Refugee Crisis 2 - a warm welcome in Germany

[The guy from the Vale]

Breivik is literally a single case.

 

 

The NSU wants to have a word with you.

[Fragile Bird]

The problem with some of the arguments being made is that it's trumped up religious phobia. Last year we (in Canada) had three killings of soldiers by two men who had serious emotional issues, and had never been to Syria or Iraq or other war zone, out of about 500 murders in Canada. Motorcycle gangs have killed more people in one year, drug dealers have killed more people in one go, a guy pissed off at a former business partner killed him, his wife and his grandson in one go. And what about the 480 or 490 other murderers? They certainly weren't Muslim immigrants.

All the right-wing prime ministers, like our Harper and the UK's Cameron, are singing from the same song book, how every refugee who's accepted has to be vetted before they can grace our shores. How the heck do you do that, send in a request to the Syrian police?

And as for the immigrants going back to the Middle East to fight, many of them are kids who came here as babies or who were born here and got religion. Their parents are stunned and shocked and can't believe they could do such a thing. But the evidence many left behind attribute their conversion to violence as a response to the bombing of their homelands by coalition forces. Do you think everyone is going to stop bombing ISIL?

[The Iceman of the North]

Breivik is literally a single case. There have been multiple attacks on cultural events in Europe (and even one in the US) in the past two years and thousands of Europeans have traveled to Syria and Iraq to commit the very atrocities that are driving these refugees. It is most certainly not all Muslims or even a sizable minority thereof, but it is equally certainly more than a single madman.

You don't really know much about what's going on in Germany, do you?

[DireWolfSpirit]

DWS

Corporations have always been considered people. That is why they are called "Corporations" they are "incorporating" the legal fiction that a "corporate person" stands between the shareholders of a corporation and the rest of the world who might want to make such shareholders liable for corporate actions.
This is not a new idea. Corporations have existed since the middle ages.

That really has almost nothing to do with the point i was trying to make. I was trying to comment on how the world is moving toward ever more liberalized (free) trade practices, yet tightening borders (walls) for actual people.
The point being that products shouldn't be freer to move around than people. If the refugees were barrels of oil, every country in the west would be doing backflips to let them in. That's the farce imo.

[Lyanna Stark]

I'm curious; do you want more immigrants in Sweden?

 

Yes. For two reasons:

 

a. It is the RIGHT THING TO DO. There is a crisis, people are dying, we can help, it is our bloody duty to do so. Not to mention, if the shoe was on the other foot and I lived in a wartorn land, fleeing for my life with my family, I would hope someone somewhere would open their country to my family. Treat others like you want to be treated yourself and don't be a complete arse to other people. In other words: basic bloody human decency.

 

b. Demography and future taxation. Demographically, Sweden is really well off, partially due to immigration. Only people who cannot actually do very simple mathematics or statistics think immigrants will "destroy our country". It's the opposite. Look at Italy's replacement rate for instance. What will that mean in 100 years for their taxable population? We need immigrants to top up our dwindling populations.

 

 

However, this does NOT mean I think Sweden's handling of immigrants is spot on. Far from it. I could write you a three page essay on things I think should be improved, re-organised and reformed. That doesn't change the fundamentals though, and it is an organisational issue, or a political one, if you will. But then I could probably also write you a three page essay on why it is shameful that our infrastructure is basically falling apart cos no politicians CBA to bother with it. There is no shortage of need for reform, long-term planning and some common bloody sense when it comes to our politicians and public sector.

 

In other words: it's not the fault of the immigrants that our politicians and public sector suffers from an inability to get their shit together in the right way. Hence the criticism should be aimed at the real problem, not at the immigrants.

 

 

 

EDIT: Using some stuff that HobbsTuna linked, even people who disagree with immigration point out the demography issue, from the English article linked:

 

 

 

In the article, Sinn also warned against the dramatic social distortions caused by Germany's falling birthrate, claiming that 32 million young immigrants would be needed, most of them probably from outside of Europe, to stabilize the relation between old and young and to secure relative pension levels and contribution rates for pension insurance.

 

Right so, I'll comment on his cost analysis later, but look at this number. 32 million. Thirty-two million. That's a LOT if people. People are already shouting loudly that Germany cannot accept the immigrants coming this year, because it is a flood and a disaster, yet the latest number there said 800.000. A lot of people to be sure, but if Sinn is correct, then it seems Germany will need an influx of people. Obviously 800k at a time can be difficult and challenging to integrate (again with the political and organisational issue) and I also don't disagree with Sinn's analysis of parental leave, subsidised childcare etc. However, as far as I can tell, even a huge influx of 800k people only covers 2.5% of what Germany needs, demographically. Obviously 

 

Further, I question the usage of just putting a price tag on each immigrant. "An immigrant costs X". Obviously immigrants will initially cost more than they contribute, which makes it far more useful to check progress over a 10, 20 or 25 year period. If we applied similar methods to kids, nobody would have kids (and indeed, a lot of countries without subsidised parental leave are seeing this) since kids cost an absolute crapload of money.

 

Breivik is literally a single case. There have been multiple attacks on cultural events in Europe (and even one in the US) in the past two years and thousands of Europeans have traveled to Syria and Iraq to commit the very atrocities that are driving these refugees. It is most certainly not all Muslims or even a sizable minority thereof, but it is equally certainly more than a single madman.

 

 

No, he is not. He is just the one who succeeded the most. Right-wing violence and threats are on the up and up, and has been a constant thing for a long time. The first I can remember took place already 1999 when two neonazis killed a syndicalist trade unionist Björn Söderberg. Not long ago right-wing extremists almost got away with murdering a a left-wing young man in Malmö. You may WANT to think it's a single case, but every statistics I've seen over Sweden supports the thesis that right-wing violence is far more common and far more deadly than anything else. Sure, there are young people seduced by ISIS, but they generally go and kill people in the middle east, not here.

 

What you are suffering from is media bias. It's more interesting and headline grabbing to write about muslim terrorists, while our homegrown neonazis, well they're just the blokes from next door and will never get the label "terrorist" even if they should get it. How about some numbers for Sweden? Like, actual statistics, from SÄPO (our SUPER SEKKRIT POH-LICE) and BRÅ (association for crime prevention). Now, this is from 99-09 so not super current, but notice the picture? "Högerextrem" means "right wing extremist". "Vit makt" "white power" and "autonom" is the label for the left wing autonomous movement, potentially including stuff like AFA and animal rights activists. You'll note that during this time, the white power people, i.e. the right-wing extremists, commited 14 murder. FOURTEEN MURDERS. The autonomous none and the muslims aren't even listed, although I know some people attacked a dog statue and one blew himself up in Stockholm, but was so cack-handed he only killed himself, albeit unsure if that was before or after 2009 (although the jihadist websites visits are listed).

 

Now, compare this to the news reporting on how crime prone muslims are. See the difference? Even if the threat from muslim terrorists exist, we should be far, FAR more worried about the right-wing extremists. It's like people being worried about plane-crashes when they should be more worried about driving a car.

 

 

EDIT: I might also add that the right-wing extremist movement has gained a lot of traction the last couple of years from publications like Fria Tider and sites like Avpixlat, where they publish personal details (incl. phone no, address, name of children etc) of journalists, left-wing activists and other people who criticise them and then proceed to get online mobs to harass these people, to the point where some journalists had to leave their homes. Only this week the journalist Niklas Orrenius had this happen to him because he revealed a right-wing extremist online pseudonym to the public. That includes people threatening *his children* btw.

 

I might also add that hand-waving away the right-wing extremists in Europe is ignorant in the extreme, as several posters here can tell you. This is not only a Swedish or Norwegian problem, but it exists in most places and unfortunately, it seems there is a lot of ignorance. I can only strongly recommend at least giving Hans Rosling's ignorance project the time of day, to at least get acquaintanced with the fact that ignorance is rife and that no, people around the world aren't ignorant savages, as a rule. Actual numbers are more true than our intuition, and our intuition is often wrong. We tend to overestimate the threat of media hyped, well, threats.

[Enguerrand]

Perhaps strangely, I completely agree with your assessment about social democracy being dead and libertarian robber capitalism overrunning Europe, but to then fold onto oneself and kick the ones further down the ladder, as you suggest we do by barb wiring a fence around our countries is baffling. If you want to be a social democrat, where is your sense of justice, of decency, of solidarity? Should we let children die on the shores of Europe because we prefer to kick downwards instead of taking our politicians to task? Who are, by the way, elected by the people they are supposed to serve. Ideally, at least.

 

 
Because the generous Swedish welfare state can't sustain free immigration. Even the poorest Swedes generally have it better then what counts as middle class in the western world. Unless you are close to independently wealthy chances are your life and economy will improve by a Swedish citizenship or so it used to be.
Currently much of the cost of  immigration is taken from the aid budget, there are counties in Sweden receiving more aid then Mozambique, Swedens greatest foreign aid expense, but eventually welfare will have to be cut and the elderly lowskilled, and sick ethnic swedes will have to answer further for yours and Reinfeldts generosity.

 

The current development is killing social democracy since it erases the concept of Sweden and put the core voting block, what used to be working class, in competition with cheaper immigrant labor hence solidarity with the lower economic strata of society  will cease to be in their interest.

In other words you are turning Sweden into the USA, were only a strong state and a political system controlled by the wealthy, keeps the ethnic religious and cultural differences under control.

I find amusing that people ignore that culturally and ethnically diverse societies are so much more violent, indeed the lion's share of refugees comes from the "culturally enriched" places on earth. I hardly think it's a coincidence that when Sweden ceases to a multi-ethnic state the endless wars stopped and Sweden have now enjoyed 200 years of peace  near absolutely homogeneous and always discouraged deviation from the norms. People accepted paying heavy taxes and heavy social control because they could see the benefits to themselves of order and general prosperity. Now this mindset is disappearing.

 

Swedes live in a bubble so well off that they don't even understand what fighting over limited resources does to humans and societies. Just thinking that you just have to educate people and be nice and all problems will be solved.

It's kinda amusing listening to the Social democratic prime minister and saint Tage Erlander from 1965;

 

"I am convinced that the US government's difficulties, largely due to the fact that in America there is mass unemployment , which makes it natural for many Whites to try to pass the poverty and unemployment onto the black in the belief that they will thus avoid being hit themselves. We Swedes live after all in an infinitely luckier situation. Our country's population is homogeneous , not only in terms of race but also in many other respects. Therefore, we can tackle the unemployment problem in a completely different way , knowing that what we do is one thing which in any case are not influenced by differences in skin color or religion, but that our work gets its motivation exclusively with regard to the issue of unemployment itself. "

[Lyanna Stark]

 
Because the generous Swedish welfare state can't sustain free immigration. Even the poorest Swedes generally have it better then what counts as middle class in the western world. Unless you are close to independently wealthy chances are your life and economy will improve by a Swedish citizenship or so it used to be.
Currently much of the cost of  immigration is taken from the aid budget, there are counties in Sweden receiving more aid then Mozambique, Swedens greatest foreign aid expense, but eventually welfare will have to be cut and the elderly lowskilled, and sick ethnic swedes will have to answer further for yours and Reinfeldts generosity.

 

 

 

:rofl:

 

Yeah, no, not really. Unless you tried to be hilarious on purpose? 

 

 

How about some facts from the OECD instead?

 

 

 

Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards. In Sweden, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 29 185 a year, more than the OECD average of USD 25 908 a year. But there is a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – the top 20% of the population earn more than four times as much as the bottom 20%.

 

On other words, you are totally and utterly wrong.

 

 

I might add that we have some of the fastest increasing income disparities in the OECD, we are falling like a rock in education ranking, and no, Sweden does not look like Tage Erlander's Sweden, nor does it excuse his racism, which is clear in this quote. Unless you seriously think that what went on in Sweden 60 years ago is true today? How about comparing Sweden (or any place really) 1890 with the 1950s in the same way? Indeed, not a great idea.

 

Further, where are your sources for the money for counties (which btw aren't the ones responsible for immigration locally, it's the municipalities) being taken out of the aid budget? Without sourcing I'll call that bullshit.

 

 

 
I find amusing that people ignore that culturally and ethnically diverse societies are so much more violent, indeed the lion's share of refugees comes from the "culturally enriched" places on earth. I hardly think it's a coincidence that when Sweden ceases to a multi-ethnic state the endless wars stopped and Sweden have now enjoyed 200 years of peace  near absolutely homogeneous and always discouraged deviation from the norms. People accepted paying heavy taxes and heavy social control because they could see the benefits to themselves of order and general prosperity. Now this mindset is disappearing.

 

This is so extremely bizarre and so completely wrong knowing some of Sweden's military history. How was Charles XII's wars in Russia or Norway due to "ethnic diversity"? Or before that, what about the 30 year war? That too was due to refugees and ethnic homogenity? How about you give me some example of how the multi-ethnicity of the past impacted our peace and prosperity. I am really really interested in this.

 

 

EDIT: Further, social society in Sweden is already mobilising and preparing. Volunteer participation is up, donations are up and generally all the doom and gloom are not happening. Currently the largest railway company has decided they will no longer add on a fee for people purchasing tickets without ID and they have also removed fees for bringing onboard more than normal luggage, all in order to help refugees get to Sweden. Yep, that is right, I am not a unique little flower.

[Biglose]

 

 

This. So much.

 

Combined with Werthead's point about Germany's demographics and our current fiscal situation (we've never been in better shape, really), this is just about the perfect opportunity to rejuvenate our social security systems before the issue becomes so pressing it damages our economy. Integration will still require a lot of effort; but reforming our social security net to the degree necessary without immigration would require at least as much effort - and leave the refugee issue unsolved.

Please stop the bullshit. What I would give if it would stop. It is the same bullshit, that was flung for the "Energiewende".

Look, if you are scared of an aging population, increase the taxfree income per child from 8.000 to 10.000. Invest in schools, give bonus to the retirment for having raised children and so on.

Honestly, germany is one of the least child friendly places in the west. This Problem is home made and can easily fixed.

How regfuges of whom close to none speak the language and about 15-20% can't read or write any language will be any kind of glorius addition to the labour force, well it is beyond me.

This only works if you take around 50.000-100.000 of those 800.000 and send the rest back home to their countries.

The point is, that taking such lines is highly dangerous, because this is not a situation which will go away in the next two years. We will have to deal with it for the next 4 or more probably.

This generation will be a net loss. (How could it be anything else, talking financially)

And judging the success rate of integration, well it does not even look promising for the futur generations.

One can hope, but one should not make empty promises.

 

If the current german government does not make some real reforms in terms of immigration policy, this could really blow up. You can't use a system which is build to handel 10.000 refugees a year in a nice, perfect on paper fashion to deal with 800.000 or even a million. To go into all the details is a bit too much(it really goes from how crossing the border is a crime which then needs to be addressed with a paper mountain right over to the actually application process to something as general as how hard it is to get a building permit. All actually great in theory for safety and other reasons, but horrible if but to a stress test), but what worries me much more than some right wing extrimists is ideologes who actually want to do the right thing, but have lost touch with reality.

[mormont]

Look, if you are scared of an aging population, increase the taxfree income per child from 8.000 to 10.000. Invest in schools, give bonus to the retirment for having raised children and so on.

 
None of this will have any effect. People do not reduce the number of children they have because they're paying too much tax. It's a lifestyle choice that people in advanced countries (including immigrants) uniformly make. (Of course, this means immigration is a short-term fix, rather than long-term, but to get to the long-term you need to first get through the short-term.)
 

How regfuges of whom close to none speak the language and about 15-20% can't read or write any language

 
Source?
 
I really don't get the implicit suggestion that immigration is a new thing that we don't know how to deal with. Successful immigration has been part of the success of every developed country for most of history.

[Jo498]

Sorry, but that 32 million figure of Professor Unsinn is just nonsense. Most of Germany is very densely populated. If there are only 65 million in 2050 instead of 82 now, this does not mean that the country will not have enough people to sustain its society.

(The population density today is 227/km^2 (cf. France: 98!) It varied from about 90 (1890s) to 135 (1930s) people/km^2 and as we all know this thinly populated Reich was one of the most powerful industrial states of its time. That the almost de-industrialized UK would surpass the industrial powerhouse Germany in a few decades *due to demographics* is similar nonsense. As soon as the North Sea Oil dries up and the London city boys blow their paper money in another crisis the UK will face a completely different set of problems, I am afraid)

 

And obviously, to increase the proportion of foreigners, often from rather different cultures to 30-40% in a country that used to be ethnically very homogeneous (compared to the US or even UK or France) until recently, could bring all kinds of trouble, huge social tensions etc., in any case almost certainly more trouble than a slow decrease in overall population.

 

I am all for helping refugees and for regulated immigration but one should not get carried away by such fantastic figures. There is very obviously an interest here of the corporatist fraction Sinn stands for who want to have as huge a reserve force of cheap labor as possible.

 

In any case, the important thing is to stop screwing up third world countries by military missions and with trade "agreements" that destroy local economies. As long as we do not do this, we are hypocrites.

[Jo498]

The problem with many discussions involving demographics etc. is that they pull some huge extrapolated and accumulated figures (for 2060 or 2070) out of their backsides and ignore that all those changes are very slow. E.g. the birthrate has not changed that much in Germany in the last ca. 40 years. This also shows the comparatively low impact of "family policy" because benefits for having children were probably doubled or more in real money during that time, childcare has been improved etc. although much of this is still not on the level of France or Scandinavia. Extrapolations about the workforce also seem to ignore that we still have unemployment rates north of 10% in some German regions and only the most prosperous ones in the south/west are close to full employment.

They also ignore that there are many potential workers in South/Eastern Europe, much closer in culture than the ones from the Near East or Africa, often also with more marketable skills that would be willing to work in Germany.

 

There are thousands of people, not only in the East of Germany who feel screwed and rather desperate (and especially in the East some of them feel like that since 25 years ago) and many of them are so angry that they do not care that those refugees are far worse off. They only see foreigners getting benefits, taking their jobs, raping their girls etc. All the tired prejudices but those people are too stupid or too desperate to see through them.

[Tijgy]

I believe that we are actually confronted with a lot of different problems at the same time. 

We have of course first the fact that a lot of people are fleeing their homes in Irak and Syria. The entire world is actually obliged to help those people. At this moment Lebanon and Jordan made sure a large number were welcomed there but (understandably) (IIRC) they imposed border restrictions. There are also a lot of refugees in Turkey. No one can deny that those people did indeed fled because their lives were threatened because of the war, ... Actually the whole world has a humanitarian duty to help those people. 

 

Another problem is the fact a large number of people from the Middle-East and African (mostly Syrian) want to go to Europe to escape war and poverty. As a result a lot of people die on their way to Europe when they are crossing the Mediterranean Sea. To stop all those death, Europe, Turkey and Northern African countries has, firstly, the duty to help them if they are in need and, secondly, to diminish the number of people using illegal ways to enter Europe. 

 

The question of course how they can do this. An important thing is of course to investigate, prosecute and punish them (You have then also of course the question who has in godsname the jurisdiction to do this. Do anyone knows if Europe made a treaty about this). But how do you ensure they would stop crossing the ocean? 

 

Another problem is the fact the countries (Greece, Italy and Hungary) are not capable of registering all the people who arrive there. According European law they actually have the obligation to do that and it is also the rule that country is the one who has the obligation to investigate their asylum application, to organize their accommodation, ... However at this stage there are indeed some problems. Greece cannot handle the large number of people arriving on their islands, a lot of refugees actually are upset how they are received by the governments of those countries and they want to go somewhere else in Europe (like Germany and Sweden). This results in the lot of marches of refugees walking, taking the train to Austria, Germany, Sweden from Hungary, Greece, ...

 

In other countries of Europe the governments have also difficulty to handle the registrations. To ensure they would be registered properly according the Dublin registrations, the Belgian secretary of state decided to handle only 250 registrations each day. And (I think he decided it recently) there are only 150 registrations for normal refugees and the other 100 are reserved for the more vulnerable groups (who I think are families with children). When there is no more place for today, they receive a paper saying they can register wednesday, thursday, ... And today they already 150 for friday, meaning there are no places to register this week (however the registration office will probably work at least I think saturday, just like last week). All this people have to wait now in a tent camp before they can be registered. 

 

The last big problem is how a large number of Europeans feel about the fact about this humanitarian problem. First of all, they are wondering where is the help of the other countries? I might be wrong, but does the USA not accept some 70 000 refugees each year? At this moment (small) Belgium will help more than 25 000 refugees this year if you include the obliged quota from Juncker. How many does Japan, the Gulf states, Australia, ...?

 

Furthermore, you have the large internal difference between the EU Countires. Germany and Sweden are more welcoming than for example Hungary, Poland, Spain, Portugal, UK ... Should not every country show solidarity between each other and accept each their own part. Juncker is going to attempt to do that with his quota; but the position of the Eastern countries are somehow taken into consideration and their quota is relatively a lot lower than that of Germany, France, Netherlands, ... 

 

You have also then different opinions in the countries about this issue (like always - I will now concentrate on the Belgian situation. It is the one I am more familiar about). While actually a lot Belgian people are showing solidarity towards de refugees, the Belgian media has actually a really left position, 80 % of the Flemish believe Belgium should not take in more refugees (a large part of them want to give money instead). Are they right to feel this way? 

 

Is it true that their arrival will implode the social security system? Probably not, at this moment they only consist of a very small percentage of the population. So in one way saying this would only scare the population.

 

But on the other side, I think you must not forget during which time they arrived here. The Belgian government has in the beginning of this year put some economy measures through with as a result people need to work longer, young people finishing school does not receive an payment for the social security while they waiting to get a job, people need to pay for going to the university, the electricity bills are higher, ... There is not enough money for our justice system, for our hospitals, ... All this year we have been hearing that everyone must do their own duty to stabilize our economy, ... And now those refugees are coming and there are articles about how much they will cost to our tax payers (our tax freedom day is in august. More than a halve year, they are actually working for the state). They are saying we are going need to pay 120 million extra for this, 80 million for that, ... A lot of cultural projects are not subsidized anymore in Flanders, but the minister of Culture is going to offer cultural initiatives to the refugees. 

 

This is of course not the fault of the refugees. But it does create a feeling for the original population they are actually set aside, that they don't matter much. So there are for example a lot of messages: What about our own poor population? What about the homeless? 

 

(Wow, this is started to get very long!)

[Eyron]

Just had a nice number served to me today from our city's "equality plan" (I don't know any term that this translates to precisely). In this city 23,5% are born outside Sweden. Among the employed by the city (one of the largest employers in the country), 23% are born outside Sweden. Even if you can find inequalities in the distribution of employment between different groups of those not born here, it still shows that the idea to mirror the institutions to the population, by numbers at least, is happening.

[The Fallen]

I wonder why homelessness keeps popping up? It's an entirely different issue.

I don't know about other countries, but here in the US homelessness exists not because we can't afford to take care of them, but because we don't give a fuck about them.

[Biglose]

 
None of this will have any effect. People do not reduce the number of children they have because they're paying too much tax. It's a lifestyle choice that people in advanced countries (including immigrants) uniformly make. (Of course, this means immigration is a short-term fix, rather than long-term, but to get to the long-term you need to first get through the short-term.)
 

 
Source?
 
I really don't get the implicit suggestion that immigration is a new thing that we don't know how to deal with. Successful immigration has been part of the success of every developed country for most of history.

1. Of course more child friendly politics increase the number of children. You already see that in play if you take a look at the city level.

2. (Source) Thomas de Maizière

[mormont]

1. Of course more child friendly politics increase the number of children. You already see that in play if you take a look at the city level.

 
There's no 'of course' about it. Every piece of reputable research I've seen on the subject indicates minimal impact, nothing like enough to tackle the problem, and concludes that more immigration is required for almost every developed country.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/study-german-efforts-to-increase-birthrate-a-failure-a-873635.html

 

http://theconversation.com/the-baby-bonus-failed-to-increase-fertility-but-we-should-still-keep-it-4528

 

http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/archivestory.php/aid/563/Can_governments_influence_population_growth_.html
 

2. (Source) Thomas de Maizière

That's not a source. That's a name. I'm sure the gentleman in question has said many, many things: a link to where he said these specific things would be a source. (See above for examples.)

[Lyanna Stark]

The problem with many discussions involving demographics etc. is that they pull some huge extrapolated and accumulated figures (for 2060 or 2070) out of their backsides and ignore that all those changes are very slow. 

 

Why do you suggest that demographic research consists on figures "pulled out of people's backsides"? There's a lot of work done here, for example this short article from this organisation. 

 

Some highlights:

 

 

of all EU-27 residents will be foreign-born or have at least one foreign-born parent by 2060, according to recent projections. This is roughly twice as much as today, when about 12% have a so defined “foreign background”. Though this proportion might sound high at first, it is actually quite normal in other regions of the world and has been so in the history of Europe. The projections, presented in the latest Demographic Report of Eurostat and the EU Commission, also suggest that without migration from outside the EU the number of Europeans would be smaller by roughly 91 million in 50 years’ time. In this scenario the total size of Europe’s population in 2060 would be just over 516 million, compared to just over 502 million in 2010. 

 

On restrictive policies:

 

 

The authors suggest that restrictive immigration policies, such as those that prevent irregular migrants from establishing legal residency, may result in increased marginalisation. It stops migrants from converting their human capital into careers that would help them to achieve upward social mobility.

 

 

But this is again researchers doing researching based on stuff like logic and statistics and is sourced from Universites and reputable institutes.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

 
There's no 'of course' about it. Every piece of reputable research I've seen on the subject indicates minimal impact, nothing like enough to tackle the problem, and concludes that more immigration is required for almost every developed country.

 

 

 

What those claims fail to take into account, however, are the enormous structural changes that the economies and societies across the world can be expected to go through well before 2070, or whatever other year they choose, due to technological advances. 

 

The most important one is the rise of automation. There are estimates claiming that as many as 50% of all jobs in America* (and thus also the rest of the modern world, generally speaking) may dissapear over the next twenty years. Not because of competition with other countries or because of lack of education or anything like that, but simply because software controlled machines will do them much better and cheaper than any human would.

 

Even if the estimated percentages and time spans vary somewhat depending on the study, it is apparent that this phenomenon is something that 1. will start having a serious impact really soon, not in some distant future, and 2. will lead to very many professions either disappearing or merely employing a fraction of the people they used to. In other words; in the near and mid-term future we in the West are actually going to be looking at an enormous, unprecedented lack of jobs rather than too few workers. Indeed, a significant proportion of the people reading this thread are probably either employed in, or being trained for, professions that will be rendered obsolete well before they reach retirement age. This is especially true if talking about relatively low skilled jobs like industrial workers or drivers. 

 

* http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150603-science-technology-robots-economics-unemployment-automation-ngbooktalk/

*  http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-bots-are-taking-away-jobs-2014-3?IR=T 

 

This is a very significant development that intellectuals, economists and other people have started discussing, but even so has yet to become a political question at all. It is also of critical importance to discussions about this supposed need for mass immigration to Europe, that is necessary in order to sustain our economies here, for obvious reasons. 

 

Furthermore, if we are discussing 2070 and onwards it would honestly make sense to also take into account possible life extension technology. That is a research field that has lots of potential for progress until then, and which could of course be of paramount importance to anything related to economy or demographics, or most other questions for that matter. 

[Jo498]

In Germany some of the loudest so-called "demographers" are for all practical purposes paid lobbyists of the circles who already have quite successfully destroyed the public pension system in favor of private insurance companies.

 

There are projections according to models and if one would do this properly the error bars and alternative models would be explicitly mentioned. Often only a "worst case" is described in popular articles. The manipulation is simply not to be believed. This may not be true of the institute you link to but it holds for many panicky articles in newspapers and magazines.

 

Apart from the question (that should be treated as open) whether 65 million inhabitants in Germany really is a problem (that would be 182/km^2, still 1.8 as densely populated as France today! and unless Britain, France and Italy would grow still roughly as many inhabitants as those three) one gets those shocking "gaps" in the following way: Extrapolate with a model with the "worst" birthrate and *no* immigration and then compare today to 2050 or 2070, so of course you get a huge gap. 32 million still loses me, that would be >40% of the populace from 8-19% today depending on whether you count everyone with a parent not born in Germany. Would anyone believe that tripling the percentage of foreigners in a formerly ethically rather homogeneous society would not imply huge social tensions? But the current immigration rate is already about 300,000 or more p.a. in the last decade or so. So the model is completely unrealistic.

 

For those who read German, here a critical article on the use of demographics by a statistician:

http://www.taz.de/!5049986/
 

Don't get me wrong, I just think that the moral and practical questions of helping refugees should not be confounded with dubious instrumentalist thinking because of demographics. I think there is a political agenda behind the panicky demographics reports and I strongly dislike this agenda.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Population per area is the wrong measurement. Dependants per worker would be the right one and here the demographics are far from optimal. Too many old people to feed and treat for too few people in working age.