to think if the country is already 'too full up' we should probably stop having so many children?

[IceBeing]

After listening to a discussion on a bus between two women, it would seem that the country is far to stretched to take in any refugees at the moment! We are full to busting and not enough money for services for those already here.

AIBU to wonder where the concerns of these people were when they had the (apparently) six kids that were along with them?

The refugees are already alive and in need of shelter, food, medical aid etc. Our unborn need not come and add to the problem....

So, maybe a China style policy...although we could probably afford to do 2 kids per family....unless we really are full to busting as indicated.

Regarding the "aging population" thinglook, there is a very obvious flaw in this logic. The trouble is that migrants will also get olderrequiring an even larger number of younger people to support them in their old age. The only long-term result will be an ever-increasing population.

The only sustainable, long-term solution to the aging population problem is to increase the retirement age.

not but let us stack up the difference between say 100,000 extra babies and 100,000 refugees.

Babies are far more likely to use the NHS then average adults. Even before you factor in all the pregnancy, labour and postnatal visits.

Children need educating in everything - while the refugees may just need some classes in English....which they may pay for themselves.

Children won't be working or generating GDP or paying taxes. Refugees certainly will.

So the refugees are a far more efficient way to increase the population than having babies.

thenew or maybe to ditch this whole idea that everybody needs to work...or ditch money...that would also work.

We can easily provide enough food water and shelter for our population given our level of farming and technology....we can do this off the back of the work of a very low percentage of our population. All the angst is caused by people wanting MORE than the minimum...wanting to work to earn the extras and using their ability to work and get extra sports cars to drive those that can't work under the poverty line.

Most people are doing jobs that don't need doing, to provide people with junk they don't need!

Particularly in the city.

I note that capitalism is showing its true colours in China now...

Poor sods....they were almost certainly better off with communism by we sold them the 'dream' and now they have failing markets and just ploughed peoples pensions in to prop up the market...I can't imagine that ending well.

Poor sods....they were almost certainly better off with communism
Suggest you read either Frank Dikotter or Zhou Xun on the joys of communism in China. Admittedly Dikotter is no fan of the ideology in the first place, but Zhou Xun grew up there so probably knows whereof she speaks.

It wasn't pretty.

So we should have no more than two kids just incase other people want to live here....

Ah ive just read your other posts ...

Shove ... the ONS population pyramid set to 2015 shows the small boomer spike and the bulges of the 60s, 80s and late 00s.

Where I have issues with the projections is the idea that only 138,000 boomers will die in the next ten years. Or that the troughs of the 70s and early 00s somehow do not factor.

Put it this way ... in 1995, we had 5.5 million people over the age of 70 and 38 million people between 18 and 70. In 2015, we have 5.8 million people over 70, yet 43.6 million people between 18 and 70.

In the last twenty years, the proportion of economically active individuals to pensioners has actually got better. Yet it is over this period that the arguments about not having enough economically active individuals to sustain the elderly has taken root and that is why we require migrant labour now.

I am not saying that we may not require significant levels of migrant labour to sustain our population structure in thirty to forty years time, but we do not need it now because all we are doing by encouraging migrants now is importing a bigger problem down the line when those migrants, now in their 20s and 30s, get old themselves -- in thirty to forty years time.

What we really need is a frank discussion about education and training so that our labour demands can be met from the existing population and a plan to maintain population levels in a way that is sustainable over the long term and allows for the population to have the ability to access quality public services and reasonable living space.

Again, what we would require in the future in terms of migrant labour is not only labour, but individuals who would make a net contribution to the exchequer ... and to do so in an environment of less than full employment, they need to earn over about £35k pa and use no public services, which is somewhat of a big ask.

When it comes to pensions, well, this is the elephant in the room. The state pension bill is already enormous, more than the cost of running the NHS. I suspect that the state pension age will rise to 75 over the next twenty years, the amounts will reduce, probably through inflationary pressures, and state pensions will become means-tested (i.e. the value of your assets will come into consideration, so you won't get a pension if you own in a property over a certain value, regardless of your actual income). Put it this way, I am in my early 40s and I do not expect a state pension when I get to 70.

We're supposed to help people fleeing from oppressive countries which ignore people's rights by becoming an oppressive country which ignores people's rights....

Need If you have stats to prove otherwise I'd appreciate a link.

When Boris Johnson became London Mayor, he proposed a policy to legalise all the capital's illegal workers. His view was that we may as well make them legal so they could pay tax.

As part of his investigations into the idea, he commissioned the LSE to look into the fiscal implications of such a legalisation.

The LSE report found that the most likely scenario was that legalising these workers would lead to a net cost to the country.

"In these assumption of complete regularisation, a complete switch to taxed employment, and full adaptation in earnings/employment rates, these estimates of £846 million additional revenue (for the UK as a whole) and £596 million for London alone can be compared with the central estimate of the annual costs of public services, derived in Section 5.3. These were of the order of £1 billion for the country as a whole and £715 million for London.

The direct implication is that, over the longer run when regularisation has run its full course (raising both fiscal costs and revenues over those to be expected in the short run), it might involve a net cost to other taxpayers of about £150 million nationally, of which some £100 million would relate to London.

The worst-case scenario would be one in which the only people who are regularised are drawn from the half of irregular migrants who we suggest may already be paying tax. These may also be less likely to generate major welfare demands as/when they become entitled to these. But, at the limit, in this case any increase in service take-up and costs would be a net addition to the fiscal burden."

www.london.gov.uk/mayor/economic_unit/docs/irregular-migrants-report.pdf

It takes a lot for someone to be a net contributor to the exchequer. Two children at a state primary school costs near enough the equivalent of the entire annual income tax payment of someone on about £28,000 a year, which is more than the average income in the UK.

And when you are looking at unskilled migrant workers in a climate where there is less than full employment, you not only need to consider their long term revenue potential against the cost of future public service use, but you also need to consider whether the taxes from that unskilled migrant's labour offset the unemployment costs of the displaced unskilled British worker, which they usually won't due to the nature of the work. So, in such cases, you are just importing net cost to the country at a time when we really do not need any more fiscal costs.

Oh no doubt communism is rubbish. Its just capitalism is too.

So refugees coming over can only bring a max of 2 children too? No big families

Where will we get the money from for extra NHS care/education? it can't be found for current residents of this country, so where will it come from?

And where will the 4 person refugee families live? We have no housing for current UK residents?

In regards to refugees, Syrians, Somalians, afghans and Iraqi's need to be cared for and accomodated somewhere in Europe and we should take are share.

However among the Calais migrants are Nigerians, Sudanese and Eritrians. These countries are not nice compared to Europe but there is no conflict in these countries. To leave these countries is to leave a stable country by choice, making them migrants.

So in regards to migrants your on the whole immigration debate, in my opinion we should have a points system for non Eu which would automatically reject these people because they probably have the skills needed to get the points.

OP capitalism has gotten the most people out of poverty then any other system.

We have to avoid corporatism which we risk falling into in this country.

I suspect those who think that the UK has plenty of land left on which to build lots more houses also think that the answer to 'where does food come from?' is 'Waitrose'.

think about it.

too many people on the planet already. Can't put back the ones we have, all of whom deserve food, water, education and even access to a toilet. So we need to stop increasing the numbers.

good luck with that one.

dads I hear what you say about the apparent success of capitalism...but it strikes me as similar to saying that getting a credit card can get you out of poverty...well maybe for a month...but then it's worse than ever.

We are making all this random stuff and keeping our selves afloat by buying and selling it...but the world with run out of stuff and just as surely as we can't continue to support ageing population by adding to the population we can't keep the economy afloat by making ever more cheap tat.

I think the whole thing is a thinly disguised pyramid scheme...and the chickens will be back to roost at some point...

I guess we can hope we are dead before it happens.....

I agree too many people on the planet, but the UK is a place with no dramatic growth in population so a one or two child policy would be

A. Ineffective
B impossible to implement in a democratic system.
C Not solve the problem of under investment in public services.

special I totally agree with you.

It just seems so mind-bendingly selfish to worry about how the amazing free at point of use education our kids are getting will be affected by an influx of people coming from countries in which there is no education available at all....

Are we really saying that we won't allow other people education to improve by 100% if it means ours gets worse by 5%?

Do people genuinely believe they are owed the moon on a stick simply for having the incredible foresight to be born in the UK? That people who lacked this foresight are by default less deserving of education/healthcare etc?

Capitalism will lead to greener use of such technology that has been created because it is a system in which science is promoted.

For example electric and hydrogen cars are now becoming cheaper and more accessible to the General population.

However we all do need to say I don't need the extra burger I don't need to drive to the shop half a mile away etc.

I agree we (humans) shouldn't have too many children, which is why I've never donated to Band Aid, Save the Children etc.

Before you worry about the number of children in the UK (which can support it's children), I'd worry about the other countries that can't support children, yet keep having them.....

However among the Calais migrants are Nigerians, Sudanese and Eritrians. These countries are not nice compared to Europe but there is no conflict in these countries.

Do you ever read the news? There is conflict in ALL of these countries! However, I am still struggling with the idea that France is such an awful place that they'd rather come to the UK. Or that they are streaming into Passau in Germany from the rather pleasant and peaceful Austria.

But I agree with the OP - if we don't have room for immigrants, we don't have room for people to have large families either.

dad maybe...but peer pressure is a VERY powerful thing. At the moment you get pressure to have more than 1 kid. The default is 2 and you are 'under performing' by only having one...not to mention letting the child you have down by not providing a sibling

If we turned that around and people having more than 2 were actively considered to be a bit unthinking and selfish...while people with none or 1 were considered to be doing their bit for the planet we might find the birth rate naturally falling.

Manipulation is the way forward...we should get the people who make cosmetics adverts on the case....they can convince you almost anything is worth spending money on, just on the off chance that it will magically make you more successful / popular!