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EU Immigration: Economic Benefit or Social Policy Disaster?
by John Brian Shannon | August 9, 2016
Recent reports about immigration in the EU suggest a real macroeconomic benefit to welcoming millions of refugees and economic migrants into the country
And that’s true. Even poverty-stricken refugees consume goods and services.
If we look at the German example; One million Middle Eastern refugees have been accepted into Germany since 2010 and all of them eat food, pay rent, pay electricity bills, take the bus, buy clothing, go to movies — and in many other ways add revenue to the economy.
If each of those million refugees spend 10 euros per day (equal to their daily food spending) that’s 10 million euros per day. Totalled, their monthly food spend equals 300 million euros in Germany alone.
If we extrapolate the German example further, we see that almost everything in Germany has a sales tax attached to it, and for those that have become employed, they’re paying income tax on their earnings.
Therefore, Germany is earning nearly 1 billion euros per day from their 1 million refugees
Of course, there are the high costs of accepting refugees and some may remain on social welfare programmes for as long as 2 years. German taxpayers pay for that. But after the 2-year mark, it’s all good.
No wonder Chancellor Merkel looks at immigration with such optimism. From an economic standpoint Merkel is 100% right; It really is the best thing for Germany. A brilliant but domestically unpopular policy by one of the greatest Chancellors in German history.
And let’s also recognize that this latest wave of immigrants is additional to the existing German immigrant pool — the first wave of which began in the 1970’s, and that generation are now a cohort of decent, hardworking, and family-oriented people. A benefit to the German economy almost every day since they arrived.
It’s not all Apple strudel and yodeling in Germany, however
Crime is much higher due to those massive levels of immigration. In Germany, girls can’t even attend a women’s music festival without a high probability of being molested by immigrant men. And the same holds true throughout the EU, especially in Sweden (of all places) and in Greece.
So what’s the point? Gain more in taxes so that women must hide in their homes?
That’s a bad deal for half the population, the female half.
Thus far, the lack of leadership on what is expected of new arrivals to the EU is astonishing and breathtaking all at once.
Refugees and economic immigrants from Day 1 of their arrival in Europe, should’ve been handed water bottles and pamphlets (written in their language) describing the rules of European culture, the rights of the person in EU society, the culture of respect for law and order — and not a gloss-over job but a poignant list of laws and societal norms that must be adhered to while travelling or living in Europe.
And printed in bold letters front and back of the pamphlets:
“It’s not your *right* to emigrate to our countries, it’s a *privilege* therefore consider yourselves guests while in our countries.”
Would you allow a guest to your home to wear muddy boots and to walk all over your expensive carpets and furniture? Obviously not.
Then neither should you allow your guests to molest your girls, rob subway passengers, and engage in rioting and looting.
Nor should we allow immigrants (or anyone) to defile EU culture — culture being the mass of our thoughts, brought into the light.
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” — Mahatma Gandhi
It’s a very human thing to help people experiencing hardship and fleeing from countries due to conflict or famine there. The fact that we still do this (although not as well as in prior decades) gives hope for humanity.
But it’s been bungled up til now in the EU and it needs to be fixed. ASAP.
Finally, refugees should be given a temporary landed immigrant card (a photo ID) that allows them to stay in the EU for up to 4 years
After that; ‘It’s time to go back home and rebuild your country, with the skills, money and experiences you’ve acquired during your time in the West.’
European countries should now, even at this late stage, attempt to:
1) Educate refugees/economic migrants about European legal and cultural standards, from Day 1 of their arrival.
2) Continue to provide the normal social benefit for each adult, until they find a job.
3) Continue to provide safe housing until reasonable accommodation can be found.
4) Continue to monitor those people to make sure they are finding services, housing, jobs, and are not being targeted by Middle Eastern ‘mafia’ types within their own community.
5) Provide a free airline ticket at the 4-year mark to allow them to return to their home country. If they don’t want to return to Syria (for example) they could exchange their ticket for another of similar value (to Cairo, for example)
6) By accepting and paying for the living expenses of refugees and economic migrants (where they don’t have their own funds) for four years, and by educating them to Western norms, and by helping them to find safe shelter and jobs, etc. it’s truly a privilege for those people to be in Europe, and they should conduct themselves accordingly.
7) If not, they should be deported as soon as they are convicted of any crime (and obviously, their 4-year pass cancelled)
Every day, we teach others how to treat us
If we teach others that it’s acceptable to walk into our homes wearing their muddy boots and to walk all over the carpets and furniture, we deserve everything that we get from those people.
If we (gently) teach them about the rules of our house and provide the support they need, we are teaching them that we’re their benefactors and that we’re people to be respected.
Thus far, we’ve been teaching the refugees the wrong things, and they’ve responded in kind. (Input = Output)
It’s a failure of vision and it’s a failure of leadership. And the experiment with mass immigration flows from the Middle East will end in the failure of some EU member nations.
We’ve already seen blowback from this mishandled affair via the Swiss voting in a 2014 referendum to leave the EU, and Brexit in 2016, with surely more exits to follow.
It’s a problem that won’t go away until EU leaders address the fundamental problems of mass migration, problems which (in the absence of proper guidance) begin on Day 1 of a refugee’s arrival.
Related Articles:
- Migration Fact vs. Migration Fiction (Project Syndicate)
- It’s not only Germany that covers up mass sex attacks by migrant men (The Spectator)
Bonus Graphic: A Snapshot of the European Migrant Crisis in 2015
Can we solve global poverty via immigration?
It’s great to use a visual aid to help understand the scale of a problem, and this video informs us well about trying to solve global poverty via increased immigration!
Also, the information contained in this video is both informative and accurate which is why I urge you to watch all of it. You’ll see another video (below) that will add much context to the overall conversation.
The question never was… ‘Can we solve global poverty by accepting high numbers of immigrants?’
Nobody with any serious education on the subject thinks that we can solve global poverty via accepting large numbers of immigrants. It was never the question, and no political science scholars or economists think in those terms.
1. Poverty is the measure of annual income in the Developed World.
2.Immigration is the measure of the number of people you allow into a country.
See how different those two things are?
The question is… ‘How can we boost the incomes of the world’s poorest so that tens of millions have no need to move to the Developed World as economic immigrants or refugees?’
And that is what the UN has been working on for the past couple of decades, with some measurable indicators of success via the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (or, MDG’s)
“The Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) are the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability.” — Read more about the UN Millennium Development Goals here
One important term to remember is Developed World — and the definition is, “countries where most people earn more than $10. per day.”
The other important term to remember is Developing World — and the definition is, “countries where most people earn less than $10. per day.”
Here is the state of the world in the year 2000
- In the year 2000, there were 6 billion people on the Earth.
- Out of that 6 billion, only 1 billion earned more than $10. per day.
- Another 1 billion earned between $1. and $10. per day.
- The remaining 4 billion existed on less than $1 dollar per day.
Switch to 2015…
- In the year 2015, there are 7.2 billion people on the Earth.
- Out of that 7.2 billion, 2 billion earned more than $10. per day.
- Out of that 7.2 billion, another 3.2 billion earned between $2.50 and $10. per day.
- The other 2 billion existed on less than $2.50 per day.
In 2015, remember that only 2 billion people live in the Developed World. The other 5.2 billion people live in the Developing World.
And each year, due to the massively good work of the United Nations and organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Clinton Foundation, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, The Kuwait Fund, The Nyota Fund, and many others — people in the Developing World are earning more money and have better education and healthcare.
At present rates of progress, by 2050 there should be nobody left in the ‘less than $10. per day’ category.
But ‘coasting on our to-date-accomplishments in this field’ is a plan that displays an astonishing Lack of Ambition because we could achieve those goals by merely ‘coasting’ on our 1980-2005 poverty eradication efforts!
So the fight is on — about what to do and how much to do. And if we don’t do enough, millions more will die horrible deaths by starvation, a lack of clean water, and a lack of proper sanitation — and the Developed World will face tens of millions of economic immigrants and refugees fleeing war-torn countries for many decades to come. It has the potential to become the ‘new normal’ if it isn’t handled properly on our watch.
The fight isn’t about whether accepting huge numbers of immigrants or refugees into Developed World will solve the problem of global poverty — the fight is about which plan will solve global poverty and raise every single person on the planet to a minimum $10. per day standard.
Here’s an excellent video with answers to many of the common misconceptions that the public and the media have about global poverty, global progress, and those tiny-by-comparison-numbers… the total number of immigrants and refugees accepted into each Developed World nation.
I’m positive that the following information will shock and inform you.
It nicely balances out the first video in this article that tends to get people riled up about immigration, particularly if they’re predisposed to dislike immigrants.
It’s a form of intellectual dishonesty to pretend that global poverty and the resultant refugee crisis can be solved via higher levels of immigration to the Developed World.
The solution, is to create working economies in the Developing World so that tens of millions of economic migrants, or refugees fleeing war-torn nations, have no need to flee to the Developed World in the first place.