16 ms·
Wouldn't the fourth way be via increasing either birth rate or immigration?
by CubsFan1060 1y ago
Wouldn't the fourth way be via increasing either birth rate or immigration?
- lostlogin 1y agoThat’s collecting more taxes, 2, isn’t it?
- JackYoustra 1y agotechnically true but people usually associate that with rate increases
- lostlogin 1y agoI’m not sure that’s always true. The centre right often argue for less taxation ‘to grow businesses’. The argument being that the economy grows and that’s how the money is recouped. At least that’s what’s happened here in New Zealand. Looking past ones next pay day does seem universally difficult.
- mr_toad 1y agoThe people who would actually benefit from that the most are the people who are too old to have children and are strongly opposed to immigration.
- varelse 1y ago[dead]
- SoftTalker 1y ago[flagged]
- grunder_advice 1y agoGetting immigrants who work is a non-issue. I never heard of immigrants from India, China, Africa or Latin America who don't work so long as they entered the country legally. The issue you are alluding to has to do with genuine refugees and illegal economic migrants, who are not filtered at the border depending on their employability within the local market. But the cultural shift is still inevitable. A foreigner is not a local, and it is neither fair nor ethical to expect a foreigner to transform themselves into a local. I think, if you are concerned with the cultural shift, you can give immigrants temporary term VISAs and make it clear their stay is going to be strictly temporary. That was supposed to be how the Gastarbeiter system works. Thing is, when you have already on boarded a foreign worker and have had them working for you for 2 years already, you don't want to let them go and replace them with a fresh foreign worker who you have to retrain.
- bananalychee 1y agoAssimilation as most people understand it does not necessitate an immigrant become completely indistinguishable from a native citizen. There are some baseline expectations that are not always met right now, such as learning the official language of one's host country, and sometimes its social standards. Most countries simply lack the necessary coercive incentives to make that happen systematically. I would argue that most Western cultures have become too individualistic at the expense of societal health, fueling the notion that assimilation is inherently unethical.
- yborg 1y agoWithout establishing a hermetic environment a la the Amish, assimilation happens automatically in the next generation if a nation has basic structures in place like public education to some minimum standard and basic anti-discrimination laws to allow economic advancement. Children absorb the culture that surrounds them, often to their parents' dismay.
- stefan_ 1y agoMhm, the current generation of kids of Turkish immigrants in Germany all seem to believe they are actually displaced Turks. I suppose thats what you encourage with double passport and voting for authoritarians at "home". (of course they are totally out of place in Turkey, that part of assimilation is unavoidable)
- _9ptr 1y agoIf only that were true. You can look at any country in western europe to see how it's not.
- theodric 1y agoThis is not borne out by the anecdata I have collected over the last 22 years as a foreign invader living in and observing Europe. Moroccans in the Netherlands, Albanians in Switzerland, even Irish Travellers in Ireland-- despite being integrated from primary school onward, all seem to be somewhat apart from the host culture even after several generations.
- tristramb 1y agoHave you any figures that indicate that is an issue?
- mmooss 1y ago[flagged]
- arandomusername 1y agoImmigration only works if the cultures are very similar so that they can assimilate, or the immigration levels are very low. In Denmark, immigration from culturally similar countries are usually net-positive, while others are net negative (financially). There's a reason people are choosing to vote for parties that are (publicly) anti-immigration
- mmooss 1y ago> Immigration only works if the cultures are very similar so that they can assimilate, or the immigration levels are very low. People just make this stuff up, any rationalization for hatred. It's not hard to see how immigration has worked, how Europe integrates with itself (a continent that fought endless wars before the proto-EU was born), and how the US is a country of immigrants. Rather than repeat it all, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44092557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44092557 Excerpt, from Ben Franklin: "... Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. ..."
- arandomusername 1y agoIt's very easy to see how immigration hasn't worked. Visit London, Brussels or Paris. Compare that to cities that have low immigration rates, like Warsaw. Europe integrated itself because European countries have very similar culture, and are same/similar race.
- mmooss 1y agoYou're comparing London, Brussels and Paris to Warsaw? I think most people would consider the former three to be much 'better' cities and greater successes - Paris and London are considered two of the greatest cities in the world! Right there with New York, also a home for immigrants from all over.
- kmeisthax 1y agoIntegration is the job of the state as much as it is the job of the immigrant. In America, we discovered basically by accident[0] how to bring in large groups of people and have them be economically and socially productive. Specifically, we had very generous family reunification programs, which outsourced the question of "what immigrants do we admit" to immigrants who had already successfully integrated. Effectively America became an invite system. The end result is that, for basically any background, every American city has a large and established immigrant population from that country for new immigrants to fall back on. Other Western countries (e.g. western Europe, Canada, the UK, Australia, South Korea, and Japan) didn't do this. Instead, they treated immigration as a transaction: you can't come in unless you have some immediately beneficial purpose, and permanent residency is going to be an even higher bar still. What this gives you is immigration systems that select entirely for disaffected, college-educated workaholic youths with no connections to the local city. To put it in the words of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney: "America is a melting pot. Canada is a mosaic. In the United States, they don't recognize differences[1]. They don't recognize First Nations. And there will never be the right to the French language." These words are telling, in ways Carney probably didn't intend. He is proudly admitting that the thing that sets Canada apart from America - the thing that they should fight with military force against a wannabe dictator with annexation dreams - is the fact that they can't integrate people worth a damn. [0] Family reunification visas were originally intended to deliberately preserve racist prejudices in the US immigration system. This backfired comically. [1] ...has this guy never heard the phrase 'African-American' before?
- constantcrying 1y agoYou have to grow your economy at a rate that allows you to pay for the additional pensioners. Birthrates seem very hard to change and even if change would happen it is much too slow. Germany did the experiment on immigration and has not seen GDP growth for half a decade. There the system is failing far worse in some ways, but in Germany employees are paying directly for the pension plans, so the state just raises the employee contributions.
- trueismywork 1y agoBecause Germany does nothing to attract and keep employable immigrants. They only want to keep immigrants which completely tow the line of only speaking German, which inevitably attracts mostly bottom of the barrel. Significant portion of highly qualified workforce in Germany is umemployable because of refusal to conduct business in anything other than German. Also, the beaurcracy is the real culprit for growth.
- cbeach 1y agoRaising immigration rates to solve an aging population is a Ponzi solution.
- jaoane 1y agoThe pension system has always been a ponzi. Only now we are faced to realise it because the pyramid was flipped violently.
- risyachka 1y agoIn the modern economy system there is no way around it. The more old people there is the more taxes you need. More taxes - economy must grow. And it can’t grow if working population is shrinking
- impossiblefork 1y agoImprove the birth rate, yes, but you probably can't do that unless you deal with the resource situation as well. So you can reduce pensions, improve the situation for the youth, take efforts to get an improved birth rate, making use of the resources lost to pensioners, and then maybe you can raise the pension later on once you realize things are stable.
- pfdietz 1y agoThe total fertility rate (number of children per woman) seems stubborn against attempts to raise it. I suggest instead altering the male/female ratio, so a stable or growing population can be maintained at lower TFR. Technically, filter sperm to remove those with Y chromosomes before artificial insemination.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoAs Jan and Dean put it in Surf City: "two girls for every boy".
- pfdietz 1y agoOr more. The prevalence of males seems to be an unfortunate consequence of evolution. There's an evolutionary equilibrium of nearly an equal chance of a male or female offspring, even though the ability of the species to reproduce would be higher with mostly female offspring.
- adrianN 1y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if historically there were more women than men due to accidents involving mammoths or clubs meeting skulls.
- AdrianB1 1y agoWithout a major and unrealistic cultural change, 2 girls to share one boy (polygamy) is not going to happen.
- const_cast 1y agoNo no, not like that. Well, maybe, but no. Most men are useless from a reproductive standpoint because they're not the bottleneck. Women are the bottleneck. More women means no more bottleneck, means more children per person. Also sexual selection is a thing and I think we were really never meant to have this many men. Men seem good for being really successful or otherwise dying, not much in the middle. But also, all this talk is purely from a reproductive standpoint. Human societies also need to consider fairness and rights.
- nicolashahn 1y agoRaising the birth rate is extremely difficult and immigration will destroy a country's culture if not managed properly. For an interesting case study, compare Japan (who refuses to allow mass immigration and is at risk of going extinct) and the UK (who has embraced it and is on the way to becoming Muslim-majority). It'll be interesting to see in 50 years which one has had better outcomes.
- bugglebeetle 1y agoIn 50 years, Japan will have a Chinese majority, so…
- heyheyhouhou 1y agoit is 6% muslim majority?
- BenFranklin100 1y ago[flagged]
- nicolashahn 1y ago[flagged]
- heyheyhouhou 1y agoyes, I read it, still is 6%.
- nicolashahn 1y ago[flagged]
- maleldil 1y ago[flagged]
- mariusor 1y ago
- telotortium 1y agoThere's not enough immigrants that actually are of financial benefit to Denmark. Only European immigrants are a large financial benefit throughout their lifespan, and Middle Eastern immigrants are a financial detriment even in their prime working years[0]. That is apart from the cultural effects of having a large portion of your population consist of non-Danish, and especially non-European immigrants, which might have its own detrimental effect on the birth rate. [0] Figure 2.7 of the Danish Government report "Økonomisk Analyse: Indvandreres nettobidrag til de offentlige finanser i 2018" - https://fm.dk/udgivelser/2021/oktober/oekonomisk-analyse-indvandreres-nettobidrag-til-de-offentlige-finanser-i-2018/ https://fm.dk/udgivelser/2021/oktober/oekonomisk-analyse-ind...
- mmooss 1y agoIt turns out that economic productivity is not tied to ethnicity or where you are from - fundamentally racist notions - but to how productive you are.
- nine_k 1y agoIt's not about race, it's about culture and education. For instance, Chinese immigrants are usually an economic boost anywhere they go, due to the can-do attitude and respect for education and business activity in the Chinese culture in general. Also the Chinese immigrants in question, like many others, usually immigrate seeking a better life, it's a strong self-selection filter. Middle Eastern immigrants of last 10-15 years in Europe are refugees, displaced by wars; they did not choose Denmark (or other Western European countries) because they planned to integrate and to prosper there, they ran there to merely stay alive. They need a lot of help adapting. Even if they are very willing to work, they may lack the knowledge required for gainful employment, and there are only so many dish-washing and trash-disposal jobs. Those who adapt can make it big; consider people like Freddie Mercury or Nassim Taleb.
- selimthegrim 1y agoFreddie Mercury wasn't of Middle Eastern background.
- niemandhier 1y agoI can only give you the rundown for Germany, but I guess it’s similar in Denmark: Basically the state spends to much money on humans in general. A young qualified immigrant might have a less negative impact than a slightly older German person, but both of them will be money sinks in the long run. Statistically immigrants in Germany are less qualified than the general population, so they’ll have an even more negative impact. The only valid solution is to reduce the spending per person, both birthrate and immigration will only delay the problem. Denmark should be in a slightly better position than Germany since their health system is cheaper.
- n_ary 1y ago> Statistically immigrants in Germany are less qualified than the general population, so they’ll have an even more negative impact. I need to see some data backing this. Also regardless of stats, many war refugees(the net negatives as told by media) are actually highly qualified but the asylum process and qualification recognition process is eternal. On top of the trauma and uncertainty, they also need to learn a new language, find a new community, patiently go through all the dystopian meetings, cope with their loss of loved ones. In reality, it is possible for them to be net positive because if things were faster, they would often out qualify the average locals and this also has some effects on wage and market(over supply, constant demand and all the economics).
- arandomusername 1y agoMost immigrants are not war refugees but economical refugees. > they would often out qualify the average locals That's definitely not true, which is why they want to immigrate to those countries in the first place.
- niemandhier 1y agoYou are right regarding the insufficient opportunities for highly qualified people. Regarding your other point: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/whats-new/publications/oecd-report-germany-status-immigrant-integration_en#:~:text=Only%2040%25%20of%20immigrant%20women,without%20school%20qualifications%20in%20Germany. https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/whats-new/publications/oec... The liked pdf there gives a good overview.
- Ray20 1y agoNo one knows how to increase the birth rate. And all the studies show that immigration increases the budget deficit, not reduces it (at least in that way in which it is being implemented now).
- AdrianB1 1y agoActually the factors inhibiting birth rate are well known, but the actions to take are not something states wants to take. In Europe you cannot even talk about it, usually, unless you talk to younger family members and ask them why they don't want kids at or or just 1 or 2 max. There are economic, education and legal aspects that are clear for anyone that looked not farther than 50 years ago when having 3-4 kids was not exceptional.
- vbezhenar 1y agoEveryone knows. Stop contraception, stop woman education, stop abortions, reduce woman rights to 1800. Remove children rights, make environment where children are productive and bring profits to their parents, so they have financial incentive to create children. No one wants to implement it.
- const_cast 1y agoRight, if anyone here has taken a human geography course this is the obvious answer. This is why birthrate was so high for so long. As nations developed and gained rights for women, it went lower and lower and lower. And it makes complete sense. The reality is having a child kind of sucks for a woman, and I, nor anyone else, can blame a large portion of women for just saying "eh... no". I would probably say no, too, although it's hard to tell, because I'm not a woman. Having children was once a boon, because conditions were shit. Now it's a burden. So, people will treat it as a burden. Either make it less burdensome or revert women. Nobody wants to do the latter, so we must do the former. We have to invest in children, because children are a Nation's investment.
- geodel 1y agoYou are right. Since that is not happening the next best thing is to juice the oldies. At least more countries have started doing that.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lo_zamoyski 1y agoYes and no. The elephant in the room that is getting some attention is demographic collapse. It’s been politicized, unfortunately, and seized on by strange people, but the fact remains that we’ve stuck our heads in the sand here. The seriousness of demographic collapse cannot be overstated. Social and economic collapse are inevitable unless something (morally licit, of course) is done to boost birth rates to above replacement rates, or kept at replacement levels. Once we reach a point of no return, it will be impossible to reverse course. There’s a lot working against healthy demographics. We have decades of alarmist, misanthropic, Malthusian propaganda from types like Paul Ehrlich. We have now a hyperindividualistic culture - politically, socially, and economically - that is hostile both functionally as well as in sentiment toward the healthy function of family, and secondarily the community life it produces, as well as mental health). The logic of consumerism does not sit well with family life, because family life is not something that can be monetized. Consumerism relies on maximizing spending of the atomized individual, and in order for that to work, one must maximize the work done by that individual. Family life interferes with the regime of constant spending and the reign of total work. (Ironically, this makes the celebrated careerism of feminism an expression of this all consuming capitalist drive. It stigmatizes motherhood with demeaning labels like “stay-at-home mom” and celebrates the very office jobs that are the stuff of comedies.) Today, we understand everything with reference to the individual, even anachronistically reinterpreting history according to its alienating categories. Some governments have enacted pro-natalist policies, but they’re typically weak, superficial, and ineffective. We’re addicted to patterns of life formed over the last 70 years that we don’t want to let go of. Governments need to take much more serious measures that drastically favor, prioritize, and protect the family, through and through. Good luck doing that in our democratic societies. Addicts typically change only after they’ve experienced a crisis and hit rock bottom, and by then, it may be too late. Immigration, of course, is no solution. The belief that immigration can fix the problem is itself rooted in the logic of hyperindividualism, where atomized individuals can be replaced by other atomized individuals to achieve net conservation or even gain according to the numbers. Cultural realities are totally ignored. The rate of immigration that a country can successfully absorb is not enough to outpace demographic decline. Exceeding that rate undermines the whole point of using immigration to compensate for demographic decline in the first place, since mass migrations are always harmful to host populations. You’re basically talking the collapse of the host populace and the formation of new ones in its place. Furthermore, immigration drains the populations of other countries, ones that are likely also facing demographic issues, which basically makes richer countries parasitic and callous about the continuity and futures of other peoples, until there are no more populations to drain of people anymore.
- babyent 1y agoPlease only educated immigrants who will need to assimilate to the culture. I’m an immigrant, and I think at least where I live in USA we need to stop immigration from any random place or of people who refuse to assimilate.