The topic needs a fecund opinion... world population projections are open to complication. But can be summarised in 9 minutes:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/moreorless/moreorless_20121015-1200a.mp3

Pericles gives priority to economics over science. Growthists tend to regard the world much like a cartoon of Mickey Mouse. The economy is the face,and the society and the environment are the less important ears. In reality, they are concentric circles. If you trash your society, as in the former Yugoslavia, you also trash your economy. If you trash your environment, you trash both your society and your economy, as in the collapse of the Sumerian city states. Natural scientists, not economists, are the people who know the most about the biophysical basis of our survival and prosperity.

It is true that there has been some increase in GNP per capita due to immigration, but from the government's own 2006 Productivity Report into immigration, the effect is miniscule, even if you don't consider negative impacts from crowding, congestion, overpriced housing, skyrocketing utility bills, etc. See p. 154 and the graph on the following page.

"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. Other factors [are] more important to productivity and living standards. The economic impact of skilled migration is small when compared with other drivers of productivity and income per capita."

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

This is consistent with other big reports from around the world, such as the 1997 Academy of Sciences report from the US, the 2008 House of Lords report from the UK, and the 2009 Fraser Institute report from Canada. From the last of these

"As will be documented below, there is a strong body of evidence indicating that immigration does not contribute significantly to the economy, is not essential to the labor force, and does not help with the problems stemming from an aging population."

(cont'd)

(cont'd)

Pericles also accuses us of playing "dog in the manger", not wanting to share our prosperity, presumably mostly due to luck, with the world's less fortunate people. He doesn't recognise that a nation state is not just a random selection of people within an arbitrary geographical boundary. Although none of them are perfect, nation states that are good places to live are built on many years of hard work, right choices, and sacrifice, sometimes to the point of life itself, by the ancestors and predecessors of the present populations. They stay good places to live because the existing population is keeping them that way. It is quite possible to wreck a rich country, as they did in Argentina, although they are now rebuilding. In a very real sense, nation states belong to their existing citizens and their descendants, much as corporations belong to the shareholders and their heirs.

In successful nation states, there are enormous amounts of collective property, roads, bridges, hospitals, etc., etc. Very often an individual's share of this collective property is worth more than his personal property. I am not disputing that some immigration is likely to be in the interests of the host population, but beyond this, why should a foreigner have any more right to a share in the infrastructure and other collective property in some other people's nation state than he would to walk into their houses and take their personal property? With their bloated mass migration program, our corrupt and lying politicians are betraying their oath of office and giving away something that isn't theirs to give.

Thank you for introducing a few words of sanity via that link, WmTrevor.

Although heaven knows how we could usefully employ them on this thread, which seems totally immune to facts, and desperately in love with opinions. I was particularly impressed by the comment towards the end of the programme, that predicted the world's population to be ten billion by the end of the century.

And then added that it could just as easily be sixteen billion...

...or six billion.

That is quite a margin for error. And total anathema to the black-and-white brigade we enjoy here.

I do not "want" a particular level of immigration, Ludwig.

>>Or do you want a considerably higher than net zero level of immigration and if so, up to what point. Or do you want it to be just open-ended, so that we have a growing population forever?<<

What I would like to see, however, is that we welcome immigrants who are prepared to perform productive work that benefits the economy for all of us.

As, it would seem, most of them do. According to Divergence's quote...

"Most of the economic benefits associated with an increase in skilled migration accrues to the immigrants themselves."

How could this be, do you think? Because they a) work hard or b) because they bludge off the system?

Numbers are only part of the equation, Ludwig, and not the be-all and end-all that you seem to embrace. Engineering a stable population number simply for the sake of numerical neatness ignores the impact of demographics on productivity. Say, for example, our major employers decided to encourage older workers back into the workforce at the expense of young graduates, on the basis that the oldies are more experienced, cheaper, and more reliable.

We would quickly lose our young and talented overseas, I suspect. And see them replaced by... what? Elderly relatives of the already-here?Eager young graduates from Tsinghua University, perhaps?

You seem so totally hung-up on simple arithmentic when it comes to population levels, but seem unable to apply this same skill to the economic realities of an ageing population.

<< What I would like to see, however, is that we welcome immigrants who are prepared to perform productive work that benefits the economy for all of us. >>

Ok Pericles, now we are getting somewhere. You would like to see immigration that benefits the economy, and I presume that means improving and then maintaining a high quality of life and a reasonable level of equality across our society, yes?

Afterall, that IS what the economy is supposed to be all about, isn't it?

Well guess what - you want to see just what I want to see - a happy healthy SUSTAINABLE society, with the right sort of immigration program that takes us there as quickly as possible!

So, our major difference now appears to be the level of population growth that would best achieve this, within a strategy that considers all the other variables.

And I would put to you that a level of immigration much lower than the current level would most definitely give us a much better chance of achieving this.

So again it seems to me that you really should be on our side! If you want an immigration program that gives us the best economic outcome and the best return from our economic activity to the people, then you should definitely SWITCH CAMPS immediately!

Tell your sweet little girlfriend Cheryl that you have seen the light and need to break up with her.

BTW, I note that you have made no comment on the conclusion to my last post. I wrote:

>> But as it stands, your desire for minimum government intervention and your constant criticism of those who desire an end to population growth seem to be in stark contradiction. <<

It really does appear, Ludwig, that your education and upbringing, coupled with the limited life experiences available to a public servant, permit you only to think in an entirely linear fashion, with the objective to determine whether an object is black, or whether it is white.

>>You advocate minimalist government. You think that we’d be at our best if we had minimum laws, minimum policing and minimum government intervention in our lives.<<

This is typical.

I have of course expressed to you on a number of occasions that I believe that the intervention in our lives by government, together with their public service Remora fish, should be curtailed. That there is already sufficient intrusion into and involvement in the decisions we make every day. That our every activity seems circumscribed by this or that arbitrary law, by-law or ordinance.

But I have never advocated "minimum" anything. That exists only in your mind, as the only possible alternative to the total government control that you find so attractive. The concept that there are shades of grey only touches you in book form, and not as a way of assessing the massive complexity that we face in our daily lives, and working through that complexity in order to achieve some semblance of balance.

Your knee-jerk response to an issue is "the government should do something". The supposition being presumably that doing something is better than doing nothing.

My starting-point, on the other hand, is that where government is concerned, doing nothing is always infinitely better than doing something. That view being informed in part by the failure of any government, ever, to achieve what it sets out to achieve, without either getting it completely wrong, or generating a raft of unintended consequences that require years of further tinkering, adjustment and additional controls.

We do not need State intervention in population policies, for exactly these reasons. Our current visa system is perfectly adequate as a control mechanism, and any meddling with it to artificially skew its intent would be counter-productive.