The king shared breakfast at a primary school yesterday morning, which is something that quite a few children dream about every day. It’s kind of hard to learn on an empty stomach, so in that royal way, poverty is passed down from generation to generation. Politicians can chat about integration and innovation, but hunger speaks. Where you were born determines your chances.
When our King threw a toilet bowl, it not only symbolized the billions of people who spread infectious diseases on this planet due to a lack of sanitary facilities, it also symbolized the million Dutch people who do not have their own house with their own toilet bowl. That may be difficult to imagine if you have to choose which palace you sleep in.
Mark Rutte flew at his own expense to a sultan who built a palace with 1001 rooms in the middle of a protected nature reserve. Our prime minister can only become boss of NATO if he bows to the caliph of the new caliphate. The Swedish Kingdom ticked off and preceded him. Turkey and Hungary only accept vassals they can demonstrably extort.
Our politics is slowly losing its grip on reality. People who don’t follow the rules exactly present us with a fait accompli. Despite all kinds of rules, they just do and come. They take. We then feel compelled by international treaties to provide them with lawyers, beds, cash, a roof, education, formal human rights and health care.
Politicians no longer have insight into what is really happening and are shy to take action. The police and the COA discourage reports, out of political correctness we do not register sensitive characteristics of perpetrators. We manipulated scientific research into crime from the WODC. We have no vision on or against crime, migration or military dictatorships.
The forming parties are having a semantic discussion about whether there is an asylum crisis. On the one hand, it is no longer possible to accommodate, assess or integrate the influx. On the other hand, immigration lawyers do not find the influx unexpectedly large. According to them, this can all be easily solved, there just needs to be more money and more space.
There is a housing crisis for status holders, migrant workers and other people waiting for a home. The entire Dutch population growth comes purely from migration. The demand for homes is rising sharply, while the supply of new construction is halving. In any case, there is no electricity anymore. The minister is taking strong action with price maximization for new construction and rental.
Anyone who has followed business economics knows that when market prices fall, supply falls. Maximizing prices is cheap populism for buyers and tenants, who feel immediately helped, while it only applies to new sales and rentals. Home seekers see the supply drying up, and the bottom line is that almost no one gets a forcibly discounted home.
When renting out homes at the bottom of the rental market, there is a significant risk of nuisance, non-payment, cannabis plantations or other destructive behavior. It is quite easy to dismiss slum landlords as money grabbers, if you know the social role that has been imposed on them by judges. They are blackmailed into solving impossible problems.
Together with the normal obligations for a good landlord, the bottom line is no longer profitable. Allowing it to decay empty can yield more. You can then completely forget about residential construction, which is only for project developers who want to litigate for decades about environmental impact assessments, nitrogen rights and energy transition.
The United Kingdom will deport asylum seekers and illegal migrants to Rwanda. Initially, this costs more than shelter in Great Britain. Unfortunately a short-sighted calculation. What is the deterrent effect? What is the benefit of people not disappearing into illegality for years after rejection? What may it cost to maintain social cohesion?
It is a stark contrast to the tunnel vision that our Dutch policy is the only option due to all kinds of international treaties. A view that is demonstrably incorrect, as there are major differences within the provisions that Member States within the EU have for unsolicited migration. Belgium, for example, refuses all men. Our charity becomes our grave.
An asylum center in a palace is the final part of this royal road.
