Elementary school, parents have to buy: construction paper, glue sticks, manilla paper, 1 package of paper (lined, handwriting), kleenex, and a pack of pencils that all go into the "community" pool for the classroom. The other supplies stay with the child, but that list is all doled out across the board, if you brought any or not. Mostly didn't bother me as a parent, the keenex did. Never seemed to be any that week that my child needed some of it.
Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
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But are you obligated to buy this or is it just "suggested"? A lot of teachers still send out these lists, even if you can't be forced to buy anything... and considering THEY usually have to buy an entire class's worth if you don't, I don't blame them.
I was going to say something about how you don't understand how the national debt works, but I'm still thunderstruck at the part where you angrily quote Karl Marx in regard to the handling of crayons for 4-year olds
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but that's kinda socialism, or mutualism or something: not all kids can get every pencil back and then some, can they? So as I understand it, kids bring pencils according to ability to buy them*, then use as many as they want (i.e. according to their pencil needs). SOCIALISM
*Well, or according to the parents' expectations of pencil use, or according to a standard... So here is where it breaks down.
I mean sure, but it only happens at the elementary level, where kids aren't likely to tell their parents they need new school supplies in the middle of the year, and I'd rather foot the bill than make the teacher do it. Once kids hit middle school, they're expected to have more personal responsibility.
New OECD report on taxing wages is out. In blue, the USA. In red, Belgium.
*cough*
WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!
Seriously, look at that gap. In most cases (like mine, singe person almost exactly on the Average Wage) it's not even *close* to number 2. Let alone such countries full of people complaining like the USA
Pity me?
*cough*
WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!
Seriously, look at that gap. In most cases (like mine, singe person almost exactly on the Average Wage) it's not even *close* to number 2. Let alone such countries full of people complaining like the USA
Pity me?
Except the EU has entire countries of free riders, in the form of places like Greece... which is rioting constantly over the austerity measures it's currently under, despite the fact that practically no one was paying their taxes for those entitlements.
http://www.oecd.org/tax/taxing-wages-20725124.htm
You can also read every country's summary from the report. Belgium's is funny: every paragraph starts with the same sentence. "Belgian tax payers in this category pay the highest of any taxes, and..."
Yeah, sure. Most of Europe is famous for them, but they aren't. Compare and contrast to Russia, China, Morocco, Australia, Indonesia, Japan,... There's fame and reality. Most European countries do not have horribly restrictive immigration policies, we have very restrictive immigration policies coupled with very lax asylum regulations. Want to look at the numbers of Syrians that've flocked to Belgium the last 2 years? I was just studying up - in all of the major cities in Belgium, in children aged 0-5, people with European ancestry (not "Belgians" - European!) are now heavily in the minority, in some cases being less than 1/3 of the children. I'm not opposed, really, but consider that for a second - amongst that 1/3, there's still some 10% or so from other nationalities in Europe. Children with "Belgian" parents are about 20%-25% of all children. Do we really need to accept even more immigrants than we're already doing for you to say we're not restrictive? Go have a look at https://suburbanstats.org/ and see if you can find any place with anything resembling that. Oh, I know: Belgian ancestry is less common in our youth than Hispanics in California. Belgian ancestry is less common than black people in NY state. Slowly but surely, Belgium (especially Brussels and Antwerp) are becoming more superdiverse than NYC or any other "melting pot" you care to name. There's a reason the extreme right is scoring high - people feel displaced in their own country. I mean, yes, people just need to suck it up and deal with it - I don't care that the future of my country will be slightly more colored than I am - but claiming we're too restrictive really comes off as not knowing what you're talking about these days. Turningback boats in the Mediterranean is no worse than, oh, shooting people crossing the border in Texas. To go with another stereotype.
You can also read every country's summary from the report. Belgium's is funny: every paragraph starts with the same sentence. "Belgian tax payers in this category pay the highest of any taxes, and..."
*snrk*
Yeah, sure. Most of Europe is famous for them, but they aren't. Compare and contrast to Russia, China, Morocco, Australia, Indonesia, Japan,... There's fame and reality. Most European countries do not have horribly restrictive immigration policies, we have very restrictive immigration policies coupled with very lax asylum regulations. Want to look at the numbers of Syrians that've flocked to Belgium the last 2 years? I was just studying up - in all of the major cities in Belgium, in children aged 0-5, people with European ancestry (not "Belgians" - European!) are now heavily in the minority, in some cases being less than 1/3 of the children. I'm not opposed, really, but consider that for a second - amongst that 1/3, there's still some 10% or so from other nationalities in Europe. Children with "Belgian" parents are about 20%-25% of all children. Do we really need to accept even more immigrants than we're already doing for you to say we're not restrictive? Go have a look at https://suburbanstats.org/ and see if you can find any place with anything resembling that. Oh, I know: Belgian ancestry is less common in our youth than Hispanics in California. Belgian ancestry is less common than black people in NY state. Slowly but surely, Belgium (especially Brussels and Antwerp) are becoming more superdiverse than NYC or any other "melting pot" you care to name. There's a reason the extreme right is scoring high - people feel displaced in their own country. I mean, yes, people just need to suck it up and deal with it - I don't care that the future of my country will be slightly more colored than I am - but claiming we're too restrictive really comes off as not knowing what you're talking about these days. Turningback boats in the Mediterranean is no worse than, oh, shooting people crossing the border in Texas. To go with another stereotype.
So you're saying you live in Wisconsin now, @Bubble181 ?
Necronic
Staff member
I didn't realize the subtlety about asylum regulations. Interesting. Based on stats I've seen you guys aren't really letting in that many though. In 2014 you let in a whopping 6k. You may be a small country but that's not a lot. In fact, in terms of percentages your country received no more refugees than the state of Texas (with a population of 27 million we received 12.5k). The ethnic demographics I've read for Belgium don't seem to show much real ethnic diversity, but that could be on the change as you are pointing out, EU membership definitely will drive that. Anywho, on to some more stats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Belgium#Ethnic_groups
in 2007 you had a foreign born (non-EU) population of 6.4%. There are some other numbers listed there but they seem a bit odd (like the 2012 number uses foreign born and their descendants which doesn't really mean much since their descendants are not immigrants)
There's some more data here:
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/belgium-country-permanent-immigration
That shows the % of non-EU foreign nationals at 3.4%, I have no idea why this number is so much lower, although it doesn't use the term Foreign born, that may be why? Not sure.
Perhaps its unfair to solely focus on Non-EU immigration and ignore EU immigration, I honestly don't know how to see it. The only comparison we have would be territorial immigration from Puerto-Rico, which isn't considered immigration by us. On the other hand the vast majority of immigration into the US is from Mexico, and I don't think it's reasonable to compare Mexican immigration to say, immigrants from Italy.
The Texas data is a bit clearer (this is state department info I believe)
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/state-profiles/state/demographics/TX
with a foreign born population of 16.5%, that's not an insignificant difference.
Please correct my numbers where you see problems with them. This was a pretty fast and dirty analysis/writeup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Belgium#Ethnic_groups
in 2007 you had a foreign born (non-EU) population of 6.4%. There are some other numbers listed there but they seem a bit odd (like the 2012 number uses foreign born and their descendants which doesn't really mean much since their descendants are not immigrants)
There's some more data here:
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/belgium-country-permanent-immigration
That shows the % of non-EU foreign nationals at 3.4%, I have no idea why this number is so much lower, although it doesn't use the term Foreign born, that may be why? Not sure.
Perhaps its unfair to solely focus on Non-EU immigration and ignore EU immigration, I honestly don't know how to see it. The only comparison we have would be territorial immigration from Puerto-Rico, which isn't considered immigration by us. On the other hand the vast majority of immigration into the US is from Mexico, and I don't think it's reasonable to compare Mexican immigration to say, immigrants from Italy.
The Texas data is a bit clearer (this is state department info I believe)
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/state-profiles/state/demographics/TX
with a foreign born population of 16.5%, that's not an insignificant difference.
Please correct my numbers where you see problems with them. This was a pretty fast and dirty analysis/writeup.
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http://www.oecd.org/tax/taxing-wages-20725124.htm
You can also read every country's summary from the report. Belgium's is funny: every paragraph starts with the same sentence. "Belgian tax payers in this category pay the highest of any taxes, and..."
*snrk*
Yeah, sure. Most of Europe is famous for them, but they aren't. Compare and contrast to Russia, China, Morocco, Australia, Indonesia, Japan,... There's fame and reality. Most European countries do not have horribly restrictive immigration policies, we have very restrictive immigration policies coupled with very lax asylum regulations. Want to look at the numbers of Syrians that've flocked to Belgium the last 2 years? I was just studying up - in all of the major cities in Belgium, in children aged 0-5, people with European ancestry (not "Belgians" - European!) are now heavily in the minority, in some cases being less than 1/3 of the children. I'm not opposed, really, but consider that for a second - amongst that 1/3, there's still some 10% or so from other nationalities in Europe. Children with "Belgian" parents are about 20%-25% of all children. Do we really need to accept even more immigrants than we're already doing for you to say we're not restrictive? Go have a look at https://suburbanstats.org/ and see if you can find any place with anything resembling that. Oh, I know: Belgian ancestry is less common in our youth than Hispanics in California. Belgian ancestry is less common than black people in NY state. Slowly but surely, Belgium (especially Brussels and Antwerp) are becoming more superdiverse than NYC or any other "melting pot" you care to name. There's a reason the extreme right is scoring high - people feel displaced in their own country. I mean, yes, people just need to suck it up and deal with it - I don't care that the future of my country will be slightly more colored than I am - but claiming we're too restrictive really comes off as not knowing what you're talking about these days. Turningback boats in the Mediterranean is no worse than, oh, shooting people crossing the border in Texas. To go with another stereotype.
You're right of course. Belgium probably let in more immigrants the entirety of Asia. I bet you that's not hyperbole either.
Necronic
Staff member
Actually....since you did choose to single out Texas, my home state, as being some anti-immigrant "shoot them at the border" state, let's talk about that. If we were to talk about immigration and the ethnic demographics of say, Nebraska, vs Belgium, then you may actually have a point about your country being very open. But Texas? Boy are you barking up the wrong tree..
Belgium is 89% Flemish and Walloon. Which is...white right? The remaining 11% is of other ethnicities. Except quite a few of those are....Italian. Which is....white. I'm honestly having a hard time finding a proper breakdown here. But let's just stick with 11%, it's what I'm seeing a lot of.
Texas? 45% white, 38% Hispanic, 12% African American, and 3% Asian. We actually have no-super majority of whites. How many countries in Europe could claim that.
Belgium is 89% Flemish and Walloon. Which is...white right? The remaining 11% is of other ethnicities. Except quite a few of those are....Italian. Which is....white. I'm honestly having a hard time finding a proper breakdown here. But let's just stick with 11%, it's what I'm seeing a lot of.
Texas? 45% white, 38% Hispanic, 12% African American, and 3% Asian. We actually have no-super majority of whites. How many countries in Europe could claim that.
I didn't claim we didn't have a current majorty of whites. Nor did I mention ethnicity. I'm talking cultural, not ethnicity, which is a whole different set of frontlines to be divided over. I also didn't say anything about NOW. I said, very clearly, that I was talking about youth aged 0-5. In all 4 of our major cities (combined to about 45% of the population), over 50% of all children of that age are born from parents from outside the EU; over 66% from parents not Belgian. Which, you know, means in some 30 years time our population will no longer have a majority of people from Belgian decent. Which some people - not me - consider a problem.
I also specifically said I was talking about Texas as a comparable, wrong, prejudice, not as something that's actually true.
"White" and 'black" are not the problem. According to some people, the ethnic difference between Spanish and Moroccon is small enough that we could regard North-Africans as "basically white" too. Doesn't matter. Ethnicity isn't a huge point here and really hasn't been in the longest time - most of what is being classed as "racism" in Belgium isn't, really - it's hatred/fear of different cultures (mostly Islamic), not of other races.
I also specifically said I was talking about Texas as a comparable, wrong, prejudice, not as something that's actually true.
"White" and 'black" are not the problem. According to some people, the ethnic difference between Spanish and Moroccon is small enough that we could regard North-Africans as "basically white" too. Doesn't matter. Ethnicity isn't a huge point here and really hasn't been in the longest time - most of what is being classed as "racism" in Belgium isn't, really - it's hatred/fear of different cultures (mostly Islamic), not of other races.
Where the f*ck did I even remotely claim that? But you, as an American, go and try to become Belgian, go and try to become Chinese (yes, I know, you worked there and lived there for a long time), and see which is harder.
No, but they are considered as such in most studies because they're in large part not integrated. When we're talking about allochtone/autochtone we're talking about 2nd and 3rd generation as well because they still don't consider themselves "Belgian". As I said, much more about culture than color.
Huh. Where did you get I was being sarcastic? I was being quite serious. Look at Japan/Koreans/China's immigration statistics. They're horrible.
...err...Now I'm lost. Are you saying you literally believe we let in more immigrants?
I guess if you compensated for population size and were talking about specific types of immigrants, it's possible I wouldn't be surprised. According to some stats, roughly 25% of Belgium's population are immigrants. Japan? 1.9%...err...Now I'm lost. Are you saying you literally believe we let in more immigrants?
I'll also say that I generally agree that while the EUs immigration policies aren't the most stellar in the world, they're a hell of a lot better than a huge chunk of the world.[DOUBLEPOST=1429116882,1429116722][/DOUBLEPOST]
And the majority of the population steadfastly refuses to relax immigration for all those dirty gajin. They'd do themselves a favor if they relaxed Asian immigration policies especially, but they need to change their attitudes first. If people think white/black racism is bad, they haven't seen Asian on Asian racism.
Necronic
Staff member
Oh yeah, fair point. Japan is one of the most xenophobic countries in the world. Nothing EU does can compare to that.
Anyways. Do you guys have some sources for that 50% comment? That sounds hard to believe when only 10% of your country are neither flemmish/waloon. I can't see how 50% of the births could be coming from 10% of the population.[DOUBLEPOST=1429117207,1429117084][/DOUBLEPOST]Wait...actually, if you're saying that 50% of the births are from non-EU people...that's only 6.4% of your population. Meaning that 6.4% of your population is responsible for 50% of the births? Dude you guys have some serious issues over there if that is true.
Anyways. Do you guys have some sources for that 50% comment? That sounds hard to believe when only 10% of your country are neither flemmish/waloon. I can't see how 50% of the births could be coming from 10% of the population.[DOUBLEPOST=1429117207,1429117084][/DOUBLEPOST]Wait...actually, if you're saying that 50% of the births are from non-EU people...that's only 6.4% of your population. Meaning that 6.4% of your population is responsible for 50% of the births? Dude you guys have some serious issues over there if that is true.
As you can imagine, most sources I use are in Dutch. I'm trying to find some where you can see/read it for yourself...But you're seriously misinterpreting some numbers if you think 6.4% of our population is from foreign origin. Most sources put it somewhere between 15 and 20%. In Brussels, well over 60% already.
Necronic
Staff member
That's not backed up by any census data I have seen, and sourced in this thread. If you can find some I would gladly read it, as I said I was doing a pretty quick and dirty analysis. My sources seem decent though.
You do make a good point about color vs culture, and I think we are talking about cross purposes around this. I don't know if we do integrate people better here, although it would explain why we don't count second gen+, but there's an article here that suggests we do. I don't really understand why we would be doing better.[DOUBLEPOST=1429117767,1429117627][/DOUBLEPOST]One point that article makes that I think is really cogent is summed up by the following: "imagine if Mexicans built mosques". The implication is that our greatest immigration population has a shared faith, meaning shared cultural roots, which is a big advantage that you don't really have in Europe.[DOUBLEPOST=1429118163][/DOUBLEPOST]Wow, ok I'm looking at Brussels demographics now. Very different in that city. 25% muslim, . It's fair to talk about the city itself if you would like, but I'm not sure you could extrapolate that out to the country, it is not representative.
I'm currently looking at some detailed demographic excel data from this place that...well...it's in French. So. Yeah. It doesn't break out the stuff by city alone, but across your whole country it is backing the numbers I am quoting.[DOUBLEPOST=1429118544][/DOUBLEPOST]Here's the page I got the excel data from. Use the nationalities spreadsheet. Sheet 1.3.3.1 It actually does give specific data for Brussels, it's highlighted in Yellow
Here's what I gather. In the whole of Brussels you have ~9k turks, 44k north Africans, 27k sub-Saharan Africans, 10k south/central americans (really?), and 30K "other"
This comes out to 0.7% turks, 4% north African (morrocan?), 2.3% subSaharan African, 0.8% Latin American, and 2.6% other.
Total that is roughly 10.4%
You do make a good point about color vs culture, and I think we are talking about cross purposes around this. I don't know if we do integrate people better here, although it would explain why we don't count second gen+, but there's an article here that suggests we do. I don't really understand why we would be doing better.[DOUBLEPOST=1429117767,1429117627][/DOUBLEPOST]One point that article makes that I think is really cogent is summed up by the following: "imagine if Mexicans built mosques". The implication is that our greatest immigration population has a shared faith, meaning shared cultural roots, which is a big advantage that you don't really have in Europe.[DOUBLEPOST=1429118163][/DOUBLEPOST]Wow, ok I'm looking at Brussels demographics now. Very different in that city. 25% muslim, . It's fair to talk about the city itself if you would like, but I'm not sure you could extrapolate that out to the country, it is not representative.
I'm currently looking at some detailed demographic excel data from this place that...well...it's in French. So. Yeah. It doesn't break out the stuff by city alone, but across your whole country it is backing the numbers I am quoting.[DOUBLEPOST=1429118544][/DOUBLEPOST]Here's the page I got the excel data from. Use the nationalities spreadsheet. Sheet 1.3.3.1 It actually does give specific data for Brussels, it's highlighted in Yellow
Here's what I gather. In the whole of Brussels you have ~9k turks, 44k north Africans, 27k sub-Saharan Africans, 10k south/central americans (really?), and 30K "other"
This comes out to 0.7% turks, 4% north African (morrocan?), 2.3% subSaharan African, 0.8% Latin American, and 2.6% other.
Total that is roughly 10.4%
Yes, but also bear in mind you're conflating some numbers I used. I did specify for some numbers 'in cities" and for others 'in the country' and so on. I know, I'm a bit chaotic sometimes...
Anyway, looking further, yes I was messing up the non-Belgian and non-EU numbers. It's about 20% non-Belgian for Belgium.
Anyway, looking further, yes I was messing up the non-Belgian and non-EU numbers. It's about 20% non-Belgian for Belgium.
I think the fundamental fear here is that their culture couldn't survive the introduction of a large mass of foreigners without changing a lot of how things work day to day. One of the big ones is working culture: in virtually the rest of the world, no one would be willing to work the hours that Japanese do because they have family obligations that come first... we'd want to leave at a normal time so we could see our families, instead of pretending to work until the boss leaves and then pretending we enjoy hitting a bar after work every night to appease our coworkers. They just don't know how to deal with that kind of outlook... they think foreigners that do this are stealing from them or something. When your culture essentially runs on useless ritual, anyone not following the program is apparently a BIG FUCKING DEAL.
That's not even getting into the just plain old racism. Wasn't their Miss Universe/World/Whatever contestant lambasted by her own people for being only half Japanese? They acted like she wasn't culturally appropriate enough, essentially because her features weren't pure Japanese.
Now... all of this stuff IS changing. A lot of Japanese young people are completely rejecting the current corporate culture as pointless, mostly because they don't have the "one company for life" job security that their parents and grand parents did. But it's going to be awhile until Japan can operate as a fully integrated first world economy instead of it's current isolationist one.
Necronic
Staff member
Belgian wide for the same groups we have 0.3% turks, 0.8% North African, 0.6% sub-Saharan African, 0.2% latin American, and 0.8% "other" , which is about 3% total. So clearly Brussels is a far more diverse than the rest of Belgium, but neither is really particularly diverse.
By the numbers of http://www.diversitybelgium.be/ -> it's about 25% of the current population that's from recent foreign origin. In Brussels, well over 68% is of foreign decent. Which makes it easy to see how they're about 80% of births in Brussels (hey look, the numbers are actually higher here) of births in Brussels in 2014 (68% of people for 80% of births hopefully doesn't bother you =P).
Necronic
Staff member
So, I'm not discounting your numbers, I truly am not. But why in the world are we getting such different numbers from all these different sources?[DOUBLEPOST=1429119507,1429119295][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, where did you find that data in there? I'm not seeing anything about demographics. It almost seems more like a Belgian ACLU.
Oh, Japan knows why its population is shrinking.
...they just don't consider it a problem.
--Patrick
Necronic
Staff member
Huh, yeah we really ARE talking about different things. I don't even know how you would look at peoples descent in the US other than by race, most of this country hasn't been here for more than 3 or 4 generations. Anywho, where in that link are you getting that data you're showing me? I couldn't seem to find it.