“The U.S. is more problematic because it is harder hit by a range of issues that kill people even before they hit old age, including drug overdoses, shootings, obesity and inequities that make it hard for some people to get sufficient medical care.”
“The U.S. is more problematic because it is harder hit by a range of issues that kill people even before they hit old age, including drug overdoses, shootings, obesity and inequities that make it hard for some people to get sufficient medical care.”
That’s alright, so long as quality of life in later years improves.
As the population in Western countries age without younger people to replace it, and take care of the elderly, I’m going to guess the opposite will happen.
They’ll just import people in from around the world to replace lagging birthrate.
Overall birthrate is expected to peak around 2080 so there’s still plenty of time to shuffle people around!
In Canada we used to have a serious immigration policy that was part of the Canadian identity, and now we’re literally flooding the country with people almost exclusively from 1-2 countries with no qualifications required.
The workforce collectively lost significant bargaining leverage as millions of desperate people continue to saturate job markets and suppress wages.
Plenty of jobsites have no oversight regarding certification, so even educated people lose out because it’s cheaper to train a desperate person on the job and pay them next to nothing/under the table instead of hiring an educated workforce with labor rights and who expect a wage that reflects their abilities.
For what it’s worth, I know plenty of educated people who are awful at their jobs too. This isn’t anti-immigration, it’s acknowledgement that immigration is being used to suppress everyone’s wages to the exclusive benefit of employers.
So even if all the Western countries get border walls with 100% coverage and catch rates, western governments everywhere will happily throw open the gates for cheap labour regardless of public opinion
This doesn’t sound real to me.
Anti-immigration is always protectionism, and hinges on the fact that people tend to like people they know more than people they don’t.
I didn’t realize I was going back in time. What year is it? I’d like to make a few investments.
This sentence is insane, care to explain how immigration policy has ever been a part of Canadian identity? As far as I know, “Canadian identity” consists and has consisted mostly of hockey, crappy coffee, and a false sense of superiority over the USA.
I love how you seem to be focusing on immigration as the issue rather than capitalists exploiting desperate people, even though you seem aware of the abuse the wealthy inflict on the rest of us. Yes, companies abusing immigrants in desperate situations is common and a huge issue. The solution is not curbing immigration, it’s regulating corporations.
Man, I love it when people stop reading after finding one of their trigger phrases.
Try reading the entire comment next time.
Don’t know why I’m wasting my time writing more stuff you won’t read, so I’ll just call you a dummy now before you fully stop reading this comment too.
I myself am a first generation Canadian, so yeah - kind of a fan of immigration, even if my homeland is arguably better than Canada.
Well first off, it seems my first comment came off as more aggressive than I intended, based on your name-calling, so sorry about that, I didn’t mean to upset you in anyway.
I did read your entire comment (both of them, actually!)
I’m just frustrated by your take, because immigration is ultimately irrelevant to the shitty job market, the housing crisis, or whatever else the right likes to blame on immigrants these days. Immigrants are a scapegoat to avoid general frustration being directed towards the ruling class responsable for the conditions we live in.
If your issue is with companies exploiting workers, why does your comment do nothing but talk about immigration policy?
That’s honestly quite an idealized portrait of Canada.
Immigration has nothing to do with housing or job markets?
Are you suggesting that the fundamental principles of supply and demand don’t count because immigration =/= the ruling class?
You have 0 reading comprehension my friend, I’m also fairly left leaning and anti establishment which is plain as day in my comments.
Definitely must be frustrating to try and (wrongly) attack someone objectively left leaning and anti establishment for being right wing.
Also, what was your portrait of Canada growing up? Exclusively hockey, Donuts, bad coffee, and free healthcare? That’s all the national pride/identity you’ve ever had?
I’m not saying supply & demand doesn’t count, I’m questioning why you’re so focused on the demand incurred by immigration and not landlords are the wealthy artificially limiting supply for their bottom line. Immigrants are not to blame for our woes, it’s always the ruling class.
I’m not attacking you, I don’t know you, I’m just trying to respond to what you said in your comment. I’m not sure where you read a personal attack in my comments (if I recall, you’re the one who called me a “dummy”) but sincerely sorry if anything I said bothered you.
I don’t care (in the context of this conversation, anyway) whether you’re a right-winger trying to stir anger against immigrants or a left-winger who’s been submerged in so much right-wing rhetoric from the mainstream media that it’s infecting your worldview (which, hey, it happens to the best of us).
You’re parroting right-wing framing that immigrants are at the root of the issue when in reality they’re victims suffering just as much (and often more!) than the rest of us. That’s what I’m addressing. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that I haven’t formed a negative opinion of you as a person based off of one interaction on Lemmy.
I’ve never been really into nationalism. Even then, I’m francophone so my relationship to Canadian identity is complicated to say the least, and I’d much earlier identify as Acadian than Canadian. At least as an Acadian I can be proud that we’ve maintained our culture throughout centuries of attempts to assimilate us. Most “proud Canadians” I know are just kinda xenophobic. Either that or they’re immigrants who worked hard for their citizenship, in which case I feel that’s more pride in themselves than pride in the country.
I think as long as we continue to develop newer and better medicinal techniques, we’ll reach the point where we can keep our bodies together long enough to enjoy old age as much as we do middle age.
I see a lot of really cool medical advancements on the horizon from regrowing natural teeth all the way to literal “reverse aging” of brain cells, none of which are going to grant us immortality or multi-century lifespans, but will probably make it so that we can go into the twilight years with less pain and more cognitive function than our ancestors who had to endure the agony without being able to die in dignity.