Only Immigration can save us from Pensioners

Loughton_Monkey

chewmylegoff wrote: »

.....

1) increase in productivity (either by everyone working harder, or more people turning up and doing work to produce stuff) so there is more activity to tax to pay the benefits pledged to pensioners

2) tax the existing people (lots) more

3) restrict the amount paid to pensioners (potentially by lots)

4) stop spending money on healthcare for people over the age of 65

the first and third look more attractive to me, but others may disagree.

Ultimately, it's only the first. All the rest are simply 'distribution' issues. There are an infinite number of ways to distribute the wealth, and this is (and will) always be the stuff of politics/debate.

But basically only productivity will increase the 'wealth'. Even then, some so-called 'productivity' doesn't produce diddly-squat. Making things. Growing things. Turning raw metal into useful things....... fine.

To prove it, I suggest a pilot study. Take every single hairdresser in the country. Get them together. Whip the !!!! out of them! Make them work 23 hours a day at 50 pence an hour. Productivity (per hairdresser at least) will improve vastly. But the nation has no greater wealth.....

olly300

lisyloo wrote: »

I don't think this would work very well.
Many people simply wont be able to work up to 80 health wise.
We may be living longer but we're not all in good health.
Anecdotally I'd say about half of my relatives wouldn't be able to work past 65.
So you would only get a proportion (and not a high proportion) of people who were able to work longer.
The problem would be much worse for people with physical skills like builders than for sedentary office workers.
I'm not saying there is no merit in it as I thik retirement age HAS to be raised as part of the solution but you need to factor in that as that age gets older, the % who are able to work is going to decrease and quite significantly.

There was a program on BBC2 with Nick and Margaret from The Apprentice looking at older workers versus younger workers.

What was interesting apart from the general poor attitude of the younger workers is that only about a 3rd of the older workers could work pass retirement age.

Even then there had to be some modifications for those in jobs that involved any physical activity. The jobs included builders, estate agents and being a waitress.

kabayiri

Joeskeppi wrote: »

Plenty of good counter argumennts to this but not many alternatives. Seems as though all we can do is bump retirement age up to 80 and have done with it.

It's very difficult to come up with anything fail safe, but here's a hypothecated example.

Wind the clock back pre-Google, just one and a half decades ago.

Suppose, the high risk strategy is to support UK research into coming up with the Google concept, with say 5 independent people or teams.

Only one of these would need to come up trumps.

Now imagine the revenue a UK derived Google would bring; some of it valuable taxation revenue to the country. Revenue worth billions in the long run.

The next Google is out there waiting to be discovered. The harsh truth is that masses of window cleaners; road sweepers; biscuit packers; these are not the people who are going to discover it.

Why isn't our immigration policy geared towards enticing these true technological entrepreneurs to our shores?

We don't need hundreds of thousands of these types, just hundreds.

CLAPTON

kabayiri wrote: »

It's very difficult to come up with anything fail safe, but here's a hypothecated example.

Wind the clock back pre-Google, just one and a half decades ago.

Suppose, the high risk strategy is to support UK research into coming up with the Google concept, with say 5 independent people or teams.

Only one of these would need to come up trumps.

Now imagine the revenue a UK derived Google would bring; some of it valuable taxation revenue to the country. Revenue worth billions in the long run.

The next Google is out there waiting to be discovered. The harsh truth is that masses of window cleaners; road sweepers; biscuit packers; these are not the people who are going to discover it.

Why isn't our immigration policy geared towards enticing these true technological entrepreneurs to our shores?

We don't need hundreds of thousands of these types, just hundreds.

of the 6 billion people in the world how do we know which 100 we should invite here?

why would USA, China, India, Europe invite them instead?

olly300

kabayiri wrote: »

It's very difficult to come up with anything fail safe, but here's a hypothecated example.

Wind the clock back pre-Google, just one and a half decades ago.

Suppose, the high risk strategy is to support UK research into coming up with the Google concept, with say 5 independent people or teams.

Only one of these would need to come up trumps.

Now imagine the revenue a UK derived Google would bring; some of it valuable taxation revenue to the country. Revenue worth billions in the long run.

The next Google is out there waiting to be discovered. The harsh truth is that masses of window cleaners; road sweepers; biscuit packers; these are not the people who are going to discover it.

Bit of snobbery there.

There are lots of people who start of doing mundane jobs as young people, get an idea and develop a business out of it. Some of the Dragons from Dragons Den started out like that.

Oh and lots of window cleaners are self-employed. A few have the drive and the ability to make their business bigger while some don't.

kabayiri

CLAPTON wrote: »

of the 6 billion people in the world how do we know which 100 we should invite here?

why would USA, China, India, Europe invite them instead?

Mailshot? Something like : "Are you a genius with a world class money making idea? Apply within"

Actually, I am interested as to why many of these ambitious companies seem to emanate from the USA. It can't be coincidence. Google, Apple, Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft, IBM. Is it a cultural environment thing, where to try and fail is seen as okay?

kabayiri

olly300 wrote: »

Bit of snobbery there.
...

Nope, just realism.

I don't claim that the creator of Facebook is a more important role than that of a nurse or window cleaner. I merely claim it has the capacity to generate more revenue.

It comes down to whether you can achieve greater revenue to support our elderly from masses of people, or fewer people capable of generating higher individual returns.

A._Badger

kabayiri wrote: »

Mailshot? Something like : "Are you a genius with a world class money making idea? Apply within"

Actually, I am interested as to why many of these ambitious companies seem to emanate from the USA. It can't be coincidence. Google, Apple, Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft, IBM. Is it a cultural environment thing, where to try and fail is seen as okay?

That is a very significant factor. I've known a lot of successful American businessmen who have only succeeded on a third or fourth attempt. There isn't the social penalty for initial failure that we have in the UK.

There is also a far more bracing climate in the USA. Take away the extremes of the welfare state and people have to work. Moreover, wealth isn't sneered at (so much) by the 'intellectual' middle class, nor sniped at by the envious poor.

Brits may see it as vulgar but it gets results.

Loughton_Monkey

kabayiri wrote: »

.....Why isn't our immigration policy geared towards enticing these true technological entrepreneurs to our shores?

Apparently it is - up to a point.

But have you ever noticed that Government policy and Government agency practice are two entirely different things?

There are serious issues of intellect and communication here. Always has been to an extent [Yes Prime Minister and all that] but I tend to believe it's a bigger problem than most people realise.

Ministers have their policies or 'visions' that they cannot articulate very well. They cannot "manage". They couldn't manage to run a bath. So it's left to Civil Servants. These have never had any 'vision' in their lives. All they know is red tape and bureacracy.

But a budget of £750 million, and two years later, something is up and running. Far too late to understand what the hell they were set up to do. They do what they want. Look at the CPA for example. Look also at the agency set up to impound and liquidate all the assets of convicted fraudsters, conmen, drug dealers and the like. They do nothing of the sort. They simply 'negotiate' and when they have more than about 10% of the ill-gotten gains, they issue certificates to the criminals confirming that they have no further liability.

Turning back to immigration, I think some vague message has gone down saying "only let in specialists and wealth makers". Now Romanians and Bulgarians do not currently have the right to come and work in 'ordinary' occupations. But they come in as "Self Employed" - quite legally. Immigration Department and Government pat each others' backs because we have 75,000 extra self employed (i.e. entrepreneurs here). Turns out they are bed-makers earning only £2 an hour (quite legal because they are not entitled to minimum wage). It's pathetic.

AlexMac

The recent ONS statistic that there are 160,000 more people who, like me and her indoors, are turning 65 this year merely reflects the 1947 birth rate as chaps and chapesses who'd returned from the 1939-45 war got into their stride in the breeding game.

In fact the 160k INCREASE masks the fact that well over 750,000 people will turn 65 this year- which allowing for a bit of age-related attrition (for those born in '47 who didn't make 65) means that only that as well as me, over 800,000 were born in 1947 compared with about 650,000 in 1946.

But project this numbers game forward and we'll solve the problem through simple malthusian demographics. Put simply, 'my g g g g generation' will 'die before we get old' (as the Who put it in their iconic 1960's rock anthem). So as the baby boomers start dying off in droves in the next 10-20 years, we'll then have a shortage of grumpy old hippies, rockers and mods!

Even assuming the post-war baby boom carried on into 1948, 49 and the early 50's, after which I suspect newborn numbers tailed off a bit, and given that net immigration was low til the 60's, because the early post war migrants of the 1950's were not yet of breeding age, we'll have a self correcting demographic. Statistically, contemporary young immigrant communities are far more fertile than the indigenous aboriginal Brits, so we are probably experiencing another baby boom, and with luck, we'll be awash with young tax-paying workers by the time I get gaga and need help with the incontinence pads.

But I'm sure there's a Government department somewhere with a planning handle on this; after all, look what a good job they're doing planning the economy!