Immigration "one-in-one-out" tradable permit policy?

[TeeJay]

Just a thought experiment:

If every UK resident was given an annual permit to live in the UK, which they were free to sell to people who wanted to come to live and work in the UK (only for that year) but once they had sold it they then had to be out of the country for that year...

...how much would you be willing to be offered for your permit?

I have read about people paying thousands of dollars to be illegally smuggled into Europe and risking their lives - whereas other people whistfully dream of travelling the world for a year or two but unfortrunately don't have the necessary thousands of dollars to spend on it.

Let's say someone wanting to get into Europe used those thousands of dollars to legally buy a "permit" from someone who wanted to lave and go travelling, instead of the money ending up with the smugglers and people ending up dead in containers or drowned at sea?

Let's say there was a kind of "eBay" arrangement where you could 'rent out' or sell your annual permit for 2007...

...how much do you think people would pay for them and how much would people be willing to sell them for?

What about you?

Feel free to start any assumptions you want to make - for example whether you need to include the cost of health care or insurance in the price, whether you'd be allowed to work elsewhere and so forth. This is after all a theoretical thought experiment rather than a claim that a real life system like this could or would actually work in reality. I am more interested in knowing if people have a sense of how valuable their "right to remain", "right to work", "right to healthcare", "right to be rained upon and drink warm beer" and so forth is worth to them and what, if anything, they would be willing to swap it for (and for how long).

 

[zenie]

Sorry but this is an absolutley ridiculous idea TeeJay.

We'd be better off with some kind of visa system like the green card system but we're members of the EU so it's open borders for now...

 

[TeeJay]

Sorry but this is an absolutley ridiculous idea TeeJay.

We'd be better off with some kind of visa system like the green card system but we're members of the EU so it's open borders for now...

It is a *theoretical* idea, not a real life proposal. That is why I posted it in the "theory/philosophy/history" forum.

If you want to discuss real life UK or EU policies they'd be better off in "UK politics/current affairs" or "world politics/current affairs". Maybe on a thread there I will point out that the UK/EU doesn't have open borders, nor does it run a 'lottery' system. There is actually already very often a significant financial aspect to getting a work, study or family visa to the UK/EU - for example if you invest £100,000 in a UK business and/or employ people here then you can get a work visa. Students and others need to have proof of "sufficient funds" and so forth. However, this is all "reality based discussion" and I started this thread as a theoretical "thought experiment", so I won't pursue this any further here.

 

[laptop]

It sucks as a philosophical idea because it promotes, and is founded on, the idea that there's a fixed cake to share out among a fixed number of people.

It's not as though anyone's quality of life is affected by how many people per hectare there are on average.

Whereas, of course, the problem is who has by far the biggest slice and the power to determine the size of the cake, which is capital.

 

[TeeJay]

It sucks as a philosophical idea because it promotes, and is founded on, the idea that there's a fixed cake to share out among a fixed number of people.

I am not promoting the idea and I am not making the claim you say I am. I am not against more immigration and do *not* support a "one-in-one-out" policy.
This is:

Just a thought experiment

and

I am ... interested in knowing if people have a sense of how valuable their "right to remain", "right to work", "right to healthcare", "right to be rained upon and drink warm beer" and so forth is worth to them and what, if anything, they would be willing to swap it for (and for how long).

Just to kick things off:

If someone offered me enough money to go travelling (fairly modestly) for a year, the money was also able to cover any health costs I had (not just repatriation but the full whack) or insurance that would pay for it and it also covered any benefits I would have recieved by staying in the UK (at the moment I am on disability benefit of around £90 per week) - then I would seriously consider selling my theoretical 'residents permit' for a year and going travelling.

Just to pick a number of the top of my head let's say for the sake of argument that this is £20,000.

This is my "valuation" for a years worth of "UK residency", and although I do not have the right to take this money in payment to 'swap places' with someone from another non-EU country it is entirely rational and "non-sucking" to discuss this idea.

People seem to be willing to spend more than this amount to illegally smuggle themselves into the EU to work - I am surprised that anyone would want to spenmd these amounts just to end up in the UK on low wages and in shitty jobs, but apparently they do.

Some things need to be noted however: after a year travelling I would again have the right to return. Maybe once I got fed up with life on the road my "price" would raise up to far higher levels?

There are various professionals who have to be paid large salaries to be persuaded to go and work in the middle east for a few years - presumably when you have a family your "valuation" of living somewhere safe, with schools and a generally comfortable lifestyle goes up. If on the other hand you live on next to no money in a horrible place with no job then maybe almost anywhere is better and you won't need to be paid a lot to relocate?

 

[RaverDrew]

I think it's a pretty sound idea in theory, but almost impossible to put into practice.

What if that person that enters has a child with someone from this country ?

Would they be allowed to stay ?

Would they have to leave with the child ?

Leave without the child ?

 

[Dhimmi]

Sell the child and it's permit.

 

[TeeJay]

I think it's a pretty sound idea in theory, but almost impossible to put into practice.

What if that person that enters has a child with someone from this country ?

Would they be allowed to stay ?

Would they have to leave with the child ?

Leave without the child ?

It is not a "real life" proposal.

Another way of putting the question would be:

"If you were outside the UK/EU, how much would you be willing to pay for the right to live and work in the UK (and enjoy all other benefits of other UK residents) for one year"

If someone values living in the UK so highly that they would not "sell" that right, even for one year, then their price will be millions or billions - infinitely high.

Someone else might not give a shit and might be quite happy to take the price of a plane fare somewhere: in days gone by people used to immigrate to Australia on the "£10 transport" to go and seek a new and better life.

If someone wnated to come to the UK simply to earn money and go home, then if the cost became too high it would defeat the purpose of them coming - all their earnings would simply go to paying off the cost of being in the UK that year.

Someone else might be fleeing for their life from an oppressive regime - they would give any amount of money to be able to get to safety becauise otherwise they'd be dead.

I akm not suggesting that refugees should be made to pay to save their lives, nor that UK visas should be sold to the highest bidder.

What I am asking people is can they think of an amount of money that would induce them to leave the UK for year? They would have to think about all the things they would have to give up: benefits, jobs, home, seeing friends and family, health care, access to education and other free services...

How much is all this "worth" to us? I am sure some people would not take any amoutn of money, while others might take £100,000.

I have to admit that I am a bit cheap - I'd settle for less than that for one year away.

 

[laptop]

I am not promoting the idea and I am not making the claim you say I am. I am not against more immigration and do *not* support a "one-in-one-out" policy.

But I was observing promoting the "fixed cake" concept would be a consequence of your idea, whether you like it or not.

And in terms of pure economic theory, the price of a residence permit depends on limitation of the supply of permits, before the intangibles you say you want to explore.

 

[TeeJay]

But I was observing promoting the "fixed cake" concept would be a consequence of your idea, whether you like it or not.

If someone is so feeble minded that they can't distinguish between a theoretical "what if" thought experiment and a suggestion for a real life policy then maybe they aren't going to be able to contribute anything intelligent or coherent to this thread anyway.

 

[laptop]

If someone proposes a "thought experiment" and then refuses to think about any consequences except those they already had in mind, then they're not thinking and it's not an experiment.

Even if you had put some thought into your first post and asked what you now say is the only thing you had in mind - "how much would you sell your residence right for?" - the question of a market and who or what controls supply would have arisen. For people actually interested in communication, the whole point of asking is to get responses that they didn't have in mind.

 

[TeeJay]

Reading between the lines you seem to be saying that you cannot conceptualise any amount of money that you would swap for one year's EU/UK residency.

I suppose therefore we should feel lucky that we have such a massively valuable 'right', while so many others do not.

 

[laptop]

Reading between the lines...

No, making shit up, in order to spout a conclusion you wanted to "reach".

You claimed it was a philosophical thought experiment, not a propaganda exercise.

 

[TeeJay]

No, making shit up, in order to spout a conclusion you wanted to "reach".

What is this conclusion then laptop?

I don't support buying or selling "permits".

I don't support a "one-in-one-out" policy.

I am interested in how much people value their UK residency rights.

How about you make a minimal amount of effort to engage with what I have actually posted on this thread, rather than go off on one?