Human catastrophe

1) http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26326117

Makes a persuasive argument for the continued exploitation of oil... If the UK GDP per capita drops by 10%.
"North Sea oil supplied 67% of the UK's oil demand in 2012 and 53% of the country's gas requirements."


3) Question was; is the UK defenceless today, without an aircraft carrier?

4) The UK has the money, it just wishes to spend it on other things. It's priorities, not a lack of cash, that is preventing a solution to the housing crisis. Or are you saying that the UK is bankrupt?

5) You provided the numbers for the UK, in your link.... the red line in Figure 2, in your link.

 

3) Clearly our defence chiefs thought the Navy needed upgraded ships. Failing to upgrade them be tantamount to leaving us defenceless. The days of fighting wars with the tactics and technology of the last one are long gone.
4) We have the money? Prove it.
The housing crisis is caused by a shortage of houses. That's why my local council has suspended the right to buy your council house, and why the SNP government is committed to building 30,000 homes by next year. If there were enough houses to start with, they wouldn't need to build more.
"Independent research published in June shows more than 150,000 families are on waiting lists for a decent place to live.
Nearly one million households suffer "suffer fuel poverty" and 60,000 homes are overcrowded."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snp-under-fire-failing-tackle-6415283
5) Make it clearer next time.

 

Sounds like the welfare or unemployment status in the US. "Are you actively seeking work?" "Uh, yeah, sure." "OK, here's your check."

The real numbers, those working vs those not working are in the other chart. Muslims 4 times less likely to work than than others. That isn't to say all Muslims don't work, but social welfare states are much more likely to attract those who have no intention of seeking work. You're seeing this in Poland (among other places) right now. They don't want to stay in Poland, they want to go through to Germany where there is a generous dole.
The same thing is happening in Denmark where they've demanded they must learn the language, work, etc. So, now they're rioting to get out and into Sweden and Norway where they can collect that sweet handout from the government.

Where's that Kiwi hospitality? You could easily take a half million or so.

 

3) But the UK has no aircraft carrier today. How is not building one, leaving the UK defenceless (your statement)?

4) Proof lies in the money spent in the budget on other line items. Basic economics.

5) Why Should I? Because you failed to read your own reference material?!?

 

3) Have a think about that rather naive statement. They're building one because we don't have one, therefore the defence chiefs must have considered this to be a massive gap in our defences.
4) Give me examples instead of stonewalling.
5) I seem to remember you were the one who included it amongst data from Sweden, then provided a link to the Swedish data without mentioning they were two different sets.

 

I've asked for evidence of those "real numbers" and it's not forthcoming. That previous chart was very unclear, and without reference. I doubt we'd see a "majority" not seeking employment. Sweden has a bigger issue with Romanians, than people from the middle east.

The handout in Sweden is a myth. Sure there are people that like to play the system, but it isn't so easy as you seem to imagine.

Indeed NZ could. But as I said above, we can't even attract Ozzies, and they have Tony Abbott.

 

3) Have a think about your naive statement. An Aircraft carrier isn't a defensive weapon. It's sole purpose is force projection well away from the shores of the UK. It is a strategic asset, not a defensive one. The UK has continued to exist for a while now without one. Were one not built, it would continue to exist for a very long time. Hardly a "defenceless" position. Don't pretend neither the cost nor the need was controversial.

4)?? I have. No one is stone walling. 1 F35B costs $100 Million USD. One glorified boat for helicopters (the F-35B's are not yet available) cost £6.2 Billion.

5) I thought you would well know the data you provided, and therefore only sought to include the data you had not. A common enough assumption. Apparently, the number of Ayslum's granted in the UK was news to you.

 

I provided you with a graph; working vs not working. Perhaps if I took the graph and used a program to make into crayon format, it would be easier for you to understand?

Oh, just ask Europe for them. They deliver.

 

3 & 4) And?! You're seriously claiming we don't have enough council houses because we build defence systems instead of relying on sticking daffodils down the enemy's gun barrels and singing kumbaya to them?
5) Oh I knew my own data, but not when stuck in with a link to another source which made it look as if it came from there.

 

Perhaps I should spell it out to you, so you can actually understand how to read a graph properly, seeing as how you've failed utterly

It says "percentages". Percentage of what? 15% as expressed as a percentage of what whole? Is it saying 14% of all unemployed people are Muslims, or is it saying 14% of all Muslims are unemployed? Such a huge discrepancy in what is measured, and you can't see that? And yet you start insulting me about crayons.... Once again, your original statement, was a majority would not be seeking work, and you have still failed to provide any evidence of that highly racist comment whatsoever. But yeah, I need crayons.

Never mind you posted without referring to a source.

 

3-4) I seem to recall a UK without an aircraft carrier not singing kumbaya to people in Iraq and Afghanistan...

5) So you say.

 

Irrelevant. And no more than I expected.

 

The graph represents the percentage in the UK who do not work broken down by religion. Note that Muslims are the highest percentage of those not working. I'm sorry that's difficult for you to grasp.

In the US, 91% of middle eastern immigrants are on food stamps. 73% are on Medicare. 68% are on direct cash handouts.

Here's a link that spells out the congressional study from which those figures are drawn. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/10/more-than-90-percent-of-middle-eastern-refugees-on-food-stamps/

As a whole, they are an enormous drain rather than a contribution to our society. We'd prefer they move to New Zealand.

 

First. can I just say that 'Troll' doesn't mean 'Someone who disagrees with you'. Just getting that off my chest .


Secondly, my lead concern about all this stuff is 'Dianafication' - that political policy & reaction appears to be being based on purely emotive responses and a belief that a form of mass hysteria, apparently triggered to a peak by a picture of a dead sprog is enough to make some quite serious potential changes to existing economies & communities.
Dead sprogs are never a good thing, but they've doubtless happened every single day as a result of some shithole or other and will continue to do so - claiming that one with an associated picture is somehow special, or enough to trigger billions in spending and potentially years of further ill-thought-out military misery is rather pushing a point.

One of the few times (possibly the only time) I've ever agreed with Lord Mandelson, is when he said Immigration needs to be talked about more calmly without anybody with concerns thereof immediately getting shouted down as a RACIST!
Remember Brown and 'some bigoted woman'...
Just as the discussion was becoming more civil in the UK re this stuff, it appears we've come full circle, and an 'accepted viewpoint', that isn't really substantiated or even born out by polling is being used to drive legislation and name-calling even in the supposedly serious business of international diplomacy.

Looking at the graphs here, I hope everyone's read 'How to lie with statistics' - cracking read, that confirms graphic indicators can always be used to prove any point of view on whatever side when the blood's up. (Seriously - required reading for the truly cynical - several formats here: https://twitter.com/conflicts
And Full Fact really are doing their best to remain neutral re. stats etc. : https://fullfact.org/

Anyway, sorry. Don't let me interrupt the shouting. All good fun!

 

I'm intested in this one an watching it but for the most part staying out of it. I will point out however in relation to this:

A key word has been left out and that is it is for "recent" immigrants, 2008-2013 I believe it said. I would expect the number of any recent immigrant group on assistance to be fairly high unless they are mostly coming over on high tech job visas. Their contribution to the economy will be in the decades to come (or not). It would be intersting to see these numbers compared with other such groups and over other periods.

The source linked above also had this rather intersting IMO quote:

 

It was Europeans in the boat.

 

And I would wish that no immigrant got any assistance whatsoever until they've worked long enough to pay into the system and been here long enough to become citizens. If you don't benefit our society from the moment you cross the border, why should we let you across the border?

 

What is long enough? What is of benefit? Working below prevailing wages and not paying taxes? A certain payment per hour?

I have a family member that works in the legal profession. The stories of why many are here are heart breaking. It's a huge dilemma to work through.

Fact is that most of us are actually not on the positive side of what we pay in taxes v. what we benefit, including roads and military protection. What really interesting is that people from "conservative states" howl about the take of people in the liberal states, but the stats show the conservative states take more than the liberal.

There are no easy answers to this.

Like it or not, by removing Hussein we did help create some of this mess. What is our responsibility? Tough question.

I have family members whose birth family members were war refugees. I have friends in a warring country. With no answers to any of this, we need to be thankful for the stability we have. We also need to be careful about the consequences of our actions.

Go to south St. Louis and you can easily see refugees from the former Yugoslavia. What is more amazing is that you have ethnic groups who were killing each other there...they are now living side by side in peace.

That area today would be a slum had it not been for the refugee immigrants.

It is interesting to go there. Here is a web page: http://www.iistl.org/facestlrefug.html

 

Note that the graph displays a percentage that is still not a majority, which you claimed.

That Breitbart piece was deliberately obfuscating, mixing such things as "immigrants" and "asylum seekers"; those figures which you then read to be all immigrants from the middle east, which is hardly the case at all. But I'm sure that makes you feel all warm and fluffy inside, so you can continue insulting people that disagree.

It's hardly surprising that the world's largest economy attracts the most immigrants, but a large chunk of them are there for work.

I've already said, we'd take them, but no one wants to go to NZ; it's too far away from everything. Perhaps you'd like to harp on about NZ some more? Because it isn't really relevant when people are trying to get to Europe, and not NZ.... It's not NZ's shores people are dying to get to. The fact is, it is still relatively easy to migrate to NZ, compared to other countries (Canada, Australia, EU, US), so the flood just isn't there. Like I've repeatedly said, it's just too far away. No one wants to live on the edge of the map.