The Refugees’ Destination

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Clarissa

August 28, 2015

An article in El Pais points out that almost all of the refugees who come to Hungary are not planning to stay. Their real destination is Germany or Sweden. And what do Germany and Sweden have that countries like Hungary don’t? Exactly.

There is a lot of discussion of what the refugees are fleeing (war, poverty, etc.) but not nearly enough of what they are traveling towards. For instance, these refugees don’t seem interested in fleeing to Russia, in spite of its very porous and extremely long border and its depopulated areas that could easily house a hundred million people. Even Serbia and Hungary – peaceful and prosperous countries – are of no interest.

No, the refugee wave is moving towards a very specific destination. Germany and Sweden stand for “the most robust welfare systems in the world.” That’s the refugees’ goal.

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4 responses to “The Refugees’ Destination”

Vic Crain

August 28, 2015

Confounding factor: jobs. People actually want to work.

I understand them. I want to work, too. I work for myself in part because, at 62, I’m unemployable in the corporate world, despite degrees from Chicago and Princeton and decades of 6-figure salaries. I have 2.5 years to 65 and Medicare coverage — right now I have no health insurance.

In my business (research) I’ve known people who worked until they died. I’ve known people, faced with medical crises, who simply shot themselves.

I’ll be OK, I think, because I can work in my field, I no longer have to travel for anything, I have some loyal clients and have started growing the client base again. My wife may be able to contribute from her writing. Most people aren’t that fortunate.

In my view, most younger people are incredibly naive.

You need upwards of 1.5 million in investment assets for any degree of financial security (and yes, I can prove that number) and most people are lucky to have a small fraction of that. The average savings at retirement is $30,000, not enough to last a year.

That’s why I react as strongly as I do to comments about welfare. No one is entitled to wealth, and the likelihood of keeping current wealth is actually less than 50%. Unless you are a 2%er, the statistics say that you will need welfare at some point in your life. Of course, whether you choose to believe the statistics is your choice.

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1. Clarissa
  
  August 28, 2015
  
  Here is the problem: what do they want to work in? What demand can Sweden possibly have for unskilled workers with no knowledge of the language, no understanding of the culture, and no capacity to any but the most primitive manual work? Sweden is a post – technological society with no demand for this type of labor.
  
  If somebody like you finds it hard to find employment in your own country, with your education, skills, and language, what chance does somebody who has none of these advantages have? And not in the opportunity – rich US but in an economically crippled Western Europe?
  
  If we look at the situation realistically, these refugees will require huge investment from the welfare state. And does the Western European welfare system have the resources to provide that investment? It’s obvious that it doesn’t.
  
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  1. J. Otto Pohl
    
    August 28, 2015
    
    It is precisely manual labor as well as things like prostitution that are considered undesirable by most of the locals that there is work for immigrants in Scandinavia. In one of Jo Nesbo’s novels he notes that Norwegians will not even take relatively easy and high paying jobs such as cleaning airplanes between flights so they all go to Russian and other immigrants.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      August 28, 2015
      
      We are talking about hundreds of thousands of refugees. How many airplane cleaners does the tiny Norway need, exactly?
      
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