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| How many Syrian refugees should Australia take? |
| None |
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52% |
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| A few hundred |
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2% |
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| A few thousand |
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5% |
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| Over ten thousand |
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5% |
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| As many as possible |
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35% |
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| Total Votes : 40 |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| think positive wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | ^To make matters worse, Batman stood idly by and was unable to intervene, masks being illegal in Sweden  |
Where was Wonder Woman then? She doesn't wear a mask  |
Yep the Muslims would lover her outfit! |
I doubt they'd like her response to any "flirtatious" behaviour though.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Morrigu 
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Some really interesting stuff in that article, including that they estimate that of the 163,000 that came in 2014, 60,000 will have their applications rejected and get deported.
Also this part, for the other impacts of bring in too large a number of people at once.
| Quote: | The influx has dwindled to a trickle since Sweden reinstated border checks in November, but the large number of migrants has pushed the country's famed "Swedish model" -- a cradle-to-grave welfare state already a little worse-for-wear -- to the edge.
Sweden faces acute housing shortages and skyrocketing real estate prices, salaries so low for teachers and nurses that there are employee shortages, a lack of nursing homes, and, in a country that prides itself as an egalitarian society, the fastest growing inequality gap in the OECD.
Burdened further by the migration crisis, the degradation of the welfare state has left some Swedes with a sense of "paradise lost", fuelling the frustrations of society's weakest members. |
Apart from the cultural differences which it should now be clear to everyone need to be managed not ignored, the overall societal and economic impacts of mass immigration are clearly not good if your base infrastructure can't deal with it.
Even the most egalitarian society will only cop so much of an impact to their own standard of living to help others before they cry Enough.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^I haven't checked the numbers, but I happened across many articles well before the refugee crisis arguing Sweden's famed welfare state was under fire.
Also, plenty of countries worldwide don't need refugees to start blowing out their wealth gaps; irresponsible capital can do just fine on that front all by itself through political capture.
Not to mention, even Sweden got hammered by a financial crisis which preceded this influx.
In other words, that conclusion needs further investigation.
Okay, here you go - and even more stark than I recall reading. This 2015 OECD document discusses how Sweden's welfare state was hammered long before the present influx of refugees. You have have to be careful with this stuff:
| The OECD on what happened in Sweden *long before* the present refugee hysteria wrote: | Sweden still belongs to the group of most equal OECD countries, despite a rapid surge of income inequality since the early 1990s.
The growth in inequality between 1985 and the early 2010s was the largest among all OECD countries, increasing by one third. In 2012, the average income of the top 10% of income earners was 6.3 times higher than that of the bottom 10%. This is up from a ratio of around 5.75 to 1 in the 2007 and a ratio of around 4 to 1 during much of the 1990s.
Income taxes and cash benefits traditionally play an important role in redistributing income in Sweden, reducing inequality among the working-age population by about 28% the OECD average is 25%. This redistributive effect however weakened overtime as it used to range between 35% and 40% prior to the mid-2000s.
Swedens richest 1% of earners saw their share of total pre-tax income nearly double, from 4% in 1980 to 7% in 2012. Including capital gains, income shares of the top percentile reached 9% in 2012. During the same time, the top marginal income tax rate dropped from 87% in 1979 to 57% in 2013.
A considerable fall of the redistributive effect of Swedens tax and benefit system has been observed recently, despite it remains above the OECD average. In Sweden, like in most other Nordic countries, tax reforms over the 1990s have decreased the tax burden also and sometimes particularly for wealthier households, e.g. by decreasing capital taxation and lowering or abandoning wealth taxation. At the same time, benefit reforms, while making the cash transfer system more targeted in general lessened its generosity.
However, public social in-kind benefits, especially in the areas of education and care continue to be an important pillar of overall redistribution in Sweden, and more important than in most other European countries. |
http://www.oecd.org/sweden/OECD-Income-Inequality-Sweden.pdf [This document looks unpublished, but it is on their domain, so presumably it's official enough].
2012 article of the type I recall noticing in the past - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-inequality-idUSBRE82K0W320120321
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think positive 
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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So if it was already hammered, how the **** will they be able to afford to feed clothe house an extra hundred thousand people?
How many homeless of their own citizenship do they have? I have no idea, I'm asking. Caring for an 100,000 is a bloody big ask. Especially when some don't seem to be very grateful!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^I'm referring to the famed welfare state reputation not matching the reality of the direction of Swedish economics over the past two decades.
It is a big ask, but it's still a very wealthy country.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| pietillidie wrote: | ^I'm referring to the famed welfare state reputation not matching the reality of the direction of Swedish economics over the past two decades.
It is a big ask, but it's still a very wealthy country. |
Good luck to them, obviously they have had some decent politicians in charge, having enviable welfare and working conditions, alongside happy residence is good politics I would have thought. So they really should get a pat on the back for taking in 100,000 extra welfare recipients. (They will be until they get settled and employed etc) that's a hell of a lot of people for one fairly small country.
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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It's interesting to note that the sharp rise in inequality from 1985 coincides very closely indeed with the onset of mass migration. The wikipedia page on migration to Sweden shows that this accelerated significantly in the mid 1980s and has barely let up since. It does not prove causation, but it is not hard to see the influx of a large body of low-skilled, culturally distant immigrants to a mature, low-growth economy as connected to a decline in minimum wages and breakdown of the social solidarity that underpins any sustainable welfare state. I suspect that Sweden's social model was indeed hammered before this latest surge of migration.... hammered by mass migration.
In case it is not clear, I am not against a level of migration of those in need, simply against mass migration in a short time, orchestrated by elites against the will of the resident population.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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Time to drill down on wealth disparity.
Person A earns $5,000
Person B earns $10,000
CAPITALISM AND ECONOMIC GROWTH HAPPENS
Person A now earns $10,000
Person B now earns $20,000
You can look at this two ways. 1. Purchasing power and wealth has doubled for both groups. OR 2. OH MY GOD there is double the disparity in wealth between person A and B, we must steal money from B and give to A.
Rubbish, wealth redistribution as a policy is simply the politics of jealousy and greed. Wealth disparity is a symptom of economic growth, and taking away the incentive of Person B to earn that extra money wont make person A suddenly become more productive, it simply means B wont give enough of a shit to earn the extra. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| Wokko wrote: | Time to drill down on wealth disparity.
Person A earns $5,000
Person B earns $10,000
CAPITALISM AND ECONOMIC GROWTH HAPPENS
Person A now earns $10,000
Person B now earns $20,000
You can look at this two ways. 1. Purchasing power and wealth has doubled for both groups. OR 2. OH MY GOD there is double the disparity in wealth between person A and B, we must steal money from B and give to A.
Rubbish, wealth redistribution as a policy is simply the politics of jealousy and greed. Wealth disparity is a symptom of economic growth, and taking away the incentive of Person B to earn that extra money wont make person A suddenly become more productive, it simply means B wont give enough of a shit to earn the extra. |
see? we are in agreement about something
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Mugwump wrote: | It's interesting to note that the sharp rise in inequality from 1985 coincides very closely indeed with the onset of mass migration. The wikipedia page on migration to Sweden shows that this accelerated significantly in the mid 1980s and has barely let up since. It does not prove causation, but it is not hard to see the influx of a large body of low-skilled, culturally distant immigrants to a mature, low-growth economy as connected to a decline in minimum wages and breakdown of the social solidarity that underpins any sustainable welfare state. I suspect that Sweden's social model was indeed hammered before this latest surge of migration.... hammered by mass migration.
In case it is not clear, I am not against a level of migration of those in need, simply against mass migration in a short time, orchestrated by elites against the will of the resident population. |
Fine, but please stop even mentioning that shite empty correlation between whatever and 1985+. Five minutes ago it was the marvellous policies of Maggie Thatcher during that time.
If you're going to even mention it, explain it properly to people rather than leading them down the garden path. Economic flexibility means efficiency, and efficiency means productivity and greater wealth. At the same time, breaking unionism and bringing in lower-skilled workers through immigration at one end, and opening up access to universal tertiary education and capital at the other, turned that flexibility into an *upward mobility*, generating massive wealth.
On the downside, the liberalisation of markets under conditions of international competition saw that upward mobility break through national borders, devaluing the achievement against rising neighbours, sending capital and tax revenue offshore, and blowing out local wealth gaps.
The simple economic fact is you can't get flexible markets without downward wage pressure. Flexible markets and genuine market competition *imply* borderless competition across all facets of the economy including land and labour capital; and while that drives great productivity, it does so through *competition*.
And here's the thing about competition: You have to actually win the bloody thing to succeed, unlike thuggery where instead you thieve and con resources off people, enslave populations, and distort markets to your own advantage.
You obsess over one part of flexible markets, namely increased labour flexibility through immigration, but never tell people the rest of the story: If they want to maintain wealth under globalisation, they have trap a corner of a market, extract rents, and either *best global competition*, or use some means of protectionism - a tax haven, a corrupt government somewhere, an anti-competitive piece of legislation somewhere else - to hoard that wealth away from the reaches of flexible market competition.
Then you have to tell people that if they stop labour market flexibility at one end, but capital remains flexible at the other, their local economy will be downgraded and they will either have to opt out of international competition completely, or have their population age and be unable to fund future commitments such as pendions and quality of life expectations, or become flexible and competitive again, the best form of which is, yep, an *upward mobility* which drives a competitive productivity.
As I say, the damnedest thing about believing in merit and competition is you actually have to be the most meritorious and competitive to keep winning - especially by margins as big as the historical global gap between rich and poor nations.
So go on, tell people the *full story* and all it implies, rather than pretending the trivial bit they're focusing on, and elite mobile wealth loves them focusing on, and their instinct to protect themselves from world competition, is going to improve their lot a single cent as their national competitiveness is downgraded in the world marketplace.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
OK, I read that 3 times and i still have NFI how the response has any relation to the quoted post. 
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I am not sure if I would do it that often. Cool. I have a perfect record. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | ^
OK, I read that 3 times and i still have NFI how the response has any relation to the quoted post. |
It means Mugwump's post directs people's attention to one very small aspect of a much larger process. In fact, recent studies have clearly shown zero long-run negative effects for immigration. But even that's missing the bigger point, which is one of global competition and productivity.
Let me explain again. If you don't have economic flexibility, and that includes labour market flexibility, you get downgraded against global competitors. And a huge part of flexibility is having pressure from below which pushes people up the productivity chain.
E.g., everyone is penalised if the very same hour of lawn mowing could be half the price it is. This is not just because paying double is an ineffective allocation of resources, but it also means Fred the lawn mower has no pressure on him to upskill to something more productive (nothing against lawn mowing; different productivity rates are just economic facts).
The breaking of unions did exactly the same thing, hence casualisation, the easing in hiring and firing, and so on (so Mugwump's beloved Maggie).
But the pressure to keep getting more bang for your buck doesn't stop if your world competitors are beating you at the same tasks; you have to keep pushing people into ever more productive uses of time. Also, you want to keep funding pensions and the new quality of life which comes from wealth, so that means either accepting future quality of living cuts in line with world competition, or shipping in new people beyond the natural birth rate and making them in turn more productive.
Flexibility and true market competition exposes you to that process. Every time you block it, you're blocking competition, making the system as a whole less productive and poorer. You may be able to make *yourself* richer for a time if you can suppress competition by cheating in some way, but that's a loser's game because eventually you're going to be downgraded.
That leaves you three choices: Be better than the competition; enslave the competition and extract their wealth (the historical tool of choice, though that eventually runs out); or create an open system where everyone becomes *upwardly mobile* as the total wealth pie grows simultaneously, which is what was happening before the GFC when Asian savings and Western consumption were locked in a mutually-beneficial system of trade.
Building arrangements like that Asia/West pact, from the development of Japan to China, is the only sane option we have, but people forever look for fake justifications to earn executive salaries for lawn mowing: I'm a very special lawn mower; those Muslim lawn mowers are evil; we are the world leaders in lawn mowing, and without us showing how it's done the standards of world lawn mowing will collapse; those evil so-and-sos over there are dumping cheap lawn mowers on the market, so we need to protect our lawn mower industry, etc.
And, eventually, that Asia/West pact gets downgraded against still others sets of developing economies. China is now too expensive, so factories are even moving on from there! This is why I keep emphasising that the island of underdevelopment and energy monopoly from North Africa to Russia is now f&^&*cking up the game for everyone; it's blocking the next development arrangement and needs to be broken down; we need their development; they need their development; the world needs cleaner and more competitive and ubiquitous energy. (And FFS, the whole Muslim business is *surface trivia* compared to the massive forces of economic incentive and productivity. Just so dumb and so provincial I could cry!).
That's the full context to what Mugwump is saying, but he's not saying it; instead, he's telling people that beating back those cheaper lawn mowers, and blocking competition, will solve the problem. But no, it won't do anymore, because that will only make us less productive, causing us to be downgraded anyhow, whether by investment and taxes leaving; by lower productivity pressure on Fred the lawn mower; or by having insufficient population growth to sustain future payments or both - and even one of those is enough to cause a downgrade.
The scary reality is that you and I grew up in an optimal boom time where the nations we identify with grew rapidly with minimal competition and maximal extortionary economic and military power, giving us the false impression that our quality of life was a norm. On the contrary, it was a temporary part of a much bigger process; a temporary trapping of wealth to our benefit as the whole human productive ecology explodes.
And, to go back to your post on Sweden and my reply, even Sweden couldn't hold out against mobile capital and global competition. Focusing on refugees is the stupidest reaction of all *unless* you have some new plan in mind to overcome the ongoing need to be more productive and maintain quality of life expectations. Have you seen how ferociously Google and Apple and co. are fighting paying taxes even as we speak? Focus on immigrants all you like, but that's only going to make you *less competitive* as capital runs off elsewhere and you can't pay future quality of life commitments.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
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Last edited by pietillidie on Thu Feb 04, 2016 7:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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So in summary, Sweden's cradle to grave welfare system was already in crisis and mass immigration broke it because they didn't have any of the necessary economic things in place to absorb it.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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