- 10 Sep 2020 19:12
#15118767
This was a post I found on another forum -
...
I keep reading over and over again in various places the claim that we do not have enough young people, and that we need to bring in more immigrants.
But did these geniuses ever stop to consider WHY people are not having "enough" children?!?
Could it possibly be because families simply cannot afford to have more children and maintain a decent standard of living?? Could it be because parents know that any children they have will be living with them well into adulthood because of the unaffordable cost of housing? Could it be because parents know that their children will face dismal job prospects and low wages?
So perhaps the only responsible thing for any sensible family to do is NOT to have more than 1 or 2 children. And yet the government wants to bring in waves of immigrants who will keep having babies over and over again, whether they can afford it or not ?!?
What exactly will be the effects of such policies?
Widespread poverty, soaring youth unemployment, families that need government assistance because they do not earn enough to take care of themselves.
I think we are already seeing these effects.
The most insane argument I hear is the ridiculous assertion that more young people are needed to take care of the aging population. So what about the huge numbers of unemployed young adults, including many stuck in low wage jobs? Rather than bring in cheap immigrant care takers who will live in poverty, it seems to me that it would make far more sense for the government to simply help subsidize all these unemployed young adults to help take care of our old.
Our cities are already overcrowded. There is a shortage of affordable housing. Young adults cannot afford to move out of their parents house and start life. There are not enough jobs for all the people we already have. The few job opportunities that are left are low wage, for the most part. The last thing we need are more people.
-
Don't you see? There was never a real shortage of young workers. It was all about creating an excuse to bring in huge numbers of immigrants and irreversibly alter the social composition. The Conservatives were just too cheap for their own good.
In many ways, the education system was a big pyramid scheme. The supposed economic answer - a crazy one in retrospect - was to just give everyone university degrees so they would all earn more. So more people at the bottom would only help create more job positions higher up, so the thinking went.
-
many American farms that grow labor-intensive crops (things that need to be picked) are having trouble competing with the low-cost agricultural labor in Mexico and Chile. Another victim of free trade.
These farms don't have trouble finding workers, they just have trouble finding people willing to do intense exhausting farm work long hours of the day for minimum wage and no benefits.
-
discussing the connection between higher wages and possibility of price-inflation...
wages are only one component of consumer prices. The other component is land rent. In fact, in many cities the workers have to be paid much more to afford housing. And the housing is expensive because there is limited space and the land had to be purchased from the previous owner.
It is really too complex to describe in a single post, but the point is that, while prices may rise, they will not rise in proportion to the rise of wages.
-
the situation in Japan
There is a huge number of Japanese trapped in low paying jobs who barely earn enough to afford housing (the cost of living is high in Japan, especially in the cities). Unemployment is also rather high, although the official government statistics downplay this. Despite the serious employment problems, there are still politicians claiming that Japan does not have enough nurses to take care of its aging population. Even The Economist has echoed this absurd claim, and one wonders if they just have some ulterior motive, resenting the fact that Japan is one of the few industrialized countries still ethnically homogenous. (This magazine has become fond of subtly pushing progressive agendas in recent years)
"Bringing Foreign Workers Ruins Japan", written by Goro Ono, honorary professor at Saitama University.
Goro Ono wrote, "If industries where labor is in high demand pay adequate salaries, people will work there." Ono used nursing as a good example. "Japan is actively bringing in Indonesians and other foreigners to cover a shortage because nurses in Japan are woefully underpaid. While on the other hand, public entities never have trouble finding garbage collectors because they get decent salaries."
Ono also brought up the lack of discussion about the cost of building infrastructure to accept more immigrants.
Japan is an interesting situation because many garbage collectors get paid more than nurses. So for the Japanese, it is clear to see that there is no shortage of labor. It is just that certain politicians want a supply of cheap labor, even though these foreign workers will scarcely have enough to live on. What Japanese person in their right mind would go through all that training for a job that does not even pay decently?
Same thing is happening in many American and European cities with high costs of living. The hospitals pay poorly and then wonder why they can not find any nurses.
Because potential workers do not want to go through all the training of becoming a nurse, only to get a low salary and have to live in an expensive city where the hospital is.
Peter Capelli, professor at the prestigious Wharton school of business, wrote: "Indeed, some of the most puzzling stories to come out of the Great Recession are the many claims by employers that they cannot find qualified applicants to fill their jobs, despite the millions of unemployed who are seeking work. Beyond the anecdotes themselves is survey evidence, most recently from Manpower, which finds roughly half of employers reporting trouble filling their vacancies. The first thing that makes me wonder about the supposed 'skill gap' is that, when pressed for more evidence, roughly 10% of employers admit that the problem is really that the candidates they want won't accept the positions at the wage level being offered. That's not a skill shortage, it's simply being unwilling to pay the going price."
...
I keep reading over and over again in various places the claim that we do not have enough young people, and that we need to bring in more immigrants.
But did these geniuses ever stop to consider WHY people are not having "enough" children?!?
Could it possibly be because families simply cannot afford to have more children and maintain a decent standard of living?? Could it be because parents know that any children they have will be living with them well into adulthood because of the unaffordable cost of housing? Could it be because parents know that their children will face dismal job prospects and low wages?
So perhaps the only responsible thing for any sensible family to do is NOT to have more than 1 or 2 children. And yet the government wants to bring in waves of immigrants who will keep having babies over and over again, whether they can afford it or not ?!?
What exactly will be the effects of such policies?
Widespread poverty, soaring youth unemployment, families that need government assistance because they do not earn enough to take care of themselves.
I think we are already seeing these effects.
The most insane argument I hear is the ridiculous assertion that more young people are needed to take care of the aging population. So what about the huge numbers of unemployed young adults, including many stuck in low wage jobs? Rather than bring in cheap immigrant care takers who will live in poverty, it seems to me that it would make far more sense for the government to simply help subsidize all these unemployed young adults to help take care of our old.
Our cities are already overcrowded. There is a shortage of affordable housing. Young adults cannot afford to move out of their parents house and start life. There are not enough jobs for all the people we already have. The few job opportunities that are left are low wage, for the most part. The last thing we need are more people.
-
Don't you see? There was never a real shortage of young workers. It was all about creating an excuse to bring in huge numbers of immigrants and irreversibly alter the social composition. The Conservatives were just too cheap for their own good.
In many ways, the education system was a big pyramid scheme. The supposed economic answer - a crazy one in retrospect - was to just give everyone university degrees so they would all earn more. So more people at the bottom would only help create more job positions higher up, so the thinking went.
-
many American farms that grow labor-intensive crops (things that need to be picked) are having trouble competing with the low-cost agricultural labor in Mexico and Chile. Another victim of free trade.
These farms don't have trouble finding workers, they just have trouble finding people willing to do intense exhausting farm work long hours of the day for minimum wage and no benefits.
-
discussing the connection between higher wages and possibility of price-inflation...
wages are only one component of consumer prices. The other component is land rent. In fact, in many cities the workers have to be paid much more to afford housing. And the housing is expensive because there is limited space and the land had to be purchased from the previous owner.
It is really too complex to describe in a single post, but the point is that, while prices may rise, they will not rise in proportion to the rise of wages.
-
the situation in Japan
There is a huge number of Japanese trapped in low paying jobs who barely earn enough to afford housing (the cost of living is high in Japan, especially in the cities). Unemployment is also rather high, although the official government statistics downplay this. Despite the serious employment problems, there are still politicians claiming that Japan does not have enough nurses to take care of its aging population. Even The Economist has echoed this absurd claim, and one wonders if they just have some ulterior motive, resenting the fact that Japan is one of the few industrialized countries still ethnically homogenous. (This magazine has become fond of subtly pushing progressive agendas in recent years)
"Bringing Foreign Workers Ruins Japan", written by Goro Ono, honorary professor at Saitama University.
Goro Ono wrote, "If industries where labor is in high demand pay adequate salaries, people will work there." Ono used nursing as a good example. "Japan is actively bringing in Indonesians and other foreigners to cover a shortage because nurses in Japan are woefully underpaid. While on the other hand, public entities never have trouble finding garbage collectors because they get decent salaries."
Ono also brought up the lack of discussion about the cost of building infrastructure to accept more immigrants.
Japan is an interesting situation because many garbage collectors get paid more than nurses. So for the Japanese, it is clear to see that there is no shortage of labor. It is just that certain politicians want a supply of cheap labor, even though these foreign workers will scarcely have enough to live on. What Japanese person in their right mind would go through all that training for a job that does not even pay decently?
Same thing is happening in many American and European cities with high costs of living. The hospitals pay poorly and then wonder why they can not find any nurses.
Because potential workers do not want to go through all the training of becoming a nurse, only to get a low salary and have to live in an expensive city where the hospital is.
Peter Capelli, professor at the prestigious Wharton school of business, wrote: "Indeed, some of the most puzzling stories to come out of the Great Recession are the many claims by employers that they cannot find qualified applicants to fill their jobs, despite the millions of unemployed who are seeking work. Beyond the anecdotes themselves is survey evidence, most recently from Manpower, which finds roughly half of employers reporting trouble filling their vacancies. The first thing that makes me wonder about the supposed 'skill gap' is that, when pressed for more evidence, roughly 10% of employers admit that the problem is really that the candidates they want won't accept the positions at the wage level being offered. That's not a skill shortage, it's simply being unwilling to pay the going price."