Society/Culture Universal Basic Income
- Thread starter MaddAdam
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lol. One can assume then you must be vehemently against mass immigration of unskilled labour then.
Well, are you?
- Feb 24, 2013
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- #178
Yes, I am.....Especially when it's us in the West who are bombing the shitter out of their countries & causing the problem in the first place.
But I'm sure the multi-nat corporations are very saddened by it.....Like very, very saddened.
Good point and something that the mad advocates of mass immigration dont get. It actually hurts there countries. Take the philippine workers in Hong Kong. Most of them work as maids/nannies even though plenty of them are well educated. The NHS is another example, takes plenty of nurses from third world countries. Hardly helps their home countries.
low rent Guardianista balderdash. The mohammedans were running around causing trouble in the ME well before the west even had gunpowder.
- Feb 24, 2013
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- #181
We've been doing it since the days of the Roman Empire.....Talented people naturally gravitate to where they are rewarded best for those talents.
- Jun 30, 2014
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- #182
They also loved the slave trade
Taylor
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- #183
And people are entitled to seek the best life they can for themselves and their families, no debate from me on that.
It results in a world where the less developed stay that way.
Leaving it up to philanthropic billionaire ex-pats to go home with their fortune pushed into tax free charity foundations won't get it done.
- May 5, 2006
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Brain drain takes many forms.
Australia has something like 2.5 doctors per thousand people. Most first world nations hover somewhere in that 2-4 zone.
In India it's closer to 0.5, which is common for the developing world. Every Indian doctor that hops on a plane to Australia leaves India worse off.
- Aug 21, 2016
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Isn't that India's problem?
Australia does not have a shortage of qualified doctors and if we did we could easily train more. The numbers are artificially restricted by the ridiculously high entry requirements for medical degrees. Requirements that overseas medical students do not need to meet.
The brain drain from foreign countries is a red herring. It's about bringing people into Australia who will lower labour costs. In my office I'm literally surrounded by Indians on work visas while my former colleagues with the same skills can't get work after being laid off two years ago.
Snake_Baker
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- Apr 24, 2013
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- #186
No one else has anything to state about unemployment as an economic necessity?
I'm sensing an elephant in the conservative room here.
I'm sensing an elephant in the conservative room here.
Isn't it an simple as a minimum wage creates inefficiency. This supposedly prevents an equilibrium where demands meets supply for employment?
Taylor
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There is a void in the employment opportunities market where minimum wage requirements make certain opportunities disappear. The 3 hour minimum shifts, at minimum wage prevent people being hired to perform the very basic tasks for their true value to a business.
I think the biggest losers out of that are young people and less advantaged unskilled adults. Business will handball those tasks to someone being paid to do something else.
It would do absolutely nothing for people who enjoy regular employment at the same place, which would account for most people in the nation.
So I think minimum wage protects young people and the less advantaged unskilled from exploitation when they are employed, it stops them being employed too. We live in a nation that would rather pay someone $300 a week than have them earn $5 an hour sweeping a warehouse and that's just fine.
I think the biggest losers out of that are young people and less advantaged unskilled adults. Business will handball those tasks to someone being paid to do something else.
It would do absolutely nothing for people who enjoy regular employment at the same place, which would account for most people in the nation.
So I think minimum wage protects young people and the less advantaged unskilled from exploitation when they are employed, it stops them being employed too. We live in a nation that would rather pay someone $300 a week than have them earn $5 an hour sweeping a warehouse and that's just fine.
- May 5, 2006
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It is, but it's a byproduct of skilled migration which often gets overlooked. Most 'immigration is wonderful and has no negative effects whatsoever lalala' proponents focus on the positive effect immigrants to have Australia make and the fact that we as a nation can provide them with a higher standard of living.
By Australian expectations, year long waiting lists for surgery would suggest we don't have enough doctors. We have plenty in the sense that if you're sick you'll get seen to and if you require emergency care you'll get it, but if an extra 1,000 doctors landed tomorrow it wouldn't be a negative. The main reason we import highly skilled professionals is that it's quicker and cheaper. If you want to train a doctor it takes 7-10 years and costs $100k+. Much easier to just import one ready made.
You are spot on about driving down labour costs, but that's more of a focus in lower skilled/higher volume industries. When I got my license the kind of people that worked in servos were young people (Aussies) with part time jobs and the people that owned them. These days when I fill up I'd say there's an 8 or 9 out of 10 chance that the person working at the servo will be from the subcontinent.
but why would anyone work for a private company on minimum wage if they could get the minimum wage doing these govt jobs that they cant be fired from adn are almost certainly easier?
Also if private firms cant justify paying minimum wages for these jobs then it probably means the benefits of such work to socieity is less then the minimum wage.
- Jun 30, 2014
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In Australia and America we also have more Pharmacy’s than Bottle shops
Mofra
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- Dec 6, 2005
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A significant number are trained in Australia though - tertiary education of non-citizens is our third biggest industry and our largest value-add industry.
RMIT has roughly 1/3 of its students as foreign entry, I understand it's a little higher than many other tertiary institutions but not too dissimilar.
FWIW foreign students pay much higher fees - effectively subsidizing Australian student fees, so in a round about way the brain drain still occurs it just does so in a more convoluted way.
Academics will insist that immigration doesn't suppress wages!
- Jun 30, 2014
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- #196
Don’t put out logic like that!
There's an interesting layer to this story which is arguably the heart of it: the amount of work that needs to get done and the capabilities of those who need to do it.
The first waves of mass job losses are already arriving - NAB is cutting 6,000 jobs and just this week Telstra announced that it is getting rid of 8,000 people.
My father once wisely said, 'One day you'll need a degree to change a toilet roll'. This comment, whilst Dad was being a bit flippant, is now being borne out in the evolving Australian economy - the knowledge economy of innovation as good old Malcolm likes to talk about in Canberra.
There is a degree for everything these days. Just forty years ago, finishing high school was a big deal and no one needed to go to university. Now a bachelor degree is the new Year 12 certificate, with many professional roles now requiring a master's. Today's kids are lining up to take on double degrees because pfft, one degree just doesn't cut the mustard anymore. And don't even think about getting that dream graduate job unless you mainatined a High Distinction average in your subjects, whilst demonstrating your well-roundedness by simultaneously working 25 hours a week making lattes and being president of the Photography Club and captaining a cricket team, and doing a lot of unpaid work experience in your chosen field.
And at the end of the day (that is, at the end of their $25,000 and four years) they go out into the world and find there are at least 22 graduates fighting for every single graduate job: https://www.smh.com.au/education/yo...s-fighting-for-every-job-20171003-gythgp.html
At the same time, millions of Australians are overworked: http://abc.net.au/news/2017-02-21/w...g-rampant-unpaid-overtime-experts-say/8287376
We have a shortage of jobs, rampant underemployment, yet employees in those jobs are run into the ground. A classic example is the legal profession. Today's bright teenagers are being warned by people (all the way up to Malcolm Turnbull) not to study law. Every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing law but the profession is pretty small and there are very few jobs for young lawyers. Yet a typical firm will have a small group of lawyers taking on countless matters, making lawyers some of the most overworked professionals out there. I know a lawyer who says she goes home at 7 PM on a typical day, 9 PM on a busy day, or 11 PM on a really busy day. And yet there are probably two hundred youngsters who would give their left testicle (or ovary) to have a job in that commercial law firm and help her out with some of that work.
The reality is that it's a lot cheaper to hire 3 people and have them work long hours than what it is to hire 5 people. Will this change as many roles become augmented or even completely replaced by artificial intelligence?
What would job sharing/rationing look like in the future being envisioned, in which masses of the population will supposedly have nothing to do and get a universal basic income to survive? Is the portion of casual, contract and Uber-style gig work going to increase until that is the vast majority of work? What will artificial intelligence never be able to do?
The first waves of mass job losses are already arriving - NAB is cutting 6,000 jobs and just this week Telstra announced that it is getting rid of 8,000 people.
My father once wisely said, 'One day you'll need a degree to change a toilet roll'. This comment, whilst Dad was being a bit flippant, is now being borne out in the evolving Australian economy - the knowledge economy of innovation as good old Malcolm likes to talk about in Canberra.
There is a degree for everything these days. Just forty years ago, finishing high school was a big deal and no one needed to go to university. Now a bachelor degree is the new Year 12 certificate, with many professional roles now requiring a master's. Today's kids are lining up to take on double degrees because pfft, one degree just doesn't cut the mustard anymore. And don't even think about getting that dream graduate job unless you mainatined a High Distinction average in your subjects, whilst demonstrating your well-roundedness by simultaneously working 25 hours a week making lattes and being president of the Photography Club and captaining a cricket team, and doing a lot of unpaid work experience in your chosen field.
And at the end of the day (that is, at the end of their $25,000 and four years) they go out into the world and find there are at least 22 graduates fighting for every single graduate job: https://www.smh.com.au/education/yo...s-fighting-for-every-job-20171003-gythgp.html
At the same time, millions of Australians are overworked: http://abc.net.au/news/2017-02-21/w...g-rampant-unpaid-overtime-experts-say/8287376
We have a shortage of jobs, rampant underemployment, yet employees in those jobs are run into the ground. A classic example is the legal profession. Today's bright teenagers are being warned by people (all the way up to Malcolm Turnbull) not to study law. Every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing law but the profession is pretty small and there are very few jobs for young lawyers. Yet a typical firm will have a small group of lawyers taking on countless matters, making lawyers some of the most overworked professionals out there. I know a lawyer who says she goes home at 7 PM on a typical day, 9 PM on a busy day, or 11 PM on a really busy day. And yet there are probably two hundred youngsters who would give their left testicle (or ovary) to have a job in that commercial law firm and help her out with some of that work.
The reality is that it's a lot cheaper to hire 3 people and have them work long hours than what it is to hire 5 people. Will this change as many roles become augmented or even completely replaced by artificial intelligence?
What would job sharing/rationing look like in the future being envisioned, in which masses of the population will supposedly have nothing to do and get a universal basic income to survive? Is the portion of casual, contract and Uber-style gig work going to increase until that is the vast majority of work? What will artificial intelligence never be able to do?
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We are one of the few countries left where you can stay afterwards in most cases, that is why we are popular not that some second rate Australian institution is better than Oxford.
- Jun 22, 2008
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I've just secured a job share position in the Pilbara, I start in August. Two weeks on and four weeks off (it's half a 2/1 roster), get half annual leave so have one, ten week break per year. It's going to be a huge adjustment lifestyle wise for my two girls in particular going to 0.5 salary. My personal needs are very simple these days.
I'm 50 now and have been working since I was 15. Tired of working myself into the ground doing 14 straight 12 hour shifts, time for some quality and quantity at home. I'll survive, I always have.
not all potential immigrants from poor developing economies come from war zones.
