Problem is, Ludwig, apart from any and every other consideration, we're at the wrong point in the economic cycle for your net-no-immigration policies to be either desirable or effective.

Right now, there is a skills shortage of some significance in the key growth engines of our economy. The same growth engines that have protected us from the near-disasters that have befallen many other economies around the world. Turn the tap off now, and we will be less well-off, and horrendously under-prepared when the world economy picks up again in ten years time.

In the meantime, as the situation worsens in, say, Europe, the tendency will be for Ex-pats to return in large numbers. Ask any recruitment firm, and you will find that their books are full of professionals looking to come home. And there are half a million Aussies in Europe alone.

Your balancing act is not going to be helped if you give a returning Sydney Banker preference over a Chinese mining engineer.

Idealism is a wonderful thing, Ludwig, and it would be all very wonderful if your ideas on balanced population had the faintest chance to succeed in the real world. But they don't. And anyone who has ever run a business will tell you the same.

You see it as:

>>It is the terrible in-bed relationship between government and vested-interest big business that is the main stumbling block.<<

I see current immigration policy to be the only glimmer of understanding of the business environment that our government - or any preceding government - has ever shown. Admittedly it is only because big business has a particularly loud voice at the moment. But it is a start.

And their "vested interest", by the way, is economically extremely close to your own.

Jobs. Financial security. Stability.

Pericles,

The effects of high population growth, largely fuelled by goverment imposed mass migration, on people's quality of life in the cities and suburbs where most of us live are all too obvious: more crowding and congestion, skyrocketing utility bills and housing costs, less open space, overstretched and crumbling infrastructure and public services, permanent water restrictions, etc., etc. Furthermore, the government's own Measures of Australia's Progress reports have shown progressive deterioration in almost every environmental indicator apart from urban air quality.

You want to claim that there is some enormous economic benefit to compensate for all of this, and this may well be the case for you and your friends, but the government's own 2006 Productivity Commission report on immigration has this to say so far as the general public is concerned:

"Most of the economic benefits associated with an increase in skilled migration accrues to the immigrants themselves. For existing residents, capital owners receive additional income, with owners of capital in those sectors experiencing the largest output gains enjoying the largest gains in capital income. On the other hand, the real average annual incomes of existing resident workers grows more slowly than in the base-case, as additional immigrants place downward pressure on real wages. The economic impact of skilled migration is small when compared with other drivers of productivity and income per capita." (p. 154, see also the graph on the next page and the graph on p. 147 showing the expected decrease in real wages).

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/9438/migrationandpopulation.pdf

Their 2010/2011 annual report says:

"Two benefits that are sometimes attributed to immigration, despite
mixed or poor evidence to support them, are that:
* immigration is an important driver of per capita economic growth
* immigration could alleviate the problem of population ageing." (p. 6)

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/113407/annual-report-2010-11.pdf

Furthermore, I am amazed that you feel that citizens of a country are entitled to no special consideration. We don't have a world government, and when countries go to war, it is their citizens who are sent off to fight and maybe come back with pieces missing or not come back at all.

I wrote:

< Come on Pericles, you know that net zero immigration does amount to a ‘fortress Australia’ mentality >

Ahhh ffffurballs!

Now there’s a classic example of missing word syndrome if ever there was one. Of course that should read:

< Come on Pericles, you know that net zero immigration does NOT amount to a ‘fortress Australia’ mentality >

MWS is my OLO curse! It’s the thing that bugs me the most about the whole OLO experience - that every second post I write has to have one or more missing words, that don’t get picked up in the spell and grammar checks that I do religiously for every post and which my highly wonky brain just reads straight past…. but somehow manages to pick up instantly upon re-reading after posting!! !! !!

Aaarghh!!

Alright…… end of dummy spit!

Now lets see, which post will I respond to, Pericles?

You’ve got two big fatties there full of juicy stuff to pick to pieces that I haven’t ‘attacked’ yet!

I’ll start with your post of 18 June 2012 11:37:21 AM:

You wrote:

<< What is "hopeless", Ludwig, is the concept that any form of government intervention can solve your problem. >>

Oh no. I totally disagree. Government intervention is essential. But again, it has to be seen to be the right thing by the majority of people or else they risk getting kicked out at the next election…unless the opposition is also committed to the same sort of policy.

Crikey, what’s the alternative to government intervention? Just a blind pandering to whatever the majority want, with no effort to steer us towards a better longer term outcome??

<< I say "your" problem, because I believe it exists only in your mind. >>

Wow! Now you’ve really flipped out! The problems of high immigration, continuous population growth and the need to head towards sustainability are only in my mind are they?

That's a very strange assertion!

continued

<< The weight of evidence is that the world has become more congenial and supportive of human lives than at any stage in its history >>

Yes Pericles, but do you think this can continue as the population burgeons?? Not likely. And there is no doubt that if population growth had been considerably lower over the past two or three decades, the average quality of life around the planet would have increased considerably more than it has.

<< The most effective means to reduce third-world population … is to terminate all forms of overseas aid to those countries >>

No. The most effective means is to reallocate a large portion of this aid into family planning, reducing the fertility rate and implementing support systems for those who might be adversely affected by a considerably lower birthrate.

Unfortunately, the aid regime has indeed exacerbated the problem. I understand that very little if any official Australian aid goes into schemes to help poor countries reduce their population growth rates.

Yes you could say the same about our food exports.

Perhaps the greatest human paradox of all time was the implementation of western medicine in the developing world, which quickly lowered the very high infant mortality rate and thus raised the population growth rate enormously.

So yes, if we are going to provide food for the world, we should also be providing sustainability-oriented aid, rather than antisustainability-oriented aid, which is largely what we and the western world has been offering for many decades now.

Ludwig, some questions:
1. How do you reconcile these two statements:
“You are branding my solutions or suggested policies as impositions. Not true.”
And
“Government intervention is essential.”

The government interventions are not going to be enforced or enforceable, and not funded by taxation? Is that it? No? Then they’re going to be imposed by force and threats, aren’t they?

2. “Crikey, what’s the alternative to government intervention? Just a blind pandering to whatever the majority want, with no effort to steer us towards a better longer term outcome?”
In case you haven’t noticed, the theory of representative government, and the justification of democracy, is precisely that it does represent the majority.

But if that’s not what you want, then clearly you are trying to impose what you want on the majority.

3. How did you and Divergence get to be so fully confident that you know what values everyone else in the world should have in preference to their own? What if you are wrong?

4. You keep talking about “we” and “us”. But “we” [the people of the world] are already doing what we want, so far as we are able, given the constraints. This means that when you say “we” what you really mean is “the state”.

5. “Unfortunately, the aid regime has indeed exacerbated the problem. I understand that very little if any official Australian aid goes into schemes to help poor countries reduce their population growth rates.”
Yes indeed. The outcomes could hardly be worse if they dropped the money on the target communities by helicopter.

6. BTW what’s your take on the refugee intake?

7. Despite your confidence in government, nothing you say gives any reason for thinking that they can do anything worthwhile even in your own terms. What, apart from blind faith, is your reason for thinking that government can aid in attaining sustainability at all when a policy’s sustainability-pluses and sustainability-minuses are both taken into account? For example if your Australian migration policies were granted, how do you know what wouldn’t make the world situation less sustainable?

Ludwig & Divergence are spot on.
There is no hope that many parts of the world will not be able to
reduce their population voluntarily and we will have to take steps to
protect ourselves as we go down the energy curve.
Unless we do it ourselves nature will do it for us by starvation.

Population will fall to match resources so just accept it !