Idiots Talk about Immigration

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Clarissa

January 23, 2016

God, people are stupid. See the following bit of idiocy:

Europe’s elites acted on their class interests by opening the door to massive immigration, providing cheap workers in their business and homes.

This fellow probably thinks all immigrants are exactly the same and imagines us all as vaguely Hispanic, working as maids, gardeners, and babysitters. The fact that the current wave of massive migration into Europe is more likely to sprout wings and fly than work in the elite’s “homes” does not sink in.

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24 responses to “Idiots Talk about Immigration”

Editor of the Fabius Maximus website

January 23, 2016

So that’s an academic’s analysis! Name-calling and sweeping generalization? Let’s see if its possible to do better.

As evidence for my statement that the large-scale immigration is intended to provide cheap labor I cited a 2012 BBC story “EU should ‘undermine national homogeneity’“, quoting Peter Sutherland. Sutherland was a Chairman of Goldman Sachs, BP, and the London School of Economics Council — and the UN’s Special Representative for Migration. He’s quite explicit.

Europe’s elites use immigration to reshape it

There are a large number of other speeches and reports equally or more explicit about this. Note that this wave of immigration arrives as wages in Germany are ending their long stagnation.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-rising-wages-bode-well-for-global-economy-1428861139

“The fact that the current wave of massive migration into Europe is more likely to sprout wings and fly than work in the elite’s “homes” does not sink in.”

Saying “the current wave is more likely to sprout” is an odd expression. Do you mean that none or few will work in homes? That’s been a commonplace entry-level job for immigrants in the US and Europe for a century (at least). You must have strong evidence why this wave will be so different.

N0te that the two largest sources of migrants into Europe are Syria and Afghanistan, both poor nations — ranking 164 and 224 by World Bank data on GDP per capita for 2007 (last available data for Syria).

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 23, 2016
  
  Right now, Germany, for instance, has 2 000 000 unfilled job positions. None of them are for functionally illiterate, uneducated young men. These are all positions for highly qualified work. Germany has avoided inviting immigrants who could do this work very actively.
  
  As for working in the “elite homes”, the question remains: what will these young men do in those homes, exactly? Only in Germany, there is about a million of these new migrants who don’t speak a word of German and who will need to support an obviously non-working wife, a few kids, parents and a couple of siblings or cousins.
  
  And I’m not even asking why the “elites” would want to have these men in their homes.
  
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  1. Editor of the Fabius Maximus website
    
    January 23, 2016
    
    Clarissa,
    
    I posted a response for your readers to show that I have an analytical and evidentiary basis for my statements. It was a one-time thing. I don’t debate with adults who think name-calling accomplishes anything.
    
    “the question remains: what will these young men do in those homes”
    
    First, men are employed as domestic servants. Second, Pew Research found that 38% of migrants were female.
    
    Good-bye.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      January 23, 2016
      
      We are talking about a culture where women don’t work. As for the idea that somebody is interested in employing a million young Syrian men as domestic servants, it is even more entertaining than the belief they will want to do this kind of work.
      
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    2. Pen
      
      January 24, 2016
      
      “I posted a response for your readers to show that I have an analytical and evidentiary basis for my statements. It was a one-time thing. I don’t debate with adults who think name-calling accomplishes anything.
      
      “the question remains: what will these young men do in those homes”
      
      First, men are employed as domestic servants. Second, Pew Research found that 38% of migrants were female.
      
      Good-bye.”
      
      -You’re really being an ass here. Oops, was that name-calling?
      
      She’s bringing up legitimate points. I urge you to get your head out of your bottom and actually respond with some qualitative information, not just statistics (and everyone knows you can bend statistics to say whatever you want).
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        January 24, 2016
        
        Yes, as we say, don’t trust the statistics you haven’t forged yourself.
        
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Vic Crain

January 23, 2016

Is there an element of “projection of American behavior on other people” here?

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 23, 2016
  
  Absolutely. That’s exactly what it is.
  
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jeff

January 24, 2016

This is probably what he’s talking about: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160119-the-servants-making-150000-a-year

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cliff arroyo

January 24, 2016

And… according to this, 20 times more migrants are now crossing the Aegean than this time last year…. Can anyone imagine what will happen in March? May? July?

bayernkurier.de/ausland/9630-die-lawine-kommt-ins-rollen

I’ve always said that for every unvetted migrant allowed into Schengen there are 20 waiting in the wings. I think I was too conservative.

This is going to explode in a terrible way* unless Merkel changes course (and fobbing them off on other countries is not “changing course”).

*yes, I’m referring to mass violence between locals and migrants

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 24, 2016
  
  Those elites are surely needing quite a bunch of domestic servants for the homes. 🙂
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    January 24, 2016
    
    “elites are surely needing quite a bunch of domestic servants for the homes”
    
    Ahmed! I feel like taking a bath, go and tell Mustafa to start the water and tell Selim to warm and fluff the towels. And while you’re at it have Adnan lay out my pajamas and tell Abdul let Mehmet know I’ll be wanting a light snack in about 37 minutes! Hop to!
    
    The latest insane theory I’ve come across is that Merkel is a crypto-nationalist trying to awaken the dormant German love of Vaterland….. (clutching at straws that’s called).
    
    Another more sensible idea is just that she doesn’t deal with some types of stress very well and makes hasty ill thought decisions and then hopes they’ll work themselves out somehow so she won’t have to admit being wrong. That sounds more like a politician…..
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      January 24, 2016
      
      I understand the need to come up with a theory of how this is all part of a larger plan because that’s more comforting than accepting that people can simply make such major decisions on a hunch without thinking anything through. I’m afraid, though, that this was not part of an intelligent, thought-out plan driven by economic or other considerations. I wish it were. I’d love to believe that the elites simply want a bunch of cheap nannies, and that’s their way of getting them. But I can’t delude myself that much.
      
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Shakti

January 24, 2016

I don’t think this guy has ever hired domestic servants or knows anyone who has.
Domestic servant jobs (cleaner, gardener, au pair etc) are not for people who don’t have a single word of any language in common with anyone who’d hire them. How in the world would these “elites” tell their servants what to do? The less competent they think you are the more they feel they have to stand over you. The point of hiring people is not to think about doing it. Secondly, there’s a minimum level of trust. They might think you’d steal if not watched, but nobody wants “dude who will violently mug me” and “some chick whose face I can’t see” in their home.

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 24, 2016
  
  Neither have I heard of anybody from these immigrant communities seek such jobs. In Montréal, there is a huge demand for nannies and it’s always either Hispanic or Filipina women who do this work. I have never heard of Muslim women either seeking such jobs or anybody wanting to hire them, including wealthier Muslim immigrants.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    January 24, 2016
    
    Overall, there are very interesting cultural differences among immigrant communities in this respect. Russian speakers, for instance, have been trying to break into the domestic service field but it’s hopeless. Russian speaking nannies and housecleaners can’t shed the habit of loudly hectoring the employers. At my sister’s very expensive daycare, there was a nanny who thought it was her duty to inform the parents about all the ways in which their children were deficient and not up to her standards. Imagine the reaction of the parents who were paying $70 per DAY for the daycare.
    
    On the other hand, a Russian speaking handyman will do beautiful work cheaply because it’s culturally wide spread.
    
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    1. Shakti
      
      January 24, 2016
      
      Russian speaking nannies and housecleaners can’t shed the habit of loudly hectoring the employers
      tries to imagine Russian customer phone support
      
      On the other hand, Indians will never tell you “no” but if they don’t want to do something or can’t do something, it won’t happen. It’s all soft refusals, if that.
      If you ask a shopkeeper for something blue, and he doesn’t happen, he won’t say he doesn’t have it, but he’ll attempt to show you something blue green instead.
      I knew a Indian from South Africa who had the habit of calling his white customers “boss.” They ate it up with a spoon.
      
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      1. cliff arroyo
        
        January 24, 2016
        
        Roma in Poland have a tendency to call all non-Roma men szef (vocative Szefie!) when talking to them, which means boss (from french chef of course)
        
        Cultural continuity or coincidence?
        
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        Shakti
        
        January 24, 2016
        
        Cliff, interesting coincidence,
        I thought the fact the guy grew up in South Africa under apartheid had to do with it. The guy outright said to me he felt his children could only advance so far in this country and it wasn’t for lack of smarts or academic aptitude.
        
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      2. Clarissa
        
        January 24, 2016
        
        I was actually wondering why I never see any Indians in domestic employment. This is very interesting.
        
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        Shakti
        
        January 24, 2016
        
        Oh, there are plenty. Just not in America (and Canada). Indian immigration in America is either very heavily skewed toward highly trained professionals like doctors and engineers or they’re family members. I know there are quite a bit of people own hotels, convenience stores and the like (and that has to do with networks in India). If you go to Gulf states, you’ll see a lot of Indian domestics (who are treated badly).
        
        People who seek out servants who can barely speak the native language at all and have questionable or precarious legal status tend to want these workers because they can be exploited easily and abused. It’s not “oh they do a better job for cheaper.”
        
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        Dreidel
        
        January 24, 2016
        
        When I was stationed in Saudi Arabia 25 years ago I saw dozens of Indians and other East Asians employed as domestics (house maids and cooks), waiters, yard keepers, and similar skill-level positions. They were unfailingly extremely polite, and at the Western compound restaurant where I usually ate, the waiters would repeatedly rush up to my table and try to take my plate away every time I set down my fork, well before I was finished eating. The domestics were all women, everyone else male.
        
        Several of the men told me (they volunteered the information, I didn’t pry) that their families were back in India, and that they had come to Saudi Arabia because they could make much more money there.
        
        The Saudis were awash in oil money at time, and foreigners did most of the actual work — Westerners held the high-skill positions (engineers, doctors, contractors), Asians did most of the low-skilled labor, and the Saudis didn’t do much of anything except rule the country.
        
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2. cliff arroyo
  
  January 24, 2016
  
  “Domestic servant jobs (cleaner, gardener, au pair etc) are not for people who don’t have a single word of any language in common with anyone who’d hire them. How in the world would these “elites” tell their servants what to do?”
  
  There is precedent for employers to learn just enough of the servants’ language to issue instructions. The idea is they don’t want the servants to be able to eavesdrop…
  
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danielwalldammit

January 24, 2016

What’s fascinating about comments like that one is that they allow the speaker to pretend he is punching up while he is actually punching down. They attack immigrants, refugees especially, some of the most vulnerable people in the world while pretending to do so out of a concern about elites. …which is simply rationalizing.

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