[helene_t]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-15, 15:55, said:

imposition on member states by the EU's governing body of immigration quotas — which is, it seems to me, what Brussels is trying to do.

Are you refering to stories like this one from the guardian about the libyan boat refugees? http://www.theguardi...erranean-crisis

I find it a little difficult to think of an alternative. Maybe someone can come up with a better solution. How does the US deal with the recent refugee waves from central america? Does the federal government have a policy at all or do they just leave it to the states?

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2015-May-16, 12:08, said:

Are you refering to stories like this one from the guardian about the libyan boat refugees? http://www.theguardi...erranean-crisis

I find it a little difficult to think of an alternative. Maybe someone can come up with a better solution. How does the US deal with the recent refugee waves from central america? Does the federal government have a policy at all or do they just leave it to the states?

Maybe the Australian solution is the best. Don't allow them onshore (or out of secured accommodation) while their applications are being processed -- failed asylum seekers are a big part of the problem, because they stay illegally.

For the people whose asylum applications succeed, the affected countries could give money for the additional infrastructure needed to a country that is not already overcrowded; say, Greenland.

[hrothgar]

Vampyr, on 2015-May-16, 12:36, said:

For the people whose asylum applications succeed, the affected countries could give money for the additional infrastructure needed to a country that is not already overcrowded; say, Greenland.

Is so nice when you detest a person and then find whole new reasons to despise them...

[kenberg]

helene_t, on 2015-May-16, 12:08, said:

Are you refering to stories like this one from the guardian about the libyan boat refugees? http://www.theguardi...erranean-crisis

I find it a little difficult to think of an alternative. Maybe someone can come up with a better solution. How does the US deal with the recent refugee waves from central america? Does the federal government have a policy at all or do they just leave it to the states?

I read the reference you cite. It is truly chilling. They are referring to 400,000 as being two-two thirds the number of refugees the EU had last year. Ok, 600,000 last year. So this is a rate, 600,000 per year. The numbers are not getting smaller, as far as I know.

You ask how we handle our refugees from Central America. Well, mostly I don't really know, but I think the answer is very ineffectively. And I think our problems are less severe. I don't mean that they aren't substantial but I think the situation you face over there is much more difficult to solve. And, for you and for us, I expect it to get worse rather than better.

I think we have to address the following: If a sizable fraction of the population of country X can no longer survive in their own country and so decide to move to country Y, what are the obligations of country Y? In practical terms I doubt that there is much point in saying that these obligations go much beyond what country Y is willing to take on. Once it is settled that it is pointless to try to browbeat country Y into doing someting it has no intention of doing then possibly this will make it easier for country Y to at least do something. People who are trying to do something can get really tired of hearing from others that they are not doing enough.


From the article, it seems the immediate need is to deal with the traffickers. Whether traffic is bootleg whiskey or desperate people, dealing with this is tough.

So I don't have an answer. Neither do the people who say to just take them all in. Well, it's an answer, but you know what I mean.

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2015-May-16, 11:06, said:

I may well have been. You seem to be confusing things I wrote and this I didn't write. Please stop it.

I can't stop being confused. You can stop me from being confused by clarifying what your opinion is.

Are you now for or against allowing people to work and live in other countries (obviously including the U.K.)?

A simple answer of "for" to that question should remove all the confusion.
And if the answer is "against", the question remains why you allow yourself to live and work in other countries, but not other people.

Rik

[Aberlour10]

Germany alone expects more than 400.00 this year and the problems to handle it increase rapidly.

This mass exodus from the Middle East and Africa is one of the long term results of the Washintgtons and Brussels policy in these regions. Our genial strategists wanted to bring democracy to Iraq. Syria and Libya,..at the and we have there completely failed states.
The western interventions and support brought not the freedom and human rights but helped to turn this states into the killing fields with millions of refugees.
Did they thought about it in Brussels and Washington before? Ok the bloody despots are dead or fight like Assad the last stand. Are the things better? Not really, they remain the hell on earth. Did Cameron and Sarkozy know what will come after their "hurra bombing" in Lybia? Not really.

etc etc

All I want to say ...the current refugee desaster is partially self made, but any western politicans would concede its true

[Trinidad]

Aberlour10, on 2015-May-17, 05:00, said:

All I want to say ...the current refugee desaster is partially self made, but any western politicans would concede its true

I agree.

In stores the rule is: "You break it, you buy it."

In international politics the rule should be: "You bomb it, you take the refugees."

Rik

[helene_t]

kenberg, on 2015-May-16, 20:55, said:

So I don't have an answer. Neither do the people who say to just take them all in. Well, it's an answer, but you know what I mean.

400,000 is a manageable number, I think. 400,000 per year over a long period less so. A rapidly growing rate (for example encouraged by a more liberal immigration policy) even less.

A few cases will be easy to deal with: those that have a right to asylum will get it. Many are citizens of some West African country which is safe enough and should in principle be deported but it is not so easy to deport people who don't have passports and whose nationality is difficult to establish.

[mike777]

StevenG, on 2015-May-16, 02:18, said:

Why?

We are a country that used to be industrialised, but have been persuaded by the neo-liberal economic consensus that we can exist by providing services. We have a huge trading deficit with the rest of the world. Basically, we consume more than we create. Adding even more people imto the mix, who expect a similar standard of living, while working predominantly in the service sector, in my view, make the country poorer than richer, although this won't be seen in the short term. Yes, they make the very rich richer, but that's because they drag down labour costs and make the poor poorer.

Add in the fact that our infrastructure isn't coping with the increases in population, and the necessity to be able to control our population levels seems obvious.

We are not the USA which is a modern country founded by immigration - we are an old country that is overpopulated and struggling to continue to provide a standard of life to our present population that they expect. Maybe if we could find ways of reinvigorating industy, it would help. Maybe if we could find ways of regenerating the poorer parts of the country, rather than have almost everything in London and the south-east, it would help. But I don't see it happening, especially while neo-liberalism remains dominant. (Just how does selling each other insurance provide the right to be able to buy in tangible essentials like food and energy from abroad?)

Good grief!

You seem to know the basic problem but frozen in place to do something about it.

The UK is not overpopulated...there is plenty of room, plenty of resources. The greatest most important resource, human capital of the immigrants themselves. They add to human capital, not subtract.

Again you and other posters talk of costs and yes there are costs. But you seem to have no idea of the benefits, the benefits of young, hard working immigrants. For some reason you seem to think this will only benefit the tiny tiny few at the top and not you!.

the kind of thinking you and others show why much of western Europe is viewed as a museum, an old museum resistant to young people with new ideas.

[StevenG]

mike777, on 2015-May-17, 06:42, said:

The UK is not overpopulated...there is plenty of room, plenty of resources. The greatest most important resource, human capital of the immigrants themselves. They add to human capital, not subtract.

Nonsense.

[Trinidad]

StevenG, on 2015-May-17, 06:44, said:

Nonsense.

Perhsps so, but it would be nice if you would provide some arguments. a line of reasoning, or a reference to some authority why it is nonsense.

In a discussion forum, we discuss, we do not simply throw around qualifications.

Rik

[Trinidad]

Trinidad, on 2015-May-17, 08:22, said:

In a discussion forum, we discuss, we do not simply throw around qualifications.

Bull sh-t!

(Before someone else takes the opportunity. )

Rik

[kenberg]

As to whether immigration is beneficial. It can be, often is. But before we sign on to the idea that immigration is always beneficial we might explore whether the European immigration to North America four hundred or so years ago was beneficial to, say, the Comanches. All those nice Pilgrims, fleeing oppression, coming to join them. Increasing the human capital. OK, the Commanches are in the West. But you get the idea. Make it the Iroquois.

OK, probably no one wants to go back 400 years.

I would start with the following;

When discussing immigration, Mike sees opportunity for the EU. To the best of my (meager) knowledge, even the strongest proponents of the EU plan explain it as an obligation to relieve dire human suffering. It is vital to sort out which way this is seen. If it is opportunity, then there can be no objection to letting this opportunity pass us by. End of discussion. If it is an effort to relieve suffering, then we get down to the brass tacks of what reasonably can be done.

[blackshoe]

I looked up a couple of numbers (not immigration numbers). Europe is very slightly larger than the US (3.9 million square miles vs. 3.8 million, roughly) and has about twice the population (740 million vs. 320 million). So twice the population density (188/sq. mile vs. 90) (figures from wikipedia). So it seems likely Europe is less able to absorb large numbers of immigrants than is the US. Nonetheless we both have problems in this area. Europe has the additional problem that however much Brussels might want to be the European equivalent to Washington D.C., it's not (yet). In the US we pay lip service to the concept of "sovereign states" but in the end Washington is the boss. In Europe the individual states are still truly sovereign.

There are two questions here: what to do about the large number of refugees from war-torn African and Middle-Eastern countries (many of whom, btw, follow a "minority" faith from the viewpoint of the countries to which they're trying to emigrate), and whether Brussels has the authority to force member states of the EU to accept numbers of refugees as specified by Brussels. I don't know the answer to the first question, but I'm pretty sure the answer to the second is "hell no!"

I wonder what would happen in the US if say northeastern states — or Alaska or Hawai'i — were told by Washington they had to take a number of Mexican or other Hispanic (or other) "illegals". Might lead to some very "interesting times".

[StevenG]

Trinidad, on 2015-May-17, 08:22, said:

Perhsps so, but it would be nice if you would provide some arguments. a line of reasoning, or a reference to some authority why it is nonsense.
In a discussion forum, we discuss, we do not simply throw around qualifications.

I outlined my basic argument in my original post. Mike made analysis-free statements as an article of faith.

Perhaps someone could tell me where all these people live. We have a massive housing crisis already building up. Doubtless, there are large areas of the UK that are underpopulated, but there are no jobs there. We are becoming less and less self-sufficient in food; the situation is becoming irreversible as we build on good quality agricultural land to house people. We have an energy crisis looming; it is acknowledged that the lights might start to go out regularly over the next decade. The more people we have, the more energy we need, and we cannot satisfy those needs, at least in the short to medium term. Our transport system is at breaking point, especially for those who commute into London.

The problems are substantial and population growth exacerbates them. I see no solutions.

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2015-May-17, 05:55, said:

A few cases will be easy to deal with: those that have a right to asylum will get it. Many are citizens of some West African country which is safe enough and should in principle be deported but it is not so easy to deport people who don't have passports and whose nationality is difficult to establish.

Plus how do you even find them?

[Vampyr]

StevenG, on 2015-May-17, 10:16, said:

Our transport system is at breaking point, especially for those who commute into London.

Just transport?

[mike777]

StevenG, on 2015-May-17, 10:16, said:

I outlined my basic argument in my original post. Mike made analysis-free statements as an article of faith.

Perhaps someone could tell me where all these people live. We have a massive housing crisis already building up. Doubtless, there are large areas of the UK that are underpopulated, but there are no jobs there. We are becoming less and less self-sufficient in food; the situation is becoming irreversible as we build on good quality agricultural land to house people. We have an energy crisis looming; it is acknowledged that the lights might start to go out regularly over the next decade. The more people we have, the more energy we need, and we cannot satisfy those needs, at least in the short to medium term. Our transport system is at breaking point, especially for those who commute into London.

The problems are substantial and population growth exacerbates them. I see no solutions.

YOu keep stating and then missing your own point.

the problem is not too much population, it is too little growth, economic growth.
You state you see no solutions, I offer a partial solution, a first step, an imperfect first step with costs and headaches.

Immigration is one variable in the solution. They bring human capital. Human capital is the solution, not the problem.

Again you seem to see no benefits to immigration.

You ask me to list a benefit, I do, then you ignore it.

the immigrants pay taxes, they become nurses and doctors, they join the military and defend the country. They bring youth and vitality and energy, yes energy. And yes they bring costs, and headaches. They as part of capitalism bring destruction of jobs and companies but they also create.

The UK and much of western Europe seem to prefer to protect the pie, the economic pie, with less population and more protection for existing jobs rather than permit destruction and creativity. To be fair, very fair this attitude is here in the USA as well.

Churchill

Churchill was a child of an immigrant.

BBO was founded by an immigrant.
----------------
--------------

In any event if the UK does not want them I hope the USA will take them with open arms. They remind of the Cuban boat people and the Vietnam boat people.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-17, 09:52, said:

I looked up a couple of numbers (not immigration numbers). Europe is very slightly larger than the US (3.9 million square miles vs. 3.8 million, roughly) and has about twice the population (740 million vs. 320 million). So twice the population density (188/sq. mile vs. 90) (figures from wikipedia). So it seems likely Europe is less able to absorb large numbers of immigrants than is the US.

The area of the European Union (1,707,642 sq mi) is less than half that of Europe.

[blackshoe]

hrothgar, on 2015-May-17, 18:22, said:

The area of the European Union (1,707,642 sq mi) is less than half that of Europe.

Which only exacerbates the problem.