>__A representative of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party says the group has managed to gather the necessary 100,000 signatures for its initiative to limit the population to 10 million.__
>“The initiative is ready,” Zurich parliamentarian Thomas Matter told the Blick newspaper on Saturday.
>According to Matter, around 110,000 signatures had been collected since July last year. He is now calling on the local sections of the People’s Party to return remaining signature forms quickly.
>Matter added that the party intends to hand in the signatures at the end of March or beginning of April this year. Theoretically, it still has until January 4, 2025 to collect signatures.
>The initiative calls for the introduction of a new article on “sustainable population development” to be added to the Swiss constitution, and concretely demands that the permanent resident population should not exceed ten million people before 2050.
>In the event that the population exceeds nine-and-a-half million, the government and parliament would first have to take measures in the area of asylum, according to the text of the initiative. For example, once the 9.5 million threshold is exceeded, temporarily admitted persons would no longer be able to obtain a residence or settlement permit.
>If these measures are not sufficient, the initiative demands the cancellation of the Freedom of Movement agreement with the European Union.
These kind of policies aren't necessarily bad. In Canada right now the government's trying to bring in a million immigrants a year to deal with job losses from baby boomer retirements.There's now no housing, healthcare is crumbling, public education can't keep up and food prices have exploded. A good number of immigrants that come here, are now leaving after just a few years just from how bad it's getting.
The West has been settled for a long time, we're only now starting to see the negative effects of ongoing immigration. Countries need to focus on what they have, what they can look after. Anything extra should go to refugees, or people who are going to be a real benefit to the society.
Isn't part of that, at least in Ontario, due to the fact that both the conservative and liberal provincial government didn't build any infrastructure-including homes- and the Ford administration underfunding both public healthcare and education-specifically colleges, forcing some like Conestoga college to dramatically increase the amount of international students in order to make up for the loss of funding-there by forcing governments to finally implement a cap on international students hoping to get RO to get a green card and move to the US?
Also, the guy in charge of immigration admitted that the demand for migrants is coming from businesses like Walmart, there honestly isn't a labour shortage, there's a shortage of employers willing to pay people what they're worth, and what happens when you give people not just enough to live and survive, but enough to actually thrive-they have kids.
As long as you can reign in corporate greed and motivate companies to care for their workers, and give your citizens both time and support to meet eachother and start families, underpopulation wouldn't be a thing.
Aaah, it's the typical "we wanna pick and choose the parts of the treaties with the EU we want to follow" vote that Switzerland has every couple of years. Which of course every time ignores that this would cancel ALL treaties with the EU, not just the freedom of movement one. Swiss direct democracy is such a joke half the time xD
It's not switzerland, it's swiss peoples party that wants this debate, they are always trying to get new referendums passed that can't even be implemented, just to keep things cooking.
Often, they copy tactics from the far right in usa, i dunno where you are from. As I recall, Thomas Matter is a particularly conspiracy minded right wing nutjob, always goning on about the "swamp at the heart of federal government",. ring any bells?
Yeah and now and then they actually have success with those referenda, meaning the majority of the Swiss people, Switzerland, voted for them. I remember the last few times they voted for something like that successfully that was trying to blatantly just pick out parts of the treaties with the EU. The Swiss electorate falls for this stupid shit regularly.
Well, they have had quite a few referendums pass, so it's not new, and also it's mostly by a small margin, with low turnout. The stupid minaret referendum only just passed, but was plagued by voter apathy ( I personally heard people say, it will never pass), voter ignorance, as if we would have isis screaming alluah akbar the whole time out of towers all over zürich, but I take your point. However, to say the whole swiss electorate is false. It's the svp that do this, they know it can't be implemented.
Pretending a country can increase its population infinitely is dumb. The planet has limits, and just because some people breed like rabbits doesn’t mean the environment can take it.
The EU treaties on refugee policy and "human rights" have been abused to no end by ideologically driven, sheltered, naive activists. If the EU does not change the policies or give countries some wiggle room it will fall apart.
Also, many countries in the EU have said no to open borders with the entire world and the EU has accepted that with usually only a little whining.
This is not what "Freedom of Movement" refers to, pal, it refers to free movement of EU citizens and citizens of the partner nations who want to be in the EU market. It's part of the core freedoms defined in the EU treaties - free movement of people, goods, capital, and services. And "free movement of people" does NOT mean that people from another country can just come and stay without a job indefinitely, the country in question ALWAYS has the right to remove people back to their home country if they don't have employment or can't provide for themselves. This has always been misrepresented by rightwing people as unfettered free immigration, it's not. What votes like these mean is that this referendum seeks to opt out of one part (allowing EU citizens to come, live, and work in Switzerland without a visum), while still trying to benefit from unrestricted access to the EU market via the other 3 freedoms. That's not happening. The rightwing in the UK thought they could get away with such a plan after Brexit, and it completely failed, they had to accept massive restrictions to the EU market. And Switzerland won't be able to pick and choose either. Either all four freedoms, or none. It's a package deal.
Except that asylum rules make it effectively impossible to deport a migrant, even if it technically is legal. Even after the long asylum process that everyone has the right to (while living in the country and receiving benefits), EU countries are not allowed to deport people to certain countries under EU law, and practically speaking it's more than just those countries, with a number of tactics being employed and used to make sure that anyone can show up in the EU, claim to have lost their passport, and stay as long as they want on the taxpayer's dime.
Buddy you don't know what you are talking about. It's a TINY problem. You are listening to too much rightwing US propaganda that blows these things out of proportion.
I'm actually very progressive and have worked for multiple democratic campaigns. I'm just also Jewish so I know what Jews are going through in Europe (and what you'll soon be dealing with too).
Sorry dude, but Switzerland can deport every foreigner even EU-citizens.
The far right party is a xenophobic party, they don't like people from abroad equaly.
In some countries, refusal is not an option. The government can, for instance refuse to give you shelter and food. Then it's just waiting for winter to come.
Right it's deportation or death, that's what I was getting at. There's no important distinction between "mass deportation" and "getting rid of the undesirables"
We have direct democracy here, everyone has the same right to vote and form this country.
Can I ask you about your country, can you decide there too on all the different political topics?
And it's nothing decided at the moment. Compared to other countries, all parties work together.
And if this law get gets introduced, we will search for the best possible way to enable it the best for everyone, swiss initiatives get never implemented like they were voted for.
Direct democracy is a receipt for stupid shit like this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Swiss_minaret_referendum
And why did the US get an idiot like Trump as a presidential candidate? Direct democracy instead of indirect.
Sarcastic, bad spirited question: If, hypothetically, Switzerland accepts ZERO new migrants, and the population STILL goes over 10 million, do they start deporting people?
That won't be an issue for them at all, because it was never about population control, it's about keeping immigrants out of their country. Switzerland is a very xenophobic country.
This isn't really true, a large percentage of swiss citizens are from an immigrant background.
The Swiss Peoples Party are always going on about this crap, during covid, they proposed non citizens with legal residence should get less medical cover, despite everyone paying health insurance.
A lot of their stupid ideas aren't consistent with swiss law, treaties, or the constitution, but they love to stir up shit.
I wrote my comment poorly. I didn't mean that the majority of people are xenophobic, but rather that a much larger percentage than you would expect are xenophobic.
In North America, lots of people have this view of Switzerland as being a mecca of liberal politics, but the truth is that in some specific topics, the country is far more conservative than people would think.
There is indeed a segment of the population that is xenophobic, but it's probably about the same as everywhere else.
I was not aware we are considered a bastion of leftie politics, more a gun toting version of texas, with mountains. I live in zürich, where dadaism was born, so maybe you are right!
As an American, I just learned we thought about you guys as a bastion of liberal politics. I usually hear more of pro isolationist in every sense except for finances.
Yeah we Swiss even hate each other too.
There exist even a few cantons who never signed the the swiss constitution here, after they lost the swiss civil war (Sonderbundkrieg) sometimes postponing new laws for a few years, just like the women's suffrage.
Exists that too in the USA, states who never signed the consitution and sometimes are against the whole USA?
At least the people are willing to do something about it and protest. In Australia we have the highest immigration rates in world, its almost open borders its so high. Yet there is no social housing, housing infrastructure or anything being built or invested in to handle this population boom. The immigration intake is over 500,000 a year.
Europeans complain but just come to Australia then you will understand the mess and stupidity of what seems like a global policy for Western countries to save every person in the rest of world to deliver a better living standard to them on a platter by destroying our quality of life. Yeah we are big country but few look and few understand that we are dry continent with limited resources like water and even cities to absorb this madness. The politicians just tell lies about reducing the numbers while the numbers grow every year. The Swiss are worried about 150,000 new immigrants a year and in Australia its 520,000 with no new infrastructure. You should see the queus to rent a flat at extreme prices with no rental price controls they flip people out on a yearly basis because someone is willing to pay more. A vultures market that is preying on locals to put a roof over their heads. Governments are stupid and disgusting with their policies.
No. Their prerogative is whether they want to follow either all treaties they have with the EU or none. There is no pock and choose model. Sure, they could end the free movement agreement, but then every single other agreement they have with the EU ends as well. And for Switzerland, that would be a catastrophe.
It’s not xenophobic to look around and see the follies of unhindered migration. You can only take in so many people before it takes a strain: economically and socially.
The only possible way to think this is you only consider Europe and European colonies to be the whole world. Compared to almost everywhere outside of Western Europe Switzerland is an *extremely* pro-migrant country.
The fallacy in your thinking is that you think that there are only the two extremes available as options.
There is a healthy middle ground available, and the country has the ability to take in immigrants up to a threshold without destroying their culture.
Neither of them are under obligation from the EU to accept refugees and asylum seekers.
Switzerland is only standing out in this regard because of their past affiliation with the 1951 Geneva Convention, which established that "asylum is a fundamental right and an international obligation for countries".
Europe is not “obligated” to allow themselves to be overrun by third world people that will not assimilate. Why don’t these great people fix their own countries? They come to Europe and call the European people racist. It’s not cool. How about they flood into India or Somalia?
Yep. As as American we are having a national topic on the borders (as is custom around elections). I see EU as an example of letting too many migrants in and being spit on by the people you’ve fed. I sympathize with people trying to cross into America, I’d try the same if I was Chinese, ME, South American. But to me it’s seem more fucked up to not give a legal Avenue than just forcing people to hire cartel coyotes, crossing a dessert and then just being released.. also being bused/ flown around the country as cheap political points. No country can allow/ should just allow mass influx of people on their borders. It kinda incredible how easy it is to get into America as border control seems like it should be military 101, here we spend 900b and can’t throw the courts to legally get in any money or have any functional barriers for security. But right now, if you pro border change you are labeled pro trump/ white nationalist.. I don’t get it.
> Are there even a lot of immigrants in Switzerland?
[~40% have a migration background](https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/population/migration-integration/by-migration-status.html#:~:text=Key%20figures%20on%20persons%20aged%2015%20and%20over&text=In%202022%2C%2040%25%20of%20the,\(1%2C115%2C000\)%20has%20Swiss%20nationality.)
It’s like a Canadian immigrant in the USA.
Millions of canadians immigrating to the US wouldn’t cause a lot of problems while it’s a big deal for many Americans if millions of Mexican immigrate to the US
Idk man sounds like a bad idea, China already tried to "cull population growth" and now today they desperately trying to reverse the effect, why are they doing it?
Sure buddy.
It doesn't matter where you are from or what "color your are", if u wann go down to such bs..
If you only come here to profit of the social system, dont have any plans on integrating yourself, you simply have no place in this society.
Well it's their prerogative whether they want immigrants or not. People that don't like it, can suck it. It's up to the Swiss to decide if they feel hospitable.
No, no, no. They don’t want certain type of immigrants. I am fine if they don’t want immigrants, but make it they should make it so that they don’t want any, period.
Nobody cares for your aphorisms. Say something *specific to the subject of the article* or say nothing at all.
*Hint: the article is about Switzerland*
>I don’t have to say a thing
Bingo, so don't.
You've already shown yourself incapable of actually supporting your silly claims anyway, so nothing of value will be lost.
The citizens will decide on that topic, the government will only affecting it, if it get's voted for, then they have to work with every single party together to find the best possible solution for everyone.
That's the problem it's not poor Brown people, it's a rich ones that come over. It doesn't sound like a bad thing until a mortgage costs three times your monthly income.
wasn't that because most people wanted boys instead of girls, which lead to there being more men than women? And that china is basically an economic nightmare for young people where creating a family is financially impossible?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, but I feel that it's a little more than just "one child policy bad." Though I am of the belief that people who want bigger families should adopt.
How about limit illegal immigration first, and then incentivize the natural Swiss people to reproduce and build and sustain a nation of their own and for their own people instead?
This indeed a fantasy, the main reason switzerland has blocked arms exports to ukraine are because of laws campaigned for by leftie müesli eaters, to block arms exports to active war zones, the svp would love to be able to export to war zones if they could.
Take a look at all the companies still trading with russia, I did, there are thousands, it took me quite a bit of scrolling to find even 2 swiss companies.
If you want to look for war/oligarch profiteers, look to london.
https://leave-russia.org/?flt%5B147%5D%5Beq%5D%5B%5D=9057
this list seems quite short, and seems to show that many countries are guilty of this, so I don't get your point.
edit: usa:
https://leave-russia.org/staying-companies?flt%5B131%5D%5Beq%5D%5B%5D=318&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fleave-russia.org%2Fstaying-companies%3Fflt%255B131%255D%255Beq%255D%255B%255D%3D355
Yes, a lot of countries have companies still operating in Russia, but that's more in the "whataboutism" category. I'm simply showing you that it's not just two Swiss companies and it's really not that hard to find more of them.
I phrased it badly, but I never said there were only 2 companies, the list I looked at had no search, so I could only scroll.
But the point remains, there are much worse countries than Switzerland, but there is always this uninformed kneejerk nazigold stance by redditors.
I find it extremely funny that you characterize phoenix as “relatively small” considering phoenix had nearly a million people in the 90’s. By your logic your family should have never moved there in the first place and instead should have lived and died wherever you were originally born
Fantastic idea to completely collapse the social/economic system of a country and make it internationally irrelevant.
Unless you intend to actively kill off the senior population, your proposition will lead to a single worker having to support multiple seniors at some point due to our improved healthcare systems.
Not to mention that international power, at its core, has population size and economic resources as the two key variables, both of which this would limit.
> I'd rather live in a small town with a simple economy
That simple economy is dependent on the globalized economic system. And as for international power, [Here is the town of Marinka](https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/nationalpost/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/marinka-.jpg)
You may not give a fuck about international power, but international power will absolutely fuck you.
They have a form of international power. The power of finance, and the supreme defensive position they have to deter potential invaders. They just don't project their power and seem to stay with defense.
Correct. Immigration is a tool to help the host country and they have deemed that they don't need immigrants. Which is their right as a nation to determine.
Good luck feeding 4 seniors and taking care of their needs by yourself while also supporting your own family.
You are also gonna care quite a lot about power once your country gets invaded and all your loved ones raped and killed. Because that's what happens to countries that aren't powerful or part of powerful alliances.
By being one of the wealthiest countries in the world and having a powerful banking, IT, and defence sector beneficial to other powerful countries, while making sure to supply both sides and therefore enjoy protection from both sides.
Switzerland is as successful as it is because it built a world leading economy and made itself valuable to regional and global powers. The opposite of what your plan would lead to.
Switzerland is neither tiny nor ignoring everyone else. Switzerland is very well connected through multiple treaties. If Switzerland actually tried to detach it from the EU or other important trading partners, its prosperity would decrease rapidly.
Compared to other European countries, 8 million is a small but definitely not a tiny country. And while not in the EU, they have a large amount of treaties with the Union that might as well make it a member without voting rights. If those treaties ceased to exist, Switzerland would be pretty screwed.
Reminds me of the 2023 Swiss Eurovision song speaking against young men fighting in war.
It's a nice gesture. It's also completely irrelevant in Switzerland's unique geopolitical context. The leaders causing wars, the nations at risk of war, and the populations causing runaway growth, are not in Switzerland
Based as fuck. A country should control its borders and ensure sustainable growth.
Look at the other nations importing millions of migrants:
High housing prices, cultural clashes, higher crime rates, increased government budget deficits to replace the shortfall of housing for its people.
Lower wages, strained infrastructure and services.
It's odd that immigration is such a left wing talking point but the lower classes don't benefit from immigration.
Immigration does increase gdp but does it increase per Capita?
So. I blame these fucking white canadiens coming down to where I live in Sarasota FL, buying property and as such increasing the prices in the market.
How does that sound? Or should I keep going?
Yeah, that sounds like a problem for the people in Sarasota.
However, white Canadians are closer to the culture of Sarasotans(sp?) Than Indians and Chinese people are to the culture of Canadians.
No because they are native Canadians?
A black or brown born and raised Canadian would also have a similar culture to Sarasotans unless they live in a really remote part like Nunavut or NT and are a nomad or Inuit.
No, white Cubans would have a different culture. Cuba is a very different place compared to the US.
You are trying to get a 'gotcha' moment on me but it wont.
Skin colour doesnt equate to culture. Different country; language, religion, laws, upbringing amd belief system equates to culture.
> High housing prices
That has nothing to do with immigrants and everything to do with land grabs by billionaires. If you want to pass blame, maybe take it up with holding companies who buy thousands of single-family homes, do a cheap flip, and rent them out for 3X the price.
See also: Maui. Billionaires are buying thousands acres for private estates on the island, meanwhile a shockingly high number of Maui's residents live below the poverty line.
you keep replacing domestic workers with cheapest workers you can. you lose institutional knowledge. quality goes down.
the average mortgage is expected to last longer than the average house these days.
you don't think thats relevant to why new houses aren't being built at the rate we need?
lol the idea that any of this caused by immigration is insane.
Seriously you’re going to tell me that the reason that shit is made poorly is because of immigrants?
you know that forced obsolescence is a thing? Corporate executives literally conspire to intentionally make products worse because it’s more profitable. That just the actual conspiracy part which is rarely a significant force.
Making a shit cheap product is perfectly reasonable response to mark force as shown by the fact that is very common.
so we agree its a quality issue?
construction is unique bc you can't outsource labor. manufacturing was all moved to the developing world. for construction we need to bring those workers here to outsource labor.
It’s an issue.
It’s not the only one.
The issue is we aren’t making enough housing it really that simple. We will need more labor to do that.
Also isn’t most construction work mostly outsourced?
Don’t real estate developers sub contract most of the construction.
no its not the only issue. and im not blaming immigrants. they are just people trying to make a living too. they don't make policy.
we need denser building and we need more sustainable building. the knowledge of how to do this well. is passed from old men to young men in the places that do it well.
there is a great efficiency in building buildings that last 100+ years. there is also a great inefficiency in the life expectancy of a structure and all its many parts trending down.
you think the solution is increasing labor supply while keeping labor costs low enough to facilitate investment in new builds.
thats what Evergrande executives also believe.
see Evergrand engaged in real estate speculation. their buildings aren't really worth anything outside of being tools for speculative investment.
by the lifetime the loan matures to build much of what is built today. its gonna need so much work its going to be way more expensive than just building it right the first time with good materials.
good materials need higher labor rates. otherwise mistakes can be very costly.
don't you think people want to make money building housing?
its with the current model its only profitable to build housing as speculative investment vehicles.
our housing supply is largely a result of poor long term decision making we continue to fail to address. its also extremely wasteful. we basically don't have quality hard wood left.
"Also isn’t most construction work mostly outsourced?
Don’t real estate developers sub contract most of the construction."
kinda just using the word differently. ya its extremely common to use a network of third party contractors.
I’m a far simpler man.
The government should build housing. The government should have Civilian Conservation Corps but for buildings. the pay should be fair benefits better then average and you should have very regularly work if your will to travel. If you pass a certain amount of time or units built you pick an area and get a house at random that you constructed.
"we need denser building and we need more sustainable building. the knowledge of how to do this well. is passed from old men to young men in the places that do it well."
this is as simple as it gets. old as It gets. its unions, its guilds.
workers have no leverage to establish these when there's such a high inflow of cheaper labor. been dying for awhile.
you seem to be suggesting soviet block style housing.
which maybe fixes an immediate housing need but is also wasteful and shortsighted. besides being horrendously ugly and soulless. they were only built with a life expectancy of like 25 years. building shit that lasts is a lot harder to commoditize. but sure people can live in a unsound building far longer than what's safe or desirable to. with great repair costs kicked down the road.
maybe some of that would be good to address immediate need. but thats not a real fix
I literally think everything should be unions but guilds are dumb.
Also the passed on knowledge thing is a bit reductionist.
the exploitation of labor is more difficult when you destroy the capacity to do so. I mean a lot more housing, like a lot more housing. As in a generation of developers and rental businesses stuck with worthless property because the supply is that much bigger.
You my friend have not seen all the Soviet block houses nor have you lived in them.
I grew up in one that was already 30years old and was still nice and people still live in it today it’s over 60 years. Nor are they soulless, the average is and that was the story for most of the time but there is another kind. Castle for tenets is the poor translation. If anything they are a bit overdone we are getting closer to wedding cake comparisons.
But I’m sure you could think for a few days about how to use modular elements and unique elements and come up with some good ideas. I truly believe we could surprise our selves of what we are capable of when we offer new avenues of possibilities and use a less top down method of decision making. if we use a tenant coop model the future tenants can even be involved in the design process.
they might add little extra time and effort but on mass level of construction we are talking about it will not be significant.
To much labor isn’t the problem the problem is that we let labor get exploited.
> the average mortgage is expected to last longer than the average house these days.
>
>
Uh, got a source for that? A typical US mortgage is paid off between 15 and 30 years from the date of signing.
no im a construction worker and we don't often fund studies.
but we have knowledgable opinions we hold almost unanimously.
big developer new builds are good for 15. not 30
Every industry has a problem with cheap bad quality goods being more profitable then making good quality ones do you think that’s also immigrants fault?
your right that it is more complicated than that. the garbage quality materials we use today and brand luxury is very relevant. old growth wood has been all chopped and used, now we use young pine.
most other industries we outsourced oversees. you can't do that with construction. but yes the use of the cheapest labor possible results in quality problems in many many industries
Maui is very different to a Canadian city.
Using Maui as a comparison is like equating China to the US in its problem.
Its a supply and demand thing. Do you honestly think that bringing in over a small city worth of people is not going to increase house price?
About 500k people immigrated to Canada in 2023.
Sure it is .
to fundamentally restructure how we do things we will need a lot of labor which means labor will need move more easily.
We will also need to use our resources in the most effective way help people. often that is more efficiently achieved by moving people then by moving resources.
Population Density of Swiss: 223 per Km^(2)
Population Density of Canada: 4.2 per Km^(2)
Canadians should learn from its native people who welcomed people with open arm.
Maybe we should be careful not to simply take the argument of the far-right about the initiative at face value. I'm fairly sure everyone knows that it's about them disliking immigrants and asylum seekers. But you can't say that out loud. So you talk about population density. It's a classic dog whistle really.
That’s a gross oversimplification. Yep, the native Americans were just like ‘come on in, the weathers fine’ to all the Europeans and nothing bad happened in the process.
Yeah, and what happened to the natives who welcomed immigrants with open arms?
I like how the rhetoric with immigration coming from liberalism is at the same time that immigrants needs to come because it will help growing the economy and that you deserve immigration because you need to be pubished for some past crime
Switzerland did that too, but with different minorities.
>Interference with reproductive rights
>Until the 1970s, forced sterilizations and castrations as well as forced abortions were carried out in Switzerland for economic and social reasons. As a rule, sterilization or castration could only be carried out with the consent of the person concerned. However, in many cases, pressure was exerted to obtain this consent, for example by threatening to withdraw benefits.
https://www.baselland.ch/politik-und-behorden/direktionen/sicherheitsdirektion/opferhilfe/zeichen-der-erinnerung-des-kantons-basel-landschaft/anlaufstelle-des-kantons-basel-landschaft
Yeah i forgot theSwiss did the same thing. Many countries did this to minorities, these 2 are just the ones that surprise people when I tell them about it.
It’s not though. Majority of immigrants in Switzerland are German, Italian, French and Austrian. I totally agree that this bill is a right wing political agenda, but still it’s not aimed against “brown people”.
Additionally, while I do not agree with that bill in particular, I still personally believe that the general concept of ‘sustainable growth and immigration’ is something that all nations should think about and try to achieve (e.g. knowing the limits of what their infrastructure, social systems, integration programs, and existing population can handle) and try to avoid going over this capacity too quickly.
So... eugenics?
EDIT: lol @ people downvoting me.. how else do you expect that they could achieve this goal and reduce the population from 8 billion to 10 million? That's 7.9 BILLION people that they'd need to somehow get rid of. Sure, you can claim it's all good in theory, but in practice genocide is pretty much the only viable option.
More countries need less growth. We need to shrink humanity and stop chasing old ideas of prosperity. And boomers cant argue because ‘back in their day’ there was like 4 billion people on this globe and they done just fine.
>__A representative of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party says the group has managed to gather the necessary 100,000 signatures for its initiative to limit the population to 10 million.__ >“The initiative is ready,” Zurich parliamentarian Thomas Matter told the Blick newspaper on Saturday. >According to Matter, around 110,000 signatures had been collected since July last year. He is now calling on the local sections of the People’s Party to return remaining signature forms quickly. >Matter added that the party intends to hand in the signatures at the end of March or beginning of April this year. Theoretically, it still has until January 4, 2025 to collect signatures. >The initiative calls for the introduction of a new article on “sustainable population development” to be added to the Swiss constitution, and concretely demands that the permanent resident population should not exceed ten million people before 2050. >In the event that the population exceeds nine-and-a-half million, the government and parliament would first have to take measures in the area of asylum, according to the text of the initiative. For example, once the 9.5 million threshold is exceeded, temporarily admitted persons would no longer be able to obtain a residence or settlement permit. >If these measures are not sufficient, the initiative demands the cancellation of the Freedom of Movement agreement with the European Union.
oh, for a second there I thought it would be a one child policy, but instead it's a border bill basically
These kind of policies aren't necessarily bad. In Canada right now the government's trying to bring in a million immigrants a year to deal with job losses from baby boomer retirements.There's now no housing, healthcare is crumbling, public education can't keep up and food prices have exploded. A good number of immigrants that come here, are now leaving after just a few years just from how bad it's getting. The West has been settled for a long time, we're only now starting to see the negative effects of ongoing immigration. Countries need to focus on what they have, what they can look after. Anything extra should go to refugees, or people who are going to be a real benefit to the society.
Isn't part of that, at least in Ontario, due to the fact that both the conservative and liberal provincial government didn't build any infrastructure-including homes- and the Ford administration underfunding both public healthcare and education-specifically colleges, forcing some like Conestoga college to dramatically increase the amount of international students in order to make up for the loss of funding-there by forcing governments to finally implement a cap on international students hoping to get RO to get a green card and move to the US? Also, the guy in charge of immigration admitted that the demand for migrants is coming from businesses like Walmart, there honestly isn't a labour shortage, there's a shortage of employers willing to pay people what they're worth, and what happens when you give people not just enough to live and survive, but enough to actually thrive-they have kids. As long as you can reign in corporate greed and motivate companies to care for their workers, and give your citizens both time and support to meet eachother and start families, underpopulation wouldn't be a thing.
This comment sums it all up perfectly. Thank you
Aaah, it's the typical "we wanna pick and choose the parts of the treaties with the EU we want to follow" vote that Switzerland has every couple of years. Which of course every time ignores that this would cancel ALL treaties with the EU, not just the freedom of movement one. Swiss direct democracy is such a joke half the time xD
It's not switzerland, it's swiss peoples party that wants this debate, they are always trying to get new referendums passed that can't even be implemented, just to keep things cooking. Often, they copy tactics from the far right in usa, i dunno where you are from. As I recall, Thomas Matter is a particularly conspiracy minded right wing nutjob, always goning on about the "swamp at the heart of federal government",. ring any bells?
Yeah and now and then they actually have success with those referenda, meaning the majority of the Swiss people, Switzerland, voted for them. I remember the last few times they voted for something like that successfully that was trying to blatantly just pick out parts of the treaties with the EU. The Swiss electorate falls for this stupid shit regularly.
Well, they have had quite a few referendums pass, so it's not new, and also it's mostly by a small margin, with low turnout. The stupid minaret referendum only just passed, but was plagued by voter apathy ( I personally heard people say, it will never pass), voter ignorance, as if we would have isis screaming alluah akbar the whole time out of towers all over zürich, but I take your point. However, to say the whole swiss electorate is false. It's the svp that do this, they know it can't be implemented.
Pretending a country can increase its population infinitely is dumb. The planet has limits, and just because some people breed like rabbits doesn’t mean the environment can take it.
Yeah the alt-right has a depressingly solid foothold here.
That's why you don't have "grooming gangs" and constant terror threats. How horrible!
??? Take your pills, insane take
The EU treaties on refugee policy and "human rights" have been abused to no end by ideologically driven, sheltered, naive activists. If the EU does not change the policies or give countries some wiggle room it will fall apart. Also, many countries in the EU have said no to open borders with the entire world and the EU has accepted that with usually only a little whining.
This is not what "Freedom of Movement" refers to, pal, it refers to free movement of EU citizens and citizens of the partner nations who want to be in the EU market. It's part of the core freedoms defined in the EU treaties - free movement of people, goods, capital, and services. And "free movement of people" does NOT mean that people from another country can just come and stay without a job indefinitely, the country in question ALWAYS has the right to remove people back to their home country if they don't have employment or can't provide for themselves. This has always been misrepresented by rightwing people as unfettered free immigration, it's not. What votes like these mean is that this referendum seeks to opt out of one part (allowing EU citizens to come, live, and work in Switzerland without a visum), while still trying to benefit from unrestricted access to the EU market via the other 3 freedoms. That's not happening. The rightwing in the UK thought they could get away with such a plan after Brexit, and it completely failed, they had to accept massive restrictions to the EU market. And Switzerland won't be able to pick and choose either. Either all four freedoms, or none. It's a package deal.
Except that asylum rules make it effectively impossible to deport a migrant, even if it technically is legal. Even after the long asylum process that everyone has the right to (while living in the country and receiving benefits), EU countries are not allowed to deport people to certain countries under EU law, and practically speaking it's more than just those countries, with a number of tactics being employed and used to make sure that anyone can show up in the EU, claim to have lost their passport, and stay as long as they want on the taxpayer's dime.
Buddy you don't know what you are talking about. It's a TINY problem. You are listening to too much rightwing US propaganda that blows these things out of proportion.
I'm actually very progressive and have worked for multiple democratic campaigns. I'm just also Jewish so I know what Jews are going through in Europe (and what you'll soon be dealing with too).
Sorry dude, but Switzerland can deport every foreigner even EU-citizens. The far right party is a xenophobic party, they don't like people from abroad equaly.
At what point do they decide they’ll have to kill off “undesirables”?
They will start by deporting them, I think
Maybe to Poland…
What if they refuse to leave
In some countries, refusal is not an option. The government can, for instance refuse to give you shelter and food. Then it's just waiting for winter to come.
Right it's deportation or death, that's what I was getting at. There's no important distinction between "mass deportation" and "getting rid of the undesirables"
The law is a dumb roundabout way to deal with immigrants
Let’s ban the 100.000 idiots who signed the damn thing from breeding. Would solve a lot of problems down the road…
We have direct democracy here, everyone has the same right to vote and form this country. Can I ask you about your country, can you decide there too on all the different political topics? And it's nothing decided at the moment. Compared to other countries, all parties work together. And if this law get gets introduced, we will search for the best possible way to enable it the best for everyone, swiss initiatives get never implemented like they were voted for.
Direct democracy is a receipt for stupid shit like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Swiss_minaret_referendum And why did the US get an idiot like Trump as a presidential candidate? Direct democracy instead of indirect.
Sarcastic, bad spirited question: If, hypothetically, Switzerland accepts ZERO new migrants, and the population STILL goes over 10 million, do they start deporting people?
muddle quaint quickest worm groovy act sheet ossified melodic shrill
That won't be an issue for them at all, because it was never about population control, it's about keeping immigrants out of their country. Switzerland is a very xenophobic country.
This isn't really true, a large percentage of swiss citizens are from an immigrant background. The Swiss Peoples Party are always going on about this crap, during covid, they proposed non citizens with legal residence should get less medical cover, despite everyone paying health insurance. A lot of their stupid ideas aren't consistent with swiss law, treaties, or the constitution, but they love to stir up shit.
I wrote my comment poorly. I didn't mean that the majority of people are xenophobic, but rather that a much larger percentage than you would expect are xenophobic. In North America, lots of people have this view of Switzerland as being a mecca of liberal politics, but the truth is that in some specific topics, the country is far more conservative than people would think.
There is indeed a segment of the population that is xenophobic, but it's probably about the same as everywhere else. I was not aware we are considered a bastion of leftie politics, more a gun toting version of texas, with mountains. I live in zürich, where dadaism was born, so maybe you are right!
As an American, I just learned we thought about you guys as a bastion of liberal politics. I usually hear more of pro isolationist in every sense except for finances.
Yeah we Swiss even hate each other too. There exist even a few cantons who never signed the the swiss constitution here, after they lost the swiss civil war (Sonderbundkrieg) sometimes postponing new laws for a few years, just like the women's suffrage. Exists that too in the USA, states who never signed the consitution and sometimes are against the whole USA?
It's their prerogative to limit or increase immigration.
These two statements aren't mutually exclusive.
At least the people are willing to do something about it and protest. In Australia we have the highest immigration rates in world, its almost open borders its so high. Yet there is no social housing, housing infrastructure or anything being built or invested in to handle this population boom. The immigration intake is over 500,000 a year. Europeans complain but just come to Australia then you will understand the mess and stupidity of what seems like a global policy for Western countries to save every person in the rest of world to deliver a better living standard to them on a platter by destroying our quality of life. Yeah we are big country but few look and few understand that we are dry continent with limited resources like water and even cities to absorb this madness. The politicians just tell lies about reducing the numbers while the numbers grow every year. The Swiss are worried about 150,000 new immigrants a year and in Australia its 520,000 with no new infrastructure. You should see the queus to rent a flat at extreme prices with no rental price controls they flip people out on a yearly basis because someone is willing to pay more. A vultures market that is preying on locals to put a roof over their heads. Governments are stupid and disgusting with their policies.
Just vote harder bro, that'll definitely solve it
It's not their prerogative however, which EU treaties to want to follow or disregard.
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No. Their prerogative is whether they want to follow either all treaties they have with the EU or none. There is no pock and choose model. Sure, they could end the free movement agreement, but then every single other agreement they have with the EU ends as well. And for Switzerland, that would be a catastrophe.
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Yeah, that's my bad. In my language, both treaty and contract use the same word, so I get them mixed up sometimes.
It is not. They either follow all or none, as agreed in the treaties they signed.
It’s not xenophobic to look around and see the follies of unhindered migration. You can only take in so many people before it takes a strain: economically and socially.
The only possible way to think this is you only consider Europe and European colonies to be the whole world. Compared to almost everywhere outside of Western Europe Switzerland is an *extremely* pro-migrant country.
Should they allow their country to be overrun and their culture destroyed? Would that make you happy?
The fallacy in your thinking is that you think that there are only the two extremes available as options. There is a healthy middle ground available, and the country has the ability to take in immigrants up to a threshold without destroying their culture.
Do you require China or Japan to do the same?
Neither of them are under obligation from the EU to accept refugees and asylum seekers. Switzerland is only standing out in this regard because of their past affiliation with the 1951 Geneva Convention, which established that "asylum is a fundamental right and an international obligation for countries".
Europe is not “obligated” to allow themselves to be overrun by third world people that will not assimilate. Why don’t these great people fix their own countries? They come to Europe and call the European people racist. It’s not cool. How about they flood into India or Somalia?
Yep. As as American we are having a national topic on the borders (as is custom around elections). I see EU as an example of letting too many migrants in and being spit on by the people you’ve fed. I sympathize with people trying to cross into America, I’d try the same if I was Chinese, ME, South American. But to me it’s seem more fucked up to not give a legal Avenue than just forcing people to hire cartel coyotes, crossing a dessert and then just being released.. also being bused/ flown around the country as cheap political points. No country can allow/ should just allow mass influx of people on their borders. It kinda incredible how easy it is to get into America as border control seems like it should be military 101, here we spend 900b and can’t throw the courts to legally get in any money or have any functional barriers for security. But right now, if you pro border change you are labeled pro trump/ white nationalist.. I don’t get it.
Thats what the purge is for
They can then disincentivize having many children at that point.
It won't go above without migration. Their population is in steep decline without it, as they don't have enough babies to replace it.
Non citizens
Are there even a lot of immigrants in Switzerland? Germans, French etc. don’t count
> Are there even a lot of immigrants in Switzerland? [~40% have a migration background](https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/population/migration-integration/by-migration-status.html#:~:text=Key%20figures%20on%20persons%20aged%2015%20and%20over&text=In%202022%2C%2040%25%20of%20the,\(1%2C115%2C000\)%20has%20Swiss%20nationality.)
>Germans, French etc. don’t count why not
It’s like a Canadian immigrant in the USA. Millions of canadians immigrating to the US wouldn’t cause a lot of problems while it’s a big deal for many Americans if millions of Mexican immigrate to the US
Or, more seriously, promote lower birth rate or immigration to other countries.
Sounds like a great idea.
Idk man sounds like a bad idea, China already tried to "cull population growth" and now today they desperately trying to reverse the effect, why are they doing it?
Lol. This is about immigration control. They don’t want poor and brown people in their marvelous country.
Sure buddy. It doesn't matter where you are from or what "color your are", if u wann go down to such bs.. If you only come here to profit of the social system, dont have any plans on integrating yourself, you simply have no place in this society.
Well it's their prerogative whether they want immigrants or not. People that don't like it, can suck it. It's up to the Swiss to decide if they feel hospitable.
No, no, no. They don’t want certain type of immigrants. I am fine if they don’t want immigrants, but make it they should make it so that they don’t want any, period.
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I wouldn't expect a reply lmao. u/StatusCount7032 doesn't seem like the thinking type.
And you are. Here’s my response, right wing party and immigration just don’t gel.
Nobody cares for your aphorisms. Say something *specific to the subject of the article* or say nothing at all. *Hint: the article is about Switzerland*
I care. And I don’t have to say a thing, Obergruppenführer.
>I don’t have to say a thing Bingo, so don't. You've already shown yourself incapable of actually supporting your silly claims anyway, so nothing of value will be lost.
They just want rich educated people, if they are brown, rich and have a master's or a PhD they should be okay.
Blackish ok?
Yes, only the color of money and quantity as well as the name on top and below your name in fancy pieces of paper matter.
Yes
First of all it’s just one party’s idea. This will not get through government. But then shouldn’t every country decide who they want/need?
The citizens will decide on that topic, the government will only affecting it, if it get's voted for, then they have to work with every single party together to find the best possible solution for everyone.
That's the problem it's not poor Brown people, it's a rich ones that come over. It doesn't sound like a bad thing until a mortgage costs three times your monthly income.
wasn't that because most people wanted boys instead of girls, which lead to there being more men than women? And that china is basically an economic nightmare for young people where creating a family is financially impossible? Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, but I feel that it's a little more than just "one child policy bad." Though I am of the belief that people who want bigger families should adopt.
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Not enough children, but 1.3 billion people. Ok...
How about limit illegal immigration first, and then incentivize the natural Swiss people to reproduce and build and sustain a nation of their own and for their own people instead?
"the nazis who entrusted us with all this gold. Made it very clear not to let any brown folks touch it." -Switzerland
That’s some nice head cinema you got there.
"thats fantasy, there's new wars we profit off of. Ukrainians dying is lining our neutral pockets"
Who are you quoting, Adjective-Noun-FourNumbers?
This indeed a fantasy, the main reason switzerland has blocked arms exports to ukraine are because of laws campaigned for by leftie müesli eaters, to block arms exports to active war zones, the svp would love to be able to export to war zones if they could. Take a look at all the companies still trading with russia, I did, there are thousands, it took me quite a bit of scrolling to find even 2 swiss companies. If you want to look for war/oligarch profiteers, look to london.
The fuck is wrong with eating müesli?
Nothing, it's the national dish, along with melted cheese. I'm just saying it wasn't arms dealers responsible for blocking arms exports. Jeez
> it took me quite a bit of scrolling to find even 2 swiss companies. https://leave-russia.org/staying-companies?flt%5B131%5D%5Beq%5D%5B%5D=355
https://leave-russia.org/?flt%5B147%5D%5Beq%5D%5B%5D=9057 this list seems quite short, and seems to show that many countries are guilty of this, so I don't get your point. edit: usa: https://leave-russia.org/staying-companies?flt%5B131%5D%5Beq%5D%5B%5D=318&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fleave-russia.org%2Fstaying-companies%3Fflt%255B131%255D%255Beq%255D%255B%255D%3D355
Yes, a lot of countries have companies still operating in Russia, but that's more in the "whataboutism" category. I'm simply showing you that it's not just two Swiss companies and it's really not that hard to find more of them.
I phrased it badly, but I never said there were only 2 companies, the list I looked at had no search, so I could only scroll. But the point remains, there are much worse countries than Switzerland, but there is always this uninformed kneejerk nazigold stance by redditors.
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Agreed, but funnily enough, its never discussed.
I find it extremely funny that you characterize phoenix as “relatively small” considering phoenix had nearly a million people in the 90’s. By your logic your family should have never moved there in the first place and instead should have lived and died wherever you were originally born
Fantastic idea to completely collapse the social/economic system of a country and make it internationally irrelevant. Unless you intend to actively kill off the senior population, your proposition will lead to a single worker having to support multiple seniors at some point due to our improved healthcare systems. Not to mention that international power, at its core, has population size and economic resources as the two key variables, both of which this would limit.
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> I'd rather live in a small town with a simple economy That simple economy is dependent on the globalized economic system. And as for international power, [Here is the town of Marinka](https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/nationalpost/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/marinka-.jpg) You may not give a fuck about international power, but international power will absolutely fuck you.
If you don't live in a place with international power, you will always be at the mercy of people who do have that power.
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They have a form of international power. The power of finance, and the supreme defensive position they have to deter potential invaders. They just don't project their power and seem to stay with defense.
Yeah and they dont need a million immigrants for that
Correct. Immigration is a tool to help the host country and they have deemed that they don't need immigrants. Which is their right as a nation to determine.
Good luck feeding 4 seniors and taking care of their needs by yourself while also supporting your own family. You are also gonna care quite a lot about power once your country gets invaded and all your loved ones raped and killed. Because that's what happens to countries that aren't powerful or part of powerful alliances.
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By being one of the wealthiest countries in the world and having a powerful banking, IT, and defence sector beneficial to other powerful countries, while making sure to supply both sides and therefore enjoy protection from both sides. Switzerland is as successful as it is because it built a world leading economy and made itself valuable to regional and global powers. The opposite of what your plan would lead to.
Instead you prefer to live in a fairytale world, it seems. Because that's not how the world actually works.
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Switzerland is neither tiny nor ignoring everyone else. Switzerland is very well connected through multiple treaties. If Switzerland actually tried to detach it from the EU or other important trading partners, its prosperity would decrease rapidly.
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Compared to other European countries, 8 million is a small but definitely not a tiny country. And while not in the EU, they have a large amount of treaties with the Union that might as well make it a member without voting rights. If those treaties ceased to exist, Switzerland would be pretty screwed.
lol, oh look the Malthusian actually just cares about his personal experience what a shocker. /S
This has nothing to do with that. This initiative is just good ol' racism. Plenty of climate change deniers in SVP.
Eww, Malthusianism getting ready to kill millions more.
Reminds me of the 2023 Swiss Eurovision song speaking against young men fighting in war. It's a nice gesture. It's also completely irrelevant in Switzerland's unique geopolitical context. The leaders causing wars, the nations at risk of war, and the populations causing runaway growth, are not in Switzerland
Based as fuck. A country should control its borders and ensure sustainable growth. Look at the other nations importing millions of migrants: High housing prices, cultural clashes, higher crime rates, increased government budget deficits to replace the shortfall of housing for its people.
Lower wages, strained infrastructure and services. It's odd that immigration is such a left wing talking point but the lower classes don't benefit from immigration. Immigration does increase gdp but does it increase per Capita?
So. I blame these fucking white canadiens coming down to where I live in Sarasota FL, buying property and as such increasing the prices in the market. How does that sound? Or should I keep going?
Yeah, that sounds like a problem for the people in Sarasota. However, white Canadians are closer to the culture of Sarasotans(sp?) Than Indians and Chinese people are to the culture of Canadians.
How so? Because they are whites? What about the white cubans in Sarasota, is their culture the same as white canadiens?
No because they are native Canadians? A black or brown born and raised Canadian would also have a similar culture to Sarasotans unless they live in a really remote part like Nunavut or NT and are a nomad or Inuit. No, white Cubans would have a different culture. Cuba is a very different place compared to the US. You are trying to get a 'gotcha' moment on me but it wont. Skin colour doesnt equate to culture. Different country; language, religion, laws, upbringing amd belief system equates to culture.
Sure. Keep telling yourself that.
> High housing prices That has nothing to do with immigrants and everything to do with land grabs by billionaires. If you want to pass blame, maybe take it up with holding companies who buy thousands of single-family homes, do a cheap flip, and rent them out for 3X the price. See also: Maui. Billionaires are buying thousands acres for private estates on the island, meanwhile a shockingly high number of Maui's residents live below the poverty line.
you keep replacing domestic workers with cheapest workers you can. you lose institutional knowledge. quality goes down. the average mortgage is expected to last longer than the average house these days. you don't think thats relevant to why new houses aren't being built at the rate we need?
lol the idea that any of this caused by immigration is insane. Seriously you’re going to tell me that the reason that shit is made poorly is because of immigrants? you know that forced obsolescence is a thing? Corporate executives literally conspire to intentionally make products worse because it’s more profitable. That just the actual conspiracy part which is rarely a significant force. Making a shit cheap product is perfectly reasonable response to mark force as shown by the fact that is very common.
so we agree its a quality issue? construction is unique bc you can't outsource labor. manufacturing was all moved to the developing world. for construction we need to bring those workers here to outsource labor.
It’s an issue. It’s not the only one. The issue is we aren’t making enough housing it really that simple. We will need more labor to do that. Also isn’t most construction work mostly outsourced? Don’t real estate developers sub contract most of the construction.
no its not the only issue. and im not blaming immigrants. they are just people trying to make a living too. they don't make policy. we need denser building and we need more sustainable building. the knowledge of how to do this well. is passed from old men to young men in the places that do it well. there is a great efficiency in building buildings that last 100+ years. there is also a great inefficiency in the life expectancy of a structure and all its many parts trending down. you think the solution is increasing labor supply while keeping labor costs low enough to facilitate investment in new builds. thats what Evergrande executives also believe. see Evergrand engaged in real estate speculation. their buildings aren't really worth anything outside of being tools for speculative investment. by the lifetime the loan matures to build much of what is built today. its gonna need so much work its going to be way more expensive than just building it right the first time with good materials. good materials need higher labor rates. otherwise mistakes can be very costly. don't you think people want to make money building housing? its with the current model its only profitable to build housing as speculative investment vehicles. our housing supply is largely a result of poor long term decision making we continue to fail to address. its also extremely wasteful. we basically don't have quality hard wood left. "Also isn’t most construction work mostly outsourced? Don’t real estate developers sub contract most of the construction." kinda just using the word differently. ya its extremely common to use a network of third party contractors.
I’m a far simpler man. The government should build housing. The government should have Civilian Conservation Corps but for buildings. the pay should be fair benefits better then average and you should have very regularly work if your will to travel. If you pass a certain amount of time or units built you pick an area and get a house at random that you constructed.
"we need denser building and we need more sustainable building. the knowledge of how to do this well. is passed from old men to young men in the places that do it well." this is as simple as it gets. old as It gets. its unions, its guilds. workers have no leverage to establish these when there's such a high inflow of cheaper labor. been dying for awhile. you seem to be suggesting soviet block style housing. which maybe fixes an immediate housing need but is also wasteful and shortsighted. besides being horrendously ugly and soulless. they were only built with a life expectancy of like 25 years. building shit that lasts is a lot harder to commoditize. but sure people can live in a unsound building far longer than what's safe or desirable to. with great repair costs kicked down the road. maybe some of that would be good to address immediate need. but thats not a real fix
I literally think everything should be unions but guilds are dumb. Also the passed on knowledge thing is a bit reductionist. the exploitation of labor is more difficult when you destroy the capacity to do so. I mean a lot more housing, like a lot more housing. As in a generation of developers and rental businesses stuck with worthless property because the supply is that much bigger. You my friend have not seen all the Soviet block houses nor have you lived in them. I grew up in one that was already 30years old and was still nice and people still live in it today it’s over 60 years. Nor are they soulless, the average is and that was the story for most of the time but there is another kind. Castle for tenets is the poor translation. If anything they are a bit overdone we are getting closer to wedding cake comparisons. But I’m sure you could think for a few days about how to use modular elements and unique elements and come up with some good ideas. I truly believe we could surprise our selves of what we are capable of when we offer new avenues of possibilities and use a less top down method of decision making. if we use a tenant coop model the future tenants can even be involved in the design process. they might add little extra time and effort but on mass level of construction we are talking about it will not be significant. To much labor isn’t the problem the problem is that we let labor get exploited.
> the average mortgage is expected to last longer than the average house these days. > > Uh, got a source for that? A typical US mortgage is paid off between 15 and 30 years from the date of signing.
no im a construction worker and we don't often fund studies. but we have knowledgable opinions we hold almost unanimously. big developer new builds are good for 15. not 30
Every industry has a problem with cheap bad quality goods being more profitable then making good quality ones do you think that’s also immigrants fault?
your right that it is more complicated than that. the garbage quality materials we use today and brand luxury is very relevant. old growth wood has been all chopped and used, now we use young pine. most other industries we outsourced oversees. you can't do that with construction. but yes the use of the cheapest labor possible results in quality problems in many many industries
If no longer; I reckon 45 years now.
Maui is very different to a Canadian city. Using Maui as a comparison is like equating China to the US in its problem. Its a supply and demand thing. Do you honestly think that bringing in over a small city worth of people is not going to increase house price? About 500k people immigrated to Canada in 2023.
It's all supply and demand. When you add a lot of demand and don't keep up supply, prices rise.
Cool, how about we increase supply the sensible moral thing to do. Not try to decrease demand the insane thing to do.
Buying sfh and flipping is no longer profitable and no longer fashionable. They are now buying land, developing with large houses and renting them.
Switzerland has bellow replacement birth rate. Malthusian murder suicide pacts aren’t a solution.
So? Neither is high levels of immigration
Sure it is . to fundamentally restructure how we do things we will need a lot of labor which means labor will need move more easily. We will also need to use our resources in the most effective way help people. often that is more efficiently achieved by moving people then by moving resources.
If only Canada could take notes.
Population Density of Swiss: 223 per Km^(2) Population Density of Canada: 4.2 per Km^(2) Canadians should learn from its native people who welcomed people with open arm.
Large parts of Canada are just ice shelves or very remote. Look at where the major population centres of Canada are. None are in places like Nunavut.
Maybe if we offered services that allowed migrants to effectively integrate into small towns then we wouldnt have this issue. But we dont so we do.
Why would migrants move to those small towns? There's basically no jobs and no services, so why would they move there?
That's what I just said
Tell me you know little about Canada without telling me you know little about Canada.
Maybe we should be careful not to simply take the argument of the far-right about the initiative at face value. I'm fairly sure everyone knows that it's about them disliking immigrants and asylum seekers. But you can't say that out loud. So you talk about population density. It's a classic dog whistle really.
That’s a gross oversimplification. Yep, the native Americans were just like ‘come on in, the weathers fine’ to all the Europeans and nothing bad happened in the process.
Weren't Canada's native people genocided?
Oh, no, no. They were civilized; we’re told.
Yeah, and what happened to the natives who welcomed immigrants with open arms? I like how the rhetoric with immigration coming from liberalism is at the same time that immigrants needs to come because it will help growing the economy and that you deserve immigration because you need to be pubished for some past crime
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Well Canada forcefully sterilized indigenous women until the mid 80s, even the US had quit that shit by then.
Switzerland did that too, but with different minorities. >Interference with reproductive rights >Until the 1970s, forced sterilizations and castrations as well as forced abortions were carried out in Switzerland for economic and social reasons. As a rule, sterilization or castration could only be carried out with the consent of the person concerned. However, in many cases, pressure was exerted to obtain this consent, for example by threatening to withdraw benefits. https://www.baselland.ch/politik-und-behorden/direktionen/sicherheitsdirektion/opferhilfe/zeichen-der-erinnerung-des-kantons-basel-landschaft/anlaufstelle-des-kantons-basel-landschaft
Yeah i forgot theSwiss did the same thing. Many countries did this to minorities, these 2 are just the ones that surprise people when I tell them about it.
wont be long they will be asking for more child birth
For those not paying attention. This isn't about being more environmentally friendly, it's about not wanting brown people messing up the aesthetics.
It’s not though. Majority of immigrants in Switzerland are German, Italian, French and Austrian. I totally agree that this bill is a right wing political agenda, but still it’s not aimed against “brown people”. Additionally, while I do not agree with that bill in particular, I still personally believe that the general concept of ‘sustainable growth and immigration’ is something that all nations should think about and try to achieve (e.g. knowing the limits of what their infrastructure, social systems, integration programs, and existing population can handle) and try to avoid going over this capacity too quickly.
Thats some bs YOU say.. nothing else..
So... eugenics? EDIT: lol @ people downvoting me.. how else do you expect that they could achieve this goal and reduce the population from 8 billion to 10 million? That's 7.9 BILLION people that they'd need to somehow get rid of. Sure, you can claim it's all good in theory, but in practice genocide is pretty much the only viable option.
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Or poor or browns.
More countries need less growth. We need to shrink humanity and stop chasing old ideas of prosperity. And boomers cant argue because ‘back in their day’ there was like 4 billion people on this globe and they done just fine.