Immigration thread to re-balance the forum

[hyperD]

Depends who the min waged employees are. Large bottomed nubile ladies rolling in my food would be brill.

Ah hah, Xoggoth, a sashimi man, eh?

[expat]

Expat,
(snip)
Seriously Expat, if you cannot make the distinction between the two immigrants, then I think you should have gone to Specsavers.

I can make that distinction and don't need specsavers

I never claimed that all immigrants are economically neutral, or economically identical to each other. I simply disputed what seemed to be Chef's easy assumption that an incomer who works hard legally and pays taxes is necessarily a benefit to the economy.

It ain't necessarily so. It may be so, but it ain't necessarily so.

(And I must repeat that I mean no disrespect to Chef or Chef GF, whom I admire for what she is doing: she's welcome here as far as I am concerned).

[Board Game Geek]

Fair Do's.

Out of interest, if and when me and the missus eventually emigrate to NZ, with her taking one of their priority job openings (Quantity Surveyor) and me working in IT, would we be net contributors to their economy ?

[OwlHoot]

After a sea food spaghetti at the weekend, and had a bit of a stomach ache a day or two later on my lower abdomen.

(I thought it would be a normal spaghetti a la vongole [sp?], but turned out to be a huge pile of mussels and winkles still in their shells all mixed up with the spaghetti. Bloody ridiculous and horrible - it took ten minutes to winkle out the contents and ditch the barnacle-encrusted shells - talk about "pick your own").

I thought the ache might be appendicitis, and spent a couple of hours reading up on it, dreading having to go to hospital (for the first time in 40 years) and lose any contracting loot!

But touch wood, it's gone today, so I must have just pulled a muscle or something and the crappy sea food meal was irrelevant.

[oracleslave]

After a sea food spaghetti at the weekend, and had a bit of a stomach ache a day or two later on my lower abdomen.

(I thought it would be a normal spaghetti a la vongole [sp?], but turned out to be a huge pile of mussels and winkles still in their shells all mixed up with the spaghetti. Bloody ridiculous and horrible - it took ten minutes to winkle out the contents and ditch the barnacle-encrusted shells - talk about "pick your own").

I thought the ache might be appendicitis, and spent a couple of hours reading up on it, dreading having to go to hospital (for the first time in 40 years) and lose any contracting loot!

But touch wood, it's gone today, so I must have just pulled a muscle or something and the crappy sea food meal was irrelevant.

If it was appendicitis trust me you wouldn't have been reading/pottering about. It is f***in painful. Mine burst on the tennis court

[expat]

Fair Do's.

Thank you. Generously said.

Out of interest, if and when me and the missus eventually emigrate to NZ, with her taking one of their priority job openings (Quantity Surveyor) and me working in IT, would we be net contributors to their economy ?

I don't know. I trust you would be contributors to the culture and the country in a wider sense than economic.

As for contributing to the economy, I asked myself the same thing when I worked in the U.S. My visa was in effect a certificate from Uncle Sam to the effect that I was indeed a net contributor. Likewise I take it that in NZ if you take a priority job it's a job they can't fill all of, so theoretically if you didn't do it then it wouldn't get done. If you weren't there then their economy would be poorer; if you are, it will be correspondingly richer.

OTOH if you simply do a job that someone else would do anyway, it is not clear that you would be an economic benefit. 3 levels I guess:

1. if I just take a job that someone else would do anyway, and they then don't work, or work at a lower economic level than the average, then I have cost their economy something no matter what taxes I pay and what I buy.

2. if I add 1 job and add 1 taxpayer and 1 consumer (or 1 family), all at average rates, then I am neutral to the economy, more or less.

3. if I add a better job than the average, and do that job, then I am a net benefit to their economy.

I'm just saying that it is not at all self-evident that even a good worker and honest taxpayer is a benefit: the real wealth of a country as it affects its members is GDP/head, not total GDP.

[Sysman]

Yes it does.

If it's sent home, then VAT isn't charged in this country on what it buys...

Not to mention the extra tax revenues on the profits of the companies collecting that VAT. Also tax/NI contributions from any extra employees required by those companies to deal with the increased workload.

[Diver]

Today it's not who they are or where they're from, it's the huge numbers. This island is too small and it's being swamped.

Only 8 years ago I was amazed how quieter it was driving around France and Spain compared to the UK, and it's probably even more noticable today. You could go for many miles without seeing a town or significant population. Here it's getting so all the towns are becoming linked.

As the saying goes "good fences make good neighbours". As a species we don't like being over crowded, so it's bound to lead to tension and depression.

Note to self: Must buy more properties to rent out.

[Cowboy Bob]

Don't be silly, expat. People from Yorkshire can't afford to move to London.

I beg to differ...

[PAH]

I beg to differ...

Learn some better tunes, and you'll get more money from the busking. Also helps if you have a proper instrument and not just a couple of missing teeth and a rolled up copy of the Big Issue.