Why do we always need more houses, roads, trains, hospitals, schools?

[mouldss@hotmail.co.u]

Slave Trade Act 1807 Build date Stephenson's Rocket 1829.

[Ebeneezer_Goode]

Originally Posted by spindrift

You're an employer and the choice is between a feckless Jeremy Kyle-style indigenous applicant or a keen, eager Polish lad. Your call.

Insanely racist statement.

[spindrift]

It would be if I'd said every unemployed British youth is a feckless waster, it's quite common in debate to take an extreme view in order to demonstrate the polarities.

It's demonstrably true that Polish workers are preferred by employers:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...ns-476372.html

Migrants workers from the new European Union states are filling jobs that indigenous UK workers are not prepared to do, but for much lower wages, new research shows today.

Three quarters of employers said they believed European enlargement two years ago had been good for business, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said.

A survey of 1,000 migrants and employers by the social policy research and development charity, found employers used highly qualified migrant workers for low-skilled and low-waged work. The findings will be seen as confirming the view of the Bank of England that immigration keeps down wage inflation by relieving labour shortages.

Employers said they valued migrant workers filling vacancies in low-skilled jobs, especially in the building, hospitality and agricultural sectors. Employers told the JRF they found that migrant workers were reliable compared with UK workers, whom some described as "lazy".

These aren't racist employers, they're taking sensible decisions that will boost their business. Not racism, pragmatism.

[geogregor]

I love this sort of threads, especially on days like today, when such saucy statistics are released.

[SE23 Man]

Originally Posted by spindrift

In 2004 when Poland acceded to the EU we had half a million unemployed in the UK.

What does that tell you?

Yes and now we have well over 2.5 million unemployed, you idiot!

[spindrift]

The worldwide economic breakdown isn't the Pole's fault. Poland's the only EU economy that's growing!

[Bowater]

Originally Posted by spindrift

The worldwide economic breakdown isn't the Pole's fault. Poland's the only EU economy that's growing!

So the unemployment rate would not be lower than it is now in the absense of recent immigration?

I really like Eastern Europeans, I think they are wonderful people and it's a good thing that they come to the UK.

What annoys me is the silly arguments claiming that immigration is economically neutral. It's silly. What we need is arguments explaining the benefits to the UK of immigration not denial of the side effects.

[spindrift]

There isn't any clear evidence either way, that immigrants depress wages or affect unemployment. If Poles come here, find a job, rent a property, spend money locally, then they are contributing far more than they are taking. In Britain company profits were the highest last year since records began over 40 years ago. Yet median weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, fell by 0.4 percent. At the same time, directors' pay at Britain's biggest companies shot up by 28 percent. There's something skewed, but blaming Poles is misdirection. At the end of last year the Bank of England surveyed 200 companies employing 275,000 workers about their use of migrant labour. Fewer than 2 percent of them said they employed immigrants because they were cheaper, while a whopping 60 percent said they did so because there was a scarcity of local workers.

[Ebeneezer_Goode]

Originally Posted by Bowater

So the unemployment rate would not be lower than it is now in the absense of recent immigration?

Why would anyone think that it would be? The number of jobs out there isn't fixed. Poles are just as likely to create jobs as take them. Skilled workers from Poland bring much more to the table than they take, it's the economic migrants and asylum seekers from third world countries that put the real strain on the system.

[Bowater]

Well firstly Spindrift. If company profits are the highest on record, then that would seem to justify the increase in difectors' pay. Companies are in the business of making profit and if they can increase their profits in part by keeping a lid on wage inflation, they have nevertheless delivered on their work.

If we had a government that did not persist in keeping tax loopholes open these extra profits would have created more taxable income for the government.

So the argument goes immigrants make for better workers than their British equivalents? Well this is not strictly true. Basically the very smart people in Eastern Europe can earn more doing lower skilled work in the UK than high skill work at home.

So the British equal of a Polish shop worker is not his colleague but someone working as a doctor, a lawyer or engineer, etc.

The lower skill Brit cannot compete with someone that smart, so he's overlooked for a super immigrant worker who has the skill of a professional and can be paid minimum wage and still be highly incentivised.

It has been shown that Eastern Europeans who come from countries with a weaker exchange rate to the £1 will work harder when working for commision. So a Pole farm worker will work harder than a Lithunian farm worker, and put more hours in because at home every extra £1 buys him more than the Lithuanian. For the Briton an extra £1 buys the least extra. So let me illustrate:

£1 in Poland means a pint of beer
£1 in Lithuania means half a pint of beer
£1 in England means third of a pint

In real times then the Pole earns three times as much as the Brit!

But all this is okay because Poles are just as likely to create jobs as take them. Okay I'll agree with that. So more jobs, who to fill them with? Highly smart, highly incentivised Poles or some Brits who've decided to stop claiming disability allowance after 25 years? Hm Poles please.

[Bowater]

Politically this situation is sustainable because the vast majority of Britons who are in the working population are in work, so this has no impact on them. A lot of Britons have had a positive experience of immigrants, because they are a contented bunch happy to be in England and keen to talk - to improve their English and/or just friendly.

Whereas those who complain are seen to be making excuses, appear bitter and petty and afford little sympathy with a majority of Brits.

Economically the situation is not so sustainable because the pool of unemployed lower skilled Brits are creating a drag on the goverment's finances.

[Bezben]

You're right Bowater. We should stop immigration. It's just silly. I mean look what all that highly skilled immigration did to America, now the US is the world's tinniest economy. I mean, look at Canada, if it weren't for those pesky immigrants the place would have free healthcare, a high standard of living and equal rights to all, those pesky immigrants. Bowater, if there is a hard-working foreigner, willing to put in as much effort as an average British worker, for less, then why the hell shouldn't we give him the job? Yes, you could argue that it's wrong because "British jobs for British people" (I think that's the BNP's slogan, right?) but life doesn't work like that. And yes, for them £1 pays a lot more back home, but wouldn't you do that too to keep up the income for your family back at home? My family personally don't send money home but I can imagine if I was born in a place such as Poland, Turkey or Iraq, I would want to send money home to my family from working in a foreign country. It beats them moving to the UK and "taking" money from our benefit system..

[Bowater]

Bezben, immigration was an unmitigated disaster for the indigenous population of the USA, Canada, ...and Australia.

The natives were decimated by illness, slaughtered, and those not succesfully eradicated were economically marginalised. In Tasmania there's no such thing as a Tasmanian aborigine because they were all killed, genocide.

I don't believe for one second that that is our future in the UK but I have to question why you use those two countries for your argument.

Moving beyond that, I don't think we need to stop immigration.

[SE23 Man]

Originally Posted by Bowater

So the unemployment rate would not be lower than it is now in the absense of recent immigration?

What annoys me is the silly arguments claiming that immigration is economically neutral. It's silly. What we need is arguments explaining the benefits to the UK of immigration not denial of the side effects.

The bad side effects of immigration vastly out weigh the benefits. Even if some jobs are created via immigration, the number is relatively small compared to the number of jobs that are needed for such a quickly growing population.

[SE23 Man]

Originally Posted by Ebeneezer_Goode

Why would anyone think that it would be? The number of jobs out there isn't fixed. Poles are just as likely to create jobs as take them. Skilled workers from Poland bring much more to the table than they take, it's the economic migrants and asylum seekers from third world countries that put the real strain on the system.

Indeed, those immigrants who actually work are of course helping the economey but as you say it is those from the third world who generally do not work that put a strain on the system.

However even those who work are making others unemployed. Its like going round in a circle, the end result is that we are economically overcrowded.

[jdjones]

Christ, are people still using the term 'Third World'? That terminology was last relevant in the sodding 80s. Besides, who do you expect are the ones who clean the toilets you use everyday, clean the offices you work in, clean the supermarkets you shop in? Well primarily in the big cities it is those from the developing countries, your 'Third World' if you wish.

Also if you think Asylum Seekers are a drain on the system then you have pretty much missed the point of asylum! For one Asylum Seekers CANNOT by law work so it is our own fault that they are a 'drain' and economic migrants CANNOT claim benefits unless they have contributed to National Insurance.

As far as I am concerned it is your legal right to be able to claim benefits if you need to AND if you have contributed to National Insurance, what kind of racket would we be pulling if you had been contributing to NI but couldn't claim 6 month job seekers if you lost your job (yes the unemployed only get financial help for 6 months), the clue is in the name: Insurance.

[Loathing]

Originally Posted by Bowater

Basically the very smart people in Eastern Europe can earn more doing lower skilled work in the UK than high skill work at home.

So the British equal of a Polish shop worker is not his colleague but someone working as a doctor, a lawyer or engineer, etc.

The lower skill Brit cannot compete with someone that smart, so he's overlooked for a super immigrant worker who has the skill of a professional and can be paid minimum wage and still be highly incentivised.

HAHAHA, I cannot believe you actually think this. Unbelievable how haughty and casually xenophobic you are. You think a Polish lawyer comes here to work as bloody builder? I'll tell you this for free: a lawyer earns much more in Poland than you ever will. And doctors/engineers? Please! You act as if Poland were a third-world country. It's about the 20th largest economy and the world, with a relatively small population. A nice flat in Warsaw will cost you £1million, easy.

The vast majority of the blokes who come over here from Poland are people who can't find work in Poland because they lack skills/education. In fact, most of them come from one, largely rural, region of Poland that suffers from chronic unemployment. The kind of people you're talking about (i.e. people with degrees who work as cleaners) are a tiny minority, and you grossly exaggerate their level of qualification (they'll have an undergraduate degree in, say, child psychology; they are never "doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.").

Honestly, get over yourself. Your little fantasy of Eastern European lawyers scrubbing your toilet is complete nonsense. There are Poles working in top law firms in this country, pulling in £400k per anum, their beautiful English girlfriends touting Hermés handbags.

[potto]

Originally Posted by Ebeneezer_Goode

Why would anyone think that it would be? The number of jobs out there isn't fixed. Poles are just as likely to create jobs as take them. Skilled workers from Poland bring much more to the table than they take, it's the economic migrants and asylum seekers from third world countries that put the real strain on the system.

(Caused by global inequality and political instability which we all cause) the migration of which is controlled by our strict Visa system and border controls

[spindrift]

depends what you mean by "nice"! A friend's just bought a studio flat for £50k, six figures would get a very nice flat indeed!

[Bowater]

Considering are location off the coast of mainline Europeand surrounded by the Atlantic we are perhaps the most removed country in the world from where conflict and abuses are occuring.

With that in mind Asylum Seekers pass a lot of civilised countries to make it to the UK...