International Events Next-

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Well I wasn't asked about the negative side affects of too much immigration. The conversation started as a response to a rising tide of right wing support, and I'm suggesting that we fuel right wing support by not listening to people's genuine concerns about immigration. 

The 'major benefits' of immigration are general economic benefits, and usually around increasing GDP and increasing it so that countries can pay bills and service debts. The benefits towards GDP per capita, which is a much better way to measure the impact, are pretty negligible showing either a small positive or small negative effect depending on how you look at it. 
House of Lords report on immigration.

Sorry, we're not talking about the UK here. Ireland's GDP has been rising quite steadily over the last 20 years. Which is another point - just because your specific country has issues with immigration (allegedly) does not mean that this is a particularly global issue or problem.

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

You could mention the impact on social services and healthcare. It's often said that because immigrants are younger that they don't use health care as much as natives, and there is some small truth in that, but people get old, and that stat was mainly regarding EEA immigration. They also use education and other services in greater amounts
When you start adding the sort of numbers we are adding you can see how it impacts services. If we continued at todays immigration numbers till about 2045 then thats about 15 cities the size of Birmingham we'd have added to the population. You'd need to add thousands of schools and GP services, hundreds of new hospitals to cope with all that. With a GPD per capita that barely moves it's not clear how the UK could possibly afford to do that.

Again, not a UK issue - but in other countries we have seen that as you get more immigration you get more taxes as a whole (because most immigrants are poor and middle class and pay a larger share of taxes), use fewer resources, and contribute more value than they receive. 

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

There is the impact on housing. Housing is an issue that I think is key in the UK, given how expensive it is. There are a variety of reasons for that, but especially in the rental market adding millions of people without a subsequent expansive in housing supply will lead to huge increasing in rents and house prices. Obviously immigration is not the only reason for this but it is a contributing factor, especially as immigration in the UK is so heavily concentrated in a few areas.

Again, not the UK. This is per @Padraig the most important issue and might be a reasonable argument against increasing immigration, except that in general immigrants take housing that is available regardless of location or amenities and deal with it for the first couple generations without much complaint. One could argue (and we've seen this in other places) that increasing immigration helps quite a bit as the new immigrants can take rents in older, cheaper houses which allows people to move to more desirable houses and build more wealth. 

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Then there is simply the negative social consequences. Too much immigration over a short period of time will lead to less integration and more 'ghettoisation'. It has certainly been the case in the UK where entire areas are mostly foreign born communities and there is a real lack of integration. On top of that if you also bring in lots of people from countries with very different moral values to your own , how easy will it be to get them to take on our moral values, or will they maintain their own if they are never exposed to native society. Immigration should be a process of sharing values and integration into the wider society, not isolation from it. 

Ah, here's the xenophobia, nationalism and bigotry! This is a very common take that has been disproven repeatedly in study after study, across many different nations and time periods. But that's not really the issue; this is simply a good representation of the rationalization of the fear. If you weren't afraid you'd look at how you can improve those things while maintaining a large amount of immigration and how there have been countless examples of integration that works incredibly well across the world for larger amounts of people, across different moral, ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. But that's not particularly of interest; instead, focus solely on what horrible outcome might come about. 

[Heartofice]

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Sorry, we're not talking about the UK here. Ireland's GDP has been rising quite steadily over the last 20 years. Which is another point - just because your specific country has issues with immigration (allegedly) does not mean that this is a particularly global issue or problem.

I'm mainly talking about the UK, because I am from the UK and it is a very good example of a country that has seen a lot of immigration and there is a lot of data on it. If you want to just ignore all that and just keep writing 'We're not talking about the UK' then I'm just going to have to leave it there. 
 

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Ah, here's the xenophobia, nationalism and bigotry!

And I knew that would be your response, because it's not possible to even discuss the topic without someone throwing that out there. I think we are done in that case.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Heartofice said:

I'm mainly talking about the UK, because I am from the UK and it is a very good example of a country that has seen a lot of immigration and there is a lot of data on it. If you want to just ignore all that and just keep writing 'We're not talking about the UK' then I'm just going to have to leave it there. 

But if you're not going to talk about how Ireland is experiencing things very differently in the topic that Ireland is being talked about, I don't know what good you're going to have either. I didn't come in and say how defending the wall in the US is a major divisive topic when talking about far-right hooligans in Ireland because it's irrelevant. If your argument against immigration and the facts associated with it come down to the UK having poor GDP growth, well, that doesn't really matter when Ireland has shown almost double digit growth during that time!

Just now, Heartofice said:

And I knew that would be your response, because it's not possible to even discuss the topic without someone throwing that out there. I think we are done in that case.

Okay - good job proving my point! It's always good to see people argue against immigration because they're xenophobic and bigoted get exposed.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

that doesn't really matter when Ireland has shown almost double digit growth during that time!

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Obviously you don’t know anything about the Irish GDP myth, go ask Krugman about Leprechaun Economics.

Either way you asked me about negative effects of immigration, you didn’t mention Ireland, i used the UK as an example. If you want to just totally ignore all that because it helps your argument then that doesn’t surprise me. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Heartofice said:

Obviously you don’t know anything about the Irish GDP myth, go ask Krugman about Leprechaun Economics.

Regardless of that it's pretty clear that Ireland doesn't think that it's that big of a deal - they care about housing first and foremost, but immigration is much lower down the issues they care about.

Just now, Heartofice said:

Either way you asked me about negative effects of immigration, you didn’t mention Ireland, i used the UK as an example. If you want to just totally ignore all that because it helps your argument then that doesn’t surprise me. 

I'm talking about the topic at hand; I didn't realize that you wouldn't remember what you were talking about. Your thesis was that right wing parties were getting worse in Ireland because of all the negative issues around immigration. Padraig pointed out why this wasn't particularly relevant to Ireland and that there aren't that many concrete negative issues around immigration in Ireland. I asked you to fill that in even more, and then...you went to the UK. I'm not surprised you ignored all that because it has nothing to do with the overall topic and only has to do with your thing that you specifically care about. 

I also asked about the negative effects of immigration because I suspected - as you proved - that you have very little actual basis for these things. Talking about ghettoization like it's a universal thing, or talking about the completely disproven myth about immigrants taking more resources than they provide, or the integration problems waves of immigrants have that have been shown time and time again to not be true - yep, those are all those checkmarks for people who oppose immigrants because they're scared and have no good reasons! 

Now, here's the thing - what you're describing is a very universal set of viewpoints. Lots and lots of people fear immigrant waves and outsiders. This is an intrinsic part of being human and we can't just ignore it - because if we do just ignore it, people will vote in folks who aren't ignoring it and give a voice to that fear and hatred. What we can do, however, is bend it to a better cause, and recognize that those people who fear things need to have that fear somewhat assuaged. It can be security via performance (like the TSA in the US), it can be big-ass walls that do nothing but look scary, it can be various skill-based programs, it can be visa things - but you need to look like you're doing something to deal with it. 

[Zorral]

It's really weird this anti-immigrant thing, from those who are equally hysterical about an aging population.  Without immigrants there is nobody to work in elder care, in case some haven't noticed who the majority of elder carers are.

Prior to covid Kriegman, he who knew he knew so much he should run for governor of Oregon, proposed that we prosperous, Cuba boycotting nation, go one better even than immigration -- deport our elderly to Cuba, which has, he said, a highly trained, competent population of health professionals.

Of course, he probably hasn't noticed that the US policies have sent those people in huge numbers in the last few years out of the country to other countries.

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Zorral

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Regardless of that it's pretty clear that Ireland doesn't think that it's that big of a deal - they care about housing first and foremost, but immigration is much lower down the issues they care about.

If anyone really cares about the data behind all this, you can go to Eurobarometer survey.  Download the data annex there.  On page 45 it looks at "top two most important issues facing your country at the moment" (there are actually several pages on this topic.  It is a very large file).

I didn't realise Ireland was so out of kilter with the rest of the EU on some measures.  61% says housing is one of the top two (compared to 10% in the EU), then inflation/cost of living at 44% (that is very similar with the rest of EU).  While Immigration is also very similar with the average in the rest of EU at 14%.  There are a lot of interesting things in this survey (Netherlands scores more than double the EU average when it comes to Immigration, which reflects the latest elections there). 

The UK obviously doesn't feature in this report.

Immigration is non-trivial and I wouldn't want to be seen to dismiss the challenges around it in Ireland.  But it is dwarfed by housing and cost of living (and healthcare).  And of course these issues are all linked.  Partly why immigration is salient is because people can't find homes and blame immigrants.

I generally find it pointless to focus on individual people but while there has been a focus on how the recent attacker was an immigrant, he also was homeless (and living in accommodation for the homeless).  There were mental health issues also but its maddening how everything bad seems to connect to the housing crisis here.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Obviously you don’t know anything about the Irish GDP myth, go ask Krugman about Leprechaun Economics.

Well, GDP can be a misleading figure to use in the context of Ireland but its not like we perform poorly when you look at other measures (which strips out the weird things going on).  See below if interested.

https://www.cso.ie/en/interactivezone/statisticsexplained/nationalaccountsexplained/modifiedgni/

And fine on the UK surveys.  Interesting as such but pity we don't have the same type of info before the referendum.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Padraig

[Heartofice]

12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Regardless of that it's pretty clear that Ireland doesn't think that it's that big of a deal - they care about housing first and foremost, but immigration is much lower down the issues they care about.

Apparently it's not a big deal but there have been more than 500 anti immigration far right protests in the past two years 
2022–23 Irish anti-immigration protests

12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'm talking about the topic at hand; I didn't realize that you wouldn't remember what you were talking about. Your thesis was that right wing parties were getting worse in Ireland because of all the negative issues around immigration.

I suggest you go back and read the conversation and what you actually wrote. In the space of a couple of pages you have managed to completely deny you have said something more times than is healthy, but lets look at the question you asked me that I answered:
 

Quote

I figure you want less immigration and have so far not pointed out any reasons for supporting that other than 'many people say they want less immigration'. When it's pointed out that immigration in general has major benefits you...don't really counter on that, other than to say that people apparently fear other people moving into their neighborhoods. Which is a reason, but it's a reason based on xenophobia, bigotry and nationalism. 

And listening to people wanting less immigration without actual policy reasons why is supporting xenophobia, bigotry and nationalism. 

Worth noting that not only had the conversation moved away from Ireland specifically but you had never mentioned Ireland, and you were talking in general terms about immigration attitudes, the only reference you really made to a nation was to the US. So PLEASE don't use this BS about me talking about the UK as some sort of defence, it's just embarrassing. 

I used the UK as an example because it's the country I am most aware of it's issues, and if you want me to answer about the negative effects of immigration then I gave you some, they all apply to the UK and I'd suggest they apply in plenty of other countries too. If you  are still coming at this from the perspective of there being no negative. consequences of mass immigration then you are clearly wrong and I think you know it.
 

10 hours ago, Padraig said:

Well, GDP can be a misleading figure to use in the context of Ireland but its not like we perform poorly when you look at other measures (which strips out the weird things going on).  See below if interested.

https://www.cso.ie/en/interactivezone/statisticsexplained/nationalaccountsexplained/modifiedgni/

Ireland does ok, but mainly because it's essentially a tax haven for huge businesses:

https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-gdp-growth-multinationals-misleading/

which distorts the Irish figures massively. Kalbear's statement that somehow immigration is causing irish GDP growth (also somehow he managed to completely skim over the GDP per capita point which was the most important part, the UKs GDP growth was very good over that same period) doesn't really rack up because of the specific nature of the Irish economy.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Heartofice

[Kalbear]

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Apparently it's not a big deal but there have been more than 500 anti immigration far right protests in the past two years 
2022–23 Irish anti-immigration protests

And yet there still isn't any major political movement towards immigration as a major plank or issue, nor are there any significant far right parties getting any traction in Ireland. It's almost as if having protests are not specifically a great indicator of overall politics and preferences. 

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I suggest you go back and read the conversation and what you actually wrote. In the space of a couple of pages you have managed to completely deny you have said something more times than is healthy, but lets look at the question you asked me that I answered:
Worth noting that not only had the conversation moved away from Ireland specifically but you had never mentioned Ireland, and you were talking in general terms about immigration attitudes, the only reference you really made to a nation was to the US. So PLEASE don't use this BS about me talking about the UK as some sort of defence, it's just embarrassing. 

Shockingly I'm not embarrassed. I used the US as an example of the kind of thing you regularly do - where you take a common statement about preference and conflate it to mean the most important thing. It wasn't in reference to Ireland's policies or any policies about immigration at all. 

And yes, you talking about the UK's problems is a weak defense of general immigration issues, because the UK has a whole host of fairly specialized problems that aren't particularly global nor are they particularly associated with immigration. 

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I used the UK as an example because it's the country I am most aware of it's issues, and if you want me to answer about the negative effects of immigration then I gave you some, they all apply to the UK and I'd suggest they apply in plenty of other countries too. If you  are still coming at this from the perspective of there being no negative. consequences of mass immigration then you are clearly wrong and I think you know it.

I am...not wrong, actually, nor do I know it. I also note that you've moved the goalposts from 'more immigration' to 'mass immigration', since the original issue you brought up was that people want less overall immigration. 

You also gave me negative effects of immigration that have largely been debunked as fearmongering and scare tactics to protect xenophobic viewpoints. The ones that aren't - like the worries about ghettoization and lack of integration - are not a specific problem of immigration but are general social problems that can occur regardless of immigration status or even changes to migration habits. Many countries have problems with lack of integration of communities that are people who have been there for hundreds of years, and those problems largely stem from a specific desire by the government to keep those kinds of segregations active. Shockingly, if you choose to cause a problem via policy it becomes a problem! But that's not exclusive to immigration. If you choose to separate people, put no effort into integrating them into society and put up barriers to integration you'll have a hard time with integration. This is akin to saying that Jews can't integrate into society because Nazis put them into ghettos. 

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Ireland does ok, but mainly because it's essentially a tax haven for huge businesses:

https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-gdp-growth-multinationals-misleading/

which distorts the Irish figures massively. Kalbear's statement that somehow immigration is causing irish GDP growth (also somehow he managed to completely skim over the GDP per capita point which was the most important part, the UKs GDP growth was very good over that same period) doesn't really rack up because of the specific nature of the Irish economy.

I did not say that GDP growth was caused by immigration; I said that if your argument that GDP growth is a requirement for supporting immigration then Ireland shouldn't have a concern. You're the one that brought up the GDP growth in the UK as a reason not to have immigration; I countered with countries (like Ireland) that have good GDP growth shouldn't have to worry about that. 

[Zorral]

And London is a massive global money launderer, so to speak, particularly for Russians gangsters. Yet, somehow this hasn't helped England GDP.  Funny ... that.

[kissdbyfire]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

And Londongrad is a massive global money launderer, so to speak, particularly for Russians gangsters. Yet, somehow this hasn't helped England GDP.  Funny ... that.

. FTFY.

[Padraig]

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Ireland does ok, but mainly because it's essentially a tax haven for huge businesses:

https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-gdp-growth-multinationals-misleading/

Was this response directed at me?  I do know a little bit about the Irish economy.

That article doesn't say that Ireland is a tax haven, which is a controversial idea.  The challenges around Irish GDP figures have been well known for almost a decade.  if you read the link in my last post, it talks about those very challenges, which you are now repeating. 

But even using better measurements of the Irish economy (i.e., not GDP), Ireland has been doing better than "ok".  It is heavily dependent on certain industries though.  We have done boom and bust and we are probably more open to another bust given those dependencies.  And while we have been doing better than "ok", some parts of society have been left behind, and remain very fragile to shocks (e.g., COVID).

There are a lot of common features across global economies but each country has its own localised aspects also.  That affects the saliency.  So one can generalise but not too much.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Times piece-

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/world/asia/isis-philippines-church-bombing.html

Discusses ISIS entangling itself with Phillipine and Malay seperatists. The cathedral bombing this week is only the latest in a series of such attacks spread over recent years.

Authorities concerned because the militants still persist in spite of recent peace treaties with other factions and do not appear to be going away.

[Altherion]

Venezuela has held a referendum regarding claiming sovereignty over a region of the neighboring Guyana:

Quote

 

Venezuelan electoral authorities on Sunday claimed that 95 percent of voters in a nonbinding referendum approved of the nation's territorial claim on a huge chunk of neighbouring oil-rich Guyana.

It is "an evident and overwhelming victory for the 'Yes' in this consultative referendum," said the president of the National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso.

About 10.5 million of Venezuela's 20.7 million eligible voters took part in the consultation, which raised fears in Guyana, and around the region, about Venezuela's ultimate intentions over the contested territory.

 

The dispute over this territory has been going on for more than century, but it looks like the current government of Venezuela needs a distraction. Most observers are betting that this referendum is about as far as they will go -- despite the international turmoil, Venezuela is not likely to start a war now.

[House Balstroko]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Venezuela has held a referendum regarding claiming sovereignty over a region of the neighboring Guyana:

The dispute over this territory has been going on for more than century, but it looks like the current government of Venezuela needs a distraction. Most observers are betting that this referendum is about as far as they will go -- despite the international turmoil, Venezuela is not likely to start a war now.

It would be really dumb on their part as the US would quickly retaliate. Given that Venezuela is in the Western Hemisphere, there’s not much its allies could do to help it. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Very disappointed that so many Venezuelans feel entitled to thier neighbors resources.

[kissdbyfire]

31 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Very disappointed that so many Venezuelans feel entitled to thier neighbors resources.

They may come to regret the notion if trump is re-elected since he’s said he’s totes ok with invading Venezuela to get their oil & gas. 

[Padraig]

33 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Very disappointed that so many Venezuelans feel entitled to thier neighbors resources.

The interesting question is how far the people there are willing to go.  I’m assuming not war. 

This issue is already with the ICJ, so you’d imagine people will wait to see what it will judge.  The US has reduced sanctions on Venezuela recently.  Hope they don’t have to reconsider.

But still, Russia has helped reopen the threat of war for land.  Bad times.

[IheartIheartTesla]

I havent paid much attention to Indian politics for a while, but it appears as if Modi (or rather his party) is outperforming his polls quite regularly, which is quite depressing. Polls in India were pretty good when I was still a citizen and voting (back in the 90s), but I wonder if it is plagued by some of the same problems here in the US, low response rates, hidden voters etc. The parliamentary/multi-party system makes it more complicated of course.

[maarsen]

3 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I havent paid much attention to Indian politics for a while, but it appears as if Modi (or rather his party) is outperforming his polls quite regularly, which is quite depressing. Polls in India were pretty good when I was still a citizen and voting (back in the 90s), but I wonder if it is plagued by some of the same problems here in the US, low response rates, hidden voters etc. The parliamentary/multi-party system makes it more complicated of course.

Is there any blowback from the news of the Indian government being involved in assassinations and assassination plots in the USA and Canada?