The Brexit referendum thread: potential consequences for GB, EU and the Brits in CH

[greenmount]

	Quote:	marton
	There are empty villages everywhere because people move to where the work is, nothing to do with the EU. Calanca, Switzerland - deserted villages in an alpine valley Spain gives away empty villages for free Bled by emigration, abandoned Portuguese villages lose hope of surviving Italy’s rural villages are dying out Emigration and natural calamities have left 6,000 villages abandoned, with another 15,000 on the brink.

I'm not saying this is not equally sad, but I do think that due to free movement within EU this phenomenon has accelerated. Of course we always had people from Sicily moving to Milan (for instance) or from Italy to Germany or Switzerland. Before EU. I'm talking about the pace at which this classic phenomenon of migration happens, marton. Wiser regional development strategies should have been a priority for EU since the very beginning, but then again, that was so not the purpose of EU, was it.

[amogles]

	Quote:	greenmount
	Even now, at least where OH works - the few engineer females are from Romania and Poland. None from WE. As of more recent years, most people looking into the technical part of edu are choosing computer science because it seems more lucrative, but the infrastructure for a good, solid technical higher education (and not only) is still there. Plenty of people from other places willing to study or have studied there, especially from ME, Africa. Two or three medicine universities from back home are attracting lots of students from other countries including EU countries, because that diploma still has a good reputation among people working in the field. Not the ivy league sort of reputation, of course, but it's OK,

I'm surprised actually that not more WE students are going to EE universities.

Low costs of living combined with a thorough and recognized education. Add to that that many students these days are complaining about costs of tuition, student debt and whatnot. So why not go where it's cheap?

And as a bonus many of the larger EE cities have developed into the partying capitals of Europe. And no end to good looking women (and for the lassies out there, the men have their chatms too)

So what's there not to like?

Ah, yes, they have to actually do some work and use some intelligence. Poor kids.

[Dougal's Breakfast]

	Quote:	amogles
	So what's there not to like?

Rigour. The inability to claim you got a low mark because the professor doesn't like gingers. No Socialist Worker Student Society. Early lectures. Gendered bathrooms.

[Reb77Br]

greenmount, do you think people in former eastern bloc countries would have been better off if their countries had been prevented from joining the EU and/or from participating in EU freedom of movement, or had perhaps been integrated instead into the Commonwealth of Independent States?

[MusicChick]

All that weird link effort is cute. Marton does have a point though, the same crappy principle exists everywhere between large aglomerations and cities and poor villages in the West. Those cannot compete with city salaries and young folks do not always want to move to big cities either just to get a decently paid job. With gross edu debts they have to.

In EE edu is quality but free, zero priviledge. Only a priviledge to a few more years in poverty since as a student you don't have the time to work efficiently too in a job. People do, I did, but it is crazy.

When you leave your EE home, you rarely want to, you end up in a system speaking different languages, often different family values, always having to justify that we aren't some undereducated loitering hooligans.

Marton - Ukrainians also pick PL and CZ because of the language being close. They hardly ever make the salary you mentioned.

Amogles - Duolingo? Like really? Goulash and movies. Use it, don't study it. Estonian, Finnish and Turkish might help, somewhat, too. Penfriends, news, corny flicks. Brain knows when you just fake needing a language and when you really do need it. You should go as often as you can...get the tonality and phonetics encoded.

[amogles]

	Quote:	greenmount
	Wiser regional development strategies should have been a priority for EU since the very beginning, but then again, that was so not the purpose of EU, was it.

I thought the purpose of the EU's predecessor organization had been to save the steel mills and coal mines of Wallonia and the Saarland.

Seeing about 90% of those have closed since then, they haven't axactly achieved their primary objective.

But they're not giving up.

Isn't that what Juncker went to negotiiate with Trump about?

[amogles]

	Quote:	MusicChick
	Amogles - Duolingo? Like really? Goulash and movies. Use it, don't study it. Estonian, Finnish and Turkish might help, somewhat, too. Penfriends, news, corny flicks. Brain knows when you just fake needing a language and when you really do need it. You should go as often as you can...get the tonality and phonetics encoded.

Yeah, that was a bit tongue in cheek. I'm doing way more than that really.

[MusicChick]

	Quote:	amogles
	I'm surprised actually that not more WE students are going to EE universities.

They are. Big times. But the surprise? You think they nail the language before they come? Duolingo would make millions, if it actually worked.

	Quote:
	Low costs of living combined with a thorough and recognized education. Add to that that many students these days are complaining about costs of tuition, student debt and whatnot. So why not go where it's cheap?

Because the era of EE swooning over exotic and unreachable West is over. They are held accountable for how much they know and quite often fail in a tight competition. Like in CH sometimes. CH provides expensive private system for those, EE on a small scale too, but with less rigor and it is standard Western price.

	Quote:
	And as a bonus many of the larger EE cities have developed into the partying capitals of Europe. And no end to good looking women (and for the lassies out there, the men have their chatms too) So what's there not to like? Ah, yes, they have to actually do some work and use some intelligence. Poor kids.

Aww. We still like them. Lots of shy Western geeks who for some reason happened to learn a EE language and passed the insane entrance exams. Those usually stick.

[MusicChick]

Brain drain is not a new phenomenon. Anyone who invests in quality edu counts on the nomadic part of it, it is also a great way to acquire experience and test theories...be more employable aftewards, strengthen languages, etc. It's the same with hard/good working people irrespectively of degrees..they don't want to go but have to sometimes. We had workers going to Vienna or across Europe for work 100-200 years ago, it is not new. Nurses and docs disappearing en mass to West, is new. The immigrant folks in services I saw in the UK were extremely decent and hard working. I don't think it is a problem of their new host country but their own homecountry not taking care of them so well, maybe. It is always a risk. But to assume that mobility is always a priority for everyone, is wrong, imho. Especially in tight small communities.

[baboon]

	Quote:	greenmount
	I'm not saying this is not equally sad, but I do think that due to free movement within EU this phenomenon has accelerated. Of course we always had people from Sicily moving to Milan (for instance) or from Italy to Germany or Switzerland. Before EU. I'm talking about the pace at which this classic phenomenon of migration happens, marton. Wiser regional development strategies should have been a priority for EU since the very beginning, but then again, that was so not the purpose of EU, was it.

Urbanisation is a massive trend across the globe and nothing to do with the EU imo - the movement is actually strongest in Latin America. If anything, the EU has through its use of regional funds tried to moderate the tide.

[MusicChick]

	Quote:	Dougal's Breakfast
	Rigour. The inability to claim you got a low mark because the professor doesn't like gingers. No Socialist Worker Student Society. Early lectures. Gendered bathrooms.

[Swisstree]

	Quote:	greenmount
	I'm not saying this is not equally sad, but I do think that due to free movement within EU this phenomenon has accelerated. Of course we always had people from Sicily moving to Milan (for instance) or from Italy to Germany or Switzerland. Before EU. I'm talking about the pace at which this classic phenomenon of migration happens, marton. Wiser regional development strategies should have been a priority for EU since the very beginning, but then again, that was so not the purpose of EU, was it.

Therein lies the problem with any attempt to have an open and balanced discussion regarding the EU. It is either brilliant or crap, polar reactions/responses blur objective understanding of where we are and how we got here. All those arguments and cries out in the 00s & 90s from academics/organisations/politicians across Europe for EU reform with transparency, accountability have fallen on deaf ears.

Has the EU, since the start, been too busy being all powerful and failed to prioritise and support the regions which needed infrastructure and development across Europe? One could easily argue if the EU isn't preventing the destablising trajectory of regional break down and development, then what is the point and purpose of the EU if not that?

Yes, acknowledgment that the EU brings with it huge benefits, but too few control it.. and we are where we are.

[MusicChick]

There is a EE (I suppose) saying - a shirt's closer than a jacket. EU is a jacket, if anyone doubts.

[marton]

	Quote:	marton
	More financial service losses for London Quote: Deutsche Bank has moved a “large part” of its euro clearing activity to Frankfurt from London in a boost to the efforts of the eurozone’s top financial centre to lure business away from the City before Brexit. Source Big things have small beginnings - Prometheus

Pace is accelerating, today's news.

	Quote:
	FrankfurtMainFinance@FMFdigital "We are excited that @CreditSuisse has decided for the Financial Centre #Frankfurt. With them, 25 financial services firms have declared Frankfurt as their destination of choice after #Brexit." - @HubertusVth

[marton]

	Quote:	Dougal's Breakfast
	Cool! Let's piss all over your personal experience with lots of links I dug up on google!

Facts are boring things aren't they?

Problem with personal experiences is that they are a limited statistical sample and so lead to misconceptions.

[marton]

	Quote:	amogles
	But of course only share statistics that support his POV.

What sort of clown shares statistics that do not support their own POV?

Oh, wait a minute, I see!

[amogles]

	Quote:	marton
	Facts are boring things aren't they? Problem with personal experiences is that they are a limited statistical sample and so lead to misconceptions.

	Quote:	marton
	What sort of clown shares statistics that do not support their own POV? Oh, wait a minute, I see!

So intentional misconceptions are better than accidental ones?

[marton]

	Quote:	Dougal's Breakfast
	I'll take both, because neither can tell the full story. But Marton's the kind of bloke who will (half-) listen to someone's account of surviving a plane crash by eating her fellow passengers and drinking her own urine then proceed to tell her how flying is the safest way to travel, while furiously googling for newspaper articles on his phone.

Every cloud has a silver lining

Monty Python - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

[MusicChick]

These exchanges are fun.

Well, one has serious shortage of qualified labor in EE despite the system donating free edu to their people. Ghost towns. It is an uncooth statistics and you had personal experiences of folks here to support it, too.

The problem is not so simple. If you come from a small place with top notch schools but only in a local language, all there is left for people to make themselves competitive elsewhere is to learn an international language or two. Which for somebody from a small place is logical and essential. Then you have hard working folks who work in a field where you don't need much language, so to achieve a level of competitivness elsewhere is even easier, you just need good work ethics. In my experience, this kind of moblity only really hurts the innitial small homeland.

Amogles - the mines were closed in CZ by local authorities despite the EU wanting to exploit them more. The level of landscape damage and massive pollution was destructive. Good for us, we had our strict health limits, the EU keeps pushing tolerant ones, for obvious reasons. We still have German companies eating away whole mountais by mining stone for construction material. These queries are viewed as healthy cooperation, but the dust pollutes. Germany has also sold us for decades their plastic trash, so they wouldn't have to pollute their place. If it is not labor, it is always something else. I think finally people are starting to worry less about immediate financial gain, but long term local sustainability. EU is certainly not prioritizing long term sustainability.

[greenmount]

	Quote:	Swisstree
	Therein lies the problem with any attempt to have an open and balanced discussion regarding the EU. It is either brilliant or crap, polar reactions/responses blur objective understanding of where we are and how we got here. .

Exactly. Marton is my favourite EFer though because for him is everything or nothing (seriously, I enjoy having a short exchange of replies with him exactly because I have the feeling I'm in front of a wall and I do like this kind of challenges). I cannot say he doesn't bring on good points but he's always so quick to dismiss everything the other part has to say. He even started his reply to me with a "LOL"...well, a bit insensitive imo but when marton wants to be right.. marton wants wants to be right! Once again you totally nailed it.