It doesn’t work that well for Japan. Having spent some time working there, the economic stagnation and inverting age pyramid really weigh on the younger generation. There’s a general feeling of decline that’s hard to put in words
Thanks to immigration, young generations have all they need and there's plenty of optimism
We've tried that in Britain. Come see how's that worked out for us.
I'm an immigrant to the UK. No-one exploited me. I had a choice of lots of countries to go to (EU passport) and chose the UK voluntarily.
I was on minimum wage. I wasn't exploited, it was a means to an end.
I don't think you would really care about me as an individual. I think you just didn't want my type here.
With Brexit? The UK ended up replacing EU nationals with non EU nationals. Not much changed. Nobody is getting the kind of wages you'd get in Norway or Switzerland for picking trash off the street.
I just pointed out that removing the layer of population that has no other choice than working below minimum wage will not solve the economic and social stratification. The point of my comment is that immigration and low pay are two completely unrelated phenomena that some loudmouths want us to believe they're correlated. The average voter, then, goes on to believe closing borders magically means they'll finally be able afford a mortgage and a better life while doing unskilled work. Less immigration, fewer candidates, they'll have to pay us more, no? If only it were that simple.
For any hard problems, there is a clear, simple and wrong answer, which usually works quite well as a slogan for a political campaign. "Immigration" it's a classic example.
What used to be something only old racists and simpletons would loudly declaim 30 years ago, now it's become a common, yet still utterly moronic, party line.
But it's so easy to blame everything on the brown and the gaijin, when thinking hard about a hard problem takes too much effort.
Not everything, but Paris isn’t what it used to be.
Yeah, now there are bike lines and it isn't suicidal to bike here. Or do you mean something else?
There have always been poor people in Paris, and there have always (ok, not always, but since France has been a colonial empire and since it has been the preferred destination for Portugese and Spaniards to come work here for better wages, so for multiple generations now) been immigrants.
The implication I glean of namdnay's point is that woes could be alleviated by immigration, and the responding user suggests that it's not a silver bullet. That's different than saying "everything is going to shit because of immigration".
Also, being critical of immigration policy is not tantamount to criticizing the immigrants themselves. That's another projection.
There are surely advantages to immigration, but I think it's disingenuous to suggest it has zero potential downsides especially with higher rates as other policies and structures don't necessarily shift in tandem to accommodate it.
For example, wage suppression - it's just simple supply and demand, which should be uncontroversial. But maybe one that might speak to some people more: everyone in the West has a higher carbon footprint, and no one moves here to consume less. The things we enjoy and take for granted are what make it a better life. So any conceit of potentially lowering waste/emissions qua consumer choice is wholly undermined by the fact that it is a matter of policy to increase consumption - with more bodies - to boost the GDP. Rates of global emissions are growing not just through growing economies like China (which is probably the largest factor of the last 20 years), but immigration.
> Stop using people who are hoping to improve their lives as a shield.
I'm taking the side of those people, and against the old racist/xenophobic canard that seems to be on the rise again, sadly.
Most of society view politicians and the failed project of neo-politics responsible for this development.
Indeed, it seems like the drag from having an older population does a lot to keep the birth rate down.
Our best forecasts show Japan's population pyramid as still markedly inverted and still shrinking in 2100.
(I don't agree with your other point either, necessarily, but I chose to ask about this one).
Death. And there are trivial ways to keep fertility at replacement level and not negative, on par with most other 1st-world countries.
A perpetually inverted pyramid would require that fertility rate shrink even further, until it approaches 0 - do we have a reason to believe this will happen?
Notwithstanding, in 100 years the entire global population growth is projected to stagnate, which will make this a moot point. No one will be able to rely on immigration to grow perpetually.
Any fertility rate that's below replacement maintains an inverted pyramid, if you don't have a lot of death before old age. (Until the very last person dies, in a long long long time).
Each person in the current breeding population produces fewer people in the next breeding population; this produces an inverted pyramid.
> And there are trivial ways to keep fertility at replacement level and not negative, on par with most other 1st-world countries.
No country that has fallen into population decline has found these "trivial ways" in modern times. (Not sure what you mean here by "negative")
It’s like mandatory military service, except for women.
That is incorrect.
(I'm assuming that the life expectancy does not change significantly)