NOTE: PLEASE say if you DON'T want your name
and/or email address published when sending VDARE
email.
An Australian Reader Critiques The Economist; Peter Brimelow Comments
A Reader Reports U.K. Economists Querying Immigration Too
Have you noticed that
MigrationWatch UK, the genteel but
intellectually-vigorous British immigration reform site
I
pointed out to you in August, has just published a new
report? They say it “challenges for the first
time the concept that the current record levels of
immigration produce a net 'benefit' to the nation's
finances.”
To me, the structure and logic of
the
discussion is eerily similar to the arguments
on this subject in
Alien Nation:
“A
recent Home Office paper claimed that in 1999/2000
migrants in the UK contributed in taxes £2.5 billion
more than they consumed in benefits and state services.
This sum is quite trivial compared to overall Government
expenditure of about £400 billion per year…[Furthermore]
a small net contribution [from immigrants is]…inadequate.
Most asylum seekers and other dependants are relatively
young. The appropriate comparator, therefore, would be
an indigenous sample of similar ages. In that age group
there is, in all Western countries, a massive excess of
taxes paid over services received.”
“It is
the unskilled who are suffering from an influx of
unskilled immigrants; there is incontrovertible evidence
that increasing the pool of unskilled labour lowers
unskilled wages and raises the level of unskilled
unemployment.”
“The effects on our social cohesion and sense of
identity have become a concern - particularly as some
migrants show little desire to integrate with the host
society.”
They have
even note a letter from
Richard Layard, the prominent
left-leaning economist, in the Financial Times
(May 20, 2002), decrying the impact of unskilled
immigration on the European working class.
Amusingly,
a key argument of immigration enthusiasts in the U.K. is
- that immigration has been good for the U.S.!
The
Migration Watch paper lays out, in a methodical way,
concepts which equally apply to the U.S. Your readers
might like to take a look.
November 11, 2002
