At last, some really serious note is being taken about the massive problems inflicted on our society by increased population. What we now need is a comprehensive list of the perpetrators of this cancer and how they operate. We must be talking about very few people or organizations with tremendous political persuasion.

Does anyone have an up to date list of publications which we can read to get a better handle on the subject? Also, are there any economists out there who are prepared the wade into the discussion and give us sensible, rational reasons based on all the facts for the population increase.

As with most things, when the whole story is told, people wake up and see the light. How do we get the information out there so the average man-in-the-street knows what is going on?

Divergence

I acknowledge the points you raised. I am not saying that current numbers of immigrants are correct or that immigrants don’t use resources. However, I haven’t seen anyone propose a solution to the basic issue I raised- how to sustain the current lifestyle once the baby boomers retire.

This in not a quantitative statement about the number of people in Australia. I’m not saying that we are going to ‘run out of people’. I am saying (supported by commonsense and solid evidence) that the number of people in the workforce is going to fall at the same time that the call on the government coffers will increase.

Without a way to suppliment the workforce, the solution is either to lower the living standard of all people or increase the taxation burden on the smaller workforce.

I don’t want to make this a generational fight but I’m sure I speak for the people who are going to be expected to foot the bills for the next 30 years: We're not prepared to further compromise our living standards to pay the bills for the baby boomers.

The only path is further net migration, at least for the foreseeable future.

The reality of need for further working age bodies in this country should not be at issue. However, numbers and mixes need to be debated. We need to establish, as you suggested, a stable age distribution. Over time we can gradually lower total rates as the retiree-glut falls. After all, in 30 years time most boomers are going to be pushing up daisies anyway.

Even Japan (seriously anti-immigrant) is debating how to implement a large scale immigration program. They are in far more dire straights that Australia because, to date, they have not supplemented their natural population growth with immigration.

We can support greater number of people on this continent. It just takes proper management and an attitude that stops taking the bounties of our country for granted.

Below is a chipper report of one man's experience with the brave new world that immigrants are creating in Britain (and which Philippe is begging for more of):

"Now that Tony Blair is about to vacate office, people ask him what he believes his legacy will be. It will not be Iraq, it will be the beginning of a process of the Islamisation of the UK, Balkan Britain is upon us, I have seen it first hand, I have lived a small version of it ... Shattered unconnected communities in competition with each other but with no common value system or identity, unable to join together to achieve a common goal."

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/003618.html

Philippe's article should be subtitled "beat me, whip me, more, more!!"

online_east

It would really pay for you to read what you recommend to us.

Why would you think a cliched piece of gibberish from a far left uncredentialled blog from the UK would resonate with anyone in Australia - except for the mindless far right here? It's full of race hate, confused self-pity and crude social analysis. One minute 'Doug' is spitting vemom at people whose skin colour is darker than his. The next moment it's all a conspiracy of Islam. Then he decides that the Muslims are not really to blame. They are just pawns.

Finally Doug can't decide whether the real villains are the neo-Marxists or the liberal elites - whites like Tony Blair. And in the final analysis, it's really just sour grapes because Doug couldn't sell his property - he's a sad loser.

I noticed one of his respondents suggested Doug move to Australia - a wonderful land of plenty it is described as. It must be our Multicultural policies that make it so, eh online_east?

And France and the rest of Europe are living in some fang dangled Multi Utopia Frank, and all the friction is being created by Right wing Whites?

That sounds like some spiel from Harvard anti White/ Anti Intelligence… ooo yeh, they indoctrinate on that very subject Frank, they even have a special departmental curriculum based on ‘Whiteness’ studies.

Practicing self delusional strategies is detrimental to ones health. The art for now is to detect what actually causes this pathological trait. And what causes natural consciousness to be selectively discarded.

I can answer that, and you know full well also Frank- Guilt by association or the assersion of Racism has nothing to do with it.

Guy V,

Take a look at the Sustainable Population Australia site (www.population.org.au).

Mylakhrion,

A number of European countries have had stable or even decreasing populations for some time. Finland has been doing splendidly despite very low immigration and very low population growth of any kind. They are near the top of the pops on the UN Human Development Index and the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index. It has far less social inequality than Australia, with the top 10% making 5 times the income of the bottom 10%, instead of 13 times as much as in Australia.

A lot of hysteria about intergenerational issues has been stirred up by the politicians and corporate elite in the hopes that people like you will blame your problems on some postman who happened to have been born in 1950, rather than on themselves. So what is the solution?

Technological progress has reduced the need for workers.

Before the old age pension in Britain in the early 1920s, 75% of the men between 65 and 70 were still working, and nearly half the men between 70 and 75. We could easily increase the retirement age and/or give those baby boomers some incentives to go on working, at least part time. They have enjoyed better health care, smaller families, and better living and working conditions than their 19th century ancestors, so ought to be in even better shape for their age.

Another issue is our cultural fixation with prolonging dying. Half the money ever spent on an individual's health care is spent in the last 6 months of life, according to Richard Nicholson, the editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics ((London) Times Higher Education Supplement, 6/10/06). This is the main reason why old people are expensive.

Current unemployment is 11.4% counting the underemployed and discouraged workers, according to a recent column by Ross Gittins, the economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. Not only will we not run out of people, we won't run out of workers, either.