Ending Unemployment and Immigration

I was thinking today about our aging population, specifically Australia, but then I realized that this really applied to nearly every Western country. If the average age of the population is increasing and a great deal of that is at or near retirement age then a large number of jobs open up. Not just the jobs that those people once held and that are now available, but also jobs to look after and care for them. Western Governments have been fretting about this problem for decades, how will a smaller tax base pay for so many retired people?

But then I thought how can we have unemployment, let alone mass unemployment, if we have an aging population? If more people are leaving the labour market than are entering it, then shouldn't that mean mass unemployment is at an end? Yes it should, but I think you already know the problem, the problem is mass immigration. Because there is no such thing as infinity jobs, jobs are finite, that number may go up or down but it is never unlimited. Mass immigration stops the the unemployed from getting jobs because it turns the labour market from a closed system into a open system.

In times past you could only employ people in your local area, no matter what the job was. Only very specific jobs didn't apply to that closed system, soldiers, sailors, Priests, travelling salesmen, that kind of job. But all other jobs were part of a closed system. Now with mass immigration it means that we live in an open system, whereby people from all over the world are now competing with you for local jobs. This is one of Right-Liberalisms great dreams, the free movement of labour. In theory its great for business, but it sure ain't great for the locals, not even in theory.

Of course mass unemployment should cancel out mass immigration, after all if a country has mass unemployment why would it allow mass immigration? But that hasn't happened, instead since the 1970's nearly every Western country has had mass unemployment and mass immigration. The argument goes that its good for the economy, that more people produces more money and more employment and thats true, sort of. There is more money and there are more jobs, if you have more people you need more police, teachers, labours etc., now the question is who gets those jobs? The locals or the imports? It turns out that a lot of those jobs in every country go to the new comers, and the locals miss out. The same goes for the money, thats why groups of people you rarely if ever saw a decade or two ago you now see living in nice houses and driving nice cars.

Doesn't this turn the entire concept of nations and citizenship on its head? Shouldn't the nation exist to look after its own citizens? The answer to both is yes. But it gets worse.

Unemployment is both a social and an economic evil, it destroys lives. It stops the formation of families, it encourages loneliness, it stops people from having a future, it stops the purchasing of houses and cars and all manner of goods, it stops savings and it encourages anti-social behavour in some people, particularly when unemployment is commonplace. And all of this at the taxpayers expense, Unemployment benefits, subsidized housing and health care, police, courts, social workers all paid for by the generous taxpayer. And all for the benefit of business and people who weren't born here.

The normal response of the Government is to blame the individual, if the unemployed wanted a job they can get one, it both exalts and blames the individual. If the individual was better, smarter, better looking then they wouldn't be in this mess. Fix yourself up and you'll be alright. They never accept that the system that they created caused any problems, that making employment an open system is bad for the locals is ignored, because its all about the individual. 

So if the population is aging and more people are leaving the labour market then are entering it, unemployment should vanish. Or at least be seriously curtailed. The only fly in the ointment is mass immigration. If mass immigration is ended than the open system reverts to being a closed system. Locals get jobs, they get money, they gain a future, they no longer need the assistance of the taxpayer, they can buy things and support themselves. Much anti-social behavour ends for the simply reason that people don't have time to be as anti-social, they have jobs.

It is hard to think of a single person in Australia who would be worse off if mass immigration ended and mass unemployment ended. It fixes social problems as well as economic problems, it provides the Government with more tax revenue, it frees up money from the budget (in Australia thats close to $A10 Billion) meaning the Government has even more tax revenue, which could either be spent on the aging population or given as tax cuts. Ending mass immigration, ends mass unemployment!

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