In a rare moment of candour, an article on the BBC website
today finally acknowledged through quoting the Office for National Statistics
(ONS) that population growth (fuelled predominantly by historically
unprecedented mass immigration) had contributed to a significant decline in
disposable income in the UK. The average figure fell by 1% during the first
three months of 2012 compared to the preceding months, with the amount of
disposable income reaching its lowest since 2003.
The protracted structural economic crisis doubtless
underpins this decline, but this negative economic situation is heavily
exacerbated by rapid and unhelpful population growth. On a per capita basis,
the report reveals that pre-tax income declined during the period in question
by 0.6%. The ONS stated:
sustained population growth led to incomes being spread across a greater number of people, and therefore further reduced the growth of actual income per head.
To describe a decline in both pre-tax and
disposable incomes as “growth” is one of those peculiar particularities of
conventional economics, but the wider notion of “growth” as being an
essentially good thing, irrespective of what that “growth” actually consists
of, is a dogma that needs to be laid to rest if we are to effect true
improvements in our standard of living and quality of life in this country. The
focus upon an increase in aggregate rather than per capita GDP is, in general,
something that can actually lead to a concrete deterioration in both our daily
lived experience and indeed in our individual incomes.
Retailers for example, are enthusiastic about a growing
population, for this implies more prospective consumers to shop in their
outlets; builders too, for this necessitates the construction of ever more
homes (the rooms of which seem to grow smaller as average girths grow wider);
an increase in the number of passengers on already overcrowded rail services
may be seen as positive by various rail companies, but do we as commuters
appreciate the consequences of such “growth”: nowhere to sit and often scarcely
space to breathe? As the population grows the infrastructure – particularly in
densely populated England possessing an average of 407 people per square
kilometre according to the 2011 Census – creaks: traffic jams grow longer and
more frequent; drought orders are issued sooner and take longer to lift, and we
are urged to adopt water meters to conserve a precious “scarce” resource;
pressure upon our housing stock grows, as do voices calling for the lifting of
planning restrictions designed to protect our countryside.
For the conventional economist, population growth is
therefore seen to be a “good thing”, whereas for the mortals who have to live
with its consequences, the negative impact of such a demographic surge far
outweighs any superficial nominal benefits that may be said to have been
accrued. Yet, despite such pressures brought about by the negligent policies of
the current government and the wilful design of its predecessor, few are
willing to take a critical stance on this issue and call for a solution that
would readily improve our lives: a rational demographic policy aimed in the
long run (i.e. over the coming century or two) at reducing our national
population to sustainable limits of circa 25 to 30 million. However, those who support Population Matters - such as David Attenborough and James Lovelock - are notable exceptions.
The example of the widespread failure of India’s electricity grids over the past
two days should serve as a warning as to what could happen to us if we do not
constrain our population at a level commensurate with the power and resources
that we can practically make available. As our government is also signed up to
treaties that insist upon a considerable cut in our aggregate energy
consumption, the addition of millions of new citizens implies that we must all
make do with far less, in other words, experience a sustained cut in our
standard of living for the sake of immigrants from countries which fail to
cater to the needs of their citizens. Such a reckless demographic policy must
be curtailed, for otherwise, we consign ourselves to an increasingly
immiserated and insecure future, in a grossly overpopulated world where demands
for food, territory, energy and water become ever more intense. We need to
produce more food and energy domestically, so as to enhance our national
security, and to improve the lot of our people. Other nations need to turn to
the needs of their citizens too, and to institute sensible demographic
policies, instead of exporting their population problems to Britain and the
other countries of the West.
Africa, and significant swathes of Asia, need to learn how to use the condom and the pill. It is still, just, within their gift, to choose to solve their population crises humanely and rationally, yet if they do not - which currently appears to be the greater likelihood - then the bitter Malthusian lessons of unrestrained reproduction will doubtless have to be learned through great hardship and unnecessary death on a mass scale. We have no reason to be dragged down by such folly, yet our current crop of politicians appear intent upon letting just such an eventuality unfold. Our incomes may be falling now, but if a radical change in the existing political landscape and general approach to policy is not brought about within the next decade, then the risk will be that our current economic woes will seem utterly insignificant.
Africa, and significant swathes of Asia, need to learn how to use the condom and the pill. It is still, just, within their gift, to choose to solve their population crises humanely and rationally, yet if they do not - which currently appears to be the greater likelihood - then the bitter Malthusian lessons of unrestrained reproduction will doubtless have to be learned through great hardship and unnecessary death on a mass scale. We have no reason to be dragged down by such folly, yet our current crop of politicians appear intent upon letting just such an eventuality unfold. Our incomes may be falling now, but if a radical change in the existing political landscape and general approach to policy is not brought about within the next decade, then the risk will be that our current economic woes will seem utterly insignificant.
Time for a sensible demographic policy: long-term population reduction
It isn't going to stop. The elites, the EU and the UN (the UN head of immigration Peter Sutherland even admitted in June) are operating an open borders policy. No party is going to stop that. LibLabCon are all for open borders, the BNP has disintegrated and Farage (he is UKIP) has no interest in getting power at Westminster, as long as he gets a nice EU salary and gets his face on Question Time, then he's happy.
ReplyDeleteAs I posted the other day, we are about to let all the Maghreb and Levant countries join the EU, staring with Turkey.
All these things (such as immigration) lead to their other plans. Richard North's blog recently did a piece on the problem of water shortage, we get plenty of rain, more than enough, but the water industry is not building more reservoirs to house it. And that is deliberate, because they want to install water meters in every house and then charge us more. I can't remember exactly, but there's an EU directive involved as well.
Then, when we have enough people, then can start their Agenda 21 adjectives. Which involves banning private ownership of houses, except for the elite. We will all have to go and live in eco towns, which consist of high rise apartments. All work will supposedly be local, so cars will be banned as well, because we can walk to work.
You are certainly right in noting that there is a considerable coalition of powerful interests that wishes to maintain this influx for a variety of reasons, and that there is currently no credible political vehicle capable of halting or reversing this trend. If and when the plan to admit Turkey and the countries of the Maghreb and Levant to the EU comes into effect, we will find ourselves in an exceptionally worrying and vulnerable position. An exit from the EU as soon as possible is the only means of ensuring that we stand any realistic chance of stopping this from occurring.
DeleteThanks for drawing attention to Richard North's recent piece on the water industry. I'll take a look.
As for Agenda 21, the policies pursued in this country and across the EU certainly chime with its stated intent and objectives, but quite how far these are driven by it is a matter that requires a more lengthy response on my part than I can afford time for today. I will be writing on this at a later date though, in looking at the coalition of divergent interests that drive the twin policies of mass immigration and globalism.
Road Hog - you are probably right about the water meters. I think we here in the South West may be the guinea pigs. I live in Devon and our un-metered water bill this year was £1,084.51. We live in a typical medium sized 1930s semi (two bay windows and a porch variety). It is in a middle suburb, quite ordinary. When my husband retires we will have to have a meter, most people now do. South West Water told us that we have such high charges because we have to 'clean up the beaches'. This has been going on since the early 1990s, rising every year. They have had plenty of time to clean the beaches - they also freely admit that when we are ALL on a meter (it is currently a bit cheaper) then the price will go back up as they need it for 'investment'. Be warned.
DeleteI've heard that water is particularly overpriced in the West Country Pat. Is it s US company that now owns the utility? As an essential utility, the question of the ownership and control of the water industry needs to be examined. This sector, together with other facets of national economic infrastructure such as rail, power and new technologies, should be where our pension funds are invested, for whatever happens in the future, these will still exist and be needed. Moreover, they should be exclusively nationally owned and controlled. As for the precise model of ownership, that too is something that requires further consideration.
DeleteThey are part of the Pennon Group (British set up I think). They have fingers in loads of pies all over the country. Viridor and Blue Circle Cement for example. They get away with it down here because of the small population numbers not having a loud enough voice. We had a £50 rebate last year, pressure from the Government, but nobody noticed. They all threaten to 'look into it' but as usual never do. Water is a monopoly so we have no choice, totally agree with you they should be nationally owned.
Delete"they", the scum nominaly in charge of this country, only care that the immigrants, (deliberately and cynicaly maintained in a state of unemployed hopelessness), vote socialist.
ReplyDeletein keeping with the UN's policy of destroying national identity and national boundaries in order to bring about the one world government.
as peoples, through selfishness, ignorance or religeous dogma, fail to control their own numbers, so the UN has determined the need to institute a more uncertain program.
that of war, desease and deprivation.
their tools; religeon, overcrowding and resources.
we, the peasants, are slowly being set against each other in an explosion that will intentionaly run out of any pretence of controll.
we will be reduced to units of production/consumption in a world bereft of any meaningfull liberties except that of breathing.
we will exist, not live.
It is true that the Labour Party has traditionally portrayed itself and has been perceived as, quite correctly, "the immigrants' friend", with this being one of the contributory factors to it favouring mass immigration, resulting in the creation of a system of ethnic clientelism in the UK, particularly in England.
DeleteAs for the UN, like any bureaucracy and forum for divergent interests, it possesses both its own institutional values and goals, as well as the will to attempt to impose these upon its member states. At the same time, whereas some representatives of member nations - ours for example - may for the most part share the UN's vision, goals and policy recommendations, others - such as those of China and Russia - use the UN in an historically more traditional fashion as a means of furthering their specific national interests and spheres of influence. This is also the case with the states of the OIC, who view the UN as a useful means of facilitating the spread of Islam under the guise of "anti-racism" and "human rights".
The US views the UN Security Council as a convenient means of rubber stamping its foreign policy decisions, but it has, thanks to the pragmatism of Russia and China, proven to have been rather recalcitrant of late with respect to the US's and UK's intent regarding intervention in Syria. The UN therefore, is far from being some all-powerful form of nascent world government possessed of a single will to crush all forms of self-determination and national government, although it, as an institution, possesses an inimical relationship with the nation-state. For all of the negative propaganda levelled at China and Russia by the media in this country and the US, we are lucky that they have decided not to play along with the US's bid for global hegemony under the aegis of the UN. If this were to change, then we would truly have something to worry about.
Thank you for writing this article, i have been saying this for years and was starting to believe I was practically alone in seeing this. The issue of overpopulation seems to be ignored by everybody, from politicians to scientists (apart from David Attenborough as stated in your article). National Geographic did a whole series on the fact the population reached 7 billion last year without once mentioning how we might reduce this figure. It is almost as though this is an intentional act designed to reduce the quality of life for everyone on the planet. Surely there will come a point where even the richest among us cannot escape the water/electricity/space/clean air/job shortages that unchecked popultaion growth will bring. I find it baffling that during discussions about education standards, the NHS, transport or pollution levels the subjects of overpopulation and immigration don't even seem to cross the minds of those in power! It doesn't take a genius to work out that as technology improves, less people are required to work on farms, on building sites, in factories or in offices so why are governments obsessed with increasing the number of people when there are less and less jobs for them to do?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you appreciated the article Lucy. It is strange that whereas the issue of overpopulation was seen as a genuine problem up until at least the mid-1970s, since then most mainstream voices have fallen silent upon this matter. Precisely why this should be is hard to fathom, although it is likely that two primary factors underpin this shift: the rising power of non-Western states and the internalisation of a misplaced sense of racial guilt in European nations and amongst the European-descended populations of the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
DeleteThe mainstream position in the countries of "The South" - as the former Third World countries have come to see and portray themselves - is that Europe and the states that had their origins in European settler colonies are in some way collectively ‘guilty’ for the former’s failure to develop economically. This position appears to seek ideological legitimation from Marxist development theory as elaborated by figures such as Andre Gundre Frank, Immanuel Wallerstein, Samir Amin and a number of others, with the basic schema of economic core, periphery and semi-periphery originally lumping together Western Europe (this was a theory developed during the Cold War after all), North America, Australasia and Japan as the “exploiting” core nations, the post-colonial Third World (as it was) as the periphery, with the semi-periphery being comprised of the Communist Bloc, Arab rentier states and some of the more economically advanced states of Latin America such as Argentina.
Alongside Marxist development theory, which has furnished political leaders in Africa as well as much of Latin America and Asia with a language of anti-Western grievance, has been the West’s post-1968 cultural revolution which has undermined the latter’s sense of self-confidence and self-worth. It has simultaneously relativised and devalued the cultural, technological and historical achievements of European civilisation, whilst also racialising ‘morality’. This final point is of crucial significance, for it has rendered it publicly inadmissible for a white European to criticise negative policies and practices characteristic of specific black, Asian or Latin American societies. Included within such practices is the desire of the peoples of such states to breed in an unrestrained fashion, this usually being conjoined with retrograde religious practices, most notably, although not exclusively, Islamic ones.
To criticise the high birth-rates of non-whites has thus been designated “incorrect” and often “racist”, whereas in fact it is rational. If it is “racist” to be rational, then by this criterion I will happily admit to being “racist”. It is the power of this word accompanied by the ideology of “anti-racism” that both stymies criticism of overpopulation outside of the developed nations and underpins the suicidal psychology that facilitates mass immigration. Many politicians in “The South” are eager to play upon this misplaced sense of racial guilt, including the former Brazilian President “Lula” who was happy to refer to white “blue-eyed devils”. Can you imagine the furore if a European head of state were to refer to black “brown-eyed devils”?
Picking up on another of your points about improvements in technology and productivity, it does seem odd that whereas four decades ago some sociologists were writing about the “coming of the leisure society” in which all of us would have to work far fewer hours whilst enjoying an enhanced material standard of living, this has not happened. Something has evidently gone seriously adrift. You are right in stating that it is folly to seek to import more people upon spurious economic grounds when there is already a large permanent pool of unemployed people in the country, most of whom wish to work. We need to tackle this problem, and have no need of Labour from overseas. If our people genuinely do not possess the skills required (which is doubtful) then they should have the opportunity to acquire those skills.