I’ve always enjoyed Tom Jones’ singing (It’s not Unusual and Sexbomb being a couple of my favorites), but I had no idea he was such an astute writer on demographics…..apologies, I’m sure the esteemed Mr Jones receives versions of that lame joke often
We need more of this pointing out the obvious that this is a longterm disaster to those who it is not so obvious to. On my more positive days I figure the government is like me and has mostly inly been exposed to the more educated of the world and doesn’t understand what they are doing. “That nice Pakistani doctor neighbor of mine is such a nice chap, what’s the problem here?” On my more negative days I figure the upper classes despise the lower classes and don’t care what the future looks like after they are dead. In this view, the UK is the British empire, only the local English are the natives to be managed now
I listened to your interview in Australia. One quick note: while I agree with everything you said about Tate, I’d also argue that he is an easy way for boys socialized into “acting black” to do so. He’s culturally similar to the dominant strain of black American culture, and in a perverse twist on being a more open society and shedding ourselves of any racism, most white, Asian, and Hispanic boys now act as black as they can get away with. Tate is a role model for that cultural trend as much as a product of the Internet and the feminization of institutions. White and Asian boys in the Anglosphere are desperate for same culture role models; there are notably fewer now in popular sports and movies. The fatherlessness trend obviously makes this a hundred times worse.
This a is a class problem. Why does it always end up a class problem. If you hate Johnny Foreigner in his country, then you are a Xenophobe. If you hate him in your country, you’re a racist.
We’re going down the very uncomfortable road here of needing to apologise to the people we demonised as racists because they said foreigners were taking their council flats. They were right, we who travel and like foreigners, were wrong.
It seems odd to blame immigration when the actual culprit is barely brushed on: "inelastic supply" (not by nature but due to bad government policy).
In a conservative dream world where immigration is halted and there's a massive native baby boom, that *still* leads to population increase, which will *still* lead to increased housing demand in the next generation. These new natives will *still* need an increase in the housing supply, if you want your baby boom to last for more than one generation.
If you want population growth, you *need* housing supply growth.
You can have as many immigrants and babies as you want, if you just let people build houses!
The UK is in the top 50 most densely populated countries in the world, England even more so. You don’t think there’s a limit on how many houses can be built? The way the English dealt with high birth rates historically was sending enormous numbers of people to the settler colonies
Israel has managed to maintain its higher fertility despite a higher density than the UK. Greater London is less dense than New York City proper, which is way less dense than Tokyo.
I agree that eventually you reach Malthusian carrying capacity and can't increase the population any further (ecologists usually worry about food, but in theory shelter could be more scarce). If England is actually at that point, you'd better hope the fertility rate stays exactly at replacement, as any higher would lead to a population bomb of homelessness.
Thankfully, it's nowhere near that limit. England isn't constrained by space, but by NIMBYs. The ability of councils to block construction they don't like is absurd. I'm aware the government has ambitious targets -- if they fail, it will be due to local opposition, not a literal shortage of land.
The density is a limiting factor, not a prohibitory factor, the main reason Israel has an above replacement level fertility is because they are under and existential threat from their neighbours.
I think we should build more houses, but not in order to enable mass immigration. I also think house building should be moderate, since we should protect green spaces and prevent excessive density, not least because that’s what British people want. Look at how Anglos behave in America and Australia where space is plentiful: they build massive detached houses on big blocks of land. As a people, we don’t like to be cramped. If native birth rates ever become so high that Britain is becoming very dense, I’d imagine a lot of us would go to the rest of the Anglosphere because of that craving for space. Right now, that’s a very long way from reality.
If you solved the lack of economic opportunity outside London, Britain could have all of the above: mass immigration, spacious housing, high fertility.
But I presume everyone thinks that problem is basically hopeless? If so, I guess it's quite reasonable to nix the lowest priority.
I’ve always enjoyed Tom Jones’ singing (It’s not Unusual and Sexbomb being a couple of my favorites), but I had no idea he was such an astute writer on demographics…..apologies, I’m sure the esteemed Mr Jones receives versions of that lame joke often
We need more of this pointing out the obvious that this is a longterm disaster to those who it is not so obvious to. On my more positive days I figure the government is like me and has mostly inly been exposed to the more educated of the world and doesn’t understand what they are doing. “That nice Pakistani doctor neighbor of mine is such a nice chap, what’s the problem here?” On my more negative days I figure the upper classes despise the lower classes and don’t care what the future looks like after they are dead. In this view, the UK is the British empire, only the local English are the natives to be managed now
I listened to your interview in Australia. One quick note: while I agree with everything you said about Tate, I’d also argue that he is an easy way for boys socialized into “acting black” to do so. He’s culturally similar to the dominant strain of black American culture, and in a perverse twist on being a more open society and shedding ourselves of any racism, most white, Asian, and Hispanic boys now act as black as they can get away with. Tate is a role model for that cultural trend as much as a product of the Internet and the feminization of institutions. White and Asian boys in the Anglosphere are desperate for same culture role models; there are notably fewer now in popular sports and movies. The fatherlessness trend obviously makes this a hundred times worse.
This a is a class problem. Why does it always end up a class problem. If you hate Johnny Foreigner in his country, then you are a Xenophobe. If you hate him in your country, you’re a racist.
We’re going down the very uncomfortable road here of needing to apologise to the people we demonised as racists because they said foreigners were taking their council flats. They were right, we who travel and like foreigners, were wrong.
It seems odd to blame immigration when the actual culprit is barely brushed on: "inelastic supply" (not by nature but due to bad government policy).
In a conservative dream world where immigration is halted and there's a massive native baby boom, that *still* leads to population increase, which will *still* lead to increased housing demand in the next generation. These new natives will *still* need an increase in the housing supply, if you want your baby boom to last for more than one generation.
If you want population growth, you *need* housing supply growth.
You can have as many immigrants and babies as you want, if you just let people build houses!
The UK is in the top 50 most densely populated countries in the world, England even more so. You don’t think there’s a limit on how many houses can be built? The way the English dealt with high birth rates historically was sending enormous numbers of people to the settler colonies
Israel has managed to maintain its higher fertility despite a higher density than the UK. Greater London is less dense than New York City proper, which is way less dense than Tokyo.
I agree that eventually you reach Malthusian carrying capacity and can't increase the population any further (ecologists usually worry about food, but in theory shelter could be more scarce). If England is actually at that point, you'd better hope the fertility rate stays exactly at replacement, as any higher would lead to a population bomb of homelessness.
Thankfully, it's nowhere near that limit. England isn't constrained by space, but by NIMBYs. The ability of councils to block construction they don't like is absurd. I'm aware the government has ambitious targets -- if they fail, it will be due to local opposition, not a literal shortage of land.
The density is a limiting factor, not a prohibitory factor, the main reason Israel has an above replacement level fertility is because they are under and existential threat from their neighbours.
I think we should build more houses, but not in order to enable mass immigration. I also think house building should be moderate, since we should protect green spaces and prevent excessive density, not least because that’s what British people want. Look at how Anglos behave in America and Australia where space is plentiful: they build massive detached houses on big blocks of land. As a people, we don’t like to be cramped. If native birth rates ever become so high that Britain is becoming very dense, I’d imagine a lot of us would go to the rest of the Anglosphere because of that craving for space. Right now, that’s a very long way from reality.
If you solved the lack of economic opportunity outside London, Britain could have all of the above: mass immigration, spacious housing, high fertility.
But I presume everyone thinks that problem is basically hopeless? If so, I guess it's quite reasonable to nix the lowest priority.
That’s a big ‘if’!