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Post by johnofgwent on Dec 12, 2023 8:10:44 GMT
Since he seems to be a little bashful to do it himself, I thought I'd outline the plan for him.
Basically, what Zany is looking to do is to dial down the present focus on preventing migrants arriving by use of force, barriers, threats of deportation to deepest Africa and substitute instead an approach based on kindness. The fundamental objective is to improve living conditions in the sending countries to such an extent that there will be little incentive to migrate to the West, at least in such great numbers as today.
We had an extensive discussion on an earlier forum on the pros and cons of such an approach and since the migration picture has deteriorated even further in the intervening period I thought it an opportune time to open it up again.
Perhaps I should just briefly encapsulate my counter-argument to Zany's proposition which was that stout fencing with lots of well-armed border guards, together with secure detention in not very appealing locations for the few who got through, would be a better and more cost-effective approach.
Any and all thoughts are welcome (subject to Mind Zone criteria).
I quite simply suggest money earmarked for ‘improving’ conditions in the countries responsible for causing ‘migration’ whether that be of persons wishing to escape death for calling El Presidente a camel shagger, or just layabouts wishing to lay about on our streets instead of theirs, is a complete and utter waste. Firstly because El Presidente will still kill those who find him in flagrante wossisname giving their camel an extra hump, and in general the people running the countries from which economic migrants come from don’t give a stuff about those sort of people. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Dec 12, 2023 9:33:48 GMT
The mis-direction of western aid into villas on the Riviera and fleets of armoured presidential Mercedes-Benz limousines is a well-known feature of the international landscape, one that increasing aid by several orders of magnitude (Zany's core idea) is not going to diminish. Aidan Hartley's classic Spectator article 'How African leaders spend our money' appears to be paywalled now, but is still worth reading if you want to learn how the undeclared cross-border tribe the WaBenzi came to define third-world corruption and western (especially British) gullibility.
It begins with:
"Bob Geldof has urged us not to dwell on ‘the corruption thing’ — but, says Aidan Hartley, corrupt African leaders are using Western aid to buy fleets of Mercedes Benz cars
‘Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz,’ prayed Janis Joplin, and the Lord obliged. With or without divine intervention, the late Pope had one. So does the Queen. Erich Honecker hunted at night by dazzling the deer in his Mercedes jeep’s headlights until he got close enough to blow them away. Mao Tse-tung had 23 Mercs. Today Kim Jong Il owns dozens, all filled to the gunwales with imported Hennessy’s cognac. Hitler, Franco, Hirohito, Tito, the Shah, Ceausescu, Pinochet, Somoza — they all swore by Mercedes. Saddam Hussein liked them so much he probably had shares in the company.
Today, though, there is one man who is doing more than the Lord himself to buy a Mercedes-Benz for the leading creeps of the world. That man is of course Bob Geldof, the spur to our global conscience. Africa’s leaders cannot wait for the G8 leaders — hectored by Bob and Live 8 into bracelet-wearing submission — to double aid and forgive the continent’s debts. They know that such acts of generosity will finance their future purchases of very swish, customised Mercedes-Benz cars, while 315 million poor Africans stay without shoes and Western taxpayers get by with Hondas. This is the way it goes with the WaBenzi, a Swahili term for the Big Men of Africa. "
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Post by Orac on Dec 12, 2023 10:26:32 GMT
Since he seems to be a little bashful to do it himself, I thought I'd outline the plan for him.
Basically, what Zany is looking to do is to dial down the present focus on preventing migrants arriving by use of force, barriers, threats of deportation to deepest Africa and substitute instead an approach based on kindness. The fundamental objective is to improve living conditions in the sending countries to such an extent that there will be little incentive to migrate to the West, at least in such great numbers as today.
We had an extensive discussion on an earlier forum on the pros and cons of such an approach and since the migration picture has deteriorated even further in the intervening period I thought it an opportune time to open it up again.
Perhaps I should just briefly encapsulate my counter-argument to Zany's proposition which was that stout fencing with lots of well-armed border guards, together with secure detention in not very appealing locations for the few who got through, would be a better and more cost-effective approach.
Any and all thoughts are welcome (subject to Mind Zone criteria).
I quite simply suggest money earmarked for ‘improving’ conditions in the countries responsible for causing ‘migration’ whether that be of persons wishing to escape death for calling El Presidente a camel shagger, or just layabouts wishing to lay about on our streets instead of theirs, is a complete and utter waste. Firstly because El Presidente will still kill those who find him in flagrante wossisname giving their camel an extra hump, and in general the people running the countries from which economic migrants come from don’t give a stuff about those sort of people. The problems are caused by massive (from our perspective) cultural distortions - that unhelpful patterns of behavior in these places are encouraged and incentivised rather than being prevented. Our intervention gives these societies an 'out' allowing them to eject the consequences of their corruption into the western world in the form of their 'walking poor'. We, as result, get to deal with our problems and their problems and act as an ongoing support pillar for their dysfunction. The level of this support would be one thing if it were merely financial - (you can always repair lost money by making more), but part of 'the deal' seems to be that we give up our territory, control and entire method of civilisation in order to help support their dysfunction. This pattern is going to crash into chaos if it isn't interrupted abruptly. |
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Post by piglet on Dec 12, 2023 10:51:57 GMT
It really is the worst of all worlds, having no control. Whoever is in power has an open gate policy, surely this is the foundation of something bad. Or is it?, do the majority want this?
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Post by johnofgwent on Dec 12, 2023 11:35:04 GMT
It really is the worst of all worlds, having no control. Whoever is in power has an open gate policy, surely this is the foundation of something bad. Or is it?, do the majority want this? One key fact to bear in mind. I’ve mentioned it before, it was taught as part of the syllabus for the WJEC GCE ‘O’ Level Economics exam i sat in May1974 having received studied about 90 minutes of formal tuition a week for thirty five weeks, plus home study I received a grade one. I suspect i know more about the subject than quite a few MP’s The fact is this If a person enters the UK and carries out work or provides some form of service for which payment in Sterling is received, and they then send some of that out of the country to another, perhaps to support family members in that foreign country, every penny so sent depletes the UK money supply, removes that sum from the mountain that would otherwise contribute to UK inflation, and increases the money supply and inflation in that remote country. Workers travelling between the two countries expend part of those sums in the ‘invisible’ sector of one or both country’s economies making the transport sector invisible earnings look better than it otherwise would. There is also the possibility that sums so exported might contribute to our balance of payments through being used to purchase british exports, although to be fair that rather applied more when i took the exam, when we still had some manufacturing industry. The deflationary impact of this outflow of funds may not be much but it should not be ignored, nor, in a competitive market, should the inflationary damage inflicted on the economies of those remote countries be rubbished. Chancellors need all the help they can get. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 12, 2023 19:12:14 GMT
The mis-direction of western aid into villas on the Riviera and fleets of armoured presidential Mercedes-Benz limousines is a well-known feature of the international landscape, one that increasing aid by several orders of magnitude (Zany's core idea) is not going to diminish. Aidan Hartley's classic Spectator article 'How African leaders spend our money' appears to be paywalled now, but is still worth reading if you want to learn how the undeclared cross-border tribe the WaBenzi came to define third-world corruption and western (especially British) gullibility.
It begins with:
"Bob Geldof has urged us not to dwell on ‘the corruption thing’ — but, says Aidan Hartley, corrupt African leaders are using Western aid to buy fleets of Mercedes Benz cars
‘Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz,’ prayed Janis Joplin, and the Lord obliged. With or without divine intervention, the late Pope had one. So does the Queen. Erich Honecker hunted at night by dazzling the deer in his Mercedes jeep’s headlights until he got close enough to blow them away. Mao Tse-tung had 23 Mercs. Today Kim Jong Il owns dozens, all filled to the gunwales with imported Hennessy’s cognac. Hitler, Franco, Hirohito, Tito, the Shah, Ceausescu, Pinochet, Somoza — they all swore by Mercedes. Saddam Hussein liked them so much he probably had shares in the company.
Today, though, there is one man who is doing more than the Lord himself to buy a Mercedes-Benz for the leading creeps of the world. That man is of course Bob Geldof, the spur to our global conscience. Africa’s leaders cannot wait for the G8 leaders — hectored by Bob and Live 8 into bracelet-wearing submission — to double aid and forgive the continent’s debts. They know that such acts of generosity will finance their future purchases of very swish, customised Mercedes-Benz cars, while 315 million poor Africans stay without shoes and Western taxpayers get by with Hondas. This is the way it goes with the WaBenzi, a Swahili term for the Big Men of Africa. "
...
I know the daughter of the ex-petroleum minister of Nigeria. Yes it is true I know some bloody odd people, but you see my Maltese woman went to one of the poshest schools in the country, which is an all-girls school run by Catholics. Anyway, her best friend at school was the petroleum minister's daughter. She is now an executive of Rishi's wife's firm, but during her education the British state kindly laid on a 24 hr chauffeur-driven Rolls for her to use like most use taxis. The school was in Essex, so not bad if the two of them fancied a bit of a trip up to London to do some shopping perhaps.
Anyway, nice of Bob to raise awareness of how the plight of these third worlders is such hard one.
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Post by zanygame on Dec 13, 2023 20:23:18 GMT
Since he seems to be a little bashful to do it himself, I thought I'd outline the plan for him.
Basically, what Zany is looking to do is to dial down the present focus on preventing migrants arriving by use of force, barriers, threats of deportation to deepest Africa and substitute instead an approach based on kindness. The fundamental objective is to improve living conditions in the sending countries to such an extent that there will be little incentive to migrate to the West, at least in such great numbers as today.
We had an extensive discussion on an earlier forum on the pros and cons of such an approach and since the migration picture has deteriorated even further in the intervening period I thought it an opportune time to open it up again.
Perhaps I should just briefly encapsulate my counter-argument to Zany's proposition which was that stout fencing with lots of well-armed border guards, together with secure detention in not very appealing locations for the few who got through, would be a better and more cost-effective approach.
Any and all thoughts are welcome (subject to Mind Zone criteria).
Ahh. Not my plan at all. I feel you have set the table though, so my ideas would quickly disappear into the usual custard. Good luck. |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 13, 2023 21:51:06 GMT
It really is the worst of all worlds, having no control. Whoever is in power has an open gate policy, surely this is the foundation of something bad. Or is it?, do the majority want this? The UK has had complete control of its borders since Brexit. You're just not believing hard enough. |
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Post by steppenwolf on Dec 14, 2023 7:51:59 GMT
It's a counter-intuitive thing that it seems to be harder to defend a sea border than to defend a land border. If we had a land border with France we could just erect a huge fence and it's job done. With a sea border we seem to have no legal alternative but to allow the illegals to land - and then it's almost impossible to get rid of them because of various ancient international laws.
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Post by zanygame on Dec 14, 2023 8:11:08 GMT
It's a counter-intuitive thing that it seems to be harder to defend a sea border than to defend a land border. If we had a land border with France we could just erect a huge fence and it's job done. With a sea border we seem to have no legal alternative but to allow the illegals to land - and then it's almost impossible to get rid of them because of various ancient international laws. We could erect a huge fence round our coast. Not sure how that would go down with the public. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Dec 14, 2023 9:43:48 GMT
...
Basically, what Zany is looking to do is to dial down the present focus on preventing migrants arriving by use of force, barriers, threats of deportation to deepest Africa and substitute instead an approach based on kindness. The fundamental objective is to improve living conditions in the sending countries to such an extent that there will be little incentive to migrate to the West, at least in such great numbers as today. ... Ahh. Not my plan at all. I feel you have set the table though, so my ideas would quickly disappear into the usual custard. Good luck. OK then, this is your opportunity to set the record straight. Don't be bashful, give me both barrels. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Dec 14, 2023 10:41:43 GMT
In complaining that I am misconstruing his plan, methinks Zany doth protest too much. So, while awaiting the girding of his loins for mortal kombat I’d like to offer for general view a significant fragment of an earlier discussion we had in another place about the relative merits of stout fencing and kind deeds as comparative prescriptions for unwanted immigration.
To set the scene, Zany had been holding forth on his idea of smothering prospective immigrants with kindness at home, in the belief that would deter them from making the trip. I asked him to what extent he thought living conditions would need to improve to have the desired effect, and how much he thought such a project might cost.
After some further inconclusive waffle I took the initiative and suggest a per capita gdp similar to that of Bulgaria would be necessary, even though hasn’t wasn’t enough to shut down emigration from that source. Zany then responded:
For the flaw in your argument is that it assumes we would open our borders as part of the process, but I would do know such thing. So you see your Bulgarian analogy is so much piffle and requires no frantic googling at all.  [/quote][/div] To which I replied:
I've given you an opportunity to propose an alternative scenario to Bulgaria but you seem to be shying away from the challenge. On the one hand you want us to subscribe to a level of funding that would increase living standards to a level that would make it more attractive for would-be migrants to remain at home rather than take the risk of travelling to Europe, but on the other you won't give any indication what you believe that level ought to be. So should Nigeria, say, be the benchmark, with a GDP per capita of around $2500, or perhaps South Africa maybe, somewhere around $5500. Both of these are still much lower than Bulgaria. Or what about Indonesia, a relatively stable place by third-world standards (at the moment) where the figure is between the two? So let's say Indonesia is the model and our goal is to raise living standards in the much poorer places even than Indonesia that provide the bulk* of the present and future anticipated migrant streams to that sort of level. That would be Africa, the Indian subcontinent and the non-oil producing countries in the middle East, a total population of around 3 billion with an average GDP per capita of around $1,500. To get them to the Indonesia level of material wealth would entail an increase in per capita GDP from $1,500 to $3,400, which for a population of 3 billion amounts to $5.7 trillion. Now your proposal earlier suggested that donations of $245 billion ought to do the trick but based on the sums presented here that is only going to be enough to cover around 4% of the requirement. So where's the rest, the other 96%, supposed to come from? As should be obvious by now to all but the most dim-witted, Western aid donations are never going to be enough to lift these regions of the world out of their present entropy and it is completely dishonest not to say delusional to even suggest they could.
*Actually a number of countries much richer than Indonesia have significant negative net migration. China, for example, is now the largest source of legal migrants to the USA and Canada, and second largest in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. That was where we left it last time.
PS the numbers are seriously out of date, although still in simiar proportion to each other. |
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Post by Bentley on Dec 14, 2023 10:51:24 GMT
Indeed. There must be something here to draw the economic migrants across Europe more than giving lefties a warm fuzzy feeling while watching the poor compete for resources with immigrants .
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Post by Orac on Dec 14, 2023 13:33:50 GMT
Indeed. There must be something here to draw the economic migrants across Europe more than giving lefties a warm fuzzy feeling while watching the poor compete for resources with immigrants . For many of them there seems to be a glee akin to that experienced by audiences at the roman games Throw some elderly Britons in the ring with Somalian child traffickers and Albanian mobsters. Now we should withdraw rule of law by instructing the police force to concentrate on gender identity rather than crime. - this should be fun! |
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Post by Bentley on Dec 14, 2023 13:38:17 GMT
Indeed. There must be something here to draw the economic migrants across Europe more than giving lefties a warm fuzzy feeling while watching the poor compete for resources with immigrants . For many of them there seems to be a glee akin to that experienced by audiences at the roman games Throw some elderly Britons in the ring with Somalian child traffickers and Albanian mobsters. Now we should withdraw rule of law by instructing the police force to concentrate on gender identity rather than crime. - this should be fun!Indeed. |
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