I fairly strongly suspect that very few people really want to ever move that far from the place where they were born. I know that there are exceptions, of course, but the vast majority of people in the UK and around the world do live not far from that place. The reasons are obvious. Family, friends and familiarity with the locale all provide a firm foundation for living well. People stay close to what and who they know in that case.
Unless that s they are forced to do otherwise.
People are now leaving Hong Kong.
And unsurprisingly there is going to be a rush of refugees from Afghanistan very soon.
We are all too familiar with the plight of people from other territories such as Syria.
To this the stress of climate change-driven migration will be added soon. That is inevitable.
I have no obvious answer to the misery that this will cause all those who have to leave the place that they think to be home. I note the stress this will cause them. But as importantly, I wonder how are we preparing to help? It is one of the aspects of climate change to which far too little attention is now being given.
If anyone asks me to predict a future crisis, this is high on the list. Thinking about it now would be of considerable benefit.
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Richard,
This is not a response to the article, but a request for clarification that should probably have gone elsewhere. Please accept my apologies.
Is it correct that the logic of MMT suggests that the device of buying its own bonds is totally unnecessary in deficit financing? Isn’t the logical process to simply have an “account” (presumably virtual) and a system of payment authorisation (which must exist already) ? In other words, there is no working balance, no credits, no debits, merely a mechanism for transferring payments. Pay 20 billion each to the NHS and the following corrupt friends. That’s it. Have I missed something? Of course, I understand the need of government and the elite to mystify the process in some way, but that’s political. COULD the system be as simple as I suggest?
Apologies – this one got missed for a while – I am not sure how that happens
You describe what could happen
WHat should happen
It is the simple running of an overdraft which in truth is what the system delivers
BUT political economy does not permit that so we ended up with the QE game
I have long thought that the ‘hostile environment’ and whipping up xenophobia of the last 10 years IS the strategy this government has chosen. Putting all the barriers in place now.
Yes, I agree. We have known this was coming for a long time (as we have known global warming was coming: Reagan denied it because back then the USA was the chief offender. Now they can use it to slag off the Chinese, it is admissible again). Back in 1990 the BBC made a film about migration called The March, starring Juliet Stevenson. The film depicted the EU reacting badly and offered no solutions. I think awareness of this looming crisis has been at the back of our minds for decades and has been the cause of many disastrous developments, not least Brexit.
From an excellent article by Peter Lee https://www.patreon.com/peterleechinathreatreport
and goes with my post below.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/unlocked-end-of-54113371
‘ First, the doom of the climate change regime was sealed when the United States refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 1998.
It was double doomed when the United States under Barack Obama imposed a successor regime that eliminated legally binding caps for anyone.
It was triple doomed when Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement.
It was quadruple doomed when the United States under Joe Biden decided that its highest priority and organizing principle of policy was to treat the People’s Republic of China as America’s prime geopolitical adversary.
Doom doom de doom doom doom. You get the picture.’
I have been reflecting on and speaking about this matter for quite a while in the context of the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25. Covid-19, as utterly ghastly as it is, has given the leaders of the nations a perfect opportunity to bring about the fruit of working together, supporting one another and engaging fully in what is an immediate and major global challenge. However, after I have gone and will be pushing up the daisies, but for the generations of my children and grandchildren in the latter part of this century there are several potential and far greater global disasters that are fully foreseeable right now. Climate change, rising sea levels, wide-scale drought, flooding, etc., all point to large-scale population migrations, which could make the impact of Covid-19 pale into insignificance. The Parable of the Talents talks of the challenge of how those entrusted with 1, 2 and 5 talents respectively went about their ‘master’s’ business and how they handled the challenge of their stewardship of his assets. For those who think that Covid-19 is a 5 talent challenge for the world, i.e., the biggest and most difficult, I think in the persepctive of this century will prove that to be wrong. At most, it is a 2 talent challenge bringing some but marginal reward; but I suspect that those many others and their nations thus far deprived of any but inadequate help would regard that the leaders of the nations have addressed this pandemic as near to a 1 talent response. The inability and/or unwillingness of the leaders of the nations to address the global implications of Covid-19 in the perspective of climate change and mass migration in later years, leave me fearing for the future.
Me too
There is always going to be a tension between the xenophobia prescribed by government hostile environment policy ie the barbaric treatment of migrants to the UK and the constant refrain of antagonism to refugees fleeing war, starvation or climate change and the economic imperative of requiring workers in key and essential occupations. With an ageing UK population, Brexit and other factors, there remains labour shortages and paradoxically some unemployment due to the inadequacy of education and training due to the government austerity policy of the last 11 years.
My view is that it is the environment that is calling time on our obsession with self-realisation – the ability to do what we like, when we like, how we like, as often as we like.
We are now in a perfect storm aren’t we – the weather and its attendant problems (fires, floods etc.,) and markets that pretend that either everything is the same (we still see for example SUVs travelling sublimely through empty cities) or that their hybrid vehicles can salve our consciences and solve the problem. Even I would secretly like one of those Mazda SUVs but it wouldn’t be justifiable would it?
Well, that’s all bullshit.
The party’s over – Maggies ‘great car economy’ has proven to be a disaster and nothing but short termism.
Trolley buses? Bring ’em back.
Trams – lets have more of them.
Railways – well – lets bring back what has been scrapped and lost – milk, newspapers, mail – the lot. Lets get some of those lines back, starting with the Woodhead route. And lets get rid of the current separation on the railways of track, rolling stock and service providers (all salami sliced to provide opportunities for profit) and bring it back as a strategic asset of national importance. And enlarge the loading gauge as well.
And for goodness sake lets get used to travelling together again. It bizarre that we think being stuck in cars in traffic is an improvement in travelling.
As for migration I share your fears. My biggest fear being that we do not have the leadership we need to deal with these issues. Those of us who are safe (like here in the UK – for now at least) are going to see some very unsettling things in the coming years I tell you.
I am pretty much on that hymn sheet
I’ve just read a social media remark by someone who attended a briefing for investors on climate change that they were advised that the UK, Ireland, Iceland and New Zealand would be good places to shelter in the coming decades. I agree that a factor in organised xenophobia is to build consensus that climate change refugees should be violently prevented from reaching refuge here. If I had to flee the UK, I would logically try to get in to Canada where I have close family and friends to help me. It makes sense to me that refugees with family and friends among the diverse UK population would seek to join them here. Anyone wanting to stem that tide should consider that ceasing asap to wreak havoc on their territories through warfare and resource extraction would be way more cost effective (even, whisper it low, more decent and humane) than letting them drown while demonising the lifeboat crews who daily risk their lives to rescue anyone in peril on the sea.
Sickening.
It’s amazing how ‘market-think’ turns disaster into opportunities for the rich. What sort of morality is that?
My worry in this scenario is that lower income families in these countries will be increasingly priced out and may well become economic migrants themselves as the rich flock to them. We see displacement in my area now as cash rich southerners who have given up trying to live in over-priced areas move to the Midlands to get more bang for their buck and we see house prices going up over 50% from March this this year – that’s right, March!
The rich and their market enablers clearly just want to monopolise every advantage for themselves and sod everyone else.
Where’s the democracy and humanity in that?
Answer: there is none at all.
Good point about wealthy climate refugees. Our rulers would see them as potential donors and fill the quotas with their names, leaving just the ‘ordinary’ folk swimming for dear life. They’d sneer at the saying that those enjoying good fortune should build longer tables, not higher walls.