Sally Redux

Is 'Ponzi scheme' an analogy the Daily Mail is using? It seems to pop up all the time now and not make much sense when it does.

Bud the Wiser

But the vast majority are taking low paid unskilled jobs. Their net contribution would be minimal, if any. Then you have to factor in that for every job they take we lose the opportunity for someone to come of JSA and the subsequent financial cost of that.


I understand that, but there is a clear difference between life expectancy and population growth. If life expectancy balances out at, lets say, 85 and population growth remained static, there would be a clear, or clearer, ability to define what is needed to support an aging population. However, if the population continues to grow, therefore the aging population continues to grow, therefore the working population has to grow to support it, and so on.

TheCreature

I believe I used it first in this thread, because it sums up perfectly the notion that the UK, or anywhere for that matter, needs more and more people entering the bottom of the pyramid to prop up those already at the top.

The fact that it does "not make much sense" to you is more about your stance than the analogy itself.

TheCreature

Exactly

Giantaxe

The Office for Budget Responsibility seems to think otherwise.

This is the classic zero sum game fallacy.

Again, you are overlooking the fact that birth rates (and hence death rates down the road) haven't remained static. The baby boomer generation will cause the death rate temporarily to increase for the next 30 years or so. You are also overlooking the likelihood that many migrants from EU countries won't become permanent immigrants. As I mentioned before, we're already seeing this with Polish migrants.

BritInParis

Just because they may not be paying much in tax and NI doesn't mean that they won't be making a net contribution. You pay tax on most things you buy in the form of VAT, there's fuel duty, alcohol and tobacco duty, etc.. The OECD has already done the maths and concluded that migrants make a net contribution to the public purse. And the work itself enables British companies to function, to sell more and make more money which adds to the economy beyond just what is taken in taxation.

I agree with you about the native unemployed in an ideal world but if Brits were willing to do those kinds of jobs then the mass immigration of Poles and others to work in fields and warehouses wouldn't be necessary. Clearly Brits aren't willing as if they were there wouldn't be vacancies available to encourage the immigration in the first place.

I've gone and done minimum wage jobs on a number of occasions in the last ten years or so when on holiday from university or in periods of unemployment, working in warehouses and similar jobs. There's always work available from the temp agencies and yet my local Jobcentre is full of young men signing on. The majority of my colleagues when working these jobs were unsurprisingly Eastern European. Why do manual labour in a cold warehouse in the middle of winter when you can sit at home in a council house on JSA and your other benefits? Some people have a work ethic and some don't.

There's plenty of projection data available on how many people will be over 65 in the next 30-40 years.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/pu...ng-population/

If you calculate the ratio how many people are of working age now in relation to retired people and extrapolate that out you'll end up with the require working age population in 2050. Presuming the birth rate remains consistent you'll also then know when you don't need any more migrants to make up the shortfall. As the baby boomers die off then the population will reach equilibrium as it's the spike of post-war births combined with advances in medicine that keep people alive for longer that's the problem. This is unlikely to be replicated in the future as the mass mobilisation required to fight global war has (hopefully) been consigned to history and we start to reach peak life expectancy in the UK.

Bud the Wiser

BritinParis & Giantaxe, thanks for your input. For me, for now, we'll just have to agree to differ before we go around and around in circles.

Part of me hopes you're right and I'll look forward to the days when there is less congestion on the roads due to an improved infrastructure, no waiting list in hospitals, less crowded doctors surgeries and where our old folks can live in comfort and security without having to worry about heating, food or whether they have to sacrifice a life time of work for a few weeks in a care home. When all of our population, immigrants and homegrown alike can live in affordable housing and their children go to schools where they are able to be educated to a standard that they in turn will be able to support the next generation.

For me, the ultimate benefit of immigration, from within the EU, will be when the standard of living in countries such as Romania & Bulgaria begins to rise, opening up opportunities for their citizens and other EU countries alike. For that to happen though, we may have to sacrifice a drop in our own standard of living. So be it.

Nigel Farage, ( and I've no time for UKIP ), did make an interesting statement the other day when he said something like," There's more to living in the UK than the economy." - Can't remember the exact quote, but he does have a point.

BritInParis

Thanks for a reasoned and civil debate. A rare thing on the Interwebs. My final point would be that immigration is a symptom rather than the cause of most of the problems that are ascribed to it. If the UK had a more robust infrastructure with a sustainable knowledge-based economy with schools and universities churning out young people with the required qualifications for skilled jobs and a unskilled workforce willing to put in the graft required for the less pleasant jobs then we wouldn't need migrants. We would be able to do it all ourselves. I would love us to became a more self-sufficient nation. It would be a better place for us all to live. But until that becomes a reality we have little choice but to import what we need lest we all suffer as a consequence.

Michael

It's more complicated than just the baby boomers. Currently in 20 countries, 0% or negative population growth is being experienced due to many factors including fertility rates. By 2050, it is expected that at least 25 countries will see a decreased population of between 7%-25%.

http://geography.about.com/od/popula...phy/a/zero.htm

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10...ing_countries/

When fertility rates fall below 2.0 (actually a little higher due to deaths of children), eventually the population of a country will start to decrease without immigrants. According to the World Bank, the fertility rate of Germany was 1.4 in 2011. Although that is the same rate as Japan, immigration to Germany will likely keep the loss in the range of 12% by 2050 but since Japan is a homogenous society, the loss is expected to be around 25% by 2050.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN

Also no one can predict if fertility rates will continue to fall further possibly making the loss even greater. I suspect that is why along with projected immigration there are some minor discrepancies between the first two links. With the UK fertility rate currently at 2.0, population should level off but if the fertility rate drops, population will decline without immigration.

Therefore it becomes a very complicated issue to solve if the population of a developed country declines.

scot47

I sometimes reflect that we are becoming more like the Gulf Arabs who stigmatise a huge range of jobs as being "not for us". Rather than do one of the jobs do0ne by untouchables and foreigners, locals doss about watching dfaytime TV !

petitionserver

no one seems to be concerned, except Daily Mail

chris955

Yes I think you spot on there.

Giantaxe

An object lesson on why one should never take the Daily Fail at face value:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/gre.../dailymail-pcc

nun

I respect the Daily Mail....at least they are consistent and keep to there guns over the issues. They are still pushing the same agenda they did in the 1930s when they published admiring articles about Hitler.

chris955

And still people read the trash and believe every word.