Pyreneenguy
Member
- Joined
- 29 May 2011
- Messages
- 327
Umm... umm... I'm generally on the pro-EU, pro-migration side of the debate, but even I can see that continually importing people to support the fact that people live longer is not sustainable in the long term. What do you do when all the people you've imported grow old and need care/someone to pay for their pensions? Import more people to care for them? Ultimately as people live longer, we're going to have to face difficult choices about either the retirement age or the level of taxation needed to support old people, or the need for some kind of separate social/pensions insurance. Perhaps some immigration can help in the short term (because of issues around the fact that Governments in the past made commitments to existing pensioners or people approaching retirement, which people would expect to be honoured), but it can't be a long term solution.
Also, I think your argument makes the same mistake that so many people on the anti-immigration side make: Of treating immigrants not as human beings, but as commodities to be imported only as long as they are useful to 'us'. Hopefully the moral issues around that kind of argument are obvious!
I'm just glad I decided to live outside the U.K. Fueling growth with immigration is like a time-bomb, pushing up rents and house prices whilst pulling pay and conditions downwards.There are cries for building on the green-belt but what about quality of life when it disappears under miles upon miles of concrete, bricks and tarmac ? It's an all win situation for those who are already comfortably off but a disaster for the upcoming generation who will look back on what their parent's and grandparent's had with envious eyes.