The Ponzi scheme to end all Ponzi schemes

Submitted by Sully (United States), Jun 3, 2006 at 01:07

Harrak - you echoed many others when you wrote " This society needs hardworking immigrants to support the elderlies by payying their taxes."

This often repeated foolishness needs exposure. No society can support an aging population of relatively affluent retirees by importing grade school educated manual laborers. It can't even work in the short run unless the society resolves to import a great number of manual workers for each retiree, and once having done that, why should the new majority class of people continue supporting the elderly of the population they displaced?

Immigration as a cure for a declining birth rate makes no sense unless it the immigration policy is specifically designed to attract high skill, high education workers who will produce significantly more taxable income than the average current citizen of a country.

Europe and the U.S. are opening their doors to large flows of immigration while Japan is keeping the borders closed and working on robots and automated production. Only time will tell, but my bet would be on Japan for the higher per capita gross national product in the long run.

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