4 ms·

Of what? Cash or all benefits (including intangible ones)?

by afandian 9y ago

dazc 9y ago
OK, I'll bite. What would be an intangible benefit, for example?
- icebraining 9y ago
  Participation in Erasmus, to take a random example. Hard to put an euro amount on it, but it's a benefit for the students and probably for the countries.
  - dazc 9y ago
    As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time I have seen Erasmus in all it's glory thank you. It's not something I am going to miss paying towards.
    - cr1895 9y ago
      >As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time Among intangible benefits was your ability to live in Alicante for a period of time, without having to apply for a work/study visa or whatever other hoops someone non-EU would have had to jump through.
      - dazc 9y ago
        Yes, I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great, but I will concede that I was able to move on a whim, and did. If I had to apply for visas, etc I may not have bothered.
        cr1895 9y ago
        >I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great Yes, it might have been doable. But you must also remember that such an ability is a privilege, not a right- if you lost your job, quit school, or whatever granted you your hypothetical residence permit ceased to be a thing, you'd have to leave and uproot your life. As a UK citizen EU member, you had a right to live and work anywhere in the EU. Post-Brexit, not so much.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      I don't think the benefits to the UK come from its students spending time abroad, but the opposite. Erasmus allows good students from poorer countries to get used to living in richer foreign countries like the UK, increasing the chances they'll emigrate. Unlike during the 60s, when the migrants from Southern countries like mine were mostly the poor and uneducated, nowadays the opposite happens. Lots of qualified English-speaking people leave, looking for more than an unpaid internship and a meal ticket, while the others know there's no longer great demand for unskilled workers in France and Germany, and at least here they have their parents' home and their grandparents' pension to live off. So by removing itself, the UK makes it more likely that the "brain drain" will go to Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc.
- afandian 9y ago
  An analogy: I pay a certain amount of council tax, of which £X is spent emptying my rubbish bins at the curbside and in the street. I could look at it as buying £X of services from Veolia. If I bought the same services myself, how much would I pay. Am I getting good value for money? Or I could look at the overall benefit of living in a society where there isn't rubbish lining the street wherever I walk. I feel like the people who say "we make a net contribution to the EU" look at the arrangement as a cash transaction without taking a holistic view of the resulting environment. Of course, I'm sure some economist could come along and put a price on living in a society without rubbish lining the street, but to most people that's not a monetarily quantifiable thing. So I'm sure someone could put a price on all of the below points, to varying extents. But I'm fairly certain when people talk about "net contribution" they are not doing this. So, that acknowledged, intangible benefits of being in the EU I feel, off the top of my head: - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let companies in the UK make things and sell them abroad, paying tax in the process - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let me buy something made anywhere in the EU - ease of international travel for leisure and cultural exchange, including immigration, aeroplane safety and standards - living in a country where I can eat cheaper summer fruit because migrant work can flow - (very specific) I'm friends with instrument makers who do business in the UK and the continent. The import/export tariff situation (as things are currently looking) means that they won't be able to do business - living in a country where researchers and academics can travel in the EU to do whatever they need to do - not having to think about travelling to meet with colleagues and vice versa - contributing to a bloc which enforces environmental standards that align with what I consider to be Good Things (although the CAP is arguable) - ditto animal welfare - ditto human rights - ERASMUS You can't eat money. My life would be incalculably less rich for having grown up in an insular country without many of the above. Maybe I'd be a few pounds better off. How much happiness could I buy with that? I'm not saying that the EU is perfect by any means. It could do with a bit of reform, which the UK could have helped with.
  - dazc 9y ago
    OK, I think you could paint the same kind of picture for both sides of the argument but, it helps to see where you are coming from.

Of what? Cash or all benefits (including intangible ones)?

dazc 9y ago

OK, I'll bite. What would be an intangible benefit, for example?

icebraining 9y ago
Participation in Erasmus, to take a random example. Hard to put an euro amount on it, but it's a benefit for the students and probably for the countries.
- dazc 9y ago
  As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time I have seen Erasmus in all it's glory thank you. It's not something I am going to miss paying towards.
  - cr1895 9y ago
    >As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time Among intangible benefits was your ability to live in Alicante for a period of time, without having to apply for a work/study visa or whatever other hoops someone non-EU would have had to jump through.
    - dazc 9y ago
      Yes, I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great, but I will concede that I was able to move on a whim, and did. If I had to apply for visas, etc I may not have bothered.
      - cr1895 9y ago
        >I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great Yes, it might have been doable. But you must also remember that such an ability is a privilege, not a right- if you lost your job, quit school, or whatever granted you your hypothetical residence permit ceased to be a thing, you'd have to leave and uproot your life. As a UK citizen EU member, you had a right to live and work anywhere in the EU. Post-Brexit, not so much.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I don't think the benefits to the UK come from its students spending time abroad, but the opposite. Erasmus allows good students from poorer countries to get used to living in richer foreign countries like the UK, increasing the chances they'll emigrate. Unlike during the 60s, when the migrants from Southern countries like mine were mostly the poor and uneducated, nowadays the opposite happens. Lots of qualified English-speaking people leave, looking for more than an unpaid internship and a meal ticket, while the others know there's no longer great demand for unskilled workers in France and Germany, and at least here they have their parents' home and their grandparents' pension to live off. So by removing itself, the UK makes it more likely that the "brain drain" will go to Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc.
afandian 9y ago
An analogy: I pay a certain amount of council tax, of which £X is spent emptying my rubbish bins at the curbside and in the street. I could look at it as buying £X of services from Veolia. If I bought the same services myself, how much would I pay. Am I getting good value for money? Or I could look at the overall benefit of living in a society where there isn't rubbish lining the street wherever I walk. I feel like the people who say "we make a net contribution to the EU" look at the arrangement as a cash transaction without taking a holistic view of the resulting environment. Of course, I'm sure some economist could come along and put a price on living in a society without rubbish lining the street, but to most people that's not a monetarily quantifiable thing. So I'm sure someone could put a price on all of the below points, to varying extents. But I'm fairly certain when people talk about "net contribution" they are not doing this. So, that acknowledged, intangible benefits of being in the EU I feel, off the top of my head: - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let companies in the UK make things and sell them abroad, paying tax in the process - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let me buy something made anywhere in the EU - ease of international travel for leisure and cultural exchange, including immigration, aeroplane safety and standards - living in a country where I can eat cheaper summer fruit because migrant work can flow - (very specific) I'm friends with instrument makers who do business in the UK and the continent. The import/export tariff situation (as things are currently looking) means that they won't be able to do business - living in a country where researchers and academics can travel in the EU to do whatever they need to do - not having to think about travelling to meet with colleagues and vice versa - contributing to a bloc which enforces environmental standards that align with what I consider to be Good Things (although the CAP is arguable) - ditto animal welfare - ditto human rights - ERASMUS You can't eat money. My life would be incalculably less rich for having grown up in an insular country without many of the above. Maybe I'd be a few pounds better off. How much happiness could I buy with that? I'm not saying that the EU is perfect by any means. It could do with a bit of reform, which the UK could have helped with.
- dazc 9y ago
  OK, I think you could paint the same kind of picture for both sides of the argument but, it helps to see where you are coming from.