The rise of Extremism in Economically tough times

antrobus

jamesmorgan wrote: »

Immigration is not the real issue - it is re-distribution of resources. The average world salary per head is around £6000. When we manage to spread that evenly across the planet we can all sleep peacefully.

Good luck with selling that to the UK electrorate.

I believe that they might well respond by referring you to the reply given in Arkell v Pressdram.

danothy

antrobus wrote: »

And do what exactly?

Acknowledge that stratifying ourselves is a fool's errand. Generally stop treating one set of people differently from another. Except the people I encounter on public transport. I'm fine with most of them being shot into the sun.

mayonnaise

Generali wrote: »

My point is very straightforward. Just because someone thinks they can't get a job because of immigration, doesn't make them right.

Absolutely, Mr. Generali.

There is not a single person in the UK who can't get a job because of immigration.
There are however loads of people who can't get a job because they're utterly uncompetitive
And loads of people who don't have a job because they just can't be bothered.

Or as wotsthat says...

wotsthat wrote: »

It's easier to blame someone else than look at ourselves so it's banksters, immigrants, single mothers, the EU, landlords....

and the poofters

danothy

mayonnaise wrote: »

and the poofters

Queermosexuals: keeping meteorologists in work since 1967.*

*Satire and a South Park reference.

jamesmorgan

antrobus wrote: »

Good luck with selling that to the UK electrorate.

I believe that they might well respond by referring you to the reply given in Arkell v Pressdram.

You're probably right, although it is not the UK that is the real issue but the protectionist trade policies of the EU. I live in hope that it will transform to embrace free trade, but I fear I may be a long time waiting.

Generali

jamesmorgan wrote: »

His prediction was that if populations were left to rise unchecked this would lead to an increase in hunger, disease and war.

When Melthus wrote this, the World population was around 1 billion. Today around 1 billion in the World are suffering from hunger and malnutrition (of whom around 7.5 million actually die each year).

In the 20 century alone, 160 million people died in wars and over 1.7 billion from infectious diseases.

I would say that he was probably spot on.

Of course, he failed to accurately predict all the other problems with unchecked population growth, such as global warming. But then, nobody is perfect.

Malthus made a very specific prediction: that population increases geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8, 16....) and food output increases arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

He was very specifically wrong.

jamesmorgan

Generali wrote: »

Malthus made a very specific prediction: that population increases geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8, 16....) and food output increases arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

He was very specifically wrong.

Of course his mathematical model was overly simplistic and failed to take account of a number of factors. However, his basic premise that the world's resources (eg food) would struggle to keep up with exponential increase in populations was broadly correct, as more importantly, were his overall conclusions of the result of this.

It should also be born in mind that Malthus wasn't a mathematician, so it is not the same as arguing that Newton was wrong because he didn't take account of relativity. His focus was much more on the implications of exponential population growth. His most famous quote "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man" I believe still holds true, and is increasingly being argued by many top biologists eg David Attenborough (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10316271/Sir-David-Attenborough-If-we-do-not-control-population-the-natural-world-will.html). All current biological models for organisms which display exponential growth characteristics come to the same conclusions - the only thing up for debate is the timescales.

My biggest frustration with most major organisations (like the EU) is because the problem is too big to resolve, they refuse to even acknowledge it exists.

Generali

jamesmorgan wrote: »

Of course his mathematical model was overly simplistic and failed to take account of a number of factors. However, his basic premise that the world's resources (eg food) would struggle to keep up with exponential increase in populations was broadly correct, as more importantly, were his overall conclusions of the result of this.

It should also be born in mind that Malthus wasn't a mathematician, so it is not the same as arguing that Newton was wrong because he didn't take account of relativity. His focus was much more on the implications of exponential population growth. His most famous quote "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man" I believe still holds true, and is increasingly being argued by many top biologists eg David Attenborough (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10316271/Sir-David-Attenborough-If-we-do-not-control-population-the-natural-world-will.html). All current biological models for organisms which display exponential growth characteristics come to the same conclusions - the only thing up for debate is the timescales.

My biggest frustration with most major organisations (like the EU) is because the problem is too big to resolve, they refuse to even acknowledge it exists.

Malthus was mostly wrong due to not being right. His basic premise is simply wrong.

Food output has grown faster than population growth despite the proportion of people employed on the land plummeting.

Given that much of Asia and Africa still produce food in much the same way as people did in Malthus's time, simply by using what we have better we can acheive a huge increase in food output. By teaching farmers to get similar yields to those attained in Europe, the US or even Australia the productive output of the world has scope to increase hugely.

Graham_Devon

Generali wrote: »

What's interesting however is watching all these people who aren't racist but just hate foreigners jump through 11 pages of hoops to explain that they aren't racist, they just hate foreigners.

No one has said they hate foreigners.

You are suggesting they do to make your argument, and then calling them racist.

The whole "you are racist as you have disagreed with my world view" has become a rather spineless argument. Though it has been effective in drowning everyone out.

kabayiri

Graham_Devon wrote: »

No one has said they hate foreigners.

You are suggesting they do to make your argument, and then calling them racist.

The whole "you are racist as you have disagreed with my world view" has become a rather spinless argument. Though it has been effective in drowning everyone out.

I normally put forward the view that I don't mind quality immigration but I don't support mass immigration; particularly at a time when the government is unable to forward plan key resources to support them.


There's a question here then :-
- can you be racist if you don't want more than X number of Poles or Indian workers or whatever?


I suspect the pro immigration business movement are keen to support continued mass immigration to underpin mass cheap labour. They don't care about the additional state costs or any pressures on resources. Is it always the case that they will win the argument with a government desperate for good news on jobs?


What we can do is stop throwing money away on spurious activities (as if we have spare state cash to spend). For example, it costs £44 per hour in a South Manchester school for a translation support specialist to support a Polish child with special needs. That's simply too much, especially when both parents earn little more than NMW. Cut down on all these support costs, and people will learn to support themselves.


(btw, installing expensive mass translation systems such as that in place for quite a few recent government backed IT projects, is what brings in quite a bit of the Kab bacon, so it's not like I've a good personal economic argument for it to stop!)