Numbers from Denmark and the Netherlands (the only two European countries where it's allowed to gather such statistics) show that non-EU immigration is a net cost to the society (and economy). In the Netherlands a non-western asylumseeker comes to about 800.000 € to 1.300.000 € net cost to the state over the persons lifetime, depending on what you take into account.
And that's purely the financial part, we're not even talking about the increase in crime and the ghettoisation of most western European cities.
It's a tragedy, for everyone involved (because most 2nd and 3rd generation non-western immigrants still live a life of poverty in Belgium/Netherlands).
That Economist stat often gets misunderstood. It is "net contribution to public finances" (= how much taxes do they pay), not "net contribution to the economy". This is because they are overly represented in low wage jobs, or indeed on longterm welfare. People in the lowest tax brackets pay very little of it.
I do agree that there needs to be a honest conversation about what (economic) immigrants offer vs. what they cost, but it needs to be done properly.
We will need immigrants because we are below 2.1 in Total Fertility Rate. But, the EU doesn't need to be the comfy life raft of the world as it has been for the past 2-3 decades.
Yeah, what I am saying is that these votes, regardless of their formal content, are usually an expression of general anti-immigrant sentiment.
Like voting for AfD. I doubt many people look at this organization and its leaders to conclude that "ah, here is the talent I would love to have running my country." They're merely the only available option against. Same with brexit.
UK pays for free housing of 110 thousand immigrants. And that's just one of the many well fare benefits.
But when they face deficit, they raise taxes instead of, crazy idea, not spending billions of money taken from UK citizens to provide free housing and food for foreigners.
UK citizens are rightfully pissed off that their life is getting worse.
That's not the social contract and being pissed off about that is not racism. It's self preservation.
The same happens in Spain, Germany, France, Italy.
That's your big mystery of why AfD or Reform UK are popular: because the parties currently in power are flat out refusing to implement clear desires of their voters.
That's how democracy is supposed to work: AfD and Reform UK and Le Pen are gaining because they are promising to implement the desires of citizens of German, UK or France.
Because Poles and Romanians are "other" enough to be hated... Ironically Britain had then to "import" people from Asia, Africa to e.g. work in the hospitals.
The foreigner-hate is so short-sighted. Your underpaid hospital worker, house cleaner, fruit picker, taxi driver, UberEats delivery is usually foreign, they don't mind working the exploitative conditions because for them the money is much better than home, providing you with affordable fruits, taxis and delivery (until the rent-seeking corporations want even more than 30%...). Get rid of them, and you'll have to pay living wages for your fruits and delivery. Heh, Westerners, still wanting to enjoy the fruits of colonization.
(Yeah the solution shouldn't be to continue allowing the exploitation, probably a better wealth distribution, but hey, why are you looking at my wallet, look at Elon's wallet!)
I'm sure the UK has way more than 41 thousand shitty jobs with shitty pay that no native really wants. I doubt they're not working because they don't want to.
In Canada the standard complaint is that "immigrants take the jobs" not that "immigrants aren't working". It seems like it's a lot easier to get a job at a Tim Hortons if you speak Hindi like the owners and managers. A job at a restaurant if you speak Levantine Arabic.
And those are just the public tip of the iceberg. Construction crews are mostly foreign. Our roofers were Indian. Our landscapers were Lebanese / Syrian. The people we interacted with spoke great English, but their workers didn't.
The big difference is that Canada had constant immigration. They came over 40 years ago and since they had trouble finding employment became entrepreneurs and restaurants and construction and other blue collar services are the most fertile areas for entrepreneurs. Now they have a huge advantage in hiring low cost labor.
She wrote:
> Civilised people don’t ask for resumes when answering calls from the edge of a grave. It shouldn’t matter what I did after I cleaned myself off and threw away the last of my asylum-seeking clothes. My accomplishments should belong only to me. There should be no question of earning my place, of showing that I was a good bet. My family and I were once humans in danger, and we knocked on the doors of every embassy we came across: the UK, America, Australia, Italy. America answered and so, decades later, I still feel a need to bow down to airport immigration officers simply for saying “Welcome home”.
> But what America did was a basic human obligation. It is the obligation of every person born in a safer room to open the door when someone in danger knocks. It is your duty to answer us, even if we don’t give you sugary success stories.
But heck, "civilised people", I'm beginning to doubt very much that Western Europeans deserve that moniker.
You write:
> Poland has hospitals staffed 100% by Polish people. What prevents UK from doing the same?
Maybe because UK kids don't want the underpaid overwork conditions? Why not pay them better and give more of the taxpayer's money for the NHS, oh some of you will moan about that as well? Maybe the NHS will be forced to spend the money for outsourcing, ensuring the Tory-run outsourcing companies earn those nice bucks - hey why not direct your anger at them?
> And they don't work so you now have mostly young males loitering in neighborhoods.
Yeah, perversely refugees applying for permit aren't allowed to earn income, so again it's the government preventing them to work. Allow them to pick those fruits for some income and you'll moan about the government making the country even more attractive for people to run away from bullets and bombs...
Moaning about irregular migration but "forgetting" UK has no legal routes and can't reject them back or France since UK left the EU.
Moaning about UK hosting them (often in dangerous conditions) while forgetting they're forbidden from renting, and finally complaining about UK feeding them while pretending that giving them work is not an offence.
Right Reform kook. Or maybe from their Konfederation party seeing he seems to be from Poland.
That’s funny in light of one of our Canadian governments (Alberta) recently calling for a referendum on immigration levels, with the government claiming immigration levels are too high to support the housing, economic and social needs of the sheer quantity of people coming in. Seems like the government is trying to be responsible by making sure the social welfare system can still support people as it was designed
Bingo. Just like wanting to leave the EU was self destructive cutting off immigration is as well. The US is in the process of trying to hobble its own economy right now.
Poland has almost zero immigration and is one of the fastest European economies.
Do explain the miracle of Poland. What kind of economics work for Poland but couldn't possibly work for England.
Do explain how 41 thousand unskilled young man landing in UK shores via small boats are good for economy. Majority of them do no work, not even the low skill jobs. They cost UK citizens a lot of money because UK gov took upon themselves to pay for their housing and food.
The same stats are in every country that allowed massive immigration: the immigrants are a massive drain on resources of the country. And those resources are 100% come from taxing labor of citizens.
Currently UK pays for housing 100 thousand immigrants.
It's pretty obvious that if they stopped paying for housing them, they would save a lot of money.
Properly managed immigration could, in theory, be a net positive for countries.
But as it stands now if you combine immigration with well fare, you get a net drain.
Poland was an ramshackle post-communist economy that has grown rapidly (with the help of generous EU handouts) over the past three decades to catch up to the Western side of the Iron Curtain.
If Brits are willing to impoverish themselves to <2,000 USD per capita[0] and then are lucky enough to find a willing benefactor who will pay to rebuild their crumbling infrastructure for ideological reasons, I'm sure the UK could experience similar growth.
They do not work because they're forbidden by law. It's a criminal offence to give work to any of these unregulated migrants. They're also housed by the UK government because it's a criminal offence to rent or sell them a property. Also they are often housed in the criminally unsafe (yes, that's also a thing) conditions and sometimes fed the mouldy food.
Imagine complaining about that (audible eyeroll).
So you want the UK to stop feeding and housing them but I guess keeping the laws forbidding them from working and renting? Why don't you and your mates don't do something about that already? Oh I know, last time they tried some ended up in prison for trying to kill the immigrants.
Mugrants arriving by boats because increasingly unhinged and rightwing governments paid off by dark money linked to Kremlin (we remember the suppressed intelligence report on Russian interference in voting) cut the country from the EU and closed down ALL the legal routes of immigration. Arriving "illegally" is the only way for them to claim for asylum.
And the funny thing is, the vast majority of these applying for asylum get their claims approved because they genuinely qualify, it's that UK is not offering any legal routes to anyone except Ukrainians (white Christians, I bet that had no impact) and a very few Afghans (these pesky translators, working for our troops risking their life now have a gall to ask for help once we let the Taliban back).
Did you see the graph showing illegal migration numbers before and after the Brexit vote? I bet you wouldn't like that. Because previous UK could just hand them back to the French.
All in all this is a self inflicted wound on all levels.
With the additional cherry on top of the utter lie in your last sentence. Immigration is not a net drain. Immigrant taxpayers are a net GAIN, and a very significant one, while the British citizens are a net LOSS to the treasury.
If we deported all the Brits the country would be much better off
If that’s indeed the case, how do you explain the lack of catastrophe in Japans economy ?
Japans big catastrophe happened in 1990 with the bubble bursting, but that was years before the peak in working age population. Since then, the economy has not improved much but also has remained somehow stable.
All the jobs in Japan are hard work and low wage. If you're relatively poor and moving from south east Asia, it may make sense to immigrate to Japan. If you're a developer you typically will make half or less than half the salary, for longer hours on some old stack.
When discussing where to live my wife realized that she would potentially triple her salary as a nurse with 10+ years of experience.
Tourists like Japan because it is clean, safe and relatively cheap, but given the option it really does not make sense to work there.
