The World knows FA

[Dangermouse]

90,000 applications (roughly) 20% are rejected, but the 20% are allowed to stay - through loopholes and appeals.

Up to and probably over 50, 000 unaccounted for.

On top of 150000 in normal immigration. 150000 is a figure which does not include dependants.

Don’t forget we are a really small county. Imagine the States of North andSouth Carolina taking this many immigrants. I think N Carolina is bigger than the UK as it is.

Edit: Did you edit your post. Fred? Am I going mad or did you ask me again what the figures were?

Sorry.

[fred_smith]

DM:

I edited my post when I saw the figures you added which I had missed. We are talking past each other. Thanks for the information. Case closed. I am satisfied and those numbers are much HIGHER than I had expected so score a point for you.

[bob_honest]

[quote=“Flipper”]
you realize you germans don’t even elect your chancellor! and you only directly elect HALF of your parliment. with so many of your leaders chosen for you by your rich elite politicians, I wouldn’t be so quick to throw the “plutocracy” label around at others. [/quote]

For the record, I am not the “Plutocrat”. That is Robi666.

Let me quickly point out how our election system works. It is no presidential system, but a parliamentarian system.
The most important of the two parliaments is the “Bundestag”. But it is wrong some rich people can decide who is in one half of it. We have two votes for the parliament. The first vote will be for your local candidate. If he is elected in his destrict, he has a right to have a seat in parliament. The second vote is for the party. The seats of the WHOLE parlament will be devided between the parties which have at least 5% according to the 2nd vote.
So if party1 gains 45%, this may be 113 seats. They will then fill those 113 seats with the “winning first vote candidates” first and fill up the rest with their party list. Of course, the “elite” of the party will be on top of that list.

The chancelor is leader of governement, but he needs a majority in parliament, otherwise he can be replaced. He is thus less powerfull than the US president, our real sovereign is the parliament, not the leader of governement.
The system is a mix of the pre-WW2 german democracy and US system in my understanding, balancing power a little more.

Punch line: you vote for a party not a person, that’s all.

[rousseau]

So we have 33 million foreign born and how does this compare with what everyone else has if you subtract fellow EU citizenry (say from France living in UK)? I would say it is pretty close to being equal to all other countries combined. This was my point all along and I will be happy to stick with that as well.

I’m back. I think my condescension is going to turn into bloody-mindedness if you keep this up.

Why in the aitch do you want to subtract EU citizenry? What is the point of that? Are you going to subtract Canadians living in the U.S. as well, then? That would take out a huge chunk of Los Angeles right there, save for the Mexicans, of course.

I don’t know what your point was “all along,” but at the beginning you said:

The total foreign born population in the US right now is nearly 40 million. Do the math. Do the math. Do the same for every other country with a lot of immigrants, Australia, NZ, Canada, UK, Germany and then maybe the Scandinavian countries, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Greece. I really wonder if all those countries together would reach even 15 million, maybe 20 million for foreign born as opposed to immigrant population, then if you check immigrant that would have to be much lower right?

I did the math, and it didn’t add up to what was coming out of your ass. If you add in those other countries you mentioned to my group of “non-US” countries then the foreign-born total would go up a fair bit higher than that of the U.S. Your point at the beginning was that the US is da champeen of immigrant countries. My point was that that’s no longer the case. Austrialia is 21% foreign-born, fer chrissakes! And if one-quarter of those foreign-born are from the UK, then so what? One-half of the foreign-born in the US are from Latin America, one-third of them from Mexico!

Over and…

really…

out

[Flipper]

sorry, that was directed at robi666. reading your posts, i thought he was german as well. apologize if that isn’t so.

just pointing out that many countries have systems that can be considered less democratic than the us. i’m just sick of people whose leaders are hand picked by party leaders and aren’t directly elected(canada, great britain, australia, germany, japan, etc.) lecture americans about how our system is a plutocracy.

[bob_honest]

[quote=“Flipper”]sorry, that was directed at robi666. reading your posts, I thought he was German as well. apologize if that isn’t so.
[/quote]

I think he is German too. But not 100% sure. I think he was hair-splitting a bit

Yes, our system gives a strange feeling, when parliament exchanges the leader of governement without asking the people - when he looses his majority.

[Dangermouse]

Case closed. I am satisfied and those numbers are much HIGHER than I had expected so score a point for you.

Its not about points Fred, its just nice talking/arguing/contradicting myself with you.

I’m just sick of people whose leaders are hand picked by party leaders and aren’t directly elected(canada, great britain, australia, Germany, Japan, etc.) lecture Americans about how our system is a plutocracy.

Flipper, I can totally see your point and agree with you wholeheartedly.

[Flipper]

[quote=“bob_honest”]
Punch line: you vote for a party not a person, that’s all.[/quote]

i’m just not thrilled that you can’t support a party without supporting that particular person. we in america often split our tickets. we vote for a republican senator at the same time we vote for a democratic president. it seems like in parlimentary systems you’re kinda locked in. wanna vote socialist? well, then you gotta vote for our guy for chancellor!

yes, the elite in all countries control the political mechanisms, but at least in the us the voters have the final say.

[daasgrrl]

@Dangermouse

I didn’t say it was. I was just contradicting the authors statement that foreigners cant become British citzens. He is wrong. I find it difficult to comprehend that he can complain about people not knowing about the US in a statement written by himself when he himself comments on something he obviously knows nothing about ie British passport policy.

Just to say, I think the meaning of the orginal statement is that they might have English (British) passports, but they’re not considered truly “English”, whatever that is. I’m presuming it means white, beer-drinking, and a fan of EastEnders . Whereas the author is saying anyone with an American passport is (theoretically) is as American as the next person, whether their family has lived there for one year or a hundred.

Again, I’m just offering this as an interpretation of what he meant, since I find it likelier than someone actually thinking Britain doesn’t allow immigration. I have no idea whether it’s true or not.

[butcher_boy]

@Flipper

we in America often split our tickets. we vote for a republican senator at the same time we vote for a democratic president.

I think split tickets can sometimes lead to specific problems though. The French periods of co-habitation have not all been unreserved success. The rivaly between Jospin and Chirac often seemed more important than governing France to both men. In the US their have been occassions of government grid lock within recent memory (Didn’t the government have to shut down in the clinton years a couple of times?). On the other hand a split ticket can lead to more moderation in policies. One suspects Bush may have been different with a Democratic congress.

There is also the problem of who is more legitimate. In the UK there is a process under way to reform the upper house. An all elected upper house sounds good until you consider that they who ever was most recently elected could cliam greatewr legitimacy than those less recently elected.

I guess it just goes to show that not only is democracy the ‘least worst method of government we can think of’ but it is also damned difficult to sort out what form of democracy is the ‘least worst’ of the many variations.

[pinesay]

@fred smith

The fact is that we take in a large number of foreign people.

Sponsoring my wife for an immigrant visa. Went to AIT. My wife looked around and saw a bunch of old Taiwanese people. She was shocked. She asked innocently what business they had immigrating to the States. They clearly didn’t speak Enlgish. She thought it looked wierd. I didn’t think a thing of it. I’m used to it. Going into LAX from Taipei, being the only American Citizen on the plane that speaks English. Being called a foreigner in Chinese by Chinese Americans on American soil. Muslim Americans sticking up for terrorist organizations that want to destroy the US. Hispanics at the register at Burger King that get put out when I don’t speak Spanish. Being called a Racist when I don’t agree that DEAD BLACK CONVICTED FELLONS should not be able to vote. The Malibu City Council making DOLPHINS citizens.

Seems to me that America is quite the land of diversity.

[xp_10K]

[quote=“fred smith”]The total foreign born population in the US
right now
is nearly 40 million. . . .[/quote]

[quote=“In response to fred smith, porcelainprincess”]You’re talking out of your ass. . .
USA pop. (2000): 281,421,906
Foreign-born
(2000)
: 28,400,000
Proportion of foreign-born: 10.1%
census.gov [/quote]

[quote=“In response, I”]
In
March 2003
, the civilian noninstitutionalized population in the United States included 33.5 million foreign born, representing 11.7 percent of the U.S. population.

Source: census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-551.pdf

The tally for the countries other than the US in porcelainprincess’s list is 28.3 million.[/quote]

By the above figures, it appears that the foreign-born population in the US grew about 18% in about three years. That’s about six percent a year. It has been about 1 1/2 years since March 2003, referenced above. Therefore, in the absence of hard figures for
“right now,”
it would not be unreasonable to assume growth of nine percent in 1 1/2 years. If that reasonable assumption is correct, then as 1.09 times 33.5 is 35.51, fred smith’s estimate seems reasonable, especially if you consider that the government’s tally does not include persons in institutions, persons in group homes, prisoners, and single military members living on base (please see the document from which I got my 33.5 million figure). It doesn’t at all seem as if he was “talking out of [his] a**” about that.

@As to the other issue

I really wonder if all those countries together would reach even 15 million, maybe 20 million for foreign born as opposed to immigrant population. . . .

In my understanding of such terms, “I wonder if” does not constitute “talking out of [one’s] a**,” since it is, among other things, an admission that one does not know. “Talking out of [one’s] a**” involves making definite assertions, claiming knowledge of something that one has no knowledge of.

Thus, it does not appear that fred smith was talking out of his a**.

[quote=“In response to my data, porcelain princess”]Erm, not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe your brain doesn’t work too good, so I’ll spell it out nice and slow…2003 was last year, but 2000 and 2001 were different years. 2001 is closer to 2000. All of the countries in the list have seen varying degrees of growth between 2001 and 2003, some of them very high.

Do you think, maybe, that while the US’s numbers have gone up, Canada’s and Australia’s have gone up as well? Meaning, d’uh, I don’t know, that maybe “the tally for the countries other than the US in porcelainprincess’s list” is just a teeny bit higher than 28.3 million?[/quote]

As to your figures and their vintage, I am not responsible for them, but if I only assumed that figures “maybe” “have gone up” and got a “teensy bit higher,” wouldn’t that be “talking out of [my] a**”?

And as to how well my brain works, I really don’t know, but your brain had better work exceptionally well and exceptionally hard in order to work its way through the obstacles that your personality sets in its way.

xp+10K

[rousseau]

For the love of god, saying that the US currently has 40 million foreign-born while he “really wonders” if the list of countries he gave “would reach even 15 million, maybe 20 million” is talking out of your ass. The figures are wildly inaccurate and misleading, and based on no empirical knowledge whatsoever.

[quote]By the above figures, it appears that the foreign-born population in the US grew about 18% in about three years. That’s about six percent a year. It has been about 1 1/2 years since March 2003, referenced above. Therefore, in the absence of hard figures for
“right now,”
it would not be unreasonable to assume growth of nine percent in 1 1/2 years.[/quote]

Are Americans natural born ass-talkers? There is ample evidence that, in general, they are, as no other people in the world are so willing to make bold assertions about things they know absolutely nothing about. You appear to add further foundation to the stereotype.

I don’t know that much about demographics and statistics either. That’s why I tread lightly and check things out before responding to this sort of stuff. Your “growth of nine percent in 1 1/2 years” is absurd. You’ve taken my figure from 2000, 28.4 million, and gone to 33.5 million for 2003, but the problem is that other figures on the website show 32 million foreign born in 2000. Which figures are you using when you make these assertions for the viability of growth of nine percent in 1 1/2 years?

Asserting that there are currently 40 million foreign-born in the US is talking out of your ass. In this era of the internet there is no excuse for making dumb claims like this. The information is all there.

In my understanding of such terms, “I wonder if” does not constitute “talking out of [one’s] a**,” since it is, among other things, an admission that one does not know.

I wonder if England even has curry? I wonder if Australians even play sports? I wonder if that many Indians even are Hindu?

Talking out of your ass.

As to your figures and their vintage, I am not responsible for them, but if I only assumed that figures “maybe” “have gone up” and got a “teensy bit higher,” wouldn’t that be “talking out of [my] a**”?

For the love of god, you were comparing one figure from 2000 with another from 2003 and holding them up as evidence of how the U.S.'s number was so much higher than the other. Forgive me, moderators, but that’s just plain stupid.

And as to how well my brain works, I really don’t know, but your brain had better work exceptionally well and exceptionally hard in order to work its way through the obstacles that your personality sets in its way.

And I thought we were friends…

[xp_10K]

@porcelainprincess

And I thought we were friends…

I would never have thought that even in irony.