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GDP per capita and immigration
Comments
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yes indeed: GDP is not a good measure of our quality of life; in fact often gives us a false picture.
an immigrant doctor may or may not be just the ticket but that has little to do with the general (real) economics of large scale immigration. and whether it give us a better quality of life or not.
I simply used and answered your own examples.
Macro economics is an aggregation of quadrillions of individual transactions. Immigrants will either go to the UK and succeed or go back to whence they came for the most part.
Look at some of the studies I link to or indeed to the example from Sotton that HAMISH_MACTAVISH gives us. Most people most of the time gain from immigration. Not everyone all of the time can gain from any change but that most people gain is good enough.0 -
I simply used and answered your own examples.
Macro economics is an aggregation of quadrillions of individual transactions. Immigrants will either go to the UK and succeed or go back to whence they came for the most part.
Look at some of the studies I link to or indeed to the example from Sotton that HAMISH_MACTAVISH gives us. Most people most of the time gain from immigration. Not everyone all of the time can gain from any change but that most people gain is good enough.
by 'gain' you mean Kuznet's measure and little to do with our quality of life?
by 'most' people do you include the people from the country of emmigration?0 -
It is. For example, if everyone takes in each others' laundry for money rather than doing their own, that would add to GDP without increasing output.
is this a good example of the market distributing resources more efficiently?
No! That's why the price system doesn't make it viable for the economy to run like that.0 -
It is a great choice for that individual though. There are a lot of "working class" people in that situation which the chattering classes tend to just dismiss though, hence to popularity of UKIP.HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »Having a 50 year old plumber charging exorbitantly high rates due to an artificial scarcity of labour is not a great choice for wider society.0 -
It is a great choice for that individual though.
Indeed.
Just as it was a great choice for a few individual bankers to chase short term profits and crash the global economy.
Doesn't make it right for wider society though....There are a lot of "working class" people in that situation which the chattering classes tend to just dismiss though, hence to popularity of UKIP.
No, the evidence doesn't support that assertion at all.
The numbers of people who really are negatively affected financially by immigration are vanishingly small.
The numbers of people who think they are affected is much larger, but actually the real reason for UKIP support is more about this....HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »Obviously, if you hate hearing the sound of foreign languages being spoken on your high street, hate the idea of new infrastructure and houses being built 'in my back yard' and and think nothing should ever change ever at all from some myopic picture of life in the 1950's..... Then immigration will not improve your 'quality of life'.
But there's a reason most UKIP supporters are older ill-educated white males, and the above has a lot to do with it..... :cool:“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »Having a 50 year old plumber charging exorbitantly high rates due to an artificial scarcity of labour is not a great choice for wider society.
In any industry there will be people overcharging ,look no further than the banking system,PFI contracts,utilities,MP's etc etc. With any industry the customer should shop around rather than accept the first quote. Do you run your own business Hamish and have you got any idea of the costs invloved in running a small business?.
Just off the top of my hat costs include:
1: GAS SAFE registration and updating qualifications every year or so which can cost £hundress a year.
2: Public Liability insurance (cover for using naked flame costs a high premium).
3: Cost of Tools and tool insurance
4: Cost of van, commerical insurance and maintenance/running costs
5: Accountancy fees (yearly accounts and quarterly vat return)
6: Costs of storage of equipment
I'm not a heating engineer but I need to earn £500 a week before I even set foot outside the front door just to pay the overheads.
In truth Hamish your just taking a cheap shot at a trade you now zip about but if it makes you feel superior then good for you.
Targeted immigration is good, unfettered immigration is bad. The truth is large majority of EU immigrants are more than likely low skilled and as such they drive wages down. All the 3 main parties admit there is a problem with low skilled migrants driving down wages to NMW.You say the number of people who are actually negatively affected financially by immigration is "vanishingly small" why do all 3 parties accept there was/is a problem? None of them have said its " a vanishingly small number".
Sadly you just stick to the same rhetoric of "all immigranst are good and anyone who critisizes unfettered immigration is a racist bigot". Same old Hamish its purely a black and white issue.0 -
I mean both.
Yes. Most indigenous people gain though IMHO.
but we have no realistic measures of quality of life and the 'studies ' don't even tend to mention such things as increased congestion, house prices etc but concentrate on very small numbers with unspecified error margins
I'm not sure what indigenous people means in this context0 -
leveller2911 wrote: »In any industry there will be people overcharging ,look no further than the banking system,PFI contracts,utilities,MP's etc etc. The problem I have with your post Hamish is your generalising yet again. Do you run your own business Hamish?, have you got any idea of the costs invloved in running a small business?.
Just off the top of my hat costs include:
1: GAS SAFE registration and updating qualifications every year or so which can cost £hundress a year.
2: Public Liability insurance (cover for using naked flame costs a high premium).
3: Cost of Tools and tool insurance
4: Cost of van, commerical insurance and maintenance/running costs
5: Accountancy fees (yearly accounts and quarterly vat return)
6: Costs of storage of equipment
I'm not a heating engineer but I need to earn £500 a week before I even set foot outside the front door just to pay the overheads.
In truth Hamish your just taking a cheap shot at a trade you now zip about but if it makes you feel superior then good for you.
Targeted immigration is good, unfettered immigration is bad. The truth is large majority of EU immigrants are more than likely low skilled and as such they drive wages down. All the 3 main parties admit there is a problem with low skilled migrants driving down wages to NMW. Sadly you just stick to the same rehtoric of "all immigranst are good and anyone who critisizes unfettered immigration is a racist bigot". Same old Hamish its purely a black and white issue.
Presumably an immigrant wanting to run a competing business would also face the same costs.
As for 'targeted immigration', that sounds an awful lot to me like the Government setting prices to me. That has never worked terribly well.0 -
but we have no realistic measures of quality of life and the 'studies ' don't even tend to mention such things as increased congestion, house prices etc but concentrate on very small numbers with unspecified error margins
As I linked via Google Scholar, this is a much researched area. The consensus is that immigration generally improves the economy and quality of life as a result. If you would like to read some of the excellent work which has been done and criticise some I'd be delighted to go over it with you: I find this stuff fascinating.
However, you just seem to want to air prejudices. That's interesting in it's own way but ultimately irrefutable as it's just hot air.I'm not sure what indigenous people means in this context
In this case it means people living in a country already. I didn't realise that was an unusual way to use the word indigenous. Sorry about that.0
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