Imports are the main cause of Unemployment

[flamingreen]

That is very interesting, agrey area in between obviously, such as Germany.

And immigration causes higher levels of imports as specialist food and sometimes clothing and other goods (quat!) are brought in both for and by them. They also contribute substantially to trade deficit by spending their earnings in their own countries, saving to buy property abroad, or sending remittances home. In Britain the losses there must be massive. Every Polish deli is a drain on us!

[ron]

Ron

There is correlation

No-one with unemployment less than 4% runs a deficit.

No-one with unemployment over 8% runs a surplus.

Not if you look historically though. Have a scan through the data and you will see that correlation breaks down frequently. I think your last few comments in reply to Mr Collier show that in reality the situation is far more complex.

I shall leave it at that since I agree with the basic premise of what you are saying, especially as I have spent most of my working life in net exporting companies, but I am never keen on seeing shaky statistics used to support an argument even if I agree with it!

[Traditionalist]

Export led growth supported by government goes against the libertarian laissez faire orthodoxy of the main parties including UKIP.

[Geoffrey Collier]

SDP: For your statement to have any credence, all those countries which use unemployment of the difinitive guide to trade surpluses would need a uniform definition of unemployment. What is it? I just don't believe that every Indian of employable age is in employment apart from the 10.8% unemployed. For what you say to have meaning the source of that trade surplus would have to be identified; tourism, manufacturing, etc. You are being beguiled by what they call statistical artefacts.

[alemcodon]

Ron

There is correlation

No-one with unemployment less than 4% runs a deficit.

No-one with unemployment over 8% runs a surplus.

First of all nearly every country has different methods of measuring unemployment, you can just simply compare unemployment between nations like that.

Thailand 0.4% unemployment???? - i don’t think so, many nations manipulate the calculations to make the figures lower, I think we should employ some Thai chancellors of the exchequers.

And as baaron and boesskey pointed out, the deficit/surplus needs to be set against something, % of trade or gdp would be valid. A number on its own is meaningless, for usa £10bn deficit is nothing, for Somalia, its end of the world.

The 2 can be closely related, they could both be causes of each other, but a more appropriate logic would be

Company bankruptcies -> unemployment and trade deficits.

The problem we have is the collapse of British industries, which has caused both unemployment and trade deficit.

If huge industries are closing, then consumers would need to look elsewhere for their products.

The question you should be asking is, why did our industries go bankrupt??
1^st reason was ridiculous taxation rates, lack of government intervention and subsidies (except for banks-wahaaay!!!) germany and japan has a trade surplus and its mainly from their car industries, an industry which they basically took from us, when we owned it, right from under out nose.

Nearly every soul on earth will at some point own a car, it’s the major difference here between developed economies in surplus of deficit. USA-UK no cars no surplus, germany-japan lots of cars, lots of surplus.

Another major factor was the complete farce made of the AIOC (ango Iranian oil company) and british-iranian relations. AIOC was a private firm, which was backed up by our government using government money, but what did the AIOC (now known as BP) do for the country? Nothing.

And our government’s decision to back and defend AIOC barbaric practices have not ceased costing us to this day, in fact the cost has barely started until when the Iranian war starts (when it will start, not if) – do some homework, the sour relations we have with Iran were a direct result of the AIOC fraudsters, and have only proportionately escalated since

We should look at how America conducted its business with the arabs, and compare how we handled our business with iran – theres a lot for us to learn from them. That f*ck up basically cost us expensive oil for the last 30-50 years, which directly increased costs, massively for every uk business, leading to mass bankruptcies, and unemployment.

There’s also a lot for us to learn from countries like germany and japan, german banks etc, their relations with the international community (ie they invade anyone, and didn’t back out of/boycott trade deals based on translations from the sun about dinnerjacket ‘wiping out israel’)

[alemcodon]

That is very interesting, agrey area in between obviously, such as Germany.

And immigration causes higher levels of imports as specialist food and sometimes clothing and other goods (quat!) are brought in both for and by them. They also contribute substantially to trade deficit by spending their earnings in their own countries, saving to buy property abroad, or sending remittances home. In Britain the losses there must be massive. Every Polish deli is a drain on us!

you just had to make that link somewhere along the line didnt you? and even more craftilly mention polish instead of the immigrants with colour - at least theres a sign of something working in there somewhere. maybe you should send the findings of your fine research to The Economist, or the Financial Times.

So what % of our trade deficit would you attribute to immigrants and their customs? 80, 90 95%?

i dont think the fact that almost vehicle in the UK came from abroad or the fact that every kid in the UK has a japanese PS3 or an american xbox, or that every TV, every DVD player in almost every british home came from abroad has anything to do with our deficit - no it can be!!!!! (being sarcy BTW) thats only a tiny proportion of our imports isnt it? The rice from bangladesh is the real and major cause of our deficit, leading to mass unemployment...yeah!!

[SDP]

SDP: For your statement to have any credence, all those countries which use unemployment of the difinitive guide to trade surpluses would need a uniform definition of unemployment. What is it? I just don't believe that every Indian of employable age is in employment apart from the 10.8% unemployed. For what you say to have meaning the source of that trade surplus would have to be identified; tourism, manufacturing, etc. You are being beguiled by what they call statistical artefacts.

Geoffrey Collier

Keynes predicted that running trade deficits would lead to economic recession.

So Keynes predicited that there would be a correlation between unemployment and trade deficits.

Keynes was right.

[Geoffrey Collier]

SDP: You are jumping all over the place. It is possible to have large visible trade deficits during both periods of full employment and high unemployment, indeed that has been the history of Britain since the commencement of the 19thC. until the present time. Our economic viability was
made possible by our invisible trade surpluses. There was no five-year period between 1816-1820, 1991-1996 when our invisible trade was in deficit.
During the same period, 1816-20, until 1991-1996, there was no five year period when our visible trade was in surplus. When net balances were in deficit, that resulted almost without exception when even a good invisible trade surplus was still too small to negate the deficits from the visible sector. You are correlating unemployment and trade deficits without distinguishing visible from invisible trade. The future will be even more complicated because not even manufactured goods need work-forces of the size which they needed historically.

You can re-invent Britain as a manufacturing nation if you like; but what evidence suggests that that will reduce unemployment? Very little.
Import controls, and they could have some economic benefit, but imposing them will not have the beneficial effect on unemployment that some wrongly assume.

[flamingreen]

you just had to make that link somewhere along the line didnt you?

It needs pointing out to thsoe who may not have considered it, yes. Naturally for you being reminded of these facts is inconvenient.

and even more craftilly mention polish instead of the immigrants with colour

.
'Polish' as opposed to 'polish' ( I daresay the latter is imported too nowadays).

Nothing 'crafty' about it - they are the largest single group of immigrants in Britain and certainly the most heavilly represented in my particular stomping ground (mind you others fast catching up).

So what % of our trade deficit would you attribute to immigrants and their customs? 80, 90 95%?

Now that would be guesswork but its certainly growing.

This enables a crude estimate. It is based on 2001 census, when there were officially some 4.6 million immigrants in the UK. The figure is at least double or triple that by now , with some 600K immigrants coming to Britain annually so another 6 million over ten years (remember we are talkign about immigrants coming to live here now not 'balanced' by Britons leaving, because its in the context of remittances). Then off course there are all the uncounted illegals.

http://www.apgml.org/frameworks/docs...emittances.pdf


The median estimate suggested was £927 million and that was remittances alone, (2001) it does not include importing goods that only immigrants need, such as line the aisle of Tescos 'world foods' or fill the shelves of Polish delis and oriental groceries.
Scale that up to a total of 11.5 million immigrants (as calculated + 1 million , estimated , illegals) and you get a figure of roughly £2,226 million. That doesnt allow for inflation either, nor does it include any specialist imports.

I presume the figures given by the OP were the American use of a billion as 1000 million, and they were given in dollars so converting that makes 3.5 billion dollars (rounding down)NOT allowing for inflation.

You wnanted to know the percentage of 70 million? 5% (at least)

That doenst allow for inflation.
It doesnt allow for true immigrant numbers exceedign government estimates.
It doenst allow for ANYTHING but remittances.

i dont think the fact that almost vehicle in the UK came from abroad or the fact that every kid in the UK has a japanese PS3 or an american xbox, or that every TV, every DVD player in almost every british home came from abroad has anything to do with our deficit - no it can be!!!!! (being sarcy BTW) thats only a tiny proportion of our imports isnt it? The rice from bangladesh is the real and major cause of our deficit, leading to mass unemployment...yeah!!

Where did I suggest that immigrant remittances and specialist imports were to blame for the MAJORITY of the deficit? Of course I didnt, but dont let that stop you ranting like a demented fool!

I should also like to remind you that immigrants too have, like "every kid in the UK", "a japanese PS3 or an american xbox", and that "every DVD player in almost every [NON] British home " came from abroad too.

Immigrants are every bit as much consumers of electronic imports as everyone else (more so if anything, middle class ethnci British , being, it would seem, the group least likely to have a giant TV in their sitting room, and every, er, 'deprived' kid rioting seemed to have a Blackberry).

I think the point is clear, on average each immigrant contributes MORE to the trade deficit than each ethnic Brit (again we are speaking about averages).

[SDP]

SDP: You are jumping all over the place. It is possible to have large visible trade deficits during both periods of full employment and high unemployment, indeed that has been the history of Britain since the commencement of the 19thC. until the present time. Our economic viability was
made possible by our invisible trade surpluses. There was no five-year period between 1816-1820, 1991-1996 when our invisible trade was in deficit.
During the same period, 1816-20, until 1991-1996, there was no five year period when our visible trade was in surplus. When net balances were in deficit, that resulted almost without exception when even a good invisible trade surplus was still too small to negate the deficits from the visible sector. You are correlating unemployment and trade deficits without distinguishing visible from invisible trade. The future will be even more complicated because not even manufactured goods need work-forces of the size which they needed historically.

You can re-invent Britain as a manufacturing nation if you like; but what evidence suggests that that will reduce unemployment? Very little.
Import controls, and they could have some economic benefit, but imposing them will not have the beneficial effect on unemployment that some wrongly assume.

Geoffrey Collier

Visible trade are goods such as cars and ships.

Invisible trade is banking and insurance.

If you add the two together you get a total trade deficit.

All my figures are for the two types of trade added together.

All the time I am taking about the total trade of visible and invisible added together.