Net migration down nearly 100,000 over the year

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And everyone else.

I absolutely guarantee you that if you were offered the choice, today, to change to a system where increasing population was not required, you'd look at the numbers in terms of what it would cost you and everybody else in society, then realise it was completely and utterly unaffordable.

You'd be talking in the region of taxes doubling for everybody, and that would also collapse the economic system as we know it.

We can afford it. It would be hard. Very hard. But we can afford it, and we only have ourselves to blame. We cannot blame anyone else. The only reason it would be difficult to afford such taxes is that we are all up to our necks servicing debt payments from the day we leave school.

Theres another side to this equation though, a side which you never seem to think about.

What happens when we take, say 100,000 people out of Poland? What happens to their tax systems? What happens to their pensions? What happens to their country?

The only answer is....it declines. It declines from an already, much lower point than ours.

They will pay the price for us keeping our standard of living. It's already happened.

So how do you feel about that? Or is it of no concern so long as it's not us in decline?

At some point you have to understand that it's not immigration that is the key. It's that our systems are wrong and cannot function without an ever growing population and ever growing debt. Poorer countries are not there to serve us. They are not there to be exploited for our greed. To have you claim that others are racists when your views on people from other nations are so clear cut is simply mindblowing.

We have to, at some point, recognise that the system is broken. Not every western country can fight for immigrants. Not every western country can have immigration as their economic policy. It's impossible. Yet is is their key policy only because they know what we know, our systems, our way of living, our greed cannot continue. Not without huge numbers suffering at the bottom.

The Euro crumbled ages ago due to this, it's just been kept on life support. I laughed the other day when a poster said "if the US stops sneezing, we'll stop getting a cold"..... which completely ignored the fact that while sneezing, the patient is on life support. Yet it's only the sneeze thats seen as the issue.

The system cannot continue. It could continue with what you state....yes. For a while. Enough time for us. But what about the rest Hamish?

CLAPTON

The world's resources can't afford a system that depends upon an massively increasing population.

Whatever the problems of an aging population are, they are nothing compared to the alternative of a massively expanding world population.

Hamish's rather colonial view that other races and nations are there to service us is rather old fashioned.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

We can afford it. It would be hard. Very hard. But we can afford it, ?

How?

How can we afford it?

Every single credible economist, think tank, research body, academic and government organisation says we simply can't.

Not without some immigration, some raising of pension age, some additional savings, some additional contributions.

A blended approach.

What if the cost to you was to double your tax contributions for life? AND to save twice what you do now in pension contributions?

Because that wouldn't be far off in reality from the real costs of doing what you propose.

How could you afford that?

How could anyone afford to pay two thirds of your gross income in tax, AND save most of the rest, AND have less in tax credits/benefits/services, AND still live day to day?

Other than a few millionaires and the top couple of percent of earners, I don't know anybody that could afford that.

So to say we could is a complete nonsense Graham.

And what about the costs to the economy of doing so? How many business would close if we removed 30% of consumer spending because it was taken in tax? How many millions made unemployed?

What you propose is economic and social suicide. It's madness.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

What if the cost to you was to double your tax contributions for life? AND to save twice what you do now in pension contributions?

I could afford that.

Sure, my standard of living would decline as would my disposable income. I may have to re-look at my priorities.

But, I could afford it.

As could you.

But it would be MY standard of living decreasing to pay MY way. It wouldn't be someone in Poland suffering to pay my way.

Theres a whole host of other things that could be done to achieve this though. One is the cost of living. Reduce that, reduce the price we all have to pay for accomodation for instance and you have a lot of scope to double taxes.

The rich could pay far more. We could leave the EU and make sure monopolies pay their fair share in tax to this country. Loads of stuff we could do to achieve it without neccesarily having to double taxes.

Companies could stop hiding behind the benefits system and pay a living wage. Shareholders would suffer sure, but someone has to and I don't think it should be innocent people left in Poland or the people we invite in here and treat as tax slaves.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

CLAPTON wrote: »

The world's resources can't afford a system that depends upon an massively increasing population.

Whatever the problems of an aging population are, they are nothing compared to the alternative of a massively expanding world population.

Wow, you are so behind the times with the latest news it's remarkable.

The big worry now is not endless population growth, it's population decline.

The global population will continue to grow for decades. "But," says Wolfgang Lutz, "that shouldn't distract us from the fact that an entirely different development has been underway for some time." Lutz is the director of the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) and one of the world's most prominent demographers. As he sees it, it is "highly probable that mankind will begin to shrink by 2060 or 2070."

It will be a global turning point. For the first time since the Black Death raged in the 14th century, the world's death rate will be higher than its birth rate.

A boom in the number of births will be followed by a shrinking population in surprisingly quick succession. Someone in his mid-40s today has experienced the doubling of mankind in his lifetime and, if Lutz is right, he could also witness the first day of the Great Contraction.

Hamish's rather colonial view that other races and nations are there to service us is rather old fashioned.

What a ridiculous statement. We aren't kidnapping people and forcing them into slavery, for heavens sake.

All western countries are however, competing for immigrants, to provide them with the best opportunities, the best conditions, the fastest route to a better life.

It's a global beauty contest to attract the ambitious, talented, hard working and driven youngsters that will form our base of human capital for the future.

And make no mistake about it, it's a competition we absolutely cannot afford to lose.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I could afford that.

Sure, my standard of living would decline as would my disposable income. I may have to re-look at my priorities. .

Could you afford to pay 2/3 of your gross income in tax?

AND contribute 10K to 15K a year into the pensions system?

AND still live day to day?

I couldn't.

And I don't know anyone outside of a few millionaires that could.

And it is laughable to suggest that's a price worth paying to reduce immigration.

CLAPTON

We don't know the future.

The population may or may not follow the Lutz's projection over the next 50 or 60 years, just as the economy may of may not follow the (numerous and varying) projections of the many economic institutions.

We need plans to deal with the situation not to pretend that it will be alright by competing for immigrants.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

CLAPTON wrote: »

We don't know the future.

We know we have an ageing population.

We know we can't afford to support them without immigration. (and other measures)

And we know other countries face the same problem and are competing with us for those immigrants.

We need plans to deal with the situation not to pretend that it will be alright by competing for immigrants.

We have plans to deal with it.

-Immigration

-Increased pension contributions

-Additional use of technology

-Greater efficiency

A balanced and blended approach, that will solve the problem by using all the tools available to us.

Why would you want to remove one critical part of that solution?

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Could you afford to pay 2/3 of your gross income in tax?

AND contribute 10K to 15K a year into the pensions system?

AND still live day to day?

I couldn't.

And I don't know anyone outside of a few millionaires that could.

And it is laughable to suggest that's a price worth paying to reduce immigration.

You said double taxation. You didn't say 2 thirds of your income.

If income tax doubled, I could afford that.

If my pension contributions doubled I could afford that.

You are plucking figures out of the air, but were not talking figures, were talking percentages of individual wages which is all relative to how much you earn. Big coroporations could pay more. No, they won't like it, yes they may protest and threaten, but they'd do it if it was still profitable in the UK (and it would be). There are examples of high taxations countries, outside of the EU, trading with the EU, whom have the same multinationals within their country. So there is no reason to think they would just leave the UK.

You are starting from the position that things can only get more expensive and not cheaper. That only individuals would see their tax rates double and nothign else could be done. I purposely stated if we did things properly, and reduced living costs, more could be paid in tax. It's just shuffling amounts at the end of the day. We could shut down laws, get money from gambling, get money from multi nationals, get money from the rich. Get money from the 40% of foreigners buying up London. It's all possible.

On a seconday note, you are still ignoring what happens to other countries in this "competeition for immigration".

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

We know we have an ageing population.

We know we can't afford to support them without immigration. (and other measures)

And we know other countries face the same problem and are competing with us for those immigrants.



We have plans to deal with it.

-Immigration

-Increased pension contributions

-Additional use of technology

-Greater efficiency

A balanced and blended approach, that will solve the problem by using all the tools available to us.

Why would you want to remove one critical part of that solution?

You continue with your 'little scotlander ' outlook by ignoring the major world wide resource issues.

With adequate resources, an aging population is a lot easier to deal with that the same with a massively increased population.

Immigrants entering the UK now will be OAP in 40-50 years and so will be adding to our aging population problems

There may well be some benefits to encourage immigration in 20-30 years time depending upon how things turn out but doing it now simply adds to the aging problem.