Australians have been deeply worried in this century about two problems: running out of water and potentially rising seas due to carbon emissions. As Jared Diamond pointed out in Collapse, one obvious step is to take the pedal off the metal when it comes to immigration to Australia. The more people in Australia, the less water per person. And the more people who move to Australia from Asia, the more people on Earth shift from public transport and motor scooters to roaring around like Mad Max, with an inevitable increase in carbon emissions. (Australia and Canada are right behind the U.S. in carbon emissions per capita.)
This logic is so obvious that it actually broke through to public consciousness in the last Australian election, with both parties calling for moderation on immigration.
But now the election is over, with Labour (the left in Australia) winning a very narrow victory, so business interests are back to quietly shushing up this outbreak of common sense and potential majority rule. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
Josh Gordon
November 14, 2010
JULIA GILLARD's election pitch to avoid a ''big Australia'' is to be abandoned after a Treasury warning that strong future immigration is ''probably inescapable''.
In another policy retreat, the government's population review has been delayed and ''recalibrated'' to focus on skills shortages and regional growth, rather than nominating population targets.
During the election campaign in August, Ms Gillard said Australia should not ''hurtle'' towards a big population. At the time, she said a Treasury projection that Australia would have a population of 36 million people by 2050 was excessive. ''I don't support the idea of a big Australia with arbitrary targets of, say … a 36 million-strong Australia,'' she said.
However, a Treasury briefing sent to Ms Gillard after the campaign suggests she could have no choice. The briefing warns that the prediction of 36 million people ''factors in a significant reduction'' in migration, from a recent peak of 300,000 to an annual average of 180,000.
It concludes that even if annual net migration was lowered to an unrealistically low 60,000 per annum, Australia's population would still reach 29 million by 2050.
''Given the powerful global forces driving the Australian economy, net immigration figures well in excess of that low number are probably inescapable,'' the briefing says.
''Strong population growth is not necessarily unsustainable. It need not adversely affect the environment, the liveability of cities, infrastructure and service delivery, provided the right plans and policies are put in place now in anticipation of it.''
I realize that a Treasury ministry can't be expected to keep up to date with all the breakthroughs in economic reasoning made between the Enlightenment and 1914, but there is this hot new idea around called "opportunity cost."
A senior Labor source said business groups had been pressuring the government to adopt a default position ''where the issue of specific targets is not addressed''.
''I believe the government has accepted the reality that it is not prepared to cut migration to the extent needed to significantly reduce population growth,'' the source said. ...
Days before the election was called in July, Mr Burke appointed three population panels to provide advice on demographic change and liveability, productivity and prosperity, and sustainable development.
Treasury's budget update released last week predicted that unemployment will fall to 4.5 per cent by June 2011, heightening concerns that skills shortages could re-emerge as a key issue.
Asked if it was prudent to be talking about immigration cuts at such a time, Treasurer Wayne Swan said the government had refocused the migration program on skills.
Unemployment could fall to 4.5%? The horror, the horror ...
Posts
68 comments:
Pedal to the metal, not medal
Sydney Morning Herald, not Sidney
grammar fail?
no idea what you're trying to say here
Good grief, Steven Sailer, where is your humanity? Obviously attempting to micro-manage economic events over the next two whole years -- and no better way to that than with elixir of mass immigration (what isn't it the solution for?) -- is infinitely more important than the mere future of the country.
But those of us with stuff to sell make money from mass immigration and that's a lot of us. So in the short term we become richer. Then we have to spend a large proportion of that same money escaping the problems caused by mass immigration.
Tony Blair's New Labour government followed exactly the same policy for excatly the same reason, but with one crucial difference - They never actually had the guts to openly admit to it, knowing that the British public would never, ever stomach it and a mass wave of revulsion possibly resulting in Labour's ejection from ofice for generations could possibly ensue.
Unfortunately on loose toungued idiot and senior Labour apparatchik by the name of Andrew Neather (google 'neathergate'), was stupid enough to actually brag about the secret policy in a supercillious and ill-advised newspaper article.
The scandal broke, much to Labour's embarrassment, but unfortuantely the EastEnders soaked great Brtish public largely let it pass by.
Oh, and by the way, as another correspondent here mentioned David cameron and the Tories are little better.A 'secret' EU inspired arrangement was made with India to enable that nation unlimited and uncontrollded immigration into Britain under Cameron's watch.
All his talk of a 'cap' is just carnival barking to con the plebs - he couldn't give a shit about them or their concerns.
Do you seriously still believe this global warming (oops, "climate distruption" now) crap, Steve?
I know you are not a physical scientist, but I had thought you are a bright guy. Do you think there is a working, accurate, mathematical model of the world's climate?
I understand you didn't really take one side or another and that your main point was the immigration vs. the environment story. Still, I wish you quit spouting off the Global Warming left-wing line. Shoot, it's your blog, thought...
It's the Australian Labor Party; they use the American spelling thanks to the efforts of American-Australian King O'Malley.
Australia used to have a white Australia policy so any clampdown on migration is seen by some as a return to those days.
I was born in Australia and Victoria (the state I'm from) has been in official drought status since I can remember and I'm 26.
The Labor party in Australia has moved in a third way direction following the lead of the Dems here and Labour in the UK. Australia used to pride itself on being the lucky country and the home of the fair go. Working people lived a good life. My family immigrated to Australia, like everybody's did, but that doesn't mean Australia always needs mass immigration forever.
Business always wants more people to exploit their labor and sell them crap. I don't know why the left has such a hard on for non-white low skilled immigration. Its this soxiante-huiter, post-modern, Fannon third worldist crap. The upper middle class abandoned their own working class. Some of us labor democrats/social democrats still understand the need for social solidarity and a tight labor market.
This is what I've always said: the corps want the labor, the left wants the votes.
Any chance we can make this into a meme and spread it around conservative websites? Can anyone come up with a punchier formulation than me?
immigration is "probably inescapable"
Wow. Any official who says things like this has got to be fired on the spot. Any government that accepts things like this has failed to fulfill the most basic function of the government.
Dare I hope this thread will not be hijacked by someone eager to enthuse about aboriginal music, which is doubtless one of the peaks, if not the acme, of Australian culture?
Unemployment can be too low, from Capital's perspective. Worker 'shortages' drive wages up.
That is Labor can demand concesssions when they know they aren't replaceable and interchangeable. Of course, no one should expect the Labor Party to represent Labor. That would just be absurd.
Why have any immigration at all?
It's tragic. All the most livable countries in the world being deliberately destroyed.
Mel Torme:
There's no point whatever in taking Steve to task over whatever beliefs he may hold about AGW; there are any number of scientifically-oriented (and honest), intelligent people out there persuaded of its likelihood.
People like me (and probably you) do not believe the opposite on the basis of hard facts about the environment of which we have actual knowledge, either. Rather, my (and, probably, your) opposition is based on political prejudice: the knowledge that the Left wages unremitting battle on every front to collectivize to the greatest extent possihble. And, further, that in that struggle, some entirely capable (and otherwise brilliant) people--some of them scientists--are willing (when they feel it necessary in the "greater good") to falsify (and worse) to forward their political prepossessions.
But it's mistaken to put Steve (or, indeed, most of the undecided majority) on the "side" of the others--if for no other reason than thatit tends to alienate them somewhat from our own.
Take a gander at their economy, from Wikipedia: "The service sector of the economy, including tourism, education, and financial services, accounts for 69% of GDP. Although agriculture and natural resources account for only 3% and 5% of GDP respectively, they contribute substantially to export performance."
In other words, the economic benefits of some of the most important parts of the Australian economy benefit the people in indirect proportion to population size. If population increases then the per capita production of Australia's largest sources of cash - tourism, natural resources, food - will almost certainly decrease. This would impoverish, not enrich, the Australian people.
Sure, I hear Sydney and Melbourne are gorgeous and have awesome nightlife. But tourists don't visit Australia just for the beautiful cities or the nightlife. They visit for the awesome splendour of the Outback, and the unique wildlife to be found nowhere else on earth. This splendour can only suffer with a soaring population in need of ever more fresh water and land, and tourism will not increase at a rate commensurate with population growth - if it increases at all.
Why is Norway one of the richest countries in Europe (and the world)? A small population combined with massive exports of oil and fish. In a growing world, natural resources become more valuable, not less.
I can imagine certain segments of the Australian economy, like tech, might benefit from an influx of smart, hardworking Asians. But not without hurting those other sectors and at the same time completely remaking Australian cities, culture and politics in a way native Aussies might not enjoy or even benefit from.
High Tech gadgets can be imported from abroad. Paradise cannot.
By the way, my favorite story regarding multicultist Aussie leftists relates to the Aussie PM caught wandering around buck-naked and high at a Memphis hotel.
One of these days, native Australians are going to wake up wondering how the hell their country got into a similar state.
If business/corporations as a whole are so powerful in Australia, why are they unable to wrangle better tax rates than paying 1/3-1/2 (or worse in some cases, when adding up all the different taxes paid) of their income to the state? That would have a more significant impact on the bottom line in many industries than mass immigration.
"Because they lobby politicians for special tax concessions on a per company basis"? Only a limited # of the best connected ones actually succeed at this, and to a limited extent. Again, achieving overall lower rates would lead to a far greater benefit (with greater efficiency and certainty) to the bottom line.
As always, the left and center use mass immigration to garner votes. Against the native majority. And as always, it is about Class.
And much of the class conflict is driven by ... yes women. Consider the hatred of Sarah Palin, the flipside of the idealization of non-natives. FX plans a series about an illegal alien private detective. Culturally even folks like Bill Whittle make the laughable declaration that America has no ethnicity or language. Just a set of ideals. What drives that?
For upper class men and women, the answer is obvious. The desire to live in Brazil or the New Raj. With tons of illiterate, non-Whites, providing cheap servants and votes.
But for lower class folks, what is the attraction? How does this policy, culturally speaking, get to 50% + 1? How does FX not suffer massive blowback? The answer IMHO is that lower class women have been successfully peeled off to support it. They don't face economic competition in pink ghettos of female-service dominated jobs. And the class movement by displaying "correct" attitudes is far easier for women than (White lower class) men. Joe the Plumber will never be anything other than lower class White. But his female equivalent CAN move up in class. Hence the support.
Let me add, Australia's big mining companies want cheap labor to exploit the natural resources. So they want a massive pool of immigrants. Labor is supposed to be on the side of ... Labor. But its run by the first Female PM, who appeals mostly to the female voter.
Hence no blowback for Guillard, because her female supporters who love to stick it to lower class White guys outnumber the lower class Union White guys.
Mel, the important thing is not that Steve believes in global warming, but that the Left does. Third Worlders who move to the First World consume a lot more and generate a lot more carbon than if they had remained at home. Using this as a wedge issue between the Green and "pro-immigration" Left is just so crazy it might work.
I expect the Stable Population Party, backed by the likes of electronics tycoon Dick Smith, will get some traction next election.
"Yet population growth is not inevitible. The Howard and Rudd/Gillard Governments, influenced by big business donors, have deliberately implemented policies that will deliver a population of 36+ million by 2050 and 100+ million by 2100 - way beyond our long-term carrying capacity given Australian resource depletion, peak oil and climate change. Unfortunately, there has been ongoing indifference and lack of courage from many Greens leaders. The Greens claim to represent the environment, but put their social justice agenda ahead of Australia's national interest and our environment.
In 1994, the Australian Academy of Science held a conference to publicise its population enquiry findings: considering the resource needs of our cities, and Australia's supply of water, minerals and arable land, 24 million is the safe upper limit at which to stabilise Australia's population. As Australians see their quality of life deteriorating due to population growth pressures, this advice has proven to be very sound. We are now fast approaching this safe upper level, and Australians of all backgrounds are craving a rational and mature debate about population size - beyond the simplistic "stop the boats" and "sustainable Australia" slogans we are getting from The Coalition, Labor and The Greens."
Stable Population Party
Cue that anonymous twit claiming that opposition to immigration is "socialism" in 3...2...
Mel Torme: Do you think there is a working, accurate, mathematical model of the world's climate?
No, he's trying to be too-clever-by-half.
He thinks that the Left can be weaned away from David Gelbaum's influence and lured back into their natural nihilistic disdain for the lesser races.
And that that disdain can be channeled into a political movement for a new immigration policy.
Point being that Steve thinks a sane immigration policy is so vital to the future of the civilized world that he is willing to make a deal with the Devil in order to attain it.
It's the Australian Labor Party; they use the American spelling thanks to the efforts of American-Australian King O'Malley.
Australia had a king! Who knew. And one powerful enough to dictate spellings, incredible!
Sorry. (In the tradition of the tragically mis-comma'ed "Panda: eats, shoots, and leaves" and other punctuation-based humor).
It is not certain that if Whitman himself were alive at the moment he would write anything in the least degree resembling Leaves of Grass. For what he is saying, after all, is 'I accept', and there is a radical difference between acceptance now and acceptance then. Whitman was writing in a time of unexampled prosperity, but more than that, he was writing in a country where freedom was something more than a word. The democracy, equality, and comradeship that he is always talking about are not remote ideals, but something that existed in front of his eyes. In mid-nineteenth-century America men felt themselves free and equal, were free and equal, so far as that is possible outside a society of pure communism. There was povery and there were even class distinctions, but except for the Negroes there was no permanently submerged class. Everyone had inside him, like a kind of core, the knowledge that he could earn a decent living, and earn it without bootlicking. When you read about Mark Twain's Mississippi raftsmen and pilots, or Bret Harte's Western gold-miners, they seem more remote than the cannibals of the Stone Age. The reason is simply that they are free human beings. But it is the same even with the peaceful domesticated America of the Eastern states, the America of the Little Women, Helen's Babies, and Riding Down from Bangor. Life has a buoyant, carefree quality that you can feel as you read, like a physical sensation in your belly. It is this that Whitman is celebrating, though actually he does it very badly, because he is one of those writers who tell you what you ought to feel instead of making you feel it. Luckily for his beliefs, perhaps, he died too early to see the deterioration in American life that came with the rise of large-scale industry and the exploiting of cheap immigrant labour.
Mel Torme, I sympathise with your position. Environmental madness makes me want to puke. Even so, maybe it is worth sleeping with the Devil Greens to save Australia's unique flora and fauna. It's just about the last place where the migration debate is not quite moot yet.
What, exactly, do they mean when they say that immigration is "inescapable"? Is there a logistical reason why people can't just be turned away? (If so, I don't see it; there's a lot of ocean between Australia and anyone who wants to immigrate there.) Or do they mean that there are too many Australians who benefit from immigration to ever get the political will behind the idea of stopping it?
David Cameron said he wanted a cap on foreign, non-EU immigrants and net migration of 40,000 per year. To implement this, restrictions are being placed on foreign students and family/marriage visas.
There was a question on whether there should be a cap on intracompany visas. Originally Cameron said yes, then said no, and now is saying sort of. Intracompany transfers will happen, but there will be a salary limit to keep out lower paid and less skilled workers. These workers will also be denied the right to stay permanently.
Cameron is also saying that Labor's policy of giving permanent settlement to foreign workers and students will be ended. He also is denying Liberal Democrat's request for an illegal alien amnesty.
Tories have also been pretty good on immigration historically. Labor and Tony Blair opened the flood gates back in 1997, but the Tories are showing sanity amd trying to shut it.
I'd prefer 0 net migration or even negative migration (like Germany!), but Cameron is remarkably better than Blair and also remarkably better than any major American politician.
If I lived in the UK, I'd become a Tory. Tory > Republicans any day of the week.
>But those of us with stuff to sell make money from mass immigration and that's a lot of us. So in the short term we become richer. Then we have to spend a large proportion of that same money escaping the problems caused by mass immigration.<
Yes. Until there is no place left to escape these problems. Net loss. Self-destruction.
>I wish you [would] quit spouting off the Global Warming left-wing line.<
Steve did not spout this line. He incidentally referenced that rising seas were a concern of some people (right or wrong) then wondered why those same people would turn around and be gung-ho (or at least complacent) about mass immigration. He is pointing out one of many technical contradictions in public policy.
Anyway, it doesn't take a physical model of the planet's ecosystem to know that at a certain rate and volume of immigration Julian Simon's theories become less relevant and Malthus's become more.
Labor won't get far with this. It is a hot button issue--- and Julia is perched on a razor thin majority. Labor has NO mandate. With that said, most Aussies have NO issue with the old pre-80s era White Australia policy, which is still de facto policy. Even still, it isn't a issue as the Asians who come here are generally hard working, very focused on education and have no illusions about pulling a 2nd gen Muslim bait & switch (altho the Lebanese who came here in the 70s are a different issue altogether-- still, statistically insignificant). All that said, Australia DOES need talented young Western talent... and it has no problem attracting that talent at all (hell, the premier of NSW is an American fre Christs' sake!)
"Point being that Steve thinks a sane immigration policy is so vital to the future of the civilized world that he is willing to make a deal with the Devil in order to attain it."
BINGO! Abso-freakin-lutely. Look, Tom in VA and others, I know what you all are saying. "Hey, you left-wingers believe A (AGW-BS)so badly, how can you believe B (high immigration is good). See, we've proved a contradiction here." This does not work, people! Ask a Sierra club idiot (I did) about immigration to the US, trash up and down the US-Mex border, land in the high Sierras destroyed in grow-ops. No, immigration has nothing to do with it - they are not against it, because a high-paying donor told their honchos that - end of story.
You can't use these logical arguments with these people. They will use it against you, and probably in a court of law.
Now, I'll let Steve speak for himself, if he has one of those rare spare moments to write a comment back. I think he's just including the GW crap in with the rest of the actual valid reasons that increasing population most obviously increases many environmental problems. The world can only clean up after itself if people are spread out fairly thin. Don't expect the immigrants to clean up too much (or really, to care about the fate of their new country), as many aren't into that.
and another thing:
Once you go down that road of "Using this as a wedge issue between the Green and "pro-immigration" Left is just so crazy it might work.", you have put that on the record. You'll here later on about how those right-wing incompassionate bastards finally got rid of their "denial" problem, and we all agree "The Earth has a Fevah!" (yeah, stick a rectal thermometer in it and shut the f__k up, Al!). Then it's - "yeah, but immigration is fine, because we've got Australia signed up on the 10 % emissions or bust plan" (aka, the Mad Max scenario, with or without that long-haired feral kid that throws the razor-edged boomerang around).
You're right about the "just crazy enough" part, but not the "might work" part ;-) Not with that crowd.
"People like me (and probably you) do not believe the opposite on the basis of hard facts about the environment of which we have actual knowledge, either. Rather, my (and, probably, your) opposition is based on political prejudice:"
Look Gene, it's not that I don't agree that it is totally political; it's just that I know as a scientific type that there is no working model of the climate -- we can't predict the next El Nino accurately, man, just as an example. You can't have a model, even if it was perfect on all the known physical effects, which it's not even close to, and ignore the unknown ones (exactly why does an ice age start, and when is the ramp-down for the next one going to occur?, for starters).
It is BS, pure and simple. Gene, you may think that just because the left is pushing it so hard. I personally give the left some credit, as left-wingers can be right, but just not ever about politics.
This "climate disruption" nonsense is very political. So, I agree with you as to why they "believe" in this crap, but that's not my reason to be against it. I know crap science when I see it. I realize how hard it is to make a successful math. model of the simplest process, much less the whole world climate.
Maybe a different argument you might be thinking of too, Gene, is this: Even if these models could be run from 10 yrs-back conditions, and correlate very well with present data (without large fudge factors all over), does an increase in T by a few degrees C (like 2) mean anything that bad. That's a whole nother argument, and you probably know which side I am on there too.
All you are really saying is that you have little understanding of the Australian Labor Party, which has both left and right wing elements within itself.
Your comments shed no light on this, sorry.
In Germany, labor unions have played a large role in keeping out foreign workers. Sometimes the left can be useful, just so long as we're talking the traditional labor-left - and not the new Democrat/Labor left of Clinton and Tony Blair.
When you get down to it, the most dangerous people are the new left types and the neoconservatives, as both groups are extremely pro-immigration and pro-globalization. Currently, they have a lot of power in the U.S. and apparently even Australia.
By the way, old waves of Lebanese immigrants have been very successful. In the U.S. and more especially Latin America/Carribean, Lebanese migrants have done very well in commerce and trade. Lots of Lebanese business magnates in Argentina, Mexico, and other South American countries. Not to mention all the Lebanese on Wall Street. Interestingly, pretty much all these successful Lebanese are Christian Maronites - as opposed to Sunni/Shiite Muslim.
The new, troublemaking Lebanese-Australians are mostly Muslims. THis might not be too surprising, when you consider that Lebanon was a fairly prosperous country until the Muslims outbred the Christians and then fought a prolonged civil war with them. Of course, even Muslim Lebanese seem to be relatively mercantile by the standards of the lethargic Mid East, with many trading goodsin Africa.
If business/corporations as a whole are so powerful in Australia, why are they unable to wrangle better tax rates than paying 1/3-1/2 (or worse in some cases, when adding up all the different taxes paid) of their income to the state? That would have a more significant impact on the bottom line in many industries than mass immigration.
Because the left opposes them.
The left welcomes immigrants, be they useful ("skills shortage!!!") or useless ("asylum seekers!!!").
Funny how immigration is "inescapable" for White countries but is very escapable for non-White ones like Japan, South Korea, etc.
Also note the Freudian slip - "inescapable" - you try to escape from something when it is bad. He is subconsciously admitting it is bad.
Funny how no one is saying China, Africa or Japan, needs millions of people who are not of their race or culture, to come and make them minorities in their own lands.
Africa has half of the world's best farmland and enormous natural resources, so surely Africa needs millions of skilled workers.
China is exploding economically, so surely they need skilled help from the third world.
Japan has an aging population, is wealthy, has an awful colonial history, so the left would say they deserve it like European nations do. What ever they mean by that.
Its really strange how they only say White countries, like America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and all of Europe, need unending immigration of people, that are not of their race or culture.
To anyone with common sense, this looks like a targeting. But what is their goal?
The sager members of the governing left secretly know that they can not lift up groups, societies and nations as their utopian ideals demand.
But unwilling to jettison their commitment to enforced equality, they achieve the equal outcomes by undermining those groups, societies and nations that have succeded and prospered
Whiskey said…
“Hence no blowback for Guillard, because her female supporters who love to stick it to lower class White guys outnumber the lower class Union White guys.”
A broken clock can be right twice a day – sort of. There was the issue of women tending towards Gillard and Labor last election but I don’t think it was simply due to Gillard being a women. The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, provided a textbook example of how to lose female voters and alienate women due to his public old-time Catholicism. At one stage before deciding to enter politics he was going to become a monk. It is widely known he is opponent of abortion (please don't start a tangent on abortion, it probably is wrong but that's not relevant to this post) and this sets off alarm bells in women. His subsequent bizarre rambling about his daughters keeping their virginity did not alleviate this. How much effect this had on the election result is unknown, but we have the Westminster system in Australia and vote for parties more than personalities (or should, the former PM Kevin Rudd’s attempt at a media-management mini-personality cult might have changed this).
Basically Australian politics seems to of become calcified by special interests and political powerbrokers. None of the major parties really have a mandate, federally and at state level like in NSW, and the quality of governance reflects this. The Labor party is a case study of “legal corruption and misgovernment”. It isn’t a ‘left wing’ party in the sense that European parties and the Greens are. Originally they were the party of trade unions and economic nationalism. This changed in the eighties under Hawke and Keating to modern day neo-liberalism and a move towards status based politics and latte posturing. Currently they are a bizarre mix of declining unions, cynical powerbrokers and the familiar globalists pretending to be altruistic by sucking up to dysfunctional third-worlders while destroying the ability of Australian lower income earners to have a reasonable wage, ability to buy reasonably priced property and generally live a nice life without subsidizing and being affronted by aliens who shouldn’t be in this country. Same goes for the Liberals and Greens.
Funny how immigration is "inescapable" for White countries but is very escapable for non-White ones like Japan, South Korea, etc.
"Inescapable" as in "there ain't jack shit we're gunna let you do about it."
Nevermind that the whole point of representative democracy is that the people control their future. Nevermind that leftists are perpetually arguing that the government is universally competent to do just about anything. Stop the oceans from rising? Check. Equalize educational outcomes? Check. Provide adequate health care for every single citizen, and efficiently? Check. Eliminate racism? Check.
But somehow controlling the borders and setting realistic immigration rates is beyond the abilities of the leviathan state.
Autralia does have one neat idea - the government has to produce at regular intervals a demographic audit - the Intergenerational Report.
Anon - Cameron's immigration pronouncements are window-dressing for their supporters. The ICT minimum wage proposals may never happen, and they are already retreating on the original limits.
Labour liked immigration because it meant cheap votes. The Tories like immigration because it means cheap labour for the companies that fund the party.
And in the meantime :
"Tens of thousands of migrants from India are set to win the right to live and work in Britain because of the EU, leaked papers revealed yesterday.
Up to 20,000 information technology workers a year are to be handed British work permits as part of a deal between Brussels and India.
It would mean thousands of extra migrant workers coming here on top of those already arriving under schemes to accept highly skilled workers from abroad.
Documents leaked to the MigrationWatch think-tank from the European Commission suggest a deal is being done to allow India between 35,000 and 50,000 EU work permits each year for skilled IT workers.
Under the pact, Britain would be expected to accept 20,000 workers, while German would take 7,000 and France 3,000.
The numbers are based on the size of the IT industry in each EU country and on the record of each one in granting work permits to Indian workers in the past – a factor which pushes Britain to the top of the list of those expected to accept new migrants."
Gee, a middle-aged, unmarried (Ms. Gillard has a "partner", not a husband) white womam with no children is poised to make decisions which will be disastrous for her country. Who'd have guessed.
bruce said
>All you are really saying is that you have little understanding of the Australian Labor Party, which has both left and right wing elements within itself. Your comments shed no light on this, sorry.<
Nor do yours.
Point being that Steve thinks a sane immigration policy is so vital to the future of the civilized world that he is willing to make a deal with the Devil in order to attain it.
And you don't? If the Devil wanted to cut that deal with me, he could dispense with the usual disguise altogether. I'd ink it and sign it with him standing there in full regalia; curly 'stache, horns, tail, pitchfork and all.
Love the article Laban linked to. In it you find this statement, by Liberal Democrat and Coalition cabinet member Vince Cable:
Mr Cable made his opposition to an immigration cap known as he travelled with Mr Cameron to India in the summer. He said he wanted to make any limit on numbers ‘as liberal a policy as possible’. In September, Mr Cable said unemployed British school-leavers and graduates should go to India to get apprenticeships and training in high-tech industries.
He said the one-way direction of migrant workers from India to Britain should be transformed into a two-way exchange.
‘I believe there should be a freer flow of labour,’ he added.
Ahh, isn't that sweet - a politician telling his own countrymen to get the hell out of their own country and move to a Third World country where they'll make not a tenth of what they would in their indigenous land?
Woops, shouldn't say "indigenous" - only brown people are allowed to be "indigenous."
And you don't?
Svigor, I know that it is possible to win some short term battles with these too-clever-by-half tactics.
But long term, I am deeply suspicious of our prospects if our counterattack is built on a foundation of nihilism.
If we do not remain devoted to [an ideal of] the truth, then we are no better than the nihilists themselves.
"The left welcomes immigrants, be they useful ('skills shortage!!!') or useless ('asylum seekers!!!')."
To the left, all immigrants are useful, be they productive or merely reproductive. The economic benefits of having skilled immigrants are used to offset and obscure the economic and cultural drawbacks (from a non-left POV) of also having the unskilled immigrants. The result is still a net loss for the receiving culture, which is, above all, the left's goal.
those of us with stuff to sell make money from mass immigration and that's a lot of us
That's the point that everyone going along with the "we need more workers" fiction misses - what the pro-immigration enthusiasts really want are more consumers, not more labor. If immigration happens to drive down wages, that's just icing on the cake as far as these people are concerned.
They are perfectly happy to import large number of people who'll never work, because even those "useless mouths" require homes, food, transportation, and other services, to be paid for by the shrinking number of actual taxpayers.
I don't know about the claim that "a lot of us" make money off the scam though. I'd say more people believe they're getting rich off it than actually are.
Documents leaked to the MigrationWatch think-tank from the European Commission suggest a deal is being done to allow India between 35,000 and 50,000 EU work permits each year for skilled IT workers.
But only India, mind you. Don't expect them to give out visas to unemployed American IT workers.
Hence no blowback for Guillard, because her female supporters who love to stick it to lower class White guys outnumber the lower class Union White guys.
This guy called whiskey is seriously messed up. At the heart of every problem the West faces is white women wanting to stick it to beta white males. Besides being wrong on this basic concept, I also think whiskey needs to rethink how he classifies men. The alpha/beta model is not sufficient. You really need to differentiate beyond alpha/beta. Here is a pretty decent post which does.
Point being that Steve thinks a sane immigration policy is so vital to the future of the civilized world that he is willing to make a deal with the Devil in order to attain it.
And you don't? If the Devil wanted to cut that deal with me, he could dispense with the usual disguise altogether. I'd ink it and sign it with him standing there in full regalia; curly 'stache, horns, tail, pitchfork and all.
Ha, ha, I guess you don't know how all these deals with the devil work. Ever heard of Robert Johnson? He ain't doing too good right now, and nobody ever knew how well he could play guitar anyway. The devil gets your soul, too; that's part of every deal.
So, if Steve were to make this deal, and lose his soul in the process, he could easily turn into a left-wing freak. I could see this website going to hell in short order. That'd suck.
Cheap labor is the Holy Grail of Capitalism.
"He said the one-way direction of migrant workers from India to Britain should be transformed into a two-way exchange."
Hope they're willing to subsidise anti-tropical disease medications and inoculations. Wouldn't be surprised if greater vulnerability of Western people to tropical disease (a vulnerability not symmetrically held by Indians to European disease) and them dropping dead and falling ill from it was seen as "just part of the free flow of the market" though and a cost for them to bear.
Mel Torme asks rhetorically: "Do you seriously still believe this global warming (oops, "climate distruption" now) crap, Steve?"
I guess Steve's position with regards to climate change is the the same as that with HBD - i.e. pro-science.
Steve is spot on with his analysis of Oz Labor politics. Back in January of this year, before then PM Rudd got bounced, the notion of a "big Australia" was asserted as beyond the government's sphere of influence:
Mr Rudd yesterday sought to present the predicted population boom as something largely out of his Government's hands.
Asked whether he supported the 35 million forecast, he said: ''I don't have a view on that, to be quite honest.'' He told ABC Television: ''This is simply the reality we are now dealing with." (Source)
Like a Carbon Tax, massive immigration is "inevitable" and beyond the government's ability to influence the outcome. Do not resist nature my friends. Government policy is merely an evolutionary adaptation within environment. It's a Darwinian process. Live with it.
The only thing I'd add is that Gillard's Labor govt is a minority government, having had to forge an alliance with the Greens to form government.
The Greens are not opposed to immigration. They are opposed to skilled migration programmes, that is, discriminatory programmes. Discrimination is, as I'm sure you have all been made aware, the greatest evil known to mankind. Correction: one of the greatest evils known to mankind. The greatest evil known to mankind is an unwillingness to engage in sodomy.
So, on that basis, the Labor party is pursuing Greens policy in order to ensure their continued governance. In short, the Labor Party is disappearing up its own fundament, as mandated by the Greens.
"I guess Steve's position with regards to climate change is the the same as that with HBD - i.e. pro-science."
I guess not, Jack Ketch. Someone who is pro-science would not believe that science is settled by consensus, and that a model of the whole earth's climate that leaves out all natural processes that have unknown causes is all we need to predict the climate of the future. It's more like just computerized masturbation on taxpayers' grant money.
Both of you are pretty far behind the curve on this one and possibly the type to fall for the next pyram... I mean, multi-level marketing scheme, that comes along.
My advice to both of you: Don't go to an old friend's house when, after many years absence, he invites you to dinner with some buddies, one in particular who is starting a cool new business. (Even if his name isn't Albert something-or-other-Junior, I urge you, find a ballgame on TV instead.) No need to thank me now.
An Anonymous said:
Tories have also been pretty good on immigration historically. Labor and Tony Blair opened the flood gates back in 1997, but the Tories are showing sanity amd trying to shut it.
Actually, mass immigration got going under the individualist and free market worshipping Lady Thatcher...
Just googling *thatcherism + immigration* found one nationalist blog saying it well ( I am not a nationalist... ):
...In other words the Thatcher miracle was built upon ;
1) Cheap and plentiful North Seal oil and the currency flow it created
2) Throwing British workers on the dole in order to lower wages in order for the UK to compete in the global economy
3) The short term financial boost from selling off the nations assets to the private sector.
There was no miracle.
It was simply luck, callousness and cunning.
On immigration she did NOTHING to stop the flood of immigrants into the UK and by signing the SEA in 1987 she commenced the process that led to Eastern European workers being allowed to work in the UK as they part of the EU.
Those who venerate her, venerate a false idol.
She was a nationalist who destroyed her own nation.
She dismantled and sold off the nations silver and turned us into the wage slaves of mammon and the international money markets.
She did nothing to stop immigration or seek to prevent the immigration invasion.
A number of American politicians might fit the mould of that list... Minus the North Sea Oil Boom.
Wow, sorry, left out the nationalist blog link...
http://leejohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2009/12/thatcher-and-immigration.html
Mel:
The overwhelming majority of people who study climate and related fields for a living disagree with you. It's quite possible they're wrong (the financial modeling guys seemed pretty smart and all their models more-or-less said 2008 couldn't happen), but that's not the way to bet.
It's a terrible mistake to try to evaluate factual questions on the basis of political ideology. That way lies _The Mismeasure of Man_ and creationism.
"It's quite possible they're wrong "
YEP
""It's a terrible mistake to try to evaluate factual questions on the basis of political ideology."
and
YEP
Nevermind that the whole point of representative democracy is that the people control their future. Nevermind that leftists are perpetually arguing that the government is universally competent to do just about anything. Stop the oceans from rising? Check. Equalize educational outcomes? Check. Provide adequate health care for every single citizen, and efficiently? Check. Eliminate racism? Check.
But somehow controlling the borders and setting realistic immigration rates is beyond the abilities of the leviathan state.
Excellent point. You know they're full of it because it's not even allowed to be discussed -- for fear that the government effort would actually succeed.
"Gee, do you think we really can stop sea levels rising?"
"We must do everything within our power to try. We simply must!"
Imagine that mindset applied to immigration and it's absolutely child's play to see it working.
Svigor, I know that it is possible to win some short term battles with these too-clever-by-half tactics.
But long term, I am deeply suspicious of our prospects if our counterattack is built on a foundation of nihilism.
If we do not remain devoted to [an ideal of] the truth, then we are no better than the nihilists themselves.
Yeah, okay, Larry Auster, whatever.
The other side seems to riding bloody high despite the burden all that numbing nihilism imposes.
I say, produce results like that first, then worry about the "nihilism."
Mme Gillard, a Fabian/Communitarian import straight from the homeland? Never mind.
Prior to Blair taking office in 1997, net migration to the UK was running at around 40K per year. That's the equivalent of around 200K per year for a country of America's size, which is not so bad. Though it could be lower. Part of the issue was that Europe use to have a very generous refugee policy, which has since been somewhat tightened.
The Tories did quite a bit to restrict foreigners from bringing over spouses, even instituting the primary purpose rule, which Labor then junked in 1997. So no they're not ideal, but they're far better than labor and immensely better than anything the U.S. is offering.
On immigration, Tories are to the right of the Republicans, who are useless on legal immigration and only sometimes right on illegal immigration.
"This is what I've always said: the corps want the labor, the left wants the votes.
Any chance we can make this into a meme and spread it around conservative websites? Can anyone come up with a punchier formulation than me?"
I am with you (mostly a liberal here - yeah, no kidding).
I believe the same thing, and will probably steal this and put it on my blog (no promises, I am usually too tired with this paradise modern existence to blog much, unlike the bearder wonder 'ere).
There is nothing worse than low unemployment! We must vigilant!
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