Let’s take a little sampling of European countries.
| Country | GDP Growth Rate | Unemployment Rate |
| Belgium | .3 | 8.50 |
| Finland | -1.2 | 10.30 |
| France | .3 | 10.40 |
| Germany | .1 | 4.70 |
| Greece | -3.3 | 25.15 |
| Hungary | 1.5 | 6.80 |
| Italy | -1.9 | 12.00 |
| Netherlands | -.7 | 6.80 |
| Spain | -1.2 | 22.37 |
| Sweden | 1.5 | 6.40 |
| United Kingdom | 1.7 | 5.60 |
I wonder why Germany’s leaders aren’t as worried as other European leaders are about accepting a bunch of “refugees”? Given the country’s economic condition and the reality that 150 years ago Greece was under the Ottoman and modern Greece was created by a substantial amount of ethnic cleansing, I think it’s a tribute to today’s Greeks that they have responded as kindly as they have. A century ago the Syrians and Iraqis arriving in Greece would probably have been shot on sight.
I don’t know German politics that well. Could this just be a desire to flood labor markets with cheap labor? Mexico is, after all, pretty far away.
Steve
The birthrate in Germany is so low the population is predicted to go from 80 million to 60 million in the next 2 or 3 decades. The bottom line is they need the refugees both as workers and consumers.
Turks are presently the largest non-German minority population in Germany. Turkish guest workers coming into Germany go back about a half century. An unnamed West German official is frequently quoted as having said, “We thought we were getting workers but in the end we got people” of the importation of Turkish guest workers. Today there are about 3 million Turks or Turkish-Germans in Germany, 3.7% of Germany’s population. Relatively few of those born in Turkey have become German citizens; a minority of ethnic Turks born in Germany have become citizens; nearly all those who are Turkish or part Turkish who are German citizens have become so by virtue of having a parent who was a German citizen. And that’s after 50 years.
Overall the Germans have done a lousy job of assimilating their non-German ethnic population. They use the same language of them they used in 1930s about the Jews, e.g. “cosmopolitan”, “transnational”.
About half drop out of high school. The unemployment rate among them is about 10% (nearly half the total unemployment) and they live off state benefits.
The Germans are now talking about roughly doubling the size of their Middle Eastern minority population over five years. Given their track record, skepticism about the plan would seem well-founded.
I lived in Munich for 3 years in the late 60s and early 70s. Munich had about a 10% Turkish minority but they were never really assimilated. The Germans didn’t like them but at the same time understood they were necessary. I assume the same will apply to the Syrians.
During the same period I lived and worked in North Rhineland-Westphalia, the German state that has the largest Turkish population. I observed the same thing.
Living in Munich you were lucky. The town I was in was reputed to have the worst large commercial brewery in Germany.
How accurate is that UE rate for Germany? Aren’t they the home of the micro-job, that inflates their employment numbers?
Also, why does Germany need bodies? Isn’t the world allegedly awash in too many people? Also, with mechanization and robotization and whatnot, will Germany really need any more people? Despite all the doom and gloom, Japan doesn’t exactly seem to be decaying as its population shrinks.
Also, even if Germany DOES need more workers, other questions arise. Such as, shouldn’t Germans just have more babies? And, does Germany need THESE workers? After all, all these folks did in their old country was start a brutal war that caused half the people living there to flee in terror that the other half were going to kill them. That doesn’t exactly scream “useful member of German society” to me. Or any society, for that matter. There are Europeans that are far more alike to Germans and their culture than these suspiciously military aged men are, and probably would fit into German society much more smoothly.