You should know by now, Ludwig, that your feeble attempts at insult don't affect me one little bit.

>>What are you trying to achieve, Pericles? To make yourself seem as loopy, extremist and out of touch as you possibly can?<<

It does illustrate however that you are finally becoming a little uncomfortable with my consistent rejection of your position.

>>You are asserting that I want to achieve things that you know full well that I don’t. You are verballing and slandering me<<

A good example of how you consistently refuse to think these things through. I was describing the outcome of your position in my own words. While you may not like it so simply expressed, that is where your ideas will take us. So you may think you are being verballed, in that you would not dream of expressing it in those terms. They clearly are not your words, but are instead an accurate summary of the outcome of your fight against economic reality.

Incidentally, technically it would be libel, rather than slander. Just saying.

>>Divergence is doing an excellent job as always in dismantling your ‘arguments’. And you are helping her grealty in dismantling your credibility!<<

I hadn't noticed. Let's have a look...

Nope. Nothing new there. Just a bit of foot-shuffling on the data offered. No refutation of the basic fact that at the same time our economy has been making each of us better off, the population has been increasing. The point would need to be made that these two facts are separable, in order for the argument against growth to have any traction.

Travel safely.

Ludwig while I find you a lot more balanced than some your fixation seen here is proof.
Proof the some times, without Rime/Reason or cause,some silly things are said.
You , on this issue, flog Labor, and some of its members, for having the very same view as both party,s and 85% of this country has.
To top it off? you claim to be part of a majority!

Pericles,

Just take a look at the UN Human Development Index, including the Index corrected for inequality, or the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index and then check the population growth rates of the high ranking countries. You will find that they include countries with low population growth such as Sweden and Switzerland, and even countries with slowly declining populations such as Germany and Japan. Population growth is clearly separable from economic competitveness and human well-being. You just don't want to admit it. I have presented the actual figures many times, so I sure that you have seen them.

Besides the actual GDP per capita results since 2006 from the Reserve Bank, the Productivity Commission did some modelling of the effects of substantially raising skilled migration in their 2006 report on immigration. They found a very small per capita economic benefit, mostly distributed to owners of capital and the migrants themselves, while the wages of existing workers grew more slowly than in the base case. See p. 154 and the graphs on p. 155 and p. 147. This is consistent with the results of economic studies around the world, such as the 1997 Academy of Sciences Report (The New Americans) in the US and the 2008 House of Lords Report in the UK. They all show per capita economic benefits that are close to zero or negative.

Belly, there was an item on the TV the other night on the selection of
the ALP female candidate for a Melbourne seat.
The meeting was held in the AWU offices in Melbourne.

That they are either so insensitive or couldn't care less, as to not
even bother to hold the meeting elsewhere says it all.

Another nail.

I must be looking at the wrong list, Divergence.

>>Pericles, Just take a look at the UN Human Development Index, including the Index corrected for inequality, <<

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI

This one shows Australia second to Norway. If you had a different list in mind, perhaps you could link to it.

>>...or the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index<<

Ummm... this is an opinion survey.

"In the tables, indicators derived from the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey (Survey) have country scores represented by blue-colored bar graphs. Survey questions asked for responses on a scale of 1 to 7, where an answer of 1 and 7 always corresponds to the worst and best possible outcome, respectively. In the tables, the Survey question and the two extreme answers are shown above the rankings"

Sounds highly subjective to me.

>>You will find that they include countries with low population growth such as Sweden and Switzerland, and even countries with slowly declining populations such as Germany and Japan.<<

On what basis would you suggest we normalize factors other than population amongst this lot? What features does our economy share with Sweden? Have our Banks ever been a repository for masses of war booty, like Switzerland? Have we centuries of history in manufacturing, like Germany? Did we lead the world in technology advances in the seventies and eighties, like Japan?

There are many factors that contributed to the success of these countries, one of which is the growth in their populations. For example, Japan's post-war baby boom supplied the trained workforce that powered their technology prowess. From which it could easily be argued that without this burst of population growth, they would have failed to make such an impression.

I completely agree that population growth on its own is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for economic success. However, in a society such as ours, with the opportunities that we face, we should not ignore the role that further increases in population can bring.

Alright Pericles, let’s see if you and I can actually have some sort of meaningful correspondence here. We have managed it in the past many times, but it has gone to the dogs on this thread. Let’s try and recover it.

<< I completely agree that population growth on its own is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for economic success. However, in a society such as ours, with the opportunities that we face, we should not ignore the role that further increases in population can bring. >>

Sounds like a reasonable summation of your overall view on the subject.

I note a very significant omission – no mention of the PROBLEMS that further increases in population would or could bring.

You say you view things a glass-half-full manner and think that I see things in a glass-half-empty manner. Well, without meaning to be insulting, it seems as though you views things in a glass totally full manner when it is really only half full, and consequently see the potential positives in a very much more significant way than the potential negatives.

If we are going to have continuous population growth, it surely needs to be totally rigorously, scientifically, economically, environmentally and ‘qualityoflifeally’ justified!

All the positives and negatives need to be as well analysed as possible. Continuous rapid population growth versus a stable population, or anything in between, is surely one of the biggest factors in our future national wellbeing. So it is worth a study of the highest calibre to determine just what we should do.

Gillard announced the continuation of high immigration without any of this sort of analysis and without any real consideration for the longer term. She’s just dwelling entirely in the very short term, with basically a year-by-year adjustment, and with the very powerful bias of what big business and short-term economic analysts want weighing very heavily into this decision.

This is terribly inappropriate and irresponsible of our government.

Your thoughts?