UK EU Referendum Thoughts

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droid

Well-known member
*ahem*

Ol' long John is gettin' shirty
About EU bureaucracy
Don't want no European triage
So now he's marching with Farage
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
john eden said:
I think that the EU's commitment to freedom of movement (i.e. low wages)
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EU migration only depresses low income worker's wages very marginally. Plus, if we were to reduce immigration from the EU, we'd need to increase tax to compensate for revenue lost by not having immigrants paying into the system. This would mean that post-tax income for low-income workers would be less than it is now.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
EU migrants are generally net contributors to the public purse, for reasons that are easy to understand. Having said that, I don't think it's as obvious that their effect on low income wages (or indeed, wages across the entire distribution) is "marginal".
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
john eden said:
I know it's shit having to fight these battles about housing and the minimum wage and the bedroom tax etc and we might not win them in the current climate. But at least they are winnable if enough outrage is generated and enough people sign up - because we can actually remove David Cameron.
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So basically what I said a few pages ago: surely it's better to be ruled by some cunts you can get rid of than some cunts that you're lumbered with forever?

Although you also raise an excellent point: suppose in some future semi-utopia the UK has a government that is more in favour of workers' rights, civil liberties, the environment etc. and gets overruled by an increasingly corporatist EU?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
droid said:
*ahem*

Ol' long John is gettin' shirty
About EU bureaucracy
Don't want no European triage
So now he's marching with Farage
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He's lining up to put the boot in
With Marine, Boris - on, and Putin!
Can't wait for Brussels's shackles to fall away
And that's why he agrees with Galloway!
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
vimothy said:
EU migrants are generally net contributors to the public purse, for reasons that are easy to understand. Having said that, I don't think it's as obvious that their effect on low income wages (or indeed, wages across the entire distribution) is "marginal".
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The free movement of labour clearly depresses wages. Otherwise we wouldn't have > 600,000 people settling here every year, the great majority of them to work and the majority of those doing semi-skilled and unskilled jobs, while 1.8 million are registered unemployed (and many more are under- or marginally employed).
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
vimothy said:
EU migrants are generally net contributors to the public purse, for reasons that are easy to understand. Having said that, I don't think it's as obvious that their effect on low income wages (or indeed, wages across the entire distribution) is "marginal".
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I didn't say it was obvious, but studies consistently show it to be the case (not to mention the increase in wages for higher income workers due to immigration). Immigrants will mainly depress wages of other immigrants.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~blnchflr/papers/fear unemployment fulltext.pdf

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/governmentresponse.pdf

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/labour-market-effects-immigration
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
The free movement of labour clearly depresses wages. Otherwise we wouldn't have > 600,000 people settling here every year, the great majority of them to work and the majority of those doing semi-skilled and unskilled jobs, while 1.8 million are registered unemployed (and many more are under- or marginally employed).
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Statistically significant displacement only happens during downturns and only of low-skilled workers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/287287/occ109.pdf

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/pa014.pdf
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
sadmanbarty said:
Statistically significant displacement only happens during downturns and only of low-skilled workers.
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Of which there are not a few, right?

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask why people are coming here from all over the world to drive buses, sell sandwiches and serve pints of beer while millions of people already living here are out of work. There is obviously something about foreign-born workers that makes them more attractive to employers than native workers.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
sadmanbarty said:
I didn't say it was obvious, but studies consistently show it to be the case (not to mention the increase in wages for higher income workers due to immigration). Immigrants will mainly depress wages of other immigrants.
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I'd take such studies with a pinch of salt, personally.

I read the first paper. (It was interesting, but it took a while -- 38 pages -- to get to what I assume is the relevant section. Perhaps you could quote anything else you want to draw on directly?)

Here is part of the discussion of the macro impact of immigration:

In thinking about the supply potential of an economy, most people would probably agree that extra (immigrant) workers in an economy would raise the supply potential of the economy. But the extent to which aggregate supply increases will depend on the economic characteristics of immigrants relative to native workers... [A] Home Office Study on the use of migrant labour... concluded as follows.

Employers cited advantages of migrant workers in terms of their general attitude and work ethic. They tended to be more motivated, reliable and committed than domestic workers... In the view of some employers, the more favourable work ethic of migrant workers encouraged domestic workers to work harder (Dench et al., 2006).

In Saleheen and Shadforth (2006) it was argued that immigration of higher skilled (or more productive) workers could temporarily raise the domestic rate of productivity growth; and that immigrant labour could lower the natural rate of unemployment, either by filling skill gaps (assuming that foreign-born workers are complementary to the domestic workforce) or by tempering wage demands, as wage bargainers become aware that they can be replaced more easily than in the past.
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In other words, immigration reduces upwards pressure on wages *in general*, since it weakens the relative bargaining position of labour. As Borjas puts it in a nicely ironic turn of phrase, "immigration greases the wheels of the labour market".

They go on:

In thinking about aggregate demand, most people would agree that immigrants are extra consumers and that they raise aggregate consumption demand. It is likely that immigrants spend a lower fraction of their income when compared to domestic workers, perhaps because they send remittances back home or spend less on durable goods while temporarily resident in the UK - this would, on its own, suggest that immigrants raise demand by less than they raise supply...

On balance we would suggest that at present it appears that the recent inflow of workers from the A10 has acted to reduce the natural rate of unemployment in the UK. But it also seems that it is likely to have raised potential supply by more than it has raised demand, and thereby has acted to reduce inflationary pressures. This argument holds for three reasons. First, the consumption behaviour of native workers may have been affected by the increased fear of unemployment resulting from a more flexible labour market. Second, the recycling of remitted funds back to the UK is unlikely to be perfect. Third, firms may be able to substitute between capital and labour, offsetting some of the potential for investment spending to rise.
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Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
apparently lynton crosby had advised this:

“Lynton was advising Dave and George to rip up the deal in Brussels and kick it all into 2017,” a senior Tory source said. “His advice was to go to the summit, shout that it’s rubbish, then spend another year renegotiating.”

Now THAT would have been smart.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Wolfgang Munchau in the FT: "Europe enters an age of disintegration":

The EU is at risk of four fractures. I do not expect all of them to happen but I would be surprised if none did. The first is a north-south break-up over refugees. The so-called Schengen system of passport-free travel... could be suspended indefinitely...

A second north-south faultline is the euro. Nothing has changed here. Echoes of the eurozone crisis linger on and the Greek position is as unsustainable today as it was last summer.

The third is an east-west divide. Will the open societies of western Europe want to be tied into an ever-closer union with the likes of Mr Orban or the other nationalists in central or eastern Europe?

Finally, there is Brexit.
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f9c8bb52-dcac-11e5-8541-00fb33bdf038.html#axzz41aV1x9LO
 
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