated ones who will get high-productivity jobs and have children who will do the same. Pick poorly and you will import a whole lot of crime, unemployment, and radicalism to go along with it. Selectivity matters.
On August 18 2021 00:46 Yurie wrote:
The final argument if they can apply for asylum is that they are people to. What is the relevant difference between you, me, her or him?
Why not Pakistan or Central Asia? Those are much easier to get to, logistically, and politically stable. Getting to Europe is clearly not about asylum.
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On August 18 2021 00:46 Yurie wrote:
My opinion of refugees does no longer seem to be the main view in Europe but I can state it. Why are we so restrictive? Why are we talking about becoming more restrictive?
All studies I find when doing fact checks show an economical net positive from refugees. If you promote them into the job market as quickly as possible. Remove as much red tape as possible here. Let them work from day one if they can find a job. Most people will require some investment in language and social classes, allowing parity in educations and similar actions. This is much less costly than educating somebody from age 2 to 18, 21 or 23.
Large parts of Europe has an ageing population, many even have negative population growth without immigration. Refugees help offset this.
The people actually managing to get this far are often the more well educated and connected, thus freeing up the economic cost of 18 years of raising them. Basically stealing money from the country they are emigrating/fleeing from. Secondly they often had help, connections they can use to start import/export or similar business.
I am also a fan of having more types of food. If we could eliminate the local cuisine fully it would be a massive improvement.
The final argument if they can apply for asylum is that they are people to. What is the relevant difference between you, me, her or him?
Yes my thoughts are the same but we're a small minority in Europe. Most studies show immigration is a net positive economically. Political discourse often doesn't care about that sadly. It's the same with things like rent control. Ask any Economist and they'll say it's bad but it's still very popular.
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EPT
