Civitas Blog

I totally agree with Migrationwatch's statements on immigration. Why can you not form a political party so I and like minded people like me can vote for and have a voice in Parliament, based on economic facts, cultural facts, and not racisim? At the moment we do not have a voice in Parliament.

Unskilled Mass immigration works as follows from 200 years of economic theory and observation.

(1) Low profit businesses see a profit boom as they can lower staff costs by subsituting workers who accept less of a share of GDP (products and services).

(2) As competition rises, the price of the service drops, and high competition, low profit businesses see the end of the profit boom but lower costs now increase the purchasing power of the consumer.

(3) All income is someone else's production. Income (consumption) is a circular flow of production between people. But per person production has not been increased. There is no new organisation, effecency gains, innovation. Wages have simply been lowered. The consumers' gain is directly from lower wages from the producers.

The size of the economic pie per person has not increased.

(4) The increase in the purchasing power of some consumers over the pie of goods and services is a direct result of lots of other workers receiving a far smaller slice of that pie.

The BNP poster above is wrong about immigration. He stated that mass immigration lowers inflation. This is not true.

Because income is based on the circular flow of product, raising demand through lower interest rates WILL result in HIGHER INFLATION, despite mass immigration lowering wages - the share of goods and services. How so when supply should rise to meet demand?

Because overall per person-per head production is not rising (thanks to mass immigration). If per person production is not rising, then per person income cannot rise regardless of the money supply increase. Extra money - will simply see prices of goods and services rise per person instead of wages.

I'll answer your first question first. This was, to paraphrase: how come immigrants don't depress wages, yet at the same time ameliorate inflation?

The answer is that, according to George Borjas, America's leading writer and academic on immigration, immigrants normally do depress wages.

But, under a particular set of circumstances (which is what Blanchflower may be referring to - i.e. the UK in the last few years), it is possible for immigrants to ameliorate inflation while not depressing wages.

Suppose that in the absence of immigration there would have been excess demand and inflation. Then, the right number and quality of immigrants will meet this demand and prevent inflation, while not depressing wages.

Of course, too many immigrants WILL dampen wages (and dampen inflation even further). (Incidentally don't imagine I am pro-immigration: I am a BNP member).

Re. your "second difficulty" , namely: how can Blanchflower's claim that immigrants don't dampen wages be reconciled with the findings of other eminent economists, namely that immigration does (under the right circumstances) dampen wages?

The answer is that no such reconciliation is possible: i.e. Blanchflower is talking nonsense. Indeed, Blanchflower himself has just produced a study claiming that recent immigrants to the UK have damped wages. I dont have the details of this study, but it was reported in the 'Daily Mail', 27th Oct 2007.

If anyone has the URL of this study, please send it to me. I'd also like the URL of the Government's study on immigration published around the 20th Oct which made the headlines in every newpaper. Also, please note that your link to the Blanchflower paper does not seem to work.

For anyone with an interested in the history of Economics, Blanchflower wrote a paper in which he gave some weight to the valididy of Say's Law. Title: 'The Impact of the Recent Migration from Eastern Europe on the UK Economy', 2007. This may be the paper you refer to.

Barry that is a perfectly fair question, but i have yet to understand why this government has a policy of flooding this already overcrowded island with immigrants, unless of course they despise the culture and peoples who make up the indiginous population. In which case why do peole vote for them?

Mike.

Debates on immigration do not seem to deal with a major issue: that is, what will become of white European culture, customs etc?

If we look forward 100s of years, with a low reproduction rate, we can expect white Europeans desperately trying to preserve whatever is left of our customs, culture, etc.

Are an indigenous people not entitled to preserve their culture?

Barry.

In response to qaqwex.
Your comment about ivory towers is correct: these people do not have to face the day-to-day consequences of mass immigration.

'Can't find a dentist, difficulty in seeing your GP, overcrowding , soaring house prices, etc, etc,. But what has upset many people is the fact that we were never consulted, it was never in the 1997 Labour manifesto, and then, of course, we were lied to as regards the projected numbers that would come to our country.

Finally and most despicably, if you dared to open an adult discussion on the subject of immigration, the left played the race card.
Mike.

I suggest Blanchflower gets out of his ivory tower and goes and asks those at the frontline of dealing with immigration and its effects. As the plasterers who were sacked to make way for cheaper Poles. Ask experienced IT people who can't get jobs at a reasonable rate as they are being constantly undercut by eastern Europeans. It is impossible for an established UK person to live on what employers pay for some eastern Europeans. The CBI likes immigration because it drives down wages and thereby boosts bonuses. And it is not just unskilled jobs that no UK person wants, it is skilled jobs as well - over 170,000 have gone in salaried 'white collar' jobs (official figures).

If these extra workers are so good for the economy and haven't depressed wages and salaries, how come the tax take from employees hasn't increased commensurately?

If they aren't a burden on the NHS, why has my local surgery had to employ a Polish translator and, to pay for it, made a district nurse redundant, further reducing the care to the local elderly who have lived here and paid taxes all their working lives?

Why, when I go into A+E at the local hospital, has the 'real' waiting time (i.e. unmassaged by statistical con-tricks) gone up from about 3 hours to over 8 and it is rare to have any patients speaking amongst themselves in English?

If they are so good for the economy, why does Germany feel the need to bribe prospective native parents with 17000 Euros on the birth of a baby after 1st Jan this year ? Wouldn't it be easier to just let in floods of immigrants from next door who are 'so positive for the economy'? Why does most of Europe ban uncontrolled labour movement from the accession states and only Britain is right in seeing the 'huge positive' benefits?

Or is it because New Labor sees votes from grateful immigrants? Dame Shirley Porter gerrymandered using houses for Tories in London - Labor does it with mass immigration.

The 700,000 or so job vacancies at any one time are largely as a result of turnover of existing staff and not new jobs and given the average person stays in a job less than 4 years that figure is too low to indicate an expanding jobs market. Remember unemployment is rising at the moment with all these so-called vacancies.

Only the rich seem to be the ones that benefit in cheap domestic labour and big bonuses arising from exploitation. What do I see - few job opportunities and almost none at reasonable pay and I am a very experienced IT practitioner and manager? Food hasn't gone down in price because of all the cheap labour picking it, restaurant meals and hotel rooms haven't gone down in price because of the cheap hospitality staff etc. I wait longer at hospital, I find it hard to get doctor's appointments, I can’t fall asleep on the tube because of the constant loud braying of foreign languages as they ignore the usual English cultural norm of reserve.

Maybe the whole of the Bank of England Monetary Panel could do to experience life on the fault line that is immigration. But at least Gordon at no. 11 is happy as he bleeds the funds off England to his beloved Scotland where the influx of economic immigrants has been far less acute.

The process needs to be properly managed and the needs of the long term UK residents outside the ruling elite needs at least to be considered.

qaqwex

P.S. the spelling of the party of government without the 'u' is deliberate.

Speaking as someone who owns and operates a small business, i think i am qualified to comment on the free market economy.

The Labour market operates on the same principles as any other market, i.e. demand and supply. For example if an importer decided to flood the market with cheap refrigerators from china, and the product was equally as good or bad as those already on sale, then the retail price would become depressed as over supply becomes apparent.It realy is that simple.
There are of course other factors to consider other than economic, the pro mass immigration lobby seem a bit reluctant to disscus this.