Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

@georgeob1,

I like this idea best:
Drawbacks
The biggest disadvantage of welfare is its cost to the local governments that administer it. Even with federal funding, states feel the burden of welfare in each annual budget. Welfare may encourage some recipients not to seek work, since a rise in income would disqualify them from receiving free benefits. It is also an opportunity for fraud, which occurs whenever someone supplies false information to receive welfare benefits without truly qualifying.

Alternatives
Instead of providing welfare directly to those in need, one alternative is funding programs that teach new skills or seek jobs for the unemployed. These programs take a different approach to the problem of unemployment but may take time to show results. Limits on welfare, such as the time limits for receiving unemployment benefits or a maximum monthly food stamp allowance, serve to limit the government's liability in a way that open-ended welfare does not.

Here's the summary of welfare in California. Most counties have different benefits.
http://www.cdss.ca.gov/cdssweb/pg54.htm

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@georgeob1,

We don't have referenda on federal basis here, but some states got them.

Ages ago, I watched a Landsgemeinde ("Cantonal assembly") in Switzerland - that's when citizens of a Kanton ("state") assemble annually in a public space under open sky to vote on a series of ballot questions and laws. That was in Appenzell Inner Rhodes, a "state" with a population of slightly more than 12,000 in those days (in the late 60's) and about 2,000 taking part. (It was the last Swiss canton to grant women the vote on local issues,btw, ... in 1991.)

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@cicerone imposter,

Perhaps, but the track records of most government operated "skills training programs" aren't very impressive either. Generally the programs involve out-of-date material; don't provide real measures of student performance; and merely involve make work for bureaucrats and indifferent students.

Nothing replaces the motivation of someone who wants to provide for himself and his family and is willing to work for it. The government appears to be actively discouraging job creation through myriad regulations and taxes applied to it and welfare payments that, as a perhaps unintended byproduct, discourage work.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

Findings from recent experimental evaluations of programs operated by states and nonprofit organizations, and careful studies of community colleges suggest that employment-focused programs, often developed in cooperation and collaboration with employer or industry partners, have been tremendously successful, producing returns for workers that far exceed the social cost of the programs.

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@cicerone imposter,

That may be true, but "often" is the operative word here. Most of the job trasining programs of the "great society" days was a huge waste. My experience in business indicates that, if the government will just get out of the way, lower taxes and reduce restictive, ususlly counterproductive regulations, business aiming to make a profit will find a practical way to train miotivated and willing workers. There are far more examples of that than of successful government programs.

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georgeob, you're just repeating right wing/conservative mantras.

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@georgeob1,

I believe that the GI Bill that allowed returning soldiers to go to college after WWII was a huge success. Also, I find Germany's internship programs to be highly successful.
I think the fact that unemployment is now below 5% presents many challenges not faced before our time. Even many college grads are having difficulty finding jobs. It's another environment when compared to the past.

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@georgeob1,

http://time.com/money/3857107/college-graduates-career-ready-overconfident/

Even college grads are having difficulty finding jobs.

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@contrex,

contrex wrote:

georgeob, you're just repeating right wing/conservative mantras.

That doesn't mean they're incorrect, dummy. What "mantras" tdo you repeat.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Self-styled "progressives" ( = people who claim to exclusively know what's good for the rest of us. and who wish to be judged on the supposed goodness of their intentions, as opposed to the results they actually achieve) have significantly expanded the authoritarian reach of our government bureaucracies, to the detriment of our economy and freedom.

My point about the EU is that it has streadily extended the reach of its governing apparatus well beyond the legitimacy of its democratically authorized charter. It did this, in part, by ignoring the results of referenda, and bypassing them through administratively enacted treaties. I suspect that is a fundamental cause of the debate we see about it in France, even Italy and several Eastern European nations. People aren't stupid, and they remember such things.

Since this thread is about the UK and the EU...

Most recent polls show that just 19% of people in the UK back fracking.
So, now the Prime Minister is amending the £1bn shale wealth fund (unveiled by former chancellor Osborne in November) so the money can go direct to residents rather than being given to councils or community trusts to spend, as Osborne planned.
This means, individual households will receive between £5,000 and £20,000.

"Democratic" bribery instead of ignoring the peoples' wishes and public opinion?

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@Walter Hinteler,

I don't know. It depends on local property law. Here (and this varies a bit state by state) if a property owner owns the property without any prior restrictions on mineral rights then he/she gets any royalties due to mineral extraction there. The municipality or local council gets only the royalties for the property it actually owns.

In most places in this country it wouldn't be styled as "democratic bribery" at all it would instead be the natural right of the property owners.

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@georgeob1,

It's not about property or related to property laws.

Originally, the industry had committed to a package for communities that host shale development: at exploration stage, £100,000 in community benefits per well-site where fracking takes place, and 1% of revenues at production should have been paid be paid out to communities.

It's planned now that this money goes directly to every private household.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

It's not about property or related to property laws.

Do owners of land in the UK or elsewhere in Europe also own the rights to any minerals found in our under it? Here they do and no external agent (i.e. community or community councial) can negotiate that right away from them under any circumstances. We do a lot of fracking here (at least in most states: some like New York stupidly forbid it).

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Do owners of land in the UK or elsewhere in Europe also own the rights to any minerals found in our under it?

The owner of land in the UK does not own rights to oil, petroleum, gas, coal, gold or silver found under it. These belong to the Crown, which can grant licenses. Other minerals are in private ownership, and although there is no national licensing system for exploration and extraction, planning permission must be obtained from a mineral planning authority for their extraction. The situation in Europe is mostly the same. The US situation of private ownership of mineral rights is more or less unique in the world.

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Is Brexit the first in a series of reverberations from that globalist rock in the pond?

http://www.businessinsider.com/brexit-was-nothing-compared-to-whats-coming-2016-8

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@contrex,

In Germany mining law is subject to concurrent legislation.

From the Basic Law ("constitution")

Quote:

Article 74
[Matters under concurrent legislative powers]

(1) Concurrent legislative power shall extend to the following matters:
[...]
11. the law relating to economic matters (mining, industry, energy, crafts, trades, commerce, banking, stock exchanges and private insurance), except for the law on shop closing hours, restaurants, game halls, display of individual persons, trade fairs, exhibitions and markets;

Historical background:

wikipedia wrote:

Mining law in Europe originated from medieval common law. From at least the 12th century, German kings claimed mining rights to silver and other metals, taking precedence over the local lords. But by the late Middle Ages, mining rights, known as the Bergregal were transferred from the king to territorial rulers. Initially, mining law was awarded orally or in writing by individuals. From the beginning of the 15th century it was enacted by territorial rulers in the form of decrees or regulations (mining regulations or Bergordnungen), which often remained in force until the 19th century. A new, far-reaching, legal basis was created with the General Mining Act for the Prussian States of 1865 (Allgemeinen Berggesetz für die Preußischen Staaten von 1865), which, with local variations, was adopted in Brunswick (1867), Bavaria (1869), Württemberg (1874), Baden (1890) and other countries. With the exception of the Kingdom of Saxony, where a similarly important legal statute, the General Mining Act of the Kingdom of Saxony (Allgemeines Berggesetz für das Königreich Sachsen) came into force on 16 June 1868, it became law in all the larger states of Germany.

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@contrex,

Thanks. I had a vague idea that things were diffferent in Europe, but didn't know the particulars. The bad legacy of Kings continues long after they leave the stage. Unfortunately contemporary progressives here often appear to consider themselves as something like kings. Details change but human nature lasts.

I like Barcelona too. However I have always found the emphatically repeated "Jo soi Catalan" a bit tiresome. ever since I first heard it as a Midshipman decades ago ( from a working girl on the Ramblas).

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I like Barcelona too. However I found the emphatically repeated "Jo soi Catalan" a bit tiresome.

My wife is learning Catalan. I am picking up a few phrases. Before Brexit we were planning to retire to Girona; maybe we still will. I agree with their aim of leaving Spain, just as I think the Scots are right to leave the UK, Brexit or no Brexit. In the first days after the referendum, we seriously toyed with the idea of moving to Scotland (if it can remain in the EU) in order to be "habitual residents" on day one of independence. We could sell our house in Bristol and get a similar size house in the Borders with about $100,000 left over to put in the bank. At the moment my employer pays for my accommodation in Perpignan, and I can stay on until retirement, but I don't want to lose EU citizenship. God knows if Article 50 will ever be triggered. As you will have gathered, I think the referendum was an idiotic mistake, and I do not believe the result is legally binding.

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@contrex,

I like both Barcelona and Madrid. They seem so different in their culture, it feels like a different country.

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@contrex,

I don't claim any particular knowledge of British law, but referenda are usually binding. I believe the EU has been largely a success of truly historical proportions, particularly when one looks back to Schuman's coal and steel community that, to many, is the start of it all. However, I do believe that the later stages of its growth and expansion were unwisely facilitated by ignoring the results of a couple of national referenda and bypassing future ones througth administratively engineered treaties. That would have been OK, and likely aceptable to all, had the EU governing bodies restricted their governance to that of a federal league of truly sovereign states. However, they went far beyond that specifying the details of innumerable economic social and commercial policies in sometimes exacting detail, and operating a largely bureaucratic government through a rather weak parliament" largely composed (It often appears to me) of various failed or retired national politicians. I suspect (but don't know for sure) that had a lot to do with the resistance that has recently grown not only in the UK but also in France, even Italy and among several Eastern European nations.

I suspect also that the economic (and political) dominance of Germany, (which, as an exporting nation, benefits from the EURO more than any other nation), coupled with the growing immigration issues are the current
drivers for the didssatifaction where it exists.

Given all the (mostly Scottish) blood that was shed creating the United Kingdom, I find it hard to see a lightly taken Scottish separation. However stranger things have happened. My parents immigrated to the USA as young children during the Irish revolution, so I was raised with a different perspective.

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Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

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