Interesting Links for 05-06-2016

[andrewducker]

National borders exist to pen poor people into reservations of poverty (tags: globalization inequality immigration economics ) Corbyn reveals the real reason he's been so 'silent' on Brexit (tags: europe media labour politics ) Stop Explaining Yourself. (Or: It is ok to not do things because you don't want to) (tags: advice life friendship ) 12

Comments

[gonzo21]

Was talking to friends just the other night about this school hours thing. And how now there's kids who go to pre-school at 7am, and attend after school until 7pm. And I just... I couldn't imagine how stressed and depressed I would have been if I was having to attend school for 12 hours a day every day. No wonder there's increasing incidence of anxiety and depression amongst children.

Which, yeah, kids should have an extra hour in bed before they start. The early morning lessons were always a write off for me at school, I was too tired to take anything in.

Stop Explaining Yourself. (Or: It is ok to not do thing

[cartesiandaemon]

I had this much less than some people, but it's always been a thing

Re: Stop Explaining Yourself. (Or: It is ok to not do thing

[andrewducker]

Yeah, that's very easily done.

I also tend to prioritise other people's need above my own. I used to do that a _lot_, and actually spent 18 months in a relationship once because I couldn't work out how to stop it without there being "a good reason for stopping". Which is clearly ridiculous.

I mostly managed to stop that - and it was a big thing going into the relationship with Julie that I was going to not fall into that trap again. Hard to do when the other person gets cancer though. So I now need to work my way back out of that habit all over again!

Re: Stop Explaining Yourself. (Or: It is ok to not do thing

[pennski]

I still have to work on this one and I'm going to start practising telling myself "No is a complete sentence".

[kalimac]

I don't have time to listen to Corbyn's entire speech right now, but I caught the beginning, and noted that he starts by asking people to register to vote. I thought registration was automatic in the UK. Has that never been so, or has it changed?

Also, his first example of how EU regulation has helped the UK: no longer pumping raw sewage into the sea. You know who still does that, the only place anywhere near here that does? Victoria, B.C.

Regarding helping people, what I hate is that when, after you agree to do something, the asker adds some condition that makes it much more difficult to do.

[andrewducker]

I don't believe that the UK has ever had automatic registration - I'm not sure what lists they'd work from to do so.

We recently moved from residence-based registration to individual registration. The idea being that this would get rid of a bunch of corruption around it. But, of course, a lot of people haven't gotten around to registering, and students, etc. are particularly bad for that.

[kalimac]

I've seen plenty of references in historical accounts of politics (covering the mid-20C, mostly) to the annual voter rolls, though I don't remember the actual term offhand. They came out once a year, you could only vote if you were on them, and especially in times of mass shiftings of population, like wartime, whether an election was held before or after the roll came out made a big difference

[andrewducker]

Looks like historically speaking it was different, but the current and previous process is fairly accurate from my understanding:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_registration_in_the_United_Kingdom#Individual_Electoral_Registration

[danieldwilliam]

I think the only thing that will stop mass migration being a problem is equalisation of incomes globally. Which is fortunately happening apace.

I don't see the arrival of large numbers of poor people in a rich country ever being politically acceptable in the future.

[andrewducker]

Neither do I, despite it not having (so far as I can tell) a negative effect on the economy. It's arguably worse for local people to have them somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper and they can _really_ undercut local workers.

[danieldwilliam]

For relatively modest amounts of immigration I think the effect on wages is small overall. There might well be strange effects in certain areas or labour markets. In the situation of a few hundred thousand a year definately better to have the potential immigrant here, working in a stringent health and safety regime, with firm labour regulation and paying some taxes to support our public service than undercutting our labour from abroad.

I think the situation would be different if we were looking at genuine free movement of labour globally. Or else economics has stopped working. If a million people a year could move to the UK I think you'd see a significant drop in wages and an increase in the cost of living until there was wage equalisation. I think this might be painful.

[steer]

Do you think equalisation of incomes is happening apace?

I think you're right that it's the solution but I think we are seeing the opposite in a lot of places. Many places are becoming much more unequal.

In a way it's not surprising. In the 21st century the easiest way to make money is to already have money. In the 21st century the easiest way to already have money is to inherit money. Without intervention the system tends to grow inequality and this is reflected in the data. The UK has become more unequal in terms of wealth and income over the last 50 years (measured by the Gini coefficient at least).

[phillipalden]

I am forced to agree with the title of the first article.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. That and racism, of course.