UK needs +7 Million immigrants to keep debt down

Generali

grizzly1911 wrote: »

If they are producing offspring then the costs associated with the first 21 years are brought into the picture, not just their eventual retirement costs. Where is the saving and positive net contribution?

But those costs are paid to the children of natives too. The saving of the cost of educating the migrant are real.

Also, the sort of person who tends to migrate is often hard working and wanting to improve their lot in life. IME it's pretty unusual to want to move away from your family and friends so you can sign on. Sure, there will be some but not so many.

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/pa014.pdf

Immigrants are, on average, better educated than locals (over half of new migrants were educated to beyond their 21st birthday vs a fifth of Brits) and less likely than Britons to live in social housing.

The stereotype appears to be true too: immigrants tend to be either doing unskilled, low paid work (the sort of thing that British people aren't interested in doing) or in the professions (i.e. filling skill shortages). 'Taking our jobs' is a myth: they are in large part doing jobs locals can't or won't do.

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Because the "select committee on economic affairs" consists of a dozen old politicians in the House of Lords. The paper you quoted from is 7 years old...

Whereas the OBR report is from an entity full of expert economists, specifically tasked with neutrality and non-political advice on economic and fiscal issues. And is based on the latest data available.

How often have the OBR forecasts been correct so far?

They are 'specifically tasked to be ...... non political' by a political government. How does that work?
Bit like saying that Merv was neutral and non-political.

Non political but not without an agenda.

Sampong

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Because the "select committee on economic affairs" consists of a dozen old politicians in the House of Lords. The paper you quoted from is 7 years old...

But the concept that the pensions time bomb can be solved by high immigration is as untrue now as it was seven years ago. You can't make something correct by waiting a few years, publishing a new report and trying to brush opposing arguments under the carpet.

The OBR report is merely the latest in a long line of studies that ignore the fact that immigrants will also grow old and require state services. There is yet to be a plausible explanation for this.

Sampong

Generali wrote: »

Also, the sort of person who tends to migrate is often hard working and wanting to improve their lot in life. IME it's pretty unusual to want to move away from your family and friends so you can sign on. Sure, there will be some but not so many.

Immigrants from Eastern Europe can improve their living standards fourfold by migrating to the UK. That includes the potential to earn higher wages for low skilled/unskilled jobs and/or claim benefits. As I said earlier in the thread immigrant mothers account for a quarter of all births in the UK - they are not all single people here soley to work.

Generali wrote: »

immigrants tend to be either doing unskilled, low paid work (the sort of thing that British people aren't interested in doing) or in the professions (i.e. filling skill shortages). 'Taking our jobs' is a myth: they are in large part doing jobs locals can't or won't do.

The real myth is that locals can't or won't do low skilled work. Any idea who did those jobs prior to 2004? Statements such as "migrants do the jobs locals won't/can't do" are erroneous and only began after employment agencies and gang masters started actively recruiting from and in Eastern Europe, and giving preference to the workforce who they could pay lower wages to, implement zero hour contracts more easily, and accommodate in HMO's.

chewmylegoff

we don't just need immigrants to work and pay taxes in order to support the elderly, but also to pay the benefits to many of the 8 million economically inactive people currently residing in this country.

i don't know how else we could plug the gap with an alternative solution, but maybe someone who is cleverer than me can think of a way. i feel sure that the 8 million economically inactive people have something to do with it. i wonder if they could be the key to anything?

oh well, back to the cricket.

Linda_D_2

chewmylegoff wrote: »

we don't just need immigrants to work and pay taxes in order to support the elderly, but also to pay the benefits to many of the 8 million economically inactive people currently residing in this country.

i don't know how else we could plug the gap with an alternative solution, but maybe someone who is cleverer than me can think of a way. i feel sure that the 8 million economically inactive people have something to do with it. i wonder if they could be the key to anything?

oh well, back to the cricket.

The economically inactive number is 9 million rather than 8 million which when you add to the further 9 million part-timers equals 18 million.

18 million is almost half the working age population with 21 million in full time work.

The real problem we have is the lack of jobs.

John_Pierpoint

In both the 1960's and the 1970's, I worked as what now would be an illegal economic migrant in Canada and Switzerland.
For those of you too young to remember, in the 1960s "swinging" London and to a lesser extent the rest of the country emerged from post war austerity, though still bound by memories of former imperial greatness, it did not restructure and modernise in the same way as Germany.
The economy, despite the much devalued pre-war currency, staggered from payment crisis to payment crisis, as credit squeezes were then applied to "cure" the tendency to import better or cheaper foreign goods.
As America's unsinkable aircraft carrier, we shared the English language and developed two "near software industries" one was entertainment.
The Beatles got those gongs for producing more exports than the car industry. The banking industry expanded to handle all those green-back dollars, that had escaped from the control of Uncle Sam, where foreign adventures, such as set-too with a "French" economic migrant, ran up a massive deficit. That cash was reluctant to return to USA. Government spending was typically less that 30% of GDP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh

By the 1970s, credit crunches were no longer enough to maintain a fixed rate of exchange, fortunately it was not just the politicians of UK that had ambitions greater than their bank balance, and it was not just in UK that currencies were devalued and inflated away. However the UK became the "sick man" of Europe, in trouble even though it had become the bargain basement of the Continent.

It is my case that it was North Sea oil that rescued the UK economy, it created enough spare revenue for the government to be able to prosper while "restructuring" the economy, even with 3 million on the dole.

So now that we are back in the deficit mess of circa 1972; what has changed?
Our currency has been devalued to buy time.
Many households are more resilient than they were a generation ago because education and automation at home and work has "freed" an army of women for paid skilled employment. The collapse of centralised "communist" economies has released some well educated people and created economies of scale in a larger global economy.
An army of immigrants, some trapped in what they thought of as Hollywood's waiting room, are doing the menial jobs, though they have displaced British citizens, especially a class of "no-hopers" called NEETs.

Cornucopia wrote: »

Whilst I agree with your analysis of the problem, I disagree with this as the solution.

Clearly, it would be possible to have a new immigration status for certain people who are interested - admission to the UK on time-limited licence. A person would get 10, 20 years maybe to come here and work, and then leave.

This probably needs to be part of a bigger/better/more rational understanding of immigration in terms of the UK's obligations and needs.

The other aspect of the demographic issue which has not been mentioned is the physical lack of workers to provide care for an ageing population.

This is the Swiss solution. The migrants are categorised by various measures, but if ever there is an unemployment problem, a referendum called by a petition of voters, or the government, returns the unskilled class to their country of origin.
Ethically I believe all men are born equal, BUT the world is now awash with economically or politically displaced persons; many of whom would be happy to crowd into UK or Switzerland or the Scottish Republic come to that.

Only the talented young or the rich can now choose their country of residence.

Generali wrote: »

But those costs are paid to the children of natives too. The saving of the cost of educating the migrant are real.

Also, the sort of person who tends to migrate is often hard working and wanting to improve their lot in life. IME it's pretty unusual to want to move away from your family and friends so you can sign on. Sure, there will be some but not so many.

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/pa014.pdf

Immigrants are, on average, better educated than locals (over half of new migrants were educated to beyond their 21st birthday vs a fifth of Brits) and less likely than Britons to live in social housing.

The stereotype appears to be true too: immigrants tend to be either doing unskilled, low paid work (the sort of thing that British people aren't interested in doing) or in the professions (i.e. filling skill shortages). 'Taking our jobs' is a myth: they are in large part doing jobs locals can't or won't do.

My experience is that unskilled migrants (and some of the skilled ones, while they are learning English) displace the "minimum wage" type of British worker;
while the really skilled, the creative and the talented should be encouraged; though I have misgivings about draining the small talented pool in third world countries, for example nurses from the Philippines, to work and settle in the UK.
I have a feeling that the current attempts to pick out the "sheep" from the "goats" might simply alienate both.
I wonder if Cyprus still has a policy of discouraging the "backpacker" type of tourist, now that their economy has taken a dive?

So in summary, having lived and worked in two economies offering a better quality of life than available to me in the UK at the time, I always had this feeling "you had better beware - if you let the masses burst into this semi paradise - you will come to regret it".

The other thing that concerns me is that roughly half of the economy and its workers is directly or indirectly on the government payroll.
They seem to have lost any entrepreneurial, or even hard nosed private sector trading spark. They seem to think that somehow the current level of affluence is an entitlement together with all the working conditions that have built up since the 1950's. This half of the economy seem to have no concept that every grouping of people will have to compete economically for a standard of living in a world economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_sterling

nickj_2

inevitably those 7 million will need looking after and paying for once they reach old age , what will happen then ? will we then need 20 million to look after their needs < or will we treat them like an obsolete games console , once they've served their purpose put them on the scrap heap

zagubov

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

, in the 1960s "swinging" London and to a lesser extent the rest of the country emerged from post war austerity, though still bound by memories of former imperial greatness, it did not restructure and modernise in the same way as Germany.



However the UK became the "sick man" of Europe, in trouble even though it had become the bargain basement of the Continent.

It is my case that it was North Sea oil that rescued the UK economy, it created enough spare revenue for the government to be able to prosper while "restructuring" the economy, even with 3 million on the dole.

The collapse of centralised "communist" economies has released some well educated people and created economies of scale in a larger global economy.
An army of immigrants, some trapped in what they thought of as Hollywood's waiting room, are doing the menial jobs, though they have displaced British citizens, especially a class of "no-hopers" called NEETs.



This is the Swiss solution. The migrants are categorised by various measures, but if ever there is an unemployment problem, a referendum called by a petition of voters, or the government, returns the unskilled class to their country of origin.
Ethically I believe all men are born equal, BUT the world is now awash with economically or politically displaced persons; many of whom would be happy to crowd into UK or Switzerland or the Scottish Republic come to that.

Only the talented young or the rich can now choose their country of residence.





So in summary, having lived and worked in two economies offering a better quality of life than available to me in the UK at the time, I always had this feeling "you had better beware - if you let the masses burst into this semi paradise - you will come to regret it".

Brilliant post.
Last century, Germany had an oversea army of gastarbeiters who came to work and sent money back to their families,
who lived well in their low-cost home countries on the remittances from abroad. Also it was cheaper to retire in those countries when you've saved your money. So not staying on at retirement in this overpriced shoebox-for-a-home messof a land.

You can still decide how many people from overseas can become resident in your countriy under EU regs. Denmark as mentioned on otherr threads does precisely that.

Other countries educate their kids really well, so why we make it easy for families to reunite in the UK is beyond me. We're not doiong them any favours. I've seen how well-educated kids from overseas are when they join our education system. Believe me, we've a lot to learn.


On the food business,, hardly any country feeds itself now We're all dependent on a very small number of exporters. For example, we produce the same proportion of our food as Taiwan does (ie about half). And it's half forested, has 24 million people in low-rise housing and isn't much bigger than Belgium.

Graham_Devon

If anyone can explain to me how importing a load of people to work in a time of high unemployment and increasing social security expenditure is beneficial, then they win the internet.

The only explanation I have heard is that for every neew immigrant a job is created, which is clearly utter tripe.