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The Forum > Article Comments > Does size matter? An economic perspective on the population debate > Comments

Does size matter? An economic perspective on the population debate : Comments

By Andrew Leigh, published 28/3/2014

Population growth has the potential to get us things we cannot obtain in other ways: better cultural goods and a more productive, more entrepreneurial culture. A larger nation has more mouths, but also more minds.

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Thanks Paddy.

Gee you have been busy!

What a huge effort you have been putting into pummelling a small group of people, whose real arguments you don’t seem to be interested in…. only in their ‘psychology’!

I gave you a great opportunity to debate the real issues on one of your recent article threads. But alas you just completely avoided it:

My comment: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279533

Your reply: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279534

My further request: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279541

Your reply, which completely avoided my question: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279569

My further attempt to get you to address the all-important points of debate that sit right at the heart of the population issue: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279619

No response from you.

My final attempt two days later: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279712

Another post from you, completely failing to address the issue: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279855

My final post thanking you for making it crystal clear that you are not interested in debating the real issues at hand, and are only interested in lambasting a group of people, the views of which you really don’t understand and bizarrely don’t want to!: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16101#279863

It’s all there in black and white Paddy.

Whacky stuff indeed!
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 30 March 2014 9:28:35 AM
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Ignoring the usual play-the-man-and-not-the-ball stuff from Paddy King, and reverting to Andrew Leigh's article,that is, the issue itself, his thesis fails to take into account the environmental arguments for a stable or smaller population. Urban sprawl brings loss of habitat for other species and Australia already has very high rates of biodiversity loss. An ever-increasing population demands ever more energy and resources and when that energy is fossil fuel based, any hope of achieving internationally agreed targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction go out the window.

As for social arguments, the Einstein argument is laughable. People may be brought in who are brilliant but unless they have an excellent education, opportunities to use that education, and a stable home life, they often end up driving taxis. And in order to provide this kind of supporting environment, you need capital deepening (investment in education and productive industries that is more likely when population growth is relatively stable), not capital widening (building ever more houses for an ever-increasing population). Every person added to the population from either immigration or natural increase demands at least $200,000 in infrastructure. With 407,000 people added to the population in the year to the end of June last year, that means $80 billion is required to cater for their needs.

What is required is a dynamic, steady state economy with a stable or slowly reducing population. Ageing? Forget it. Increase the retirement age a couple of years and combine it with compulsory superannuation and you deal with it. Health costs with an ageing population? Most come in the last year of life when people require hospitalisation or nursing home care. Keeping people healthy for as long as possible is one way of dealing with that, but pushing everyone into urban high-rise with few opportunities to exercise is not the way to do it.
Posted by popnperish, Sunday, 30 March 2014 10:45:44 AM
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"Population growth has the potential to get us things we cannot obtain in other ways: better cultural goods and a more productive, more entrepreneurial culture"

How beautifully vague!
Perhaps Mr Leigh can be more specific, what exactly are these "things" we may look forward to obtaining?

"lifestyle improvements" is the same old stale carrot dangled before us, but it's never more than an inducement to acquiesce in a blunderheaded laissez faire promotion.
Lifestyles do not improve; they degrade while suburbia spreads.
Capital growth (for capitalists) needs population growth, it's as simple and cynical as that.
Posted by Squeers, Sunday, 30 March 2014 5:53:22 PM
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Anyone pro poulation increase should have to increase their tax contribution first.
Posted by individual, Monday, 31 March 2014 6:21:18 AM
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One of the points often raised about Australia's population is its low density per square kilometre. This ignores an important fact. Australia is the driest continent on earth. About 75% of our land area is classified as arid or worse. This has to be a severe limitation on our capacity to support high population growth. How much we should grow is an important policy question which this article does not help to solve and which needs to seriously addressed.
Posted by AyJay, Monday, 31 March 2014 12:06:17 PM
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You claim that there are 2 levers, migration or home-grown babies.

You claim that "migration" is the ONLY choice really as "government policies have little impact on whether or not people have babies”.

This is pure crap.

Had the government in pre-mass migration days (say 1950) simply set out to explain to people that their political and economic projections for the world over the next 100 years and for how it will impact us mean that it is of VITAL importance to drastically and quickly increase our population size, then I am certain most Australians at that time would have been more than willing to have more kids, as long there was subsidies.


As for the aftermath of the Gov pulling the migration lever:

Compare the following:

A. 1950s working class family – able to get jobs anywhere and everywhere jobs of low to no skill pre-required and no official training usually needed. A man could have such a job get married have 2-4 kids and while only he works is able to purchase a land and house by age 30-35 in outer-suburbia.

B. 2000-2010 working class family – unable to get jobs anywhere that require “low skill” [refer to China] and even those that still exist usually require that one first obtain an official certificate of “training” – training is what? This means that 2000-2010 man will likely be unemployed unless he retrains to get a university degree o at least a 4 year trade. Thus 2010 man cannot get married and have kids unless poverty is all he cares to offer them.

So Mr Andrew Leigh, why do you think our government overlooked the option for lever , which was to simply ask us to have more kids and explain why.

I think because this option still would not have overcome the problem of crushing minimum worker rights for manufacture whereas taking ALL our such jobs and putting them in Asian slave cams, does deal with this concern.
Posted by Jottiikii, Monday, 31 March 2014 4:42:32 PM
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