Thread: Cost of Immigration

Originally Posted by Begbie

Lets be honest here Shitman. The taxes these immigrants contribute is what pays your dole money

utter bollocks - people are on the dole BECAUSE the immigrants have taken the jobs off locals (not to mention the fact that much of their salaries are sent abroad)

Originally Posted by Clockwork Orange

I'm not against immigrants as a rule - I'm against being milked to death to buy them cars & stuff & there should be a limit on the numbers.

I agree with Clockwork 100% here.

If they have some specific skill that a local does'nt then yes it's ok - but if all they can do is unskilled work then they are a drain.

so what if they pay taxes - the money for their wages comes from the British economy anyway , thus they are contributing nothing.

^ Somehow I think this immigration issue is vastly different in the UK vs. the US. In the US, the Mexican immigrants perform a valuable function and do jobs US citizens don't want to do. But, my impression is that in the UK, they don't add the same value to the country.

Is that right?

Originally Posted by colourful-era

so what if they pay taxes - the money for their wages comes from the British economy anyway , thus they are contributing nothing.

That makes absolutely no sense.

Originally Posted by chinthee

Is that right?

No, some guys are spouting off here.
I am sure you get the same about the Mexicans taking away people's jobs and being less demanding and stuff.

It's mostly unskilled and low-skilled work they are employed for, and guess who's complaining about it?
The same folks who can't get up in time for an appointment and find it difficult to get a job because they lack skills.

Having said this, there is another aspect which makes it different from the issues you face in the US, which is the expansion of the EU and a common (labour) market.
This does hit businesses and individuals hard, I have several friends who went out of business for it.
IMO one needs to take a long-term perspective here, these hopefully are initial shortfalls but we will benefit in the long run.
Just where does one propose to get the people from to make up for the reduced birthrates in Western Europe? Get more people from Turkey, Pakistan and the Caribbeans in?

^ Well I'll tell you, as a businessman, I love having cheap Mexican labour fill in the gaps. Then again, these Mexicans do want to become citizens and bring their families. I see no problems with that, and adds to the mix.

Not sure what's going on in Europe?

Originally Posted by chinthee

they don't add the same value to the country.

Is that right?

Yes, that's right. People make out that without immigrants doing these jobs that nobody would be doing them & this is not true. They have simply taking too big a bite of the job-market pie.

the money for their wages comes from the British economy anyway , thus they are contributing nothing.

This makes perfect sense.

Thay have even had to build two special prisons for immigrants because so many of them are villans.

Originally Posted by stroller

I am sure you get the same about the Mexicans taking away people's jobs

Originally Posted by Clockwork Orange

Yes, that's right. People make out that without immigrants doing these jobs that nobody would be doing them & this is not true. They have simply taking too big a bite of the job-market pie.

"They took our jobs!"
"They took er jobs!"
"Dey took ur jebs!"
"Dey Turk errr jerrrbs!"
"Durk our durrr!"

Originally Posted by Clockwork Orange

Thay have even had to build two special prisons for immigrants because so many of them are villans.

I sense a disturbance in the Force, a distortion of Daily Mailesque proportions. Got a link for ^ and ^^ above?

Originally Posted by chinthee

Well I'll tell you, as a businessman, I love having cheap Mexican labour fill in the gaps. Then again, these Mexicans do want to become citizens and bring their families. I see no problems with that, and adds to the mix.

Well, there is this as well, we get people wanting to settle, as well as migrants who want to make some money and return to where they come from, but this is not new.
What is new perhaps is the scale on which it is happening, and the fact that the 'old' EU was comparatively protected.
It's the price of unity and expansion.

Further, there are so many subsidies and stuff, it's hard for anyone to keep on top of it.
What broke a good friend's neck in the building industry is that businesses in certain regions in Eastern Germany enjoy 10% subsidies, or tax cuts or whatever, but their operations are not restricted to these parts. And guess what? That's about the profit he was calculating.

^ Don't get me wrong. There are huge cries of protectionism about this issue from Bill O'Reilly and other conservatives. They aren't businessmen.

What's good for the economy and for the consumers in America is to keep the immigration issue controlled, limit its effect on public services, but maximize the potential.

Granted. Very difficult issue.

And of course there is the issue of 'illegals' where I agree for a change with CO.

They contribute little, but are undermining the system.
There are loads of them in the EU as well. I mean they are working illegally without paying taxes or being insured.
Of course that's not new either, natives are pretty good at doing this as well, but now you get well-organised gangs which will supply Polish workers for a fortnight to a building site, for example.

Originally Posted by chinthee

Somehow I think this immigration issue is vastly different in the UK vs. the US. In the US, the Mexican immigrants perform a valuable function and do jobs US citizens don't want to do. But, my impression is that in the UK, they don't add the same value to the country.

Is that right?

No. It's wrong.

Europe and the UK need unskilled labour as much as the US does, but the immigrants are still subject to minimum wage laws, so they're not that a bargain in the UK.

I do agree that the foreign inmates should be deported though.

^ Yup, pretty close to the truth.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Originally Posted by colourful-era

so what if they pay taxes - the money for their wages comes from the British economy anyway , thus they are contributing nothing.

That makes absolutely no sense.

of course it makes sense.

If not , then where do you figure their salaries are coming from?

It's the same as a Tefl teacher in Thailand who sends most of his money back to the UK. His wages come from Thailand but so what if he pays some tax - overall the money is still LEAVING the country , thus taking food from the mouths of the peasants of Isan or some other such place. Same with the Eastern European mob - they are draining the resources of the UK and thus creating poverty for certain sections of the native British population.

Taxes are a contribution. As is the money paid for accomodation, food, entertainment and the like.

By your rationale any Brit that chooses to save their money and/or retires overseas is therefore not 'contributing' to the economy.

Originally Posted by colourful-era

they are draining the resources of the UK and thus creating poverty for certain sections of the native British population.

Can you substantiate this rather bizarre claim?

Originally Posted by colourful-era

It's the same as a Tefl teacher in Thailand who sends most of his money back to the UK. His wages come from Thailand but so what if he pays some tax - overall the money is still LEAVING the country , thus taking food from the mouths of the peasants of Isan or some other such place.

I don't think TEFLers make enough to send back, generally speaking. And the poor from Isan wouldn't be any good as English teachers - not a good example.

Also, you don't understand the basics of economics, it seems. Workers create value which exceeds their pay, otherwise they wouldn't have a job. The employer and ultimately the nation where they are employed are the beneficiaries of this created value. Further, they do pay taxes, direct and indirect ones on top of this.

In short, my views are those of most of my fellow countrymen, white, brown and black. I believe - again in common with most of my fellow countrymen, if polls and anecdotal evidence are any guide - that immigration has been running at too high a rate, and seems likely to continue to do so.

Too high for what?

Too high for the well-being of the majority of people in this country, and too high also for the immigrants who are coming here.

According to projections by government statisticians, under present trends the population of this country will rise by five million, from 60 million, over the next ten years, and exceed 70 million by 2031. They say that at least 70 per cent of this increase would be attributable to immigration. These projections do not seem to be excessive since they are shared by reputable academics.

They may even err on the cautious side. We learnt yesterday that one in seven prison inmates is foreign-born. It would be racist to infer that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than native Britons.

I also doubt that the police and courts are targeting immigrants while letting off home-grown crooks. Might it be that the level of immigration has been even higher than official statistics admit, and that in urban areas one in seven accurately reflects the proportion of recent immigrants to people who have been born in the country?

At all events, we can surely agree that immigration has been running at an unprecedentedly high rate. It is also undeniable that this has been taking place without popular consent.

How could there have been such consent, given that the Government itself has greatly underestimated the size of the influx? It expected fewer than 20,000 East Europeans, and perhaps as many as a million have turned up.

Much has been written about how high levels of immigration have placed, and will go on doing so, enormous strains on our infrastructure. Fifteen cities the size of Birmingham would have to be built over the next 25 years if we were to accommodate the projected numbers.

This, in a country which already has one of the highest population densities in the world, and where the housing stock, already in short supply, seems most unlikely to keep pace with demand.

These are powerful arguments.

It was only yesterday we hear they have earmarked millions of pounds for foreign prisoners. Seems it was money down the drain. The whole thing has gone pear-shaped & they've gone for the easy option, again.

Freed, 21 foreign prisoners in jail to await deportation | the Daily Mail

Criminals sent to England's two foreigners-only jails to be deported have been released early and allowed to stay in Britain instead.

Ministers opened prisons in Canterbury and Bullwood Hall, Essex, for overseas convicts so that they could be sent home once their sentence was complete. The £15million policy is designed to help immigration staff concentrate on having the robbers, burglars and drug dealers removed.

But at least 21 convicts sent to the prisons have already been freed under the Government's controversial early release scheme. They walked out 18 days before their sentences reached the halfway point, and were given up to £174 each in spending money.

Anti-immigration paper in running anti-immigration articles complete and utter non-shock.
I'm not entirely sure what it is you're hoping to achieve by all these Daily Mail cut 'n pastes?

Yes, why don't you read "The Independent" or "The Guardian" to get a different angle on the issues?
Or "The Telegraph" which is on a similar footing to "The Mail" in terms of 'quality'.

Of course different sources report on the same event or issue.

Different context and commentary, though.