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I’d like to point out that the open door policy to refugees came because Europe was trying to escape the demographic trap and the collapse of the social safety

I’d like to point out that the open door policy to refugees came because Europe was trying to escape the demographic trap and the collapse of the social safety net. The hope was that young refugees would become net positive GDP contributors for decades, an idea borrowed from the US. If that has failed, it’s due to a failure of integration. Europe can actually be quite a racist place and in many ways the US is better at offering big opportunities to immigrants and encouraging them to become big tax contributors. The US’s secret sauce is that the only real cultural purity it has to protect is consumer capitalism.

lyu07282 3y ago
The US’s secret sauce is that is an empire that can, will and does constantly project its massive military and clandestine power around the world to further its interests at all times, while never having to deal with any of its blowback. And then americans laugh at the EU welcoming refugees you created in the first place, or pretend the EU is socialist while laughing at its massive energy crisis caused by its completely batshit insane liberalized energy market. We are ruled by atlanticist neoliberals you put there in the first place.
- voz_ 3y ago
  This is nonsense. Blaming it on US policy is insanely narrow, and ignores years of colonial interest from almost every European nation.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  I’d largely agree with that, though I originally meant the secret sauce that gets better results out of immigrants. The effects of empire go far beyond military. The monetary dominance serves as a hidden tax on all other currencies as the US enjoys more money creation than other central banks can manage. The US prints and the world gets the inflation consequences. Plus the cultural dominance lets the US reshape the world economy, legal systems and behavior to suit the interests of US companies. And yes, there is massive political interference and an absolute fit when foreign governments don’t bend the knee. Your big mistake here is to imply some kind of us vs them. Regular Americans are not laughing at you, they are under the same boot heel that you are. This whole system is for the benefit of maybe a few thousand or tens of thousands of incredibly rich and powerful people. They don’t care about the citizenship of of the people they are exploiting. Actually, people in the EU have done a better job fighting back for more comfortable lives for all. Working class Americans are a lost cause.
- selectodude 3y ago
  Pretty sure Europe's massive energy crisis is an own goal caused by replacing all their energy generation with Russian natgas.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    The own goal was buying the gas in the first place!
    - nonethewiser 3y ago
      Is that not what he just said? Surely a prime example is Germany shutting down nuclear and and bypassing Ukraine as a Russian natural gas hub woth Nord Stream 2. Whoops.
      - severino 3y ago
        That was not the mistake. The mistake was not to put NS2 into operation due to pressure from the US, and now, cutting ties with Russia while you keep shutting down your nuclear.
- philwelch 3y ago
  > We are ruled by atlanticist neoliberals you put there in the first place. And who exactly was running continental Europe before that?
- blibble 3y ago
  pretty certain it's the germans that decided to use the russian gas meanwhile the US was pretty upset about the idea
  - dougmwne 3y ago
    It was economical to buy the Russian gas delivered by pipeline. The US wanted to sell its more expensive LNG. And it ended up getting its wish after it supported a western aligned Ukraine and while no one wants to claim responsibility for blowing up nordstream, someone definitely blew it up and it helped cement the US as the gas supplier of Europe. I think the message is clear that it’s best not to upset the US.
    - blibble 3y ago
      > It was economical to buy the Russian gas delivered by pipeline. see I can understand this logic pre 2014, but post 2014 (i.e. Crimea), absolutely not the euros paid to putin were used to re-arm and those weapons are now being used in Ukraine and if he wins then Eastern Europe is next in line but yes germans saved 2% on their gas bills for 10 years
      - FpUser 3y ago
        >"and if he wins then Eastern Europe is next in line" I doubt Putin is suicidal. Eastern Europe is in NATO, hence protected.
        blibble 3y ago
        it'll never be so obvious that NATO can declare it as an attack you've seen the playbook in ukraine twice now there will be an russian speaking minority in estonia/lithuania/... that will that rebel against anti russian oppression, guerilla warfare against the authorities, then they'll hold an rigged referendum, then a decade later the Russian government will formally annex what they've effectively controlled for years he won't send tanks across the border that will trigger Article 5
- hirvi74 3y ago
  > We are ruled by atlanticist neoliberals you put there in the first place You all created us. So, you all are technically responsible for your own problems. ;)
sangnoir 3y ago
> I’d like to point out that the open door policy to refugees came because Europe was trying to escape the demographic trap and the collapse of the social safety net. Also, the US was bombing a couple of Middle Eastern countries then: creating the said refugees who could reach Europe on foot and/or boat, but not the American mainland .
- dougmwne 3y ago
  It’s true, but as cold hearted as it is, they didn’t have to let them in. Poland sure decided to pick and choose. The Greeks are not having it either. One day there will be a massive wave of climate refugees rushing out of the uninhabitable zone and there will be US soldiers in the border guard towers with flamethrowers. The US will welcome immigrants when it suits them and roast them when it doesn’t. As I am in Berlin right now I’ll remind us it wouldn’t be the first time people on top of a wall had kill on sight orders.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    > One day there will be a massive wave of climate refugees rushing out of the uninhabitable zone Are you talking about Canada?
    - dougmwne 3y ago
      Sorry to break it to you, but by the end of the century Canada will be the bread basket of America. Go quietly and pretend like it was your idea and you may even get statehood.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - gruez 3y ago
      Are you saying canada will be uninhabitable, or people will be going to canada?
- refulgentis 3y ago
  No, the US was not causing massive Syrian refugee flows to Europe by bombing Syria.
rafaelero 3y ago
In a developed country, low-skilled labor will be a net negative even if well integrated. That's the definition of being below the average of the recipient country.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  In the US, the immigrant labor does not stay low skilled for long or was never low skilled in the first place. See: tech company CEOs
  - csmiller 3y ago
    I assume they were referring to seasonal farm worker types, who don’t seem to experience as much social mobility.
- xxpor 3y ago
  Evidence? Evidence against: https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf
  - rafaelero 3y ago
    The evidence is math. Even if you have a flat rate and everyone in the population is equally benefitted with social services, there are 50% of people who are contributing less than they take and 50% who are contributing more than they take. That looks even worse when we relax the flax rate assumption (most countries have progressive taxation) and the amount of social benefits a given segment receives (poor people tend to cost more). The only way to counteract that is if those low-skilled workers can generate more wealth (in the form of GDP and taxation) than they are consuming from public service, which of course will depend from country to country (the ones that have a higher social welfare will require higher output to be produced by the low-skilled immigrant to make the costs neutral). But then they won't be low-skilled anymore, they will be median or high-skilled. Edit: the paper you linked mention the effect over wages, not over tax revenue and spending.
carlosjobim 3y ago
That's just untrue. Open door for refugees has always been motivated by humanitarian reasons by European rulers. Otherwise other immigrants would do just as fine or better.
onetimeusename 3y ago
> due to a failure of integration. whose failure? Why are Europeans the default racists? The US is not even integrated and is going through large scale migration right now that has never happened before so the success of US integration is still too early to say. What does integration look like because the US has ethnic enclaves, everyone knows that. It's absolutely right that the US promoted demographic change to Europe who followed along but the migrants lack the skills who arrive and I don't think this even solves the problem. It may exacerbate the demographic trap for various reasons.
- fakedang 3y ago
  European people aren't called racists as much as they are called deluded and self-righteous. The European govts were so confident of being in the right that they failed to counter the social changes happening in their own backyards, while lecturing other countries on their policies. And by Europeans here, I mean the EU, the govt of some individual WE countries and a small minority of vocal activist personalities who haven't got any other purpose in life. Most run of the mill folks I meet are either strongly opposed or negatively indifferent to migrants, in direct opposition of their govts. Most countries could have just said no to migrants, like Poland, Greece and Switzerland did. But they all wanted to play the self-righteous card.
  - modo_mario 3y ago
    I think you forget that many of the southern countries that did say no to immigrants (recognizing that most of those did not intend to stay in their countries but they ended up stuck with them when faced with more closed borders) pushed for a redistribution scheme. In fact when italy didn't have french backing for this they did what a few balkan countries had been doing and simply bussed migrants to the border which caused a quick reversal of stance. Additionally many blame the likes of Merkel for the self righteous stance unaware of the fact that she (and her Dutch partners and such) had the greatest effect on building down inflow with an agreement she started brokering with turkey well before her famous comment. On the other hand fences and hard rhetoric in Hungary or the like did not visibly affect the numbers of incoming refugees.
gruez 3y ago
>I’d like to point out that the open door policy to refugees came because Europe was trying to escape the demographic trap and the collapse of the social safety net. This sounds like post hoc justification. If you want immigrants, wouldn't you want to pick the best and brightest, rather than whoever washes up on your shore?
- smileysteve 3y ago
  The US needs agricultural workers (and fills this with h2b visas) and restaurant (including fast food) staff over the last 10 years but accelerating with the baby boomer retirements (also accelerated by COVID).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 8note 3y ago
  Depends on what you need -- chemical engineers can make for good pizza delivery guys, but that's not making the best use of them
  - gruez 3y ago
    But all things being equal, wouldn't you rather have an immigrant who * speaks the local language * is highly educated (eg. post-secondary degree) * is young * has expertise in an in-demand industry than one who is missing one or more of the above? For non-refugees, you can screen for the above factors and only admit the ones who are qualified, but for refugees you can't.
    - amrocha 3y ago
      No, because then you have no one to do manual jobs because the native well educated youth won't take those.
      - gruez 3y ago
        >then you have no one to do manual jobs And that's fine, because those jobs can either be automated, outsourced, done domestically (ie. driving yourself rather than getting delivery), or at worst case paying more. All things being equal I'd rather have a chemical engineer who can do chemical engineering and deliver pizza, than someone who can only deliver pizza.
tinus_hn 3y ago
I don’t doubt the intention and I don’t blame those people either; if you work really hard and still live in poverty it’s only logical to move to a country where you can live reasonably on handouts. It’s just not sustainable. The statistics are clear, these are just facts.
raverbashing 3y ago
> idea borrowed from the US. If that has failed, it’s due to a failure of integration. Yeah, that sounds like 'blaming the victim' This is not a magical solution where you bring people and the GDP magically increases It works in the US due to a variety of factors, but I agree with you that being a bit less racist at the same time pushing them to success (read: sink or swim) helps. Oh and the US has much less tolerance for people who come with bad intent and deports a lot more

lyu07282 3y ago

The US’s secret sauce is that is an empire that can, will and does constantly project its massive military and clandestine power around the world to further its interests at all times, while never having to deal with any of its blowback. And then americans laugh at the EU welcoming refugees you created in the first place, or pretend the EU is socialist while laughing at its massive energy crisis caused by its completely batshit insane liberalized energy market. We are ruled by atlanticist neoliberals you put there in the first place.

voz_ 3y ago
This is nonsense. Blaming it on US policy is insanely narrow, and ignores years of colonial interest from almost every European nation.
dougmwne 3y ago
I’d largely agree with that, though I originally meant the secret sauce that gets better results out of immigrants. The effects of empire go far beyond military. The monetary dominance serves as a hidden tax on all other currencies as the US enjoys more money creation than other central banks can manage. The US prints and the world gets the inflation consequences. Plus the cultural dominance lets the US reshape the world economy, legal systems and behavior to suit the interests of US companies. And yes, there is massive political interference and an absolute fit when foreign governments don’t bend the knee. Your big mistake here is to imply some kind of us vs them. Regular Americans are not laughing at you, they are under the same boot heel that you are. This whole system is for the benefit of maybe a few thousand or tens of thousands of incredibly rich and powerful people. They don’t care about the citizenship of of the people they are exploiting. Actually, people in the EU have done a better job fighting back for more comfortable lives for all. Working class Americans are a lost cause.
selectodude 3y ago
Pretty sure Europe's massive energy crisis is an own goal caused by replacing all their energy generation with Russian natgas.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  The own goal was buying the gas in the first place!
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Is that not what he just said? Surely a prime example is Germany shutting down nuclear and and bypassing Ukraine as a Russian natural gas hub woth Nord Stream 2. Whoops.
    - severino 3y ago
      That was not the mistake. The mistake was not to put NS2 into operation due to pressure from the US, and now, cutting ties with Russia while you keep shutting down your nuclear.
philwelch 3y ago
> We are ruled by atlanticist neoliberals you put there in the first place. And who exactly was running continental Europe before that?
blibble 3y ago
pretty certain it's the germans that decided to use the russian gas meanwhile the US was pretty upset about the idea
- dougmwne 3y ago
  It was economical to buy the Russian gas delivered by pipeline. The US wanted to sell its more expensive LNG. And it ended up getting its wish after it supported a western aligned Ukraine and while no one wants to claim responsibility for blowing up nordstream, someone definitely blew it up and it helped cement the US as the gas supplier of Europe. I think the message is clear that it’s best not to upset the US.
  - blibble 3y ago
    > It was economical to buy the Russian gas delivered by pipeline. see I can understand this logic pre 2014, but post 2014 (i.e. Crimea), absolutely not the euros paid to putin were used to re-arm and those weapons are now being used in Ukraine and if he wins then Eastern Europe is next in line but yes germans saved 2% on their gas bills for 10 years
    - FpUser 3y ago
      >"and if he wins then Eastern Europe is next in line" I doubt Putin is suicidal. Eastern Europe is in NATO, hence protected.
      - blibble 3y ago
        it'll never be so obvious that NATO can declare it as an attack you've seen the playbook in ukraine twice now there will be an russian speaking minority in estonia/lithuania/... that will that rebel against anti russian oppression, guerilla warfare against the authorities, then they'll hold an rigged referendum, then a decade later the Russian government will formally annex what they've effectively controlled for years he won't send tanks across the border that will trigger Article 5
hirvi74 3y ago
> We are ruled by atlanticist neoliberals you put there in the first place You all created us. So, you all are technically responsible for your own problems. ;)

sangnoir 3y ago

> I’d like to point out that the open door policy to refugees came because Europe was trying to escape the demographic trap and the collapse of the social safety net. Also, the US was bombing a couple of Middle Eastern countries then: creating the said refugees who could reach Europe on foot and/or boat, but not the American mainland .

dougmwne 3y ago
It’s true, but as cold hearted as it is, they didn’t have to let them in. Poland sure decided to pick and choose. The Greeks are not having it either. One day there will be a massive wave of climate refugees rushing out of the uninhabitable zone and there will be US soldiers in the border guard towers with flamethrowers. The US will welcome immigrants when it suits them and roast them when it doesn’t. As I am in Berlin right now I’ll remind us it wouldn’t be the first time people on top of a wall had kill on sight orders.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  > One day there will be a massive wave of climate refugees rushing out of the uninhabitable zone Are you talking about Canada?
  - dougmwne 3y ago
    Sorry to break it to you, but by the end of the century Canada will be the bread basket of America. Go quietly and pretend like it was your idea and you may even get statehood.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 3y ago
    Are you saying canada will be uninhabitable, or people will be going to canada?
refulgentis 3y ago
No, the US was not causing massive Syrian refugee flows to Europe by bombing Syria.

rafaelero 3y ago

In a developed country, low-skilled labor will be a net negative even if well integrated. That's the definition of being below the average of the recipient country.

dougmwne 3y ago
In the US, the immigrant labor does not stay low skilled for long or was never low skilled in the first place. See: tech company CEOs
- csmiller 3y ago
  I assume they were referring to seasonal farm worker types, who don’t seem to experience as much social mobility.
xxpor 3y ago
Evidence? Evidence against: https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf
- rafaelero 3y ago
  The evidence is math. Even if you have a flat rate and everyone in the population is equally benefitted with social services, there are 50% of people who are contributing less than they take and 50% who are contributing more than they take. That looks even worse when we relax the flax rate assumption (most countries have progressive taxation) and the amount of social benefits a given segment receives (poor people tend to cost more). The only way to counteract that is if those low-skilled workers can generate more wealth (in the form of GDP and taxation) than they are consuming from public service, which of course will depend from country to country (the ones that have a higher social welfare will require higher output to be produced by the low-skilled immigrant to make the costs neutral). But then they won't be low-skilled anymore, they will be median or high-skilled. Edit: the paper you linked mention the effect over wages, not over tax revenue and spending.

carlosjobim 3y ago

That's just untrue. Open door for refugees has always been motivated by humanitarian reasons by European rulers. Otherwise other immigrants would do just as fine or better.

onetimeusename 3y ago

> due to a failure of integration. whose failure? Why are Europeans the default racists? The US is not even integrated and is going through large scale migration right now that has never happened before so the success of US integration is still too early to say. What does integration look like because the US has ethnic enclaves, everyone knows that. It's absolutely right that the US promoted demographic change to Europe who followed along but the migrants lack the skills who arrive and I don't think this even solves the problem. It may exacerbate the demographic trap for various reasons.

fakedang 3y ago
European people aren't called racists as much as they are called deluded and self-righteous. The European govts were so confident of being in the right that they failed to counter the social changes happening in their own backyards, while lecturing other countries on their policies. And by Europeans here, I mean the EU, the govt of some individual WE countries and a small minority of vocal activist personalities who haven't got any other purpose in life. Most run of the mill folks I meet are either strongly opposed or negatively indifferent to migrants, in direct opposition of their govts. Most countries could have just said no to migrants, like Poland, Greece and Switzerland did. But they all wanted to play the self-righteous card.
- modo_mario 3y ago
  I think you forget that many of the southern countries that did say no to immigrants (recognizing that most of those did not intend to stay in their countries but they ended up stuck with them when faced with more closed borders) pushed for a redistribution scheme. In fact when italy didn't have french backing for this they did what a few balkan countries had been doing and simply bussed migrants to the border which caused a quick reversal of stance. Additionally many blame the likes of Merkel for the self righteous stance unaware of the fact that she (and her Dutch partners and such) had the greatest effect on building down inflow with an agreement she started brokering with turkey well before her famous comment. On the other hand fences and hard rhetoric in Hungary or the like did not visibly affect the numbers of incoming refugees.

gruez 3y ago

>I’d like to point out that the open door policy to refugees came because Europe was trying to escape the demographic trap and the collapse of the social safety net. This sounds like post hoc justification. If you want immigrants, wouldn't you want to pick the best and brightest, rather than whoever washes up on your shore?

smileysteve 3y ago
The US needs agricultural workers (and fills this with h2b visas) and restaurant (including fast food) staff over the last 10 years but accelerating with the baby boomer retirements (also accelerated by COVID).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
8note 3y ago
Depends on what you need -- chemical engineers can make for good pizza delivery guys, but that's not making the best use of them
- gruez 3y ago
  But all things being equal, wouldn't you rather have an immigrant who * speaks the local language * is highly educated (eg. post-secondary degree) * is young * has expertise in an in-demand industry than one who is missing one or more of the above? For non-refugees, you can screen for the above factors and only admit the ones who are qualified, but for refugees you can't.
  - amrocha 3y ago
    No, because then you have no one to do manual jobs because the native well educated youth won't take those.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >then you have no one to do manual jobs And that's fine, because those jobs can either be automated, outsourced, done domestically (ie. driving yourself rather than getting delivery), or at worst case paying more. All things being equal I'd rather have a chemical engineer who can do chemical engineering and deliver pizza, than someone who can only deliver pizza.

tinus_hn 3y ago

I don’t doubt the intention and I don’t blame those people either; if you work really hard and still live in poverty it’s only logical to move to a country where you can live reasonably on handouts. It’s just not sustainable. The statistics are clear, these are just facts.

raverbashing 3y ago

> idea borrowed from the US. If that has failed, it’s due to a failure of integration. Yeah, that sounds like 'blaming the victim' This is not a magical solution where you bring people and the GDP magically increases It works in the US due to a variety of factors, but I agree with you that being a bit less racist at the same time pushing them to success (read: sink or swim) helps. Oh and the US has much less tolerance for people who come with bad intent and deports a lot more