Philosophy Discussion Forums

Who’s paying the costs of immigration?

The business community asks for and gets 1 million legal immigrant workers, many of whom are singletons. However they don’t like paying taxes, which indeed they treat like its a dirty word. Yet taxes are payments for cost just like anything else, so why isn’t the private sector paying for the respective housing and infrastructure costs? I would guess that businesses which get e.g. ‘free’ cheap labour, would think twice if they had to build housing schools and hospitals for the millions of immigrants they have got in over the last few years or so!

The govt is spending 500,000,000 just for the Affordable Homes Programme!

We are being held to ransom by the private sector, they always say cut costs, because they don’t think of the universality of costs. The rich say they will move their money into foreign banks if we dare tax them, and yet they are the one’s getting the cheap labour for their businesses which in turn gets a yield for shareholders, all of which is where the banks get their money to pay the interest that makes the rich investors even richer.

I am not against investors and business owners getting richer, but I am against the masses paying for it! Tax for ordinary people is as high as it has ever been, and in fact we used to get water for free out of that + energy suppliers take around 40% in profits, which would not exist if nationalised.

I reckon someone’s getting something of a free ride and its not us [‘ordinary persons’].

Note that high immigration leads to high housing prices - and the majority of politicians own multiple properties.

The working class and the poor are the most impacted by mass immigration. When they complain about not being able to access work, accommodation, or healthcare, resulting in them being derided as racists by elites. We had a local politician, Zali Steggall, recently accuse Australians of being racist for not wanting to bring in masses of refugees, while her own elite and very white electorate is too expensive for any refugee, and would be thus unaffected.

Mass immigration is basically an exercise in the redistribution of income - from the bottom to the top.

I don't disagree with the analysis of the effects of MASS immigration. Standard immigration, however doesn't have those effects.

As to the attitudes of various economic groups towards taxes, I'm not aware of any groups that don't try to pay as little taxes as possible.

LuckyR wrote: ↑January 5th, 2025, 5:54 pm I don't disagree with the analysis of the effects of MASS immigration. Standard immigration, however doesn't have those effects.

As to the attitudes of various economic groups towards taxes, I'm not aware of any groups that don't try to pay as little taxes as possible.

Sure, standard immigration to keep things flowing through the organism, so to speak. But mass immigration is destructive. Why could a nation with perilously low vacancy rates and a fragile building industry bring is record numbers of migrants? It's irrational ... unless there is a particular agenda ...

True, it does sound like a response to a particular concern, perhaps a political (as opposed to one concerning policy) one

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 6th, 2025, 8:48 am Why could a nation with perilously low vacancy rates and a fragile building industry bring is record numbers of migrants? It's irrational ... unless there is a particular agenda ...

Many modern countries find themselves with a large and ageing population, who they can't afford to care for. Therefore, they need immigrants to come, work, pay tax, and thereby pay for the care and welfare of the old and exhausted workers who can no longer contribute as they once did. Consider Japan...

N.B. I do not suggest this is the only reason for immigration, only *one* reason.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 6th, 2025, 11:27 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 6th, 2025, 8:48 am Why could a nation with perilously low vacancy rates and a fragile building industry bring is record numbers of migrants? It's irrational ... unless there is a particular agenda ...

Many modern countries find themselves with a large and ageing population, who they can't afford to care for. Therefore, they need immigrants to come, work, pay tax, and thereby pay for the care and welfare of the old and exhausted workers who can no longer contribute as they once did. Consider Japan...

N.B. I do not suggest this is the only reason for immigration, only *one* reason.

That is not the real reason. No, these countries do NOT need millions of new immigrants now. Later, perhaps, but not now.

Such migration does nothing to help that situation in the present, but it does cause cheaper wages, more employment uncertainty, higher housing prices, homelessness and housing insecurity, more overcrowding, less available medical care, fewer education options and higher inflation.

Of course, these don't impact VIPs like politicians who own multiple properties.

If not through immigration, then how would a country like Australia with a fertility rate well below replacement level have enough young, working-age people to pay taxes to support the elderly and disabled cohorts of its population? The only way would be to raise our fertility rate. Good luck with that when wages are so low that people are having trouble paying rent and utilities and feeding themselves, let alone afford to have more kids.

Real wages for workers have been in decline in Australia and many other places since at least the 1980s, and in that time the few rich have got incredibly richer. There needs to be a redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation, the ending of rorts such as negative gearing, and by making corporations pay a fair share of taxation. Until those problem are fixed we are going to need immigration which, as mentioned by others, brings it's own suite of problems which negatively impact the poor.

The main thrust of this topic – if I may, is that costs for things we need are the same thing whether or not they come in the form of taxes or costs in the private sector e.g. car insurance, housing costs etc.

as to immigration i am a universalist [my politic] so i will just throw this out there...

I have my suspicions/conspiracies about the Tories and such large numbers of immigrants; they have driven a lot of people to rejecting globalism!

Also about all the grooming gangs raping and torturing children on the news over the last few days [it’s occurring across 50 towns and cities], well why wasn’t anything done about it – under the Tories? Do they want us to hate immigrants, mainly Muslims and Africans? First they let in some Somalis who they know hate us, they do these despicable things to young white girls and others, then they tell other people who may be on their side politically, like Muslims etc, that the police are letting them get away with it, and that they make tons of cash. Of course many others will then start doing the same terrible things. That’s one way how crime grows, criminals look for weaknesses and to what they can get away with.

I am also suspicious of the media, as virtually every drama and the like, has black or Muslim men with mostly blond partners – which isn’t representative. Then there are lgbtq celebrities everywhere, basically everything right wingers dislike or hate, is being thrown in their faces to a massively disproportionate degree. Could they be trying to turn the majority into fascists? Look what is happening across Europe, the massively larger amounts of immigrants have turned people against globalism.

As for having a black leader of the Tory party, well at the last Tory conference they said they were the party of multi-culture, the cameras turned their gaze on around 10 people of colour. However the cameras turned around to the audience who were as far as I could see, white! Seams like they are pulling the wool over our eyes and the coloured people are just stooges!

amorphos_ii wrote: ↑January 7th, 2025, 7:35 am Also about all the grooming gangs raping and torturing children on the news over the last few days [it’s occurring across 50 towns and cities], well why wasn’t anything done about it – under the Tories?

Fact-checking is your friend. There is much misinformation about this. Don't trust me, check.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 6th, 2025, 4:18 pm No, these countries do NOT need millions of new immigrants now. Later, perhaps, but not now.

UK and Japan depend on them NOW. Others may follow, as you say. But no-one mentioned numbers — "millions".

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 7th, 2025, 9:12 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 6th, 2025, 4:18 pm No, these countries do NOT need millions of new immigrants now. Later, perhaps, but not now.

UK and Japan depend on them NOW. Others may follow, as you say. But no-one mentioned numbers — "millions".

Australia has imported them by the MILLIONS.

Population at the start of 2021 = 25,694,393
Population at the start of 2024 = 27,603,400

The UK needs to be swamped by migrants? Why? To lower wages, create homelessness, increase pressure on the NHS and school systems and increase housing prices and rents? Isn't London crowded enough? Over a decade ago it was so insanely crowded that it was impossible to catch a train during the afternoon peak. I can't imagine what it's like now.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 6th, 2025, 4:18 pm No, these countries do NOT need millions of new immigrants now. Later, perhaps, but not now.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 7th, 2025, 9:12 am UK and Japan depend on them NOW. Others may follow, as you say. But no-one mentioned numbers — "millions".

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 7th, 2025, 3:43 pm Australia has imported them by the MILLIONS.

Population at the start of 2021 = 25,694,393
Population at the start of 2024 = 27,603,400

The UK needs to be swamped by migrants? Why? To lower wages, create homelessness, increase pressure on the NHS and school systems and increase housing prices and rents? Isn't London crowded enough? Over a decade ago it was so insanely crowded that it was impossible to catch a train during the afternoon peak. I can't imagine what it's like now.

There is a big difference, as you know well, between a need for *some* migrants, for the simple economic reasons I have already described, and being "swamped" by "millions" of immigrants. Why does your viewpoint require such sensationalist hyperbole? Won't your arguments stand alone?

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 8th, 2025, 9:34 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 6th, 2025, 4:18 pm No, these countries do NOT need millions of new immigrants now. Later, perhaps, but not now.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 7th, 2025, 9:12 am UK and Japan depend on them NOW. Others may follow, as you say. But no-one mentioned numbers — "millions".

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 7th, 2025, 3:43 pm Australia has imported them by the MILLIONS.

Population at the start of 2021 = 25,694,393
Population at the start of 2024 = 27,603,400

The UK needs to be swamped by migrants? Why? To lower wages, create homelessness, increase pressure on the NHS and school systems and increase housing prices and rents? Isn't London crowded enough? Over a decade ago it was so insanely crowded that it was impossible to catch a train during the afternoon peak. I can't imagine what it's like now.

There is a big difference, as you know well, between a need for *some* migrants, for the simple economic reasons I have already described, and being "swamped" by "millions" of immigrants. Why does your viewpoint require such sensationalist hyperbole? Won't your arguments stand alone?

This is not about immigration to replace an otherwise diminishing populace.

It's not sensationalist to say that the UK has been swamped by millions of migrants. That is exactly why the UK voted to leave the EU. However, the Soros agenda resulted in continued rapid inflows of migrants afterwards, and the UK is now in decline. Nothing drives inequality and division more than mass immigration.

Financially some countries may need immigration, but the disparity where there are too many old people is surely self resolving ~ by death. You just have to wait a decade or so.

Thing is those who demand the immigrants are not paying for them [1/2 a million homes + the respective amount of schools hospitals and staff], but the tax payer is. TAX the rich to cover the costs and see how quickly it all changes then!