The rise of Extremism in Economically tough times

Bantex_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

My position is that internal EU migration as the markets require is a very good thing, has served us well in avoiding the negatives of skills shortages and brain drain that existed in previous times, and has significantly benefitted the UK economy.

It has had virtually no material ill-effects to wages and employment for the overwhelmingly vast majority of the native born, and indeed has resulted in better financial and employment outcomes for most.

It costs virtually nothing to administer, is immune to political meddling and tinkering, and has gone a long way towards helping us with a rebalancing of the age profile that we badly need due to the ageing population and too low replacement birth rate we suffered for decades.

Do you have any evidence for this which is unbiased?
My experience seems to show otherwise. (Mainly construction industry)

Generali

Bantex wrote: »

Do you have any evidence for this which is unbiased?
My experience seems to show otherwise. (Mainly construction industry)

Here's an economic study done by a group including someone who went on to sit on the MPC:

https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/33847/1/543755940.pdf

The Impact of the Recent Migration from Eastern Europe on the
UK Economy

P5:

The empirical literature from around the world suggests little or no evidence that immigrants have had a major impact on native labour market outcomes such as wages and unemployment. Recent work by a number of other authors for the UK is also consistent with this view.

P5:

There seems to be broad agreement that immigration is likely to have reduced the natural rate of unemployment in the UK over the past few years. But there is some uncertainty about what has happened to the natural rate in the very recent past and what might happen to it in the near future. This is because immigration has not been the only shock to affect the labour market very recently.

(the Natural Rate of Unemployment is the effective medium-term floor for unemployment in a country. Since the mid-70s, efforts to reduce unemployment in the UK have concentrated on reducing this figure).

P32:

The empirical literature from around the world suggests little or no evidence that immigrants have had a major impact on native labour market outcomes such as wages and unemployment. Recent work by a number of other authors for the UK is also consistent with this view.

Plenty more here:

http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=economic+effect+of+migration+to+the+UK&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

We have no need for unlimited immigration from anywhere in the world, as our current immigration system works well, so why would I wish for it?

Our current system of EU migration provides for our needs at virtually no cost to administer.

Why change it?

So immigration, in general isn't an un-mixed blessing and indeed you are against it.

However, like labour and libdems your devotion to the EU allows you to make an exemption.

I'm sure you have many time said the more the merrier and quoted lots of reports that show immigration boosts per capita GDP with absolutely no adverse effects: in fact I'm sure you have said further immigration is ESSENSIAL

but that only applies to mainly white Europeans .. it wouldn't be the case with non-white peoples from across the globe.

all clear now.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

CLAPTON wrote: »

but that only applies to mainly white Europeans .. it wouldn't be the case with non-white peoples from across the globe..

It absolutely would be the case with non-white people from across the globe.

I couldn't care less where we get the next generation of young people from, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or even by breeding them right here at home.

So long as we get enough of them to maintain the ratio of old to young, and dependents to workers.

For the moment however, we have a system of EU immigration that does what we need it to, costs virtually nothing to administer, and is immune to political meddling.

If you'd prefer to change that to a comparable nil-cost system of getting the young people we need from Africa, or Asia, or America, that's fine with me.

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

It absolutely would be the case with non-white people from across the globe.

I couldn't care less where we get the next generation of young people from, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or even by breeding them right here at home.

So long as we get enough of them to maintain the ratio of old to young, and dependents to workers.

For the moment however, we have a system of EU immigration that does what we need it to, costs virtually nothing to administer, and is immune to political meddling.

If you'd prefer to change that to a comparable nil-cost system of getting the young people we need from Africa, or Asia, or America, that's fine with me.

clearly the level of immigration is not sufficient to maintain the ratio of old to young:
to do that we a would need a massive further influx.

Open borders cost nothing to administrate and are immune to political interference.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I couldn't care less where we get the next generation of young people from, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or even by breeding them right here at home.....

....so long as they pay your pension and increase your asset worth.

The trouble here is you are up against others who will be competing against these immigrants for jobs, pensions, homes, school places....none of which you, personally are affected by.

You have your home(s). You have your high paying job for which you didn't have as much competition. You don't have children to worry over school places.

Other people do, and you will always find their opinion differs to yours. That is now coming through at the ballot box.

Generali

Graham_Devon wrote: »

....so long as they pay your pension and increase your asset worth.

The trouble here is you are up against others who will be competing against these immigrants for jobs, pensions, homes, school places....none of which you, personally are affected by.

You have your home(s). You have your high paying job for which you didn't have as much competition. You don't have children to worry over school places.

Other people do, and you will always find their opinion differs to yours. That is now coming through at the ballot box.

Of course in a democracy we're all entitled to an opinion.

If you follow my links above, you'll see your opinion is generally found to be wrong by almost every economist in the world.

Graham_Devon

Generali wrote: »

Of course in a democracy we're all entitled to an opinion.

If you follow my links above, you'll see your opinion is generally found to be wrong by almost every economist in the world.

The real feeling out there is that one section of society benefits from immigration. The one section is those who already HAVE their jobs, pension plans and assets.

The other section of society, mainly the youth are the ones who do not see the rewards of any economic benefits. Instead they just see increased comepetition for jobs, homes and school places.

I'm not really to fussed what an economist says. They are, afterall, due to their position of being "authoritative" economists most likely to fall into the first camp.

You can pretty much divide opinion just by looking at those that have and those that don't.

Those that have are able to feel the rewards of immigration. They see their asset going up in value. They see their pensions further secured. They see their jobs further secured by the increased demand. What's more, they are likely to live in an area which is outside the affordanle scope of the incoming immigrants, so are not as effected personally by it.

As the wealth gap appears to grow, more and more are going to find they do not feel any economic benefits from immigration and only find themselves squeezed further.....that then translates to votes at the ballot box.

Someone leaving school 20, 30, 40 years ago never had anything like the competition for jobs and housing that those leaving school today have.

An economist may be puzzled by this. But economists themselves too likely feel the benefits being in the position they are in. Furthermore, the already "wealthy" are less likely to suffer any social fallout or impact from immigration. Where they live, immigrants (by en large) cannot afford to live amongst them. They are somewhat sheltered, moving to small villages outside of high density areas, unaffected by the social damage (and positives) that immigration brings.

Immigration today sorts a problem for those today with existing pensions etc. But the problem is simply kicked down the road 20 years or so. You cannot continue to fix our economy with immigration unless you continually ramp up immigration. A mere pyramid scheme.

CLAPTON

Generali wrote: »

Of course in a democracy we're all entitled to an opinion.

If you follow my links above, you'll see your opinion is generally found to be wrong by almost every economist in the world.

all the economists in the world, including the recent OECD report, show that the economic benefits of immigration are marginal : in fact within an margin of error, are zero.

All those economists give zero economic value to the quality of life.

As every economist knows and very economics book will discuss, is that GDP per capita is not the sum total of the living experience. They also know that GDP is a somewhat perverse measure and things that are clearly 'costs' in real life, occur as increases in GDP.

If I double the width of my motorway to cater for the higher number of people in the country, GDP goes up : in reality the people are no better off that if the population hadn't grown and the motorway wasn't expanded.

In London now, it is very difficult for anyone born there (irrespective of race, religion, creed or sexual orientation) to actually buy somewhere to live, near their place of birth and where they grew up.
Now all the economists in the world give this no economic negative; probably they see this as a wealth effect.


People who are negative about immigration in economic terms are correct because all those clever economists don't have the necessary measures to do the right calculations.



You know that's right.

Generali

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The real feeling out there is that one section of society benefits from immigration. The one section is those who already HAVE their jobs, pension plans and assets.

The other section of society, mainly the youth are the ones who do not see the rewards of any economic benefits. Instead they just see increased comepetition for jobs, homes and school places.

Young people have always had it tough though, not just today because of immigration.

I was a barman, a labourer, an office cleaner, a shop worker, a data entry clerk and a popcorn seller before the age of 25, never earning more that £5.50/hr (except one job which I left for uni). The reason wasn't because of immigrants, it was because I didn't have good skills to sell.

The reason youngsters today are doing it tough are just the same, it's just that they are being fed a scape goat by people that are old enough to know better.

An immigrant brings demand for labour as well as supply of labour. The immigrant still needs to have a hair cut and to buy groceries and to have her appendix removed and to buy a pint at the end of the working week.