Immigrants Help To Hold Down Interest Rates

[Guest muttley]

Immigrants help to hold down interest rates, report suggests

The researchers suggest, however, that successive waves of immigrants may be needed to sustain this effect. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank, has berated a lack of accurate migration statistics. These have become critical to the MPC’s view of spare capacity in the economy.

Unsustainable, in my opinion. I predict emboldened unions calling for "inflation" busting pay increases, thus putting pressure on IR rates. Who can blame them?

[dnd]

Immigrants help push down wages

...which dampens spending

...which lowers inflation

...which keeps IR low

...which helps borrowing

...which maintains HPI

...which guarantees Gordie #10 at the next election

...of course I don't think even Gordie was expecting people to be so thick as to start supplementing their virtually static wages with MEW and unsecured lending

Edited December 11, 2006 by dnd

[Justice]

Well if I was to loose my job because of imported cheap labour and my house too then I might be tempted to riot because no one consulted me when they let these people into my country so it looks like voting is a waste of time and direct action would be the order of the day if a true depression breaks out in the UK.

Our MP’s have a lot to answer for and I’ll be around to make sure they answer for these crimes against the british people

[StrangeTimes]

Well if I was to loose my job because of imported cheap labour and my house too then I might be tempted to riot because no one consulted me when they let these people into my country so it looks like voting is a waste of time and direct action would be the order of the day if a true depression breaks out in the UK.

Our MP’s have a lot to answer for and I’ll be around to make sure they answer for these crimes against the british people

But would we be in a better position if all the immigrants went home and the 5.1m Brits reported to be living abroad returned home?

I doubt it to be honest - certainly inflation would shoot up and interest rates with it. So if you want a HPC, this would be a good idea.

[Fancypants]

But would we be in a better position if all the immigrants went home and the 5.1m Brits reported to be living abroad returned home?

no, because in the future, the UK will need people with lower expectations - in terms of income and overall standard of living. The "indigenous" folk expect too much.

Only problem is, it doesn't seem to take too long for the immigrants to start raising their own expectations. Then what do we do?

[Gone baby gone]

Only problem is, it doesn't seem to take too long for the immigrants to start raising their own expectations. Then what do we do?

Indeed, perhaps some of the reasons our expectations are so high are the media and advertising. As soon as the new immigrants reach our shores they are subjected to a constant barrage of adverts (sooner if they fly on Ryanair ). My experience of working with people from other (poorer) countries is that they are happy for the first year or two, but then wake up to the fact that other people are being paid more for the same job and either ask for more, or leave for more. Immigration to try and supress wages is a very short-term trick, with potentially problematic long-term consequences.

[THE BALD MAN]

Immigrants help push down wages

...which dampens spending

...which lowers inflation

...which keeps IR low

...which helps borrowing

...which maintains HPI

...which guarantees Gordie #10 at the next election

...of course I don't think even Gordie was expecting people to be so thick as to start supplementing their virtually static wages with MEW and unsecured lending

Keep borrowing. Keep Gordan in a job!

[Fancypants]

Indeed, perhaps some of the reasons our expectations are so high are the media and advertising. As soon as the new immigrants reach our shores they are subjected to a constant barrage of adverts (sooner if they fly on Ryanair ). My experience of working with people from other (poorer) countries is that they are happy for the first year or two, but then wake up to the fact that other people are being paid more for the same job and either ask for more, or leave for more. Immigration to try and supress wages is a very short-term trick, with potentially problematic long-term consequences.

spot on IMO

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

Remember 10 years ago, Blair's 2 rallying cries of "education, education, education"... and how he wanted a "high skills, high-income economy" for Britain??

What he should have told us was that education standards would continue to fall behind other countries (I personally think youd get a better schooling in India than here on average), and that the high skills high earners would be imported from abroad.

[OzzMosiz]

Remember 10 years ago, Blair's 2 rallying cries of "education, education, education"... and how he wanted a "high skills, high-income economy" for Britain??

What he should have told us was that education standards would continue to fall behind other countries (I personally think youd get a better schooling in India than here on average), and that the high skills high earners would be imported from abroad.

No the high earners are company execs, who can now import cheap labour to keep profits, and their payrises up.

[Orbital]

Indeed, perhaps some of the reasons our expectations are so high are the media and advertising.

yeah I so agree with that, people seem to really think the world owes them a living and when their lives dont quite live up to the 'celebrity ideal' they can only get upset and dissapointed. Plenty of people on this site seem to expect to move into a house in a nice area without really having to work for it - its rediculous isnt it?! My parents first bought a place all those years ago by moving to a cheap less favoured area together and by sacfrificing massively, and in time they got the nice family place they do today. When you read around here it seems people want to jump striaght into a lovely family home in a top area - on their own!!

Anyways, the next waves of immigration are secured for now, just look at the schedule for countries joing the EU, we are booked up until 2012, and im sure they'll pencil in some other Eastern European countries before then. Many of these people are skilled and hard working, these are the people that you guys now have to compete with to buy a house - kinda scary for ya average lazy Brit. Ive often talked about saving and sacrificing to buy a house and this idea doesnt seem to go down well, but the truth is these hard working immigrants desperate to create a new life for themselves over here will be doing exactly that. And good luck to them I say, Id rather them than some bone idle Brit who seems to think the government should sort out their life...

Life is tough, survival of the fittest is as true today as it ever was....

Edited December 11, 2006 by Orbital

[Guest]

yeah I so agree with that, people seem to really think the world owes them a living and when their lives dont quite live up to the 'celebrity ideal' they can only get upset and dissapointed. Plenty of people on this site seem to expect to move into a house in a nice area without really having to work for it - its rediculous isnt it?! My parents first bought a place all those years ago by moving to a cheap less favoured area together and by sacfrificing massively, and in time they got the nice family place they do today. When you read around here it seems people want to jump striaght into a lovely family home in a top area - on their own!!

Anyways, the next waves of immigration are secured for now, just look at the schedule for countries joing the EU, we are booked up until 2012, and im sure they'll pencil in some other Eastern European countries before then. Many of these people are skilled and hard working, these are the people that you guys now have to compete with to buy a house - kinda scary for ya average lazy Brit. Ive often talked about saving and sacrificing to buy a house and this idea doesnt seem to go down well, but the truth is these hard working immigrants desperate to create a new life for themselves over here will be doing exactly that. And good luck to them I say, Id rather them than some bone idle Brit who seems to think the government should sort out their life...

Life is tough, survival of the fittest is as true today as it ever was....

Of course, this ignores the simple idea that, on joining the EU, and possibly the Euro, countries like Poland could themselves see the investment risk barriers broker down. Initially they would seem cheap, so global companies may see incentive to set up over there. Maybe their wages and conditions could be expected to rise and level upwards with rest of Europe.

Consequently it could be the case that a good long-term plan for, say, a Polish worker could be to come here for the time being, send money back to family Poland, and get family / spouse to buy a house with their British wages, while they are still cheap.

This could be a better life-plan for a brave young Polish worker than saddling himself with a massive British mortgage?

This is a risk, but one thing is for certain: It would be a once in a lifetime opportunity for these people. You cannot join the EU twice!

[since the beginning]

In 2030 when Gordon's Son takes over power he will probably be telling us we now need to have a 100 million new immigrants to pay the pensions of all the immigrants that came over when daddy was in power.

Pensions, Housing, Environment, Transport, NHS, Education are all totally unsuistanble under this Government it is a Joke.

[Guest chrisbrighton]

yeah I so agree with that, people seem to really think the world owes them a living and when their lives dont quite live up to the 'celebrity ideal' they can only get upset and dissapointed. Plenty of people on this site seem to expect to move into a house in a nice area without really having to work for it - its rediculous isnt it?! My parents first bought a place all those years ago by moving to a cheap less favoured area together and by sacfrificing massively, and in time they got the nice family place they do today. When you read around here it seems people want to jump striaght into a lovely family home in a top area - on their own!!

Anyways, the next waves of immigration are secured for now, just look at the schedule for countries joing the EU, we are booked up until 2012, and im sure they'll pencil in some other Eastern European countries before then. Many of these people are skilled and hard working, these are the people that you guys now have to compete with to buy a house - kinda scary for ya average lazy Brit. Ive often talked about saving and sacrificing to buy a house and this idea doesnt seem to go down well, but the truth is these hard working immigrants desperate to create a new life for themselves over here will be doing exactly that. And good luck to them I say, Id rather them than some bone idle Brit who seems to think the government should sort out their life...

Life is tough, survival of the fittest is as true today as it ever was....

I agree, unlike a lots of Brits the majority of the new immigrants seem to realise that life is tough and are prepared to work hard to achieve things

[Guest]

I agree, unlike a lots of Brits the majority of the new immigrants seem to realise that life is tough and are prepared to work hard to achieve things

I think this is an offensive generalisation.

As discussed previously, some of these immigrants are taking on relatively menial jobs, such as waiter / cleaner (add to this list as you like). I don't really see how a British cleaner who scrubs the floor hard, and polishes the furniture well can be deemed to be working less hard than an immigrant doing exactly the same.

As my post above suggests, I would be surprised if immigrants are not making use of the wage differential between here and their homelands! In fact, looking at it like this, you could argue that the immigrants are the ones who are lazy: Expecting to get a high real-terms salary for a menial job.

[Solvent Celt]

ya average lazy Brit

Dear oh dear presumably Johny foreigner is some kind of work horse by comparison eh?

Except that many immigrant groups have higher levels of unemployment that indigenous folk.

Presumably you want "lazy Brit" kids back in the factories like those hard working indian kids eh?

There will always be jobs unfilled in the economy - this is normal. It doesn't mean "Brits" are lazy.

Mass immigration has NOT reduced the number of job vacancies as suprise suprise immigrants themselves require goods and services.

Here's a novel thought why not stop mass immigration and force employers to compete for workers in our labour market. Survival of the fittest right?

In the current scenario industry is privatising the profits and socialising the costs of immigration.

[Solvent Celt]

Here's an example of the effect of foreign workers.

Note that the workers in question did not fill jobs that were vacant. The jobs in question were already being filled by "lazy Brits".

The companies concerned will increase their profits by employing cheaper labour but we will pick up the costs of the British workers now on the dole.

Sacked because we are British

11/12/06

By Paul Broster

A GROUP of skilled craftsmen working on an NHS project have been sacked and their jobs given to migrant Polish workers.

The 16 glaziers were axed from a hospital construction site even though one had just won an award for his dedication and professionalism.

Polish workers are now in the jobs, leaving the sacked men to claim they are victims of cheap EU labour flooding into the UK.

One of the glaziers had been told he could look forward to another three years on the project. But two months ago, 30 Poles were employed on the site and last week Martin Kelly and his colleagues were dumped on the dole, just before Christmas.

Mr Kelly, 40, who has two young sons, says he had paid the price of being a “British worker on a British wage”.

The sackings come weeks after experts said migrants from Eastern Europe were to blame for UK unemployment soaring to its highest for seven years.

Since the expansion of the EU two years ago, thousands of workers from countries such as Poland have come to Britain and been taken on by firms seeking to slash costs.

There is rising concern that Romanian and Bulgarian workers will pour into the UK after those countries join the EU on January 1. Even well-paid East Europeans earn a pittance in UK terms – the average salary in Poland is £4,700 a year.

Yesterday, Mr Kelly, who has not been out of work since he left school, said he was shattered at the prospect of telling his sons he was on the dole.

When he was taken on by contractors at the site in Manchester, he was told his £38,000-a-year job was likely to last until 2010.

He was given a health and safety award by a construction company for his skill operating a tower crane putting cladding on the new state-of-the-art hospital in the city centre.

Mr Kelly, from Stockport, said: “I’ve worked hard all my life but now I’ve been got rid of for one reason – I’m a British worker in Britain on a British wage but I’m more expensive than someone in Poland.

“I’ve also voted Labour all my life but I’ll never vote for them again. Tony Blair is letting people like me down. A lot of us are family men who now have to go back and tell them just before Christmas that we’ve been fired.”

The hospital is being built for the NHS by Bovis Lend Lease, which has sub-contracted some of the work, including the cladding, to Dutch firm Scheldebouw.

Scheldebouw employed the 16 glaziers. Bovis confirmed their contracts had been terminated. It said the Polish glaziers had been hired two months earlier and insisted they were skilled and “paid in line” with other workers on site.

The 16 sacked Britons would be replaced by men who “may be Poles or may be British – that is up to Scheldebouw”.

No one at Scheldebouw or NHS North West was unavailable for comment. Officials from the sacked men’s union, UCATT, are due to meet bosses from Bovis and Scheldebouw today.

MigrationWatch UK said: “If Poles find themselves facing low wages in their own country, they are all the more likely to come to Britain, where wages are four or five times more.”

Tory MP David Davies said the sackings “demonstrate the folly of Britain’s immigration policy”. He added: “It makes me mad to see anyone lose their jobs two weeks before Christmas. How are they going to feed their families?

“It also angers me that the Government claim we need all these migrant workers for their skills.

“Well, clearly, we had the skills already, in the form of these British workers who have now been sacked.

“Economically it makes no sense either as British people have to pick up the bill for their health care and children’s education.

“All these workers who come cheaper will just drive down wages in this country and more people will find themselves on the dole.”

Fellow Tory MP Mike Penning said: “This is outrageous. We were promised by the Government categorically that EU workers were only coming into Britain when we had a job shortfall – not create job shortages.

"It is wrong and as it is an NHS project I would expect the Government to give these people their jobs back.”

Labour chairman Hazel Blears admitted yesterday that Government claims that immigration helps the economy do not hold sway with voters.

In a move which may anger Cabinet colleagues, she also warned that immigration was set to explode as an issue before the next election.

She said: “Labour must address concerns about immigration head on. We must listen to people telling us they feel insecure.”