Hacker News Reader

This is an old and tired straw man argument. Yes, there are simple minded people out there who oppose immigration on principle and racism. But a lot of people are in fact opposed to indiscriminate immigration. A significant proportion of refugees are criminals, plain and simple. They often have the means to move that simple, poor, hard working people don't.

Taking large waves of refugees with no filtering will gurantee that the honest working ones will suffer by association with the bad ones.

Edit: Huge numbers of desperate refugees will also accept pay and working conditions that put local workers out of options.

Immigration is not a good thing just like it's not a bad thing. The devil is always is the details.

> A significant proportion of refugees are criminals

Probably good to actually give any sort of evidence for your frankly outrageous claim, otherwise it just looks like you too are incredibly racist.

I was about to comment the same thing. An incredibly bold statement with 0 evidence to back it up.

If you think that the vast majority of these people are 'economic' refugees which is generally not of legal status then technically all of them are criminals because they have broken the law to get there. This is the only way this argument makes any sense to me and that's with a big helping of benefit of the doubt.

That assumption is also one that would need proof, as that is also fairly outrageous. That said, it would be a very charitable way to read the original post.

Indeed, I was doing my best to be generous. Also tough to give proof regardless because member states seem to have different rules. This from an EU Gov on immigration statistics, "The EU’s asylum system remains undermined due to significant differences in recognition rates across EU countries. For example, in 2020 the recognition rate of Afghan citizens at first instance ranged from 1% in Bulgaria to 93% in Italy."

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/prom...

The german federal police publishes a report every year about suspects of crime. "non-germans" meaning people without a german passport. "refugees" are included in non-germans and mean people who got asylum status or stay illegally in Germany. From 2020:

> Murder/Manslaughter Germans: 1,587 Non-Germans: 1,085 (420 refugees)

> Assault Germans: 84,776 Non-Germans: 52,412 (18,094 refugees)

> Robbery Germans: 15,435 Non-Germans: 10,378 (3,739 refugees)

> Rape Germans: 5,370 Non-Germans: 3,110 (1,155 refugees)

Source: https://www.bka.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Publikationen/Pol...

Now go ahead and put these numbers into context regarding each group's percentage in the population. And be sure to remember, that there are millions of people with migration background who count as germans because they have a german passport.

Personally I have no problem with migration of skilled people or temporary asylum for war refugees: black, brown, white, muslim, hindu, christian, whatever, I don't care. But one has to keep the bad ones out in the long term. Germany and many other western european countries failed to do that for whatever reason. And now their prisons are full of people with migration background.

By personal experience, non-Germans tend to be poorer on average. Is there a version of that dataset that controls for poverty level?

You get the basics for free in Germany. There is no need to do robberies to survive. Also murder, assault and rape has nothing to do with being poor (in a welfare state...).

So, I don't know what you're up to.

> There is no need to do robberies to survive.

Then why do robberies happen at all, including by members of the native German population?

Because of a different philosophy (from yours).

What you omit from this analysis is that the numbers for immigrants (not refugees, the report does not make that distinction) are lowering significantly more in percentages than the other groups basically across the board. Where they are not leader in crime decrease they are at least lowering as much as native Germans.

Edit: I made the mistake of engaging with your post, where actually it would have been more constructive to point out that you have moved the goalpost: The claim was that refugees are criminals mostly. You have not proven this, you've just proven that some of them commit crime when they are in a new country. That doesn't mean they emigrated as criminals.

> you have moved the goalpost: The claim was that refugees are criminals mostly

I translate "significant" to "meaningful", "noteable" (relative to something) in this context... Not a native speaker though, maybe I'm wrong? If I'm wrong, you are right. But it would be so obviously false anyway, wouldn't it? Only an idiot would claim that let's say 50% of refugees are criminals.

I broadly agree with your last sentence, even though I would have worded it differently here. That is the reason I asked for proof: It was to highlight there isn't any, because it's not true.

Your broader point, that sometimes immigrants fall into criminal traps, is one that is relevant and interesting. It's important to figure out why this happens and how it can be mitigated, because immigration is forever. You want your social structure and systems to be such that no-one feels like the only way they have to have a reasonable life is to be a criminal.

I am speaking as the citizen of a country that is the source of immigrants for western Europe, Romania. According to Wikipedia we have the fifth-highest emigrant population in the world, I would estimate a fifth to a quarter of the population. The criminals are extremely over represented in the emigrated population - mostly pimps, prostitutes, thieves, drug dealers. I will not make an estimation of percentage, but they are significant. Please do note the difference between "significant" and "majority".

Now coming back to your comment. Firstly it is not about racism, we are Caucasian. Secondly we are discriminated abroad and while it is unfortunate for me whenever I travel or work I completely understand it. Our criminals did a lot of harm. That is why I said a filter would have been better for them and us also.

I don't think this phrase is defensible, because "significant" in that context is very subjective. Nevertheless, the German intelligence estimates there are 2000 extremists that could cause trouble. This is something completely separate from criminals like ordinary robbers or rapists - people with an ideology could be more dangerous, and, unfortunately, every few years they hit headlines in Europe. Everybody is aware of this so nobody is surprised if armed guards ask you if they can look into your bag for example, or there are massive blocks preventing attacks with trucks. So no wonder people long for the old times when they had to deal mainly with local bandits.

[0] https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article233732426/Ver...

> But a lot of people are in fact opposed to indiscriminate immigration

Everybody is opposed to indiscriminate immigration, whatever that’s supposed to mean, otherwise we wouldn’t even have passports. The debate on immigration in the West is about foreign nationals living peacefully and contributing to the society of the country they moved to. There’s no debate about rapists crossing borders illegally, because nobody wants them and because they are a minuscule fraction of the population.

Ah yes, the myth of immigration as both cultural enrichment and economically beneficial. I can tell you that at least in my own (Belgium) and neighboring country (Netherlands) this hasn't been the case.

The cost of immigration, especially from outside of the EU, is catastrophically high, and remains that way, even for 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants. A paper studied the cost of immigration in the Netherlands to be around 400 billion euros between 1995 and 2019 (I can only find the paper in Dutch from the Renaissance institute, performed by several PhD / processors). The people arriving here from outside of the EU are often unskilled, in certain cases illiterate, and come from a cultural and religious background which proves to be nearly impossible to integrate, let alone assimilate.

As a result, in Brussels and many cities all around western Europe, it's riddled with ghettos, people living outside of the system, in poverty, with ideas that aren't compatible with our society (about topics such as religion, rule of law, sexuality, equality and so on). In my own neighborhood there are parts where as a woman you can't walk the street without a headscarf or you'll be harassed. And I'm not even suggesting what happens if you're openly gay in said streets.

Even multiple generations down the line the situation doesn't improve.

Why, in countries that are supposedly democratic, should mass immigration be the one thing that is shoved down our throats, without having any influence or say in it?

Side note: Belgium has a very flexible and generous social security system. We are known for providing unemployment benefits without any limit in duration, and with too little stimulus and followup, resulting in a lot of people simply exploiting the system. This is why immigration and the access to said system is a sensitive topic. We are also famous for having bungled the topic of integration for decades, resulting in people having lived here for ages and still not even speak the local language.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience and as an American who lived in a few European cities I know what you mean, some neighborhoods are decidedly un-European, but I would partially blame that not on the immigrants but on policies that bring in so many at once. Of course there is no need to assimilate when there is a huge neighborhood of people just like you... imagine the driving culture if you brought a million Cairo cab drivers to Singapore? But if you bring 50 a year, they assimilate. That said, I'm pretty sure most economists (other than Borjas perhaps, whose seminal work on the Mariel boatlift seems critically flawed) would broadly disagree with you about the net economic benefits being negative and I would love if you could share that paper.

https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of...

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/what-mariel-boatlift-cuban-refuge...

It's in Dutch, and can be found here: http://www.demo-demo.nl/files/Grenzeloze_Verzorgingsstaat.pd...

Of course take things with a grain of salt, as always, but it's quite a hefty and well documented piece of research.

For anyone missing the required context here:

The “Renaissance institute” that sponsored this “research” is a far-right think tank associated with the FvD, which can be charitably described as far right nationalists, or less charitably as a bunch of actual racists and fascists.

Ah yes, before you know it we're off slinging Hitler accusations left and right. If you've got counter arguments related to the paper, you're more than welcome to share them. But discarding the entire thing because it comes from a political direction which isn't your own is hardly a productive attitude.

There’s political directions and there’s literal fascism. My grandparents gave their lives in the fight against this rotten ideology, and anyone who supports it and gives it credibility can go right to hell in my book.

Lol yes of course, because debating and researching the impact of mass immigration makes us all fascists, clearly!

I've always thought that was fascinating as well. You see the same dynamic in the U.S. where a huge amount of the population growth is from immigration or recentish immigrant families... without them either taxes go up, services have to be cut, but people think they're stealing jobs or destroying American culture. Maybe people just believe it's worth destroying our social systems to maintain the "culture" of the country but feels more like a knee jerk racist reaction by many without really understanding the huge benefit immigrants (especially skilled ones) bring to countries.

Is this really so hard to understand? Italy is a country whose identity is entirely built on its cultural history. It is not surprising at all that older people dislike the idea of foreigners coming in that have little relation to them, don’t speak their language, and aren’t really interested in maintaining heavily Catholic, traditional Italian society.

The same exact thing happens in Korea, Japan, China, Eastern Europe, Norway, and pretty much any other country that isn’t explicitly built on the idea of immigration and assimilation.

It's hard to understand if you believe that not embracing it will basically destroy the economic fundamentals of the country and the social benefits which so many people depend on. What's better, accepting some immigrants (many of whom will assimilate; maybe not totally but somewhat) or having the state become insolvent and not provide pensions?

I think Italians would rather be poor but maintain their cultural history and identity. It isn’t an anglophone country built on immigration and no economics argument is very convincing to them.

Yes, I guess many Americans would say they feel the same (which is interesting given we are a country built on immigration and without such a rich history and identity) which is why I'm skeptical that's the actual reason but sure, it's an argument.

Perhaps you can grow economy by doing more automation. Naïve example is the lawn in front of my Danish apartment being taken care of by a robot. There’re countless other possibilities.

Is it growth though if the robot takes away a human's job?

Yes.

A human can do a job a robot is incapable of doing.

But those robots won't pay taxes to support the elderly :)

It's a tough topic for sure. I've heard that German people are a lot better with immigrants and racism is very low.

The wikipedia article is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany

> But those robots won't pay taxes to support the elderly :)

That's a problem which could be resolved: companies do replace people by robots to reduce labor costs. But companies (owners, shareholders, etc) still want to profit from all kinds of common infrastructure. So force them (with law and regulations) to continue to share a part of the saved expenses, e.g. by continuing to pay social expenses for their robots. That way they'd still save money by automation, but would do this in some socially responsible ways.

Your suggestion is counterproductive.

Companies that are forced to pay a robot tax are uncompetitive and will be forced out of the market.

End result: no tax revenue.

Companies that operate in an industry that can be or is likely to be automated will hire less or no people so as to not be liable for the robot tax should they at a later date start automating.

End result: less employment, less tax revenue and stunted growth.

A robot tax will result in more bullshit jobs. Jobs that can be done by automation should be done by machines. Human labor should be reserved for jobs that cannot be automated.

Your suggestion is akin to a populist policy that treats symptoms rather than root causes, trading good optics and a short term gain for unintended consequences and long term pain.

Robotic lawnmower definitely produces economic value for its manufacturer (probably in China) and designer (might be in China as well actually), but its effect on Danish economy is not that simple. It might actually harm it by taking a job from a person who did it before resulting in less taxes being paid.

That's only a problem when savings exceed investment. In that case interest rates must simply drop until savings and investment are in balance again.

Why? Because the person who bought the lawn mower started saving the money he would usually spend on a gardener. It simply means saving is too profitable.

My grasp on economics is thin but I believe this is not true. Let's assume mowing the lawn by a a service cost $200 in capital investment over 10 years and 200$/year in labor while the robot cost $1000 capital investment also over 10 years. Then you increased the amount of capital going likely abroad by 800$ and freed up 2000$ of labor cost. That means you have 1200$ freed up in investments but lost $2000 in local economic activity.

In short, the capital requirements generally go up with automation in the economic benefit is more often abroad (whether that's Germany or China)

This completely ignores many migrant workers sending money home.

> but they don't want to accept younger people to work

if you're an EU citizen you can move to germany and work there. this creates high incentives for workers from poorer eastern european countries to work in germany but send a huge chunk back to their family. some industries would not exists without this model, most notorious asparagus harvesting or private nursing services.

Germany accepted millions of migrants since 2015, but it's highly doubtful that this will be a net positive within the next century. Most of them are unskilled and only granted asylum which is temporary and by german law asylum seekers or migrants with temporary resident status are heavily restricted from taking up work. I guess the argument once was, why allow them to work if they will be deported anyway soon. But usually this is a long legal process leaving them in a limbo state for years. There are special programs however to train them to be nurses to obtain permanent residency. But it is unlikely that then german refugee policy from ~2015 will be a net benefit for social security etc.

The asparagus temp workers working in Germany pay taxes in Germany for that period. So even if they spend otherwise very little there and send money to families, they are still a net benefit to the German economy. Plus the asparagus gets harvested, of course.

They are on minimum wage, not paying much if anything at all.

You pay VAT on your asparagus.

The contradiction you’ve identified is a phenomenon that’s pervasive in the West and I think it’s caused mainly by the ageing population. It is more evident in Italy because the population tends to be older, its employment rate lower and because of the prevalence, compared to other developed countries, of low added value jobs and economic activities. The latter 2 tend to produce a badly educated population (see the PIAAC or PISA results), which tends to have dumber ideas than a better educated one.

You can see similar developments in the UK (triple lock, Brexit, NI increases, ecc…), even though not as pathological, probably because its economic system is healthier than the Italian.

Italy would need millions of immigrants not much to pay pensions, but to reinvigorate the national debate and economy. Maybe if there were enough under-40s, pensions could be reduced and that money could be spent in more productive endeavours.

Do they want to pay lower taxes? Or do they not want to pay higher taxes? I think every percentage point over about 40% starts to really niggle people—more in magnitude than getting a 1% break would please them.

In other words, fear of going from 40-45% is greater than hope for going from 40-35%.

>How are you supposed to fund that?

Extend the retirement age, raise taxes, offer less public services. Of course people won't vote for any of those so you are correct, there is a lot of cognitive dissonance going on.