Comment by robocat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robocat | Hacker News Reader

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My point is that your opinions are not universal facts. Some of what you say might be true for the US, and we've heard of other countries with severe issues due to immigration. But your opinions appear to me to be simply unbalanced anti-immigrant.

Australia and especially New Zealand use immigration to help their economies and while that can cause problems, those problems have mostly been addressed over time. We are using immigration as a bandaid to help fix the demographic problem of too many retirees versus not enough workers. Many countries have the same problem, and the problem is getting worse as people choose not to have children. I admit it is an unstable workaround given that those immigrants eventually become retirees. But it is a functional workaround.

Over the last decade, New Zealand’s housing stock has grown by approximately 16% (mostly through densification). I believe Australia is similar. The US administration or culture seems to lack the ability to do the same, but other countries are managing to do it so that's where it look for reasons why.

> That is such a ridiculously foolish mindset

No need to be rude. I have given you examples of how New Zealand and Australia have mostly successfully dealt with a large percentage of immigration. This is fact not fantasy.

The US was built on immigrants with great outcomes, there's no economic reason the US can't pull finger and do it again.

Australia has all the same problems with immigration, just much worse. [0]

I've come across so many Australians online holding the same sentiments as myself. "Per capita" measures of "economy" mean more to me than nebulous claims of the the overall economy benefiting from immigration. When I look over time the quality of life and level of development in Australia, nothing points to any such need of an influx of millions of foreigners for most Australians. It's obvious why some businesses want to improve labor margins and why politicians benefit from diluting domestic voters base and important a voting block, though mostly it's a sort of civic religious belief apart from any practical concrete benefit so many leaders support it because they think it is a moral obligation.

Lower birth rates, massively unaffordable housing, strains on public programs and healthcare, as well as reshaping the character and ethnic makeup of the country all to the detriment most especially of young people are all reasons why I think Australia's mass immigration program is traitorous to its own citizens. Japan has more of an immigration policy I think is worth emulating, which is to the benefit of it's own people.

So much of "living in a place" is a zero-sum competition for resources with everyone else around you. Doubly so when you take into account intangible social loyalties and support networks, trust, sense of community etc that all go down as diversity rises. But again, just the massive increase in people in and of itself is huge punch in the face to young people and other citizens. What these people do not need is a rise in competition over space, and rival claims on democratic political power.

I think there is no mainstream policy you can advocate for that is as detrimental to and harms your fellow citizens more than immigration.

[0] https://www.skynews.com.au/insights-and-analysis/the-austral...

The issue is what to do about aging demographics?

My few paragraphs or your few paragraphs can only encompass trite answers.

There is no obviously good solution. We can only hope our glorious leaders find good compromises.

I am mostly trying to suggest you look at how different countries manage (positively and negatively) their "demographic time bomb".

It is unclear whether immigration is a strongly beneficial solution since it does cause friction.

> Australians online > same sentiments

Please take care with your arguments because anecdotal evidence generalises poorly (especially for topics that are common in echo chambers - it is difficult to avoid ones own biases).

It is clear that immigration is broadly unpopular. The question is whether the rewards are worth the risks?

https://www.amp.com.au/resources/insights-hub/the-economics-...

Immigration is an economic response to aging demographics. It is a very imperfect response.

> Japan

"South Korea is over" is a response to that: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk

I predict Australia and particularly New Zealand will continue to use immigration to help their economies, despite pitfalls.

I don't feel confident to predict anything about the US. The government there (either party) continues to surprise me with its recklessness; however systematically it surprises me with its resilience.

Last year I was in New Orleans for a month and as an in person snapshot I saw a lot of negative signals for the future.

I try to care about economics as a topic because for retirement investment I kinda have to invest overseas. However, this year I've withdrawn from the US stock market (later I will learn if that was a mistake).

Your link is irrelevant because (a) New Zealand already has that specific problem in spades - it isn't a scare tactic here, and (b) while it is difficult to find unbiased links - you can try to avoid obviously biased links

Link about problems of shrinking population demographics:

https://www.250bpm.com/p/life-at-the-frontlines-of-demograph...

All of these countries had massive population increase in past 100 years. It is natural especially for high density, smaller size regions to experience a reversal in growth rates of population which is the natural and desired compensation to previous eras of huge population growth given finite space, and other resources and the zero-sum nature of all of this including political power and representation.

Importing foreigners makes your own domestic birth rates worse than they otherwise would be! Some levels of automation will make the overall labor needs lower than they have been in the past. Countries that import many millions of (often) 3rd world populations or in general more bodies wherever they come from that must be employed (or subsidized by taxpayers) and also that are going to want to be married and have children are simply going to exacerbate the fiscal problems, the social problems, the unemployment problems, the family formation problems, while creating resource constraints you otherwise wouldn't have.

So much of this nonsense talk of need for immigrants is policy based on propping up the asset values and lifestyles and subsidization of the elderly which apart even from immigration is arguably the 2nd biggest travesty western nations are subjecting their young people to (prioritizing everything related to interest of the old at the expense of the young, see: COVID). The natural course of events MUST be population growth slow/decline until elderly die out and while you back-fill growth from younger people from your own country to have their own ability to grow, buy real estate, have families, have jobs, not pay exorbitant transfer payments to old and immigrants either through social services, or lost wages. Stealing this opportunity by giving this slack away to foreigners is just so evil in my view.

The carrying-capacity in terms of "comfortable lifestyle" akin to what our recent ancestors experienced in their nations during peacetime is what it is, and when we bump up against those limits, we can't fool ourselves that whatever pain comes next can be solved by causing other worse problems of filling our countries up with more people we have to compete against for everything and making already tough resource constraints worse. How much more unhappy and hopeless for housing and family formation will Australians be as millions and millions more immigrants come in? Why would anyone want that and how does it solve whatever demographics problem you think exists? The solution is population decline, which would help young people. Of course if there is some iron law of politics or the universe that states young people must bear the burden of subsidizing the complete comfort of old people from birth to death, well then we're already screwed.

I don't think it's just anecdotal it's a loud chorus over many decades of popular opposition from large portions of western nations in our supposed "democracies" that is ignored by most players in politics.

https://machielreyneke.com/blog/vampires-longevity/#:~:text=...

“Why shouldn’t our old people, namely those who have no other recourse, likewise suck the blood of a youth?”

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