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I’m sure it sounds silly unless you’re the one who gets pushed down the waiting list for housing after you’ve been waiting for years. It all seems ludicrous until you’re the one clearly getting screwed over by the government.

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Mate, you clearly don't have the slightest fucking clue how housing allocation works in the UK. What government? What housing? Where are these people waiting? How is the housing free? Can you answer *any* of these questions?

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Calm down.

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Lana I *am* a completely new poster "parachuting" in just to tell you that I really very strongly feel like it was you who was the problem in these interactions. You began by lecturing someone who knows much more about this topic than you do, and then you "didn't like their tone" when they understandably became very irritated by that. Although you keep saying it's My File who has a problem here, it is not. It is you.

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Ok, I think the confusion lies in the fact that when I posted earlier I mentioned that it seemed like a lot of the problems that Brits were complaining about were similar to the ones we’re currently facing in the US with regard to overwhelming immigration. I have heard multiple British people complain about the housing shortage. We have the same problem here, so I mentioned that as well. No one is trying to lecture any Brit about how housing works over there. We do not give a shit about British politics. We left for a reason.

That being said, here in the United States a lot of people who have been on the waiting list for GOVERNMENT HOUSING, and who have been denied MEDICAID, but still can’t afford private insurance, and can barely afford food due to inflation are PISSED. Why are they pissed you might ask? Well, because they see literally millions of people being ushered over here by NGOs and other organizations and given all of these things that Americans have been trying to get for years. And then they gaslight us into thinking that if we complain or get pissed, it’s not because we’re actually paying to get screwed by our elitist government, but it’s because we’re just a bunch of ignorant racists who don’t understand how things work. We see it right in front of our faces.

So, please spend your whole Saturday responding to random people on the internet while you defend the British housing authority. I just wanted to clarify that one point before I go back to work.

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In the UK, there is largescale immigration, however it is mostly not illegal. It mainly people being allowed in by the government, to fill jobs for example in the state run health and social care systems which are otherwise vacant because they are low paid, and our population is becoming older. I believe something broadly similar is happening in the rest of western Europe and in the US, but I don't know as much about that.

These problems are enormously complex and non-linear. There is not really a shortage of housing in the UK. It's just that housing is unbelievably expensive. It was expensive 20 years ago, now it's so expensive that no one close the median wage can possibly hope to buy a house, certainly not anywhere near London.

The reason for that is growing economic inequality between the very rich and the very poor, and that is most definitely not caused by immigration, at least not the immigration of poor people. It's caused by international finance, who own all the mortgages and really love to invest in housing.

In the UK, we used to have plenty of government housing after WW2, but this was sold off into the private sector by Margaret Thatcher in the 80s. Now there is not enough to go around, and the ratio of earnings to house prices is fucked.

So while immigration might anger people, it is not really the cause of their problems. The cause is just money.

Why you folks keep bringing up "talking to random people on the internet" as you talk to random people on the internet is a bit beyond me. Yes, we are all talking to random people on the internet. I am also writing a grant proposal so there it is.

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Nope, you’re wrong. Sorry!

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So you didn't begin by lecturing someone who knows much more than you? And you didn't criticise their "tone" when they became irritated by that?

Those things do make you the instigator, even if the other person was easily inflamed by it.

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If you want to spend a beautiful Saturday playing lecturing schoolmarm on the internet, don’t let me stop you, but I’ve said my piece.

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What do you want from me, I'm from the same place as her, with long spells living in the US, and you pushed my buttons too.

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What do I care? Go for a run, make a sandwich, do literally anything else to take your mind off the mean internet lady.

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Oct 19Edited

blah. You don't care, that's the point we are making!!

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Yes, we agree on that.

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I thought you were going to stop engaging with me? Or was that flirting?

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