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    #26
    On the mundane thread last week I mentioned I nearly went to a party a week early,It's actually a farewell party for a Polish couple who are heading home after 18 years,while neither of them had spectacular paying jobs (printer and shop assistant) they earned enough to build a pretty impressive looking house from scratch in their home town which shows the difference in wages and cost of living that still exists between west and east Europe

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      #27
      Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
      It also cuts into the Kipperish argument sometimes advanced that free movement is knackering 'home' economies as well as 'host' economies so the EU is terrible.
      Not saying that's the point you're making, mind.
      I see that argument as one made by Kipper types in order to pretend that they actually give a shit about human beings. Farage did some bit once when he was challenged on his "I wouldn't want to live next door to a Romanian" line, that actually he meant that Romania was suffering from emigration.

      Obviously in his case it is just an attempt to put a smokescreen around his very blatant racism. But there is a grain of truth in it. Personally I'd say that the problem with the EU in this regard is structural inequality which causes people to move to a place where they can better provide for their families. ie it is not free movement that is the problem, but inequality. Throughout (capitalist) history people have always migrated towards opportunity/money. It doesn't matter if they are Geordies moving to London or Romanians moving to Spain, the principle is the same. And ultimately it is the country of emigration (not the country of immigration) that suffers from this movement of peoples. If the EU were to act better in making things equal across the continent then this flow would at least slow down.

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        #28
        Or Irish people to Middlesbrough.

        And the problem there is again of selling wealth transfers from rich Western Europe to poor Central/Eastern Europe to rich taxpayer s in Western Europe and so the merry go round continues.

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          #29
          Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
          Or Irish people to Middlesbrough.

          And the problem there is again of selling wealth transfers from rich Western Europe to poor Central/Eastern Europe to rich taxpayer s in Western Europe and so the merry go round continues.
          Exactly. though one could argue that it is in the interests of the rich west for the status quo to go on , so they're not really inclined to sell any kind of solution to their electorates anyway.

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