Friday, November 2, 2007

ENGLAND AND AMERICA AND CANADA

Oh, how nice to wake up and see this bit of information. I don't hide my displeasure at America turning into a country where sheer physical numbers can force us into changing our laws to suit a definite minority of law breaking people. We have an established method for changing our own laws and those who ignore these rules are undesireable beings. But America is not alone. Seems like misery loves company. Sorry, everyone. Any suggestions? October 25, 2007 Inconvenient Truth re U.K.’s Immigrants. A TV newsman defends his racially explicit analysis of the economic impact of immigration: "Most people will be pleased that somebody is prepared to look at the facts. Immigration is a major development of our time. It is a healthy thing to know where it benefits and where it hinders our society." Question: Was it Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, or Sean Hannity? Answer: None of the above. Jon Snow is anchorman on Dispatches—a program broadcast on the U.K.’s Channel 4. Snow’s TV documentary, entitled "Immigrants: The Inconvenient Truth," reveals which immigrant communities are a "debit" and a "credit" on "Britain’s Balance sheet." [MPs fear C4 documentary on the cost of immigrants will fuel race hatred By Jonathan Oliver, Daily Mail, (UK) September 30th 2007] In making his case against certain immigrant groups Snow did not reach out to a Heritage Foundation-type research organization. The data tables cited in the documentary were drawn up for Channel 4 by a left-leaning think tank: the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The IPPR tables reveal that Somalis are the dependency "leaders", with almost 40 percent receiving means-tested public income support. (By contrast, only 4 percent of U.K. natives receive such support.) [Institute for Public Policy Research, Britain's Immigrants: An Economic Profile, September 2007 PDF] Only 19 percent of working age Somalis are employed. Ten percent of this group are unemployed (i.e., looking for work) while a whopping 71 percent are out of the labor force entirely (i.e., not even looking.) [Table 1.] By contrast, 78% of UK natives are employed;4% unemployed; 18% not in the labor force. At the other extreme more than 85 percent of working age immigrants from Australia, France, Canada, and Poland are employed and less than 13 percent are not in the labor force. The IPPR report claims that many Somalis came to the U.K. as refugees with little English, making it difficult to find work. Our question: how do they know work is hard to find when so many aren’t even looking? Somali immigrants also top the IPPR housing table—with 80 percent living in subsidized public housing. The next highest group is Turkish immigrants, at 49 percent. Immigrants from Australia, France, and the U.S. are the least likely to be in public housing—at 5 percent. Seventeen percent of U.K. natives live in public housing. We’ve done similar rankings for immigrant groups in this country—and a comparison is instructive. [Table 2.] Here we rank immigrant groups on the percent that receive means-tested public benefits: In the U.K.: Somalia (39% dependency; 0.14 % of U.K. population) Turkey (21.0 percent; 0.12 percent) Pakistan (11.0 percent; 0.62 percent) Bangladesh (11.0 percent; 0.35 percent) Iran (10.0 percent; 0.10 percent) ---------------------------------------------- In the U.S.: Dominican Republic (57% dependency; 0.24 % of U.S. population) Mexico (43 percent; 3.71 percent) Russia (40 percent; 0.21 percent) Honduras (38 percent; 0.13 percent) Guatemala (36 percent; 0.19 percent) Our immigrants are significantly more dependent and—thanks to the Mexicans—constitute a larger share of our population than their counterparts in the U.K. In fact, most U.K. immigrant groups have lower dependency rates than U.K. natives. [Table 2.] Of the groups with higher dependency rates, many are disproportionately refugees (e.g., the Somalis and Turkish-born) or are naturalized citizens (e.g., the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.) Implication: The British are doing a better job of vetting public charges out of their immigrant influx than we are. (They get fewer illegals, because the English Channel is wider and deeper than the Rio Grande.) A caveat is in order. Medicaid is the most expensive and widely received means tested benefit available to U.S. immigrants. The U.K. has nothing like it. The U.K.’s system of universal health care is available, well, universally—to immigrant and native, rich and poor. Had IPPR counted national health care as a welfare benefit, the dependency gap between U.K. and U.S. immigrants would narrow, or even reverse. The economic burden of U.K. immigration would appear even larger than portrayed in the IPPR report. As Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman famously said: “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state”. -------------------------------------------------- A friend informs me that many, many native New Mexicans have totally dropped out of the health care scene. (She ought to know. She works at the state's biggest free hospital.) It is said they are fed up with interminable waiting, poorly trained doctors and the rudeness of the illegal aliens. That means that these Americans are being out on the back burner while illegal aliens are being tested, treated and given a pat on the back. The illegals have succeeded in driving the people who have paid taxes for years away from their only recourse in this age of over priced medical care. It's comparatively easy, when one's income is well into the six figure range and medical insurance is paid by your employer, to say that the U.S. (read England, Canada) should take care of everyone in this country whether legal or illegal. It's not so easy when you have two kids and your gross income is in the $25,000 range. Just think. We might get engaged in these kinds of conversations if we're not careful: Suffering from a bad case of the flu, the outraged patient bellowed, "Three weeks??? The doctor can't see me for threeweeks??? I could well be dead by then!" Calmly the voice at the other end of the line replied, "If so,would you have your wife call to cancel the appointment?"

12 comments:

Shrink Wrapped Scream said...

Jeez, I SAW this programme - but how the hell did you trip over it?

Most UK immigration in-take is due to new members entering the European Union, and once a country joins, the borders disolve. It is a problem, the UK is not large enough to absorb all the economic immigrants that are flooding in, and racial tensions are running at an all time high. It is aided by pockets of "ghetto's", where the newly arrived rarely need to learn English, nor to ever mix with the less than welcoming indigenous population.

Our health care system is under increasing strain, and may very well become unsustainable if these pressures continue to increase. I do fear for the future, I just wish I knew an answer..

alphonsedamoose said...

There was an editorial in the paper this morning warning Canada to beware of the UK. It seems a "Think Tank"(oxymoron)over there thinks Christmas should be banned and a birth day instituted so as not to hurt the feelings of those who are not of the Christian faith. We need to be more inclusive. God(Christian God) help us to be rid of these people.
Great article in the header.

Lin said...

I guess it will always be human nature to go where life is easiest. Unfortunately, what I have observed is that those working their assess off to fund that system will eventually clue in, go 'under the table', gray market and on welfare and that this inclination will escalate as the tax burden falls upon fewer and fewer shoulders - which is part of that same human nature. Socialism was never very good at understanding that nature.

Anonymous said...

You know what they say:

There are lies, damned lies and statistics

The Atavist said...

Beautiful commentary on a terribly sad situation. Politically correct environments discourage the truth. It is not that people don't like other races or other nationalities, it is the simple fact that everyone needs to make an effort to behave responsibly and make every effort to help themselves, including (and especially) new immigrants.

My parents and millions of other European immigrants to North America, Australia and South America learned the local language, worked at demeaning and difficult jobs and were happy that their lot was better than it would have been wherever they left. We are being jerked around, foolishly, and we all need to speak up. Thanks for this!

phlegmfatale said...

"...America turning into a country where sheer physical numbers can force us into changing our laws to suit a definite minority of law breaking people."

BRILLIANTLY stated, this. Sad, but true.

Catmoves said...

Shrink, I spend too many hours just surfing from page to page to page on the Internet. I can only guess that I may have seen a lead from Tech Blorg or some other such site and sailed on my board to this article.
As for all our health care systems, I believe sincerely they are under pressure to deliver what cannot be delivered.
I am definitely NOT a "One Worlder".
I've traveled too much, seen too much and experienced too much in loci around the world to accept the "oneness of different cultures".
Living in an ivory tower is no longer one of my pleasures.

Catmoves said...

moose, I think "politically correct" is being carried to an extreme with that idea.
Hell's bells, we even have a Kwanzaa day and Cinco de Mayo day here. Greek Orthodox churches have a special holiday (we go to that one. The food is delicious.) And so on and on. Fight them moose.
It is not for governments to say whether or not an individual will celebrate a church (or any other) holiday. That could lead to insurrection. And we all are aware of how vicous fighting over church doctrines can become.
Glad you liked the header article.

Catmoves said...

lin, the IRS (Internal Revenue System) complains loudly about the billions they lose when people get paid cash for working and no taxes are paid on that income. Confiscatory taxation is the reason. Millionaires get taxed very little in comparison. The rates are high, but the nice guys in Washington have them given them ways to hide much of their income.
Socialism was a great idea. The USSR and China thought so.
Proving that American does not have exclusive use to "lies of convenience".
There's a book out now called Nanny State that examines our freeloaders. It's sometimes extreme, but there's some good stuff there.

Catmoves said...

yes but, you are 100% right. (I don't believe anything over 100%). Statistics never lie, but liars use statistics.
Just between you and me, I have made up statistics on some other web sites waiting for someone to call me on them. No one ever has. We have a tendency to accept the written word as gospel.

Catmoves said...

atavist, you are so right in these conclusions. I think all of us here, if we've examined our heritage, have stories we can tell about how our forebears worked to improve themselves and their families. And they didn't get any handouts from a politically correct government.

Catmoves said...

phlemfatale, thank you for the comment. Yes, it's a sad statement.
All I can think of is that we, the people, have a need to see it stopped.