National debt would soar if immigration reduced...

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

macaque wrote: »

The people who come here to look after us also grow old and need looking after themselves. There must be a better solution than your human Ponzi scheme.

It's not my human Ponzi scheme.

It's the way our entire species has functioned since the dawn of time.

Since humanity (well, most of us anyway ) descended from the Apes, there has never been a time when the old outnumbered the young.

Do you have any better ideas, preferably, realistic ones that don't involve euthanasia or robots?

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

It's not my human Ponzi scheme.

It's the way our entire species has functioned since the dawn of time.

Since humanity (well, most of us anyway ) descended from the Apes, there has never been a time when the old outnumbered the young.

Do you have any better ideas, preferably, realistic ones that don't involve euthanasia or robots?

Do you have any evidence that there has never been a time that the old (please define) out numbered the young (define)?

Population size have waxed and waned.

Given that 99.9999% of all species that ever existed are now extinct, is the past a good model for the future?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

CLAPTON wrote: »

Given that 99.9999% of all species that ever existed are now extinct, is the past a good model for the future?

That's frankly a bonkers response.

Can just save a lot of time and nonsense posts like the above and just skip to the part where you explain why it is you don't like immigration?

Do you....

1) Not believe the lump of labour fallacy is true?

2) Think the country is "too full"

or

3) Just not like immigrants?

cells

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

It's not my human Ponzi scheme.

It's the way our entire species has functioned since the dawn of time.

Since humanity (well, most of us anyway ) descended from the Apes, there has never been a time when the old outnumbered the young.

Do you have any better ideas, preferably, realistic ones that don't involve euthanasia or robots?

Well just to keep the numbers stright forward lets imagine another nation which has exactly 100 million people. A million aged 1, a million aged 2, a million aged 3 etx all the way to 100. This is a very old nation and we will call ot VON for short

The most simplest thing to do is increase the retirement age and enter the workforce sooner. So hypothetically lets say every person aged 16 to 70 is employed. That would mean 54% of us were employed and 46% dependant on them. That is actually a better figure than the uk currently where 30m work out of ~64 million or below 47%

In effect you would simply be increasing the labour participation rate.

Even if the people of VON started work age 18 and retired age 68 they would have more % working than we do today.


With regards to your robot comment it actually is a large part of the answer but probably not the rorobts you imagine. Take for instance computer driven cars. They will save the world circa $10 trillion annually so even if an old person is a $10k a burden just that ine tech can effectively pay for yhe care of an additional 1 billion old folk.

cells

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

That's frankly a bonkers response.

Can just save a lot of time and nonsense posts like the above and just skip to the part where you explain why it is you don't like immigration?

Do you....

1) Not believe the lump of labour fallacy is true?

2) Think the country is "too full"

or

3) Just not like immigrants?

I know you asked someone else but....

I think you are framing this the wrong way. An older population is imo only a marginal burden. Later retirement early entry to the workforce increased productivity and higher labour participation will probably be sufficient to cover the burden. Of course a yiubger country will still be better off but it doesn't mean we will get poorer only not as rich as quicker

However what is harder to dispute is that in the future the might of your economy and the ability to project culturally and militarily will be dependant mostly on how many people you have. A UK of 150 million would be far more powerful and important on the world stage than a uk of 50 million. How much this will matter to us on an individual scale is debatable.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

cells wrote: »

I think you are framing this the wrong way. An older population is imo only a marginal burden. Later retirement.

I think you're missing the point.

The realistic increase in retirement age is nowhere near to keeping up with the increase in life expectancy.

We are letting people live longer.

But we are not able, yet, to prevent the onset of frailty and often debilitating illness amongst the majority of the elderly.

The ONS already assumes pushing retirement age to 68, even if you pushed it to 70 it would make little difference.

And the reality is that productivity and capacity to work declines rapidly amongst the over 70's, and this won't change until some major and distant medical advances happen.

what is harder to dispute is that in the future the might of your economy and the ability to project culturally and militarily will be dependant mostly on how many people you have. A UK of 150 million would be far more powerful and important on the world stage than a uk of 50 million.

Agree completely with this however.

cells

macaque wrote: »

The people who come here to look after us also grow old and need looking after themselves. There must be a better solution than your human Ponzi scheme.

The problem and solution is not new but has already been happening over the last few decades. The solution is simply more productivity. However Hamish is correct in that countries that have a higher workforce per capita (eg younger nations) will be somewhat richer. But it won't be the difference between rags and riches but riches or a bit more riches.

cells

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I think you're missing the point.

The realistic increase in retirement age is nowhere near to keeping up with the increase in life expectancy.

We are letting people live longer.

But we are not able, yet, to prevent the onset of frailty and often debilitating illness amongst the majority of the elderly.

The ONS already assumes pushing retirement age to 68, even if you pushed it to 70 it would make little difference.

And the reality is that productivity and capacity to work declines rapidly amongst the over 70's, and this won't change until some major and distant medical advances happen.



Agree completely with this however.

The uk has already aged massively from 100 years ago but the world did not collapse in fact the opposite happened. In 1913 most of the people of the uk lived in abject poverty and today we live in abundance. The reason is of course productivity improved far more than the burden of old age

What makes you confident that in 2113 a hundred years from now the same can not happen again? Productivity improve so much that we can both have more opd people to support yet stillnbe emensely weather still?

I think that is what will happen. The world will age but productivity will more than offset the burden.

PasturesNew

Britain needs enough jobs for the people, so that everybody's giving taxes and nobody that could work is receiving them.

We need more jobs, not more people.

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

That's frankly a bonkers response.

Can just save a lot of time and nonsense posts like the above and just skip to the part where you explain why it is you don't like immigration?

Do you....

1) Not believe the lump of labour fallacy is true?

2) Think the country is "too full"

or

3) Just not like immigrants?

my post actually said

Do you have any evidence that there has never been a time that the old (please define) out numbered the young (define)?

Population size have waxed and waned.

Given that 99.9999% of all species that ever existed are now extinct, is the past a good model for the future?

which you haven't answered