Yellow jacket freedom fighters spreading to London

itwasntme001

michaels wrote: »

Exactly, the middle class shouldn't have to pay more for their cleaners, dog walkers and barista coffees, we just need to import more workers from lower wage strictly EU countries in order to keep those wages and thus prices down. The middle classes already have nice houses in affluent areas within good school catchment areas so the pressure put on housing and infrastructure for the low skilled native born isn't their problem - it just means lots of demand for their HMO btls - lovely jubbly.

If there is a demand and as long as it does not have an impact on public services/taxes overall, then why not import more low skilled labour? I wouldn't restrict it to from the EU though.


The problem is it is very difficult to quantify how much of an impact immigration (of all skillsets) has on the public services/taxes. We not only have to consider the short term impact but longer term e.g. if these immigrants have kids etc. The flip side is that some of these immigrants (or immigrant children) could start a business that revolutionizes healthcare for example. Which is why we need to chose our immigrants wisely.

Filo25

michaels wrote: »

Exactly, the middle class shouldn't have to pay more for their cleaners, dog walkers and barista coffees, we just need to import more workers from lower wage strictly EU countries in order to keep those wages and thus prices down. The middle classes already have nice houses in affluent areas within good school catchment areas so the pressure put on housing and infrastructure for the low skilled native born isn't their problem - it just means lots of demand for their HMO btls - lovely jubbly.

Pretty easy to legislate for much of that though, the average low skilled worker probably gets a better deal today than it did when I was growing up, my dad worked his backside off for next to nothing, the mimimum wage helps significantly.

Still too many people working in jobs which require the state to top up their wages, but even then I would think a lot of that comes from insecurity, and a lack of guranteed hours rather than the wage rate itself.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

michaels wrote: »

Exactly, the middle class shouldn't have to pay more for their cleaners, dog walkers and barista coffees, we just need to import more workers from lower wage strictly EU countries in order to keep those wages and thus prices down.

You really, really, really need to get out of your Home Counties bubble and come and experience the absolute hell we go through trying to find staff up here in areas of sub 2% unemployment, where even McDonalds is paying north of £10 an hour for Burger Flippers.

It is simply neither sustainable nor fair to create artificial labour shortages and an inflationary wage/price spiral that will destroy the living standards of the poorest first, and most especially the most vulnerable people in society who are largely on fixed incomes.

michaels

Filo25 wrote: »

Pretty easy to legislate for much of that though, the average low skilled worker probably gets a better deal today than it did when I was growing up, my dad worked his backside off for next to nothing, the mimimum wage helps significantly.

Still too many people working in jobs which require the state to top up their wages, but even then I would think a lot of that comes from insecurity, and a lack of guranteed hours rather than the wage rate itself.

But legislation is a very blunt instrument, it costs much more to live in some parts of the country than others but having local minimum wages would be impossible to manage so instead you have a rate that prices workers out of jobs in the cheaper part of the country and is not enough to live on elsewhere. Instead if you limit the supply of unskilled labour to the local population then the market does the job for you, wages rise and those industries where workers produce the most added value are the ones that thrive.

If we agree that at least at a local level there is a limit to how quickly the country can subsume migrants then surely it makes sense to pick those migrants based on how much they will contribute over time than merely whether they come from a country that is within a certain distance? In other words Pakistani doctors may add more value to the economy overall than Bulgarian strawberry pickers, even if it means that we will all have to pay a little more for our strawberries?

itwasntme001

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

You really, really, really need to get out of your Home Counties bubble and come and experience the absolute hell we go through trying to find staff up here in areas of sub 2% unemployment, where even McDonalds is paying north of £10 an hour for Burger Flippers.

It is simply neither sustainable nor fair to create artificial labour shortages and an inflationary wage/price spiral that will destroy the living standards of the poorest first, and most especially the most vulnerable people in society who are largely on fixed incomes.

Scarce labour for flipping burgers is probably a good thing: Means higher cost of burgers means people cant afford to have burgers means they are hopefully more likely to eat more healthy food means less NHS pressure long term. Think of flipping burger labour shortage as an indirect sugar tax.


Enter companies like Amazon and Ocado who are investing heavily in automation in the groceries sector. This should mean less demand for labour so inflation of food will be less sensitive to labour costs and so probably means inflation stays contained.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Scarce labour for flipping burgers is probably a good thing: Means higher cost of burgers means people cant afford to have burgers .

Ummm.... Perhaps in the interest of, well, honesty... the leave campaign should have put that on the side of a bus.

"Vote Leave - So that you can't even afford a McDonalds Burger.
(But at least you'll be healthier)."

Not sure that's a vote winning strategy....:o

itwasntme001

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Ummm.... Perhaps in the interest of, well, honesty... the leave campaign should have put that on the side of a bus.

"Vote Leave - So that you can't even afford a McDonalds Burger.
(But at least you'll be healthier)."

Not sure that's a vote winning strategy....:o

Politics is about sugar coating the truth, so no it wont be a winning strategy.


But anyway, this debate is about immigration, jobs, taxes and how we think we should structure our economy for the benefit of the majority, irrespective of politics.

kabayiri

Herzlos wrote: »

...
Something like 2% of the country is 'concrete', and a lot of it isn't suitable for farming or leisure. We've got huge areas of wasted space; bungalows, derelicts, brown belt and so on.
...

A countrywide figure is mostly irrelevant.

The trend in recent times has been more wealth to centralize, which is why you see 1/3 of grads now head for London.

Ultimately, you have a large city capable of big boom...and of course big bust.

Unfortunately, for the politicians, the majority of the public do not actually live in London. That helps explain the division.

Sustainability is not just population numbers; it's about a diverse enough society capable of coping with cycles.

Enterprise_1701C

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I'm not advocating population growth.

I'm simply stating the obvious, that we need to at least breed at the replacement rate, or we need to import workers to replace the ones we fail to breed.

Do you not understand the meaning of 'replacement rate'?

The problem being that long term replacement rate means short term population growth.

If you want immigration to fill the gap then we have to have purely immigration that is useful or you are simply piling worse upon bad (as you see it). We have a massive number of Nepalese around here, if I go to the doctors it is 70% elderly Nepalese in the waiting room and we are not even within the largest population density as regards Nepalese. Gordon Brown thought nothing of allowing an influx into the UK of elderly non-English speaking Nepalese, many of whom only have a distant relationship with a Ghurka or an ex-Ghurka, and the men of the older generation do not allow their women to learn English thereby isolating them and confining them to their own community. This is an example of immigration that should never have been allowed, if people come to this country they should have some value to us, Ghurkas and ex-Ghurkas fine, but their uncle by their grandfather twice removed is ridiculous.

We should only accept people that speak English (not a big ask considering it's global popularity) and will work, not just have a job then leave it after 6 months, those we should chuck out.

Unlimited immigration is not the answer, tightly controlled immigration might help, but only if they are willing to integrate and allow us to keep our culture rather than coming into a local shop and complaining they are offended by the Christmas decorations and they should be removed (the reply was that we found it offensive that he was offended by a tradition of the country he had chosen to live in, he said he would call the police about it but we heard nothing more).

I do not want to go wherever in the world and find the same culture there, the world is a wonderful place with all it's variety, we should keep it that wat.

kabayiri

ukcarper wrote: »

New technologies could impact the number of working age people we need.

There is no 'could' about it.

Technology has given a relatively small few the immense ability to affect the way we live our lives today.

If you look at the plans behind the ambitions of people like Jeff Bezos, they do not centre on the mass increase of manual jobs. It's the ambition to use technology to change the way we do things. Layers are taken out of processes, and the simplification sold to us as a benefit. Often those layers involved people.

By comparison, the vision of politicians is trifling. They prefer to look back, than look forward.

Division of labour could become a really hot topic in the decades to come, and tbh, we are not that good at change in an equitable manner.