Mini, are you saying that the whole world has to suffer under it?
Claig I am keen on equality, wouldn't want anyone to feel they are missing out 
after a while, it all gets a bit tedious
Do you think Mr Pants you have a monopoly on feeling this way?
we have had an easy ride in the past. that is over. but it is what greater global fairness looks like. its going to get tougher and tougher for the West.
FasterStronger but the only real winners are the capitalist class who of course have no national loyalty, so yes not only are American corporations using offshore cheap labour, offshore tax havens they are also looking at growing economies to form their market. So whilst ordinary brits and american people are feeling the pinch in this global "readjustment" the capitalist class are not. Which is another reason why I find right wing rhetoric about immigration so annoying and simplistic. Whilst workers are denied the right to migrate, capital and corporations take flight and ignore boarders in pursuit of profit. This is why calls to nationalism are useful for the elite and a dead end for workers. Class interests should come before national interest for workers, just as it does for the capitalist class.
costs of housing is the state issued permission to build slip
Mr Pants, no. Those on the right like yourself would argue for a small state big on law. The position of the state under neo-liberalism is a precarious one where the state is expected to provide the contractual laws that govern activity within the free market. Under law those contracting should be equal, in practice they are not. The government permission needed to build is not as straight forward as saying it cost x- amount to gain approval and pass on the cost. In fact the issue is obscured by: political donations and solidarities btw state and capitalist owners, monopoly over land (look into how much Tesco and sainsbury are sitting on) What we actually need is land held in common.
Finally, the size of the state. The left are always being accused of wanting a large state with the death of individual liberty. What most on the left argue for is collectivisation of property and land owned in common. The large state came about in response to capitalism. (history shows us this)
I would argue that the conditions for : freedom FROM (insert poverty, hunger, injustice, discrimination....) must be met before the conditions: FOR (insert consumer choice, self actualisation, happiness, equality...) can be realised.
""The realm of freedom.....actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and of mundane considerations ceases" and it "lies beyond the sphere of actual material production" Marx
Where social power is held in the money form and accumulated over time into fewer hands, it is impossible to break the monotony of debt/labour slavery and be equal in terms of opportunity. The notion that equal opportunity and individualised freedom can be sought under a libertarian free market is a fiction peddled by those who hold social power.
The other bug I have is this nonsense that the left make moral arguments. I don't know anyone on the left that uses moralising argument or calls to sympathy. What is interesting from this thread is the collectivisation of those in pursuit of individual liberty back slapping each other over their warped right wing views.
Those on the left interestingly fail to jump to the defence of others on the left......why? because we actually feel others can speak for themselves and have MORE respect for individual liberty and confidence in others. That can never be a moral perspective because it confers no prejudice.