Economist Stands by Underclass Comments
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Stuff (New Zealand), May 29, 2008
Economist Greg Clydesdale has defended his contentious Pacific Island report that was criticised by fellow academics for using out-of-date data.
A peer review commissioned by the Pacific Island Affairs Ministry said the main argument in Dr Clydesdale’s paper, that the goal of immigration is to generate economic growth, is questionable.
The author, Otago University economist Paul Hansen, said the report showed poor use of data and failed to back up claims that Pacific Islanders are creating an underclass.
Its presentation was also substandard, he said.
The discussion document Growing Pains: The valuation and cost of human capital—dubbed the Clydesdale report—has drawn scathing responses from the Pacific Island community since it was reported by The Dominion Post last week.
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres is reviewing the report.
Teresia Teaiwa, programme director for Pacific Studies at Victoria University, said the report raised more questions than answers.
She asked why a paper written in 2008 cited social status reports from 2002, when 2006 census figures were available.
“Thankfully, Dr Clydesdale is not staking out a future for himself as an expert on the Pacific. This is, perhaps, his saving grace.”
But Dr Hansen said the report also contained useful information, which was interesting and provocative.
It covered the performance of Auckland’s economy and the effects of immigration on New Zealand’s environment and property market.
“It’s a discussion paper, it says it is a discussion paper and it has caused some discussion,” he said.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Dr Clydesdale said his paper was peer reviewed and accepted by international scholars before its presentation at a July conference in Brazil, but he has not given details.
He stuck by his statements that future growth depends on having a population that can create new products and new production processes.
This requires a high level of education, especially in technology, sciences and engineering.
“Pacific people have poor educational outcomes compared to other migrant groups, and with their growing population size, this will mean New Zealand will have a smaller proportion with the capability to produce growth.”
He said it was notable that, when all Pasifika speakers talked about the achievement of Pacific peoples, they provided examples in sport and the arts.
“Their failure to provide business examples is exactly what I am talking about. New Zealand policy should reflect a need for future economic growth.”
[Editor’s Note: The earlier story on Professor Clydesdale’s warnings of a Pacific island underclass can be read here.]
(Posted on June 3, 2008)
Comments
“This requires a high level of education, especially in technology, sciences and engineering.”
Yes, and an ability to learn at an advanced level for the population in the US excludes the vast majority of blacks, which handicaps this country severely, especially since the emphasis is on importing poverty and crime.
The whole world is aware America is degenerating, because of its large population of blacks and to a lesser degree, mestizos, who are slightly ahead of blacks, but have the potential to accelerate ahead of them even further with better education in the coming years. But they still will never reach the white and Asian level, which is going to be a big handicap.
But the great danger here is that the curriculum will continue to be dumbed down to allow blacks to keep from falling too far behind and in the process of that, all the races of the US will fall even further behind the rest of the world.
Importing crime, illiteracy, and poverty, is degenerating for any country, but when there’s a large segment of blacks within a population who can never achieve anything above an elementary level, as a group, then the future of the nation looks pretty dim indeed.
Posted by Robert Kelly at 7:32 PM on June 3
It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that the mass import of people into the West is a deliberate attempt to maintain an underclass to keep some people in their privileged position….serfdom under a new formula….case closed!
Posted by Lisette at 8:19 PM on June 3
“He said it was notable that, when all Pasifika speakers talked about the achievement of Pacific peoples, they provided examples in sport and the arts. “Their failure to provide business examples is exactly what I am talking about. New Zealand policy should reflect a need for future economic growth.”
Replace “Pasifika” with “Ebonics,” and “Pacific peoples” with “blacks,” and this news item easily transfers from New Zealand to America.
(That is, if you count the yelling of X-rated nursery-rhymes over a beatbox as “the arts.”)
Posted by at 8:19 PM on June 3
These reports are always lose-lose.
First the original report and authors are condemned and banished (for essentially not believing in fairies). Second, the government is then morally and internationally obligated to prove the study wrong by doing just the opposite (failing in the long run and exacerbating problems every socially and economically expensive step of the way).
Posted by sbuffalonative at 10:24 AM on June 4
Nothing questionable whatsoever about an educated middle-aged WASP trying to get a job after 20 years of hard work but then losing his job to a nice Indian who does it for .40 cents on the dollar in Los Angeles, CA. The jobs simply aren’t here for us anymore like they once were.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 1:48 AM on June 5
New Zealand was just a nice, quiet pretty little country tucked safely away in a little corner of the world. Nice Alpine scenery, lots of sheep. A mostly White and law-abiding country. It WASN’T broke - WHY did they have to go and fix it?
Posted by at 7:43 AM on June 5
Why, I always thought these experts appearing in the paper and this reseach was infoulable, unassailable, beyond question; and here it took the reports of ‘Economist Greg Clydesdale’ for us to learn about an opposing view. What will they think up next. My immense faith in the paper has taken a serious blow.
Posted by at 2:14 PM on June 5