If we vote for Brexit what happens

bugslet

Generali wrote: »

I'd argue it's both.



I am now working in a pretty rarefied place but I've done my time in bars, shops and on building sites. I'm not someone born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

I never thought you were:). But I'm guessing your job now will be a factor in the way you view the situation. Had you been less self-starting and stayed bar-tending and hod carrying, you wouldn't see the intangibles.

CLAPTON

Generali wrote: »

No. People who try to come to Australia by illegal means are processed offshore, mostly in Nairu.

However migrating legally to Australia is pretty trivial.

interesting : I find it amazing how low the immigration level is in view of your effectively open door policy
The UK still the largest?

mrginge

mayonnaise wrote: »

Even the most ardent remain campaigner isn't making the case that trade with the EU will cease after brexit.
So yes, Anna had a bit of a dim moment there.

Oh but I've been repeatedly told that dim people support leave, whilst the remainers are the intelligent elite.

I can't now process the information that a remain-supporting government minister has destroyed that principle.
Perhaps it's because I'm a stupid, racist, angry little englander.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I would argue quite the reverse.

The reason China is so poor is because of the centuries of repression it faced under the warlords, emperors and Commies.

Chinese GDP per head at the end of 2014 according to the World Bank was under $7,600. That's a third less than the UK's was in 1955.

Don't believe the hype about China: growth rates are high but absolute levels of GDP per capita are shockingly low by UK standards, about £100 a week.

So we are agreed then - better to have democratically accountable govt than be ruled by a remote bunch of bureaucrats

mayonnaise wrote: »

No problem with showing my location. Englefield Green, Surrey.
Lots of immigration to these parts, many foreign students also attending Royal Holloway. A real melting pot of nationalities, races, religions and ideas. Love it.
Not too many Little Englanders around which is a bonus also.

With Brexit we will be able to replace some unskilled labourers from Eastern Europe with increased numbers of students (and indeed PHDs) from within Europe and from the rest of the world.

Generali wrote: »

But you can't just have a free market for everyone else and have your own industry featherbedded.

If you want to benefit from being able to buy your groceries from a bunch of stores that are competing on price, quality and service; be able to take advantage of the huge breakthroughs in technology; be able to live a longer, healthier life that has resulted from Big Pharma's immense leaps forward in products then you also have to live with competition in your own industry.

You imply that we can only have a competitive market if we have free movement of labour? Obviously this is not true. Why is it so hard to accept that whilst free movement holds costs and thus prices down for everyone, it also holds down wages, especially those of the low skilled? We are not on a TV interview sofa here trying to spin a POV and change peoples' minds, merely debating the facts.

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

Why is that a benefit ?
GDP goes up, qualify of life goes down.

As much as you want to say otherwise the link between GDP and quality of life is a strong one. We romanticise about when we were poorer but the quality of life was better it is however an illusion and a trick of our minds (to some extend its true, eg Id rather be a poor 20 year old than a rich 90 year old so looking back has a bias on age and health)

CLAPTON wrote: »

There will come the day when the wall of foreign money that pays for our massive deficit in trade dries up.

Not at all likely for multiple reasons
For a start improving manufacturing and the near AI software is going to make trade of goods a lower percentage of GDP and trade.

For instance cars are one of the worlds biggest costs and one of (if not the biggest) traded goods. The UK is a net importer of cars. Once self drive kicks in the number of cars required should fall as self drive cars are utilised better and maintained for a longer life (miles not years). Therefore the net trade in cars should fall. Also the UK is fairly strong on software and IP (nothing compared to the states but a lot stronger than say spain or italy or poland or all of them combined). So we could potentially gain from adding value that way while the German auto industry slowly contracts as a percentage of GDP and exports

I know it's not fashionable to discuss the huge deficit in the balance of trade but our current consumption is being funded by selling our industry and foreign borrowing : not in my view a healthy situation.

It is primarily funded by exports of services and capital inflow from things like foreign students paying £150k to get a piece of paper with a 2.1 on it

The UK government should really champion the education sector massively. The chinese and indians love UK universities so tripple the size of the top 10 universities and take in 100,000 more forign students a year paying £150k during their course. £15B uplift in GDP and all of it capital inflows. £15 billion teaching a few kids is a lot better for our well being than digging out half a billion tons of coal and exporting it

Basically, I see no benefits in continuous population growth and lots of disadvantages to the people of the UK.

There are lots of benefits to a growing country.
Would you rather work for a company hiring 1000 new employees a year or work for one firing 1000 employees a year?

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

interesting : I find it amazing how low the immigration level is in view of your effectively open door policy

The population of Australia is growing by almost 400,000 a year which is a lot more rapidly than the uk on a percentage basis. Their fertility rate is 1.9 per women so its not a baby boom its an immigration boom

It is nearly 2% a year there. The UK is less than 1% a year. Likewise Canada is growing by nearly 2% a year.

So Aus and Canada have about twice as much immigration as the UK and both countries seem to be doing fine

michaels

cells wrote: »

The population of Australia is growing by almost 400,000 a year which is a lot more rapidly than the uk on a percentage basis. Their fertility rate is 1.9 per women so its not a baby boom its an immigration boom

It is nearly 2% a year there. The UK is less than 1% a year. Likewise Canada is growing by nearly 2% a year.

So Aus and Canada have about twice as much immigration as the UK and both countries seem to be doing fine

Taking a big risk here without googling but suspect it will take several (hundred/thousand) years of population growth at those rates before population density in Aus and Canada reaches that of the UK.

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

The population of Australia is growing by almost 400,000 a year which is a lot more rapidly than the uk on a percentage basis. Their fertility rate is 1.9 per women so its not a baby boom its an immigration boom

It is nearly 2% a year there. The UK is less than 1% a year. Likewise Canada is growing by nearly 2% a year.

So Aus and Canada have about twice as much immigration as the UK and both countries seem to be doing fine

I was commenting on how surprised I am on the low level of people wanting to go to Aus.
I would expect it to be much higher.

MataNui

cells wrote: »

The population of Australia is growing by almost 400,000 a year which is a lot more rapidly than the uk on a percentage basis. Their fertility rate is 1.9 per women so its not a baby boom its an immigration boom

It is nearly 2% a year there. The UK is less than 1% a year. Likewise Canada is growing by nearly 2% a year.

So Aus and Canada have about twice as much immigration as the UK and both countries seem to be doing fine

Shooting yourself in the foot with that statement.
Both countries have highly targeted immigration rules. You have to have needed skill (on a published list), have enough points which are based on things like age, education etc and NOT have any criminal record. They have a higher percentage its true but all of those are people those countries specifically chose to allow to move there.

Also as mentioned is the population density. At current rates the human race would likely be extinct before Australia had the same population density as the UK which is already one of the highest in the EU.

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

As much as you want to say otherwise the link between GDP and quality of life is a strong one. We romanticise about when we were poorer but the quality of life was better it is however an illusion and a trick of our minds (to some extend its true, eg Id rather be a poor 20 year old than a rich 90 year old so looking back has a bias on age and health)

there are NO links between GDP and quality of life.
there may be some between per capita GDP and quality of life.

a higher per capita GDP that results in people having poorer housing (i.e. smaller) and longer journey time (effectively working longer hours for the same money) can't be described as a better quality of life.

It is primarily funded by exports of services and capital inflow from things like foreign students paying £150k to get a piece of paper with a 2.1 on it

The UK government should really champion the education sector massively. The chinese and indians love UK universities so tripple the size of the top 10 universities and take in 100,000 more forign students a year paying £150k during their course. £15B uplift in GDP and all of it capital inflows. £15 billion teaching a few kids is a lot better for our well being than digging out half a billion tons of coal and exporting it

the overall current account balance is in large deficit funded by the capital account: basically we spend more overseas than we earn and fund this by selling assets and borrowing

There are lots of benefits to a growing country.
Would you rather work for a company hiring 1000 new employees a year or work for one firing 1000 employees a year?

I would prefer to work in a country where real wages were increasing, where business had real incentives to invest rather than rely on an endless supply of cheap labour, where people could live in family sized homes, where travel times were stable or decreasing rather than rising where access to health care was improving each year rather than getting worse.
I also prefer our wonderful mountains, the lakes, the beaches, the museums and our fantastic places of interest to be less crowded rather than doomed to be more and more inaccessible