Muslims on refugee boat throw Christians overboard for being non-Muslims

[ag]

The religion of peace strikes again.

Unclear is why people who hate Christians that much were trying to illegally immigrate to a country full of them.

Clearly we need to embrace such immigrants in the name of tolerance.

I would take you seriously, if you embraced the Christians on that boat while they were still alive. Perhaps, then, they would not have to have been on that boat.

[ag]

The religion of peace strikes again.

Unclear is why people who hate Christians that much were trying to illegally immigrate to a country full of them.

Considering how many Christians die on similar boats because of policies of Christian European and American governments, policies fully supported by their electorates... He, who sits in a glass house should not do something.

[ag]

Considering how many Christians die on similar boats because of policies of Christian European and American governments, policies fully supported by their electorates... He, who sits in a glass house should not do something.

There is no parallel here, cut it out.

Is there not?  Well, I guess, there is some difference between desperate people in tiny boats fighting and premediated policies thought up in comfy offices by clean-shaved white men. The latter are also substantially more murderous.

[ag]

I feel like the difference between an immigrant and a refugee is just a bit of semantics and shallow justification.

You think the difference between your house being burned down, general pillaging and plundering, and being dirt poor but but living in a mostly peaceful place is semantic and shallow?

It is a continuum. And, in any case, in quite a few cases starving slowly peacefully to death might not be very much more attractive than being killed off fast after lunch.

[ag]

The humane solution, of course, would be a proper guest worker program, that would allow people to come to work to Europe safely, earn money, be able to save it and send it back home using the formal banking system, etc. If properly implemented, European governments could, in fact, wind up collecting whatever revenue currently going into the pockets of those "evil smugglers".

Europeans refuse to recognize the real problem: the huge economic gap between Europe and Africa. Mediterrainean is simply too shallow and narrow to prevent the population flow this gap is inducing. One can either accept this flow as a law of nature (which it is) and try to manage it to make it safe and profitable for all those involved. Or one can try to stop it by force. The latter, of course, is pretty much impossible (unless either Africa gets richer or Europe becomes poor) - and, inevitably, leads to the de facto mass murder we are witnessing.

Same pretty much true of Mexico and the US (with Arizona desert taking the place of the Mediterrainean). But, at least, Mexico is a middle income country - unlike most of Africa.

[ag]

I feel like the difference between an immigrant and a refugee is just a bit of semantics and shallow justification.

You think the difference between your house being burned down, general pillaging and plundering, and being dirt poor but but living in a mostly peaceful place is semantic and shallow?

It is a continuum. And, in any case, in quite a few cases starving slowly peacefully to death might not be very much more attractive than being killed off fast after lunch.

Yes I fully agree, but it's not those people who cross the Sahara desert to come to Europe. The price for that run up in thousands of dollars, and if you suffered of starvation before you started, you wouldn't make it through Sahara.

True enough. See my next comment.

[ag]

The humane solution, of course, would be a proper guest worker program, that would allow people to come to work to Europe safely, earn money, be able to save it and send it back home using the formal banking system, etc. If properly implemented, European governments could, in fact, wind up collecting whatever revenue currently going into the pockets of those "evil smugglers".

I don't disagree, the problem is that we really don't need that many unskilled workers.

You do. Europeans are getting older. Somebody has to wash the old.

[ag]

Of course the Africa countries Europe border up to are also middle income countries.

Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua (the only four truly poor countries "behind" Mexico - Panama and Costa Rica are much wealthier, and there is very little migration through Mexico from beyond that due to geographic reasons) have the combined population and the GDP per capita in the ballpark of Morocco. Mexico is about twice as rich.

[ag]

I would love to hear your solution to that.

It is pretty straightforward. One needs an active work visa program for which ordinary people are eligible. Processing should be done back at home. It may have a hefty visa processing fee (as you know, these people are willing to pay a lot to get to Europe), but payable out of earnings once in Europe (renewal of residence conditional on paying the regular installments). The fee should be set at just slightly below the break-even cost for the smugglers. In addition, the worker should be forced to pay a certain ammount into a personal saving fund. After a certain period (say, five or 10 years) s/he should have an option of either obtaining permanent residency (and, eventually, citizenship) in exchange for transfering the fund to the state, or returning home and getting the entire fund there.

[ag]

The humane solution, of course, would be a proper guest worker program, that would allow people to come to work to Europe safely, earn money, be able to save it and send it back home using the formal banking system, etc. If properly implemented, European governments could, in fact, wind up collecting whatever revenue currently going into the pockets of those "evil smugglers".

I don't disagree, the problem is that we really don't need that many unskilled workers.

You do. Europeans are getting older. Somebody has to wash the old.

Yes the problem is that we don't need that many to do that and we will need them in 20-30 years, and we already have a large labour supply in the east.

Plus we have increased the labour supply in Europe several times by raising the retirement age. I can retire at age 67 right now, but I expect it will have hit 70+ when I'm in my sixties. It's rather universal in Europe that the well functioning countries in the north have a high retirement age, and it those who can afford to pay Africans to wash the old.

Well, it is all the matter of the price. At present, the wages are still very attractive to the newcomers. That suggests to me, as an economist, that you do have enough jobs In fact, you could easily avoid having to work into your 70s by getting somebody to start wiping your ass earlier (while paying into your tax and social security systems for the privillege).

[ag]

Meanwhile another one capsized yesterday, with 700 (!?!) people on board. Apparently only 28 survivors have been found so far.

It may be the tragic event that changed the EU policies on refugees. The country concerned by the flow of irregular migrants (Italy, Greece, Bulgaria) have been complaining for years about the lack of European solidarity on this topic.

No sarcasm here, I would like to hear your suggestion for a solution to the problem.

If you are talking about/Syrians/Afghans wanting to leave their countries for better places, there is of course no short term solution.
If you are talking about hundreds of people dying at sea, there are solutions, see for example the EU propositions: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-eus-10-point-plan-tackle-mediterranean-crisis-172945665.html. For example, the number of migrants dying at sea increased since the budget of the rescue programme was cut.

Most of the items on that list are directed to increasing the number of those killed, while at the same time making sure that they get killed with lesser visibility to European media. Solving the problem is not on the agenda - it is more of a prayer that those black people just disappear from the TV.

[ag]

As for the whole wiping my ass, my grandmother was in her late eighties before she needed help in her house and she never needed someone to wipe her ass for her, even through she lived into her nineties. As for me I would prefer a smart toilet to a Nigerian to clean my ass.

Lucky you. My granfaterh did not need to use an elevator till he was 84, but by the time he was 90 there was no smart toilet he could get to - and he needed somebody not only to wipe his ass, but also to turn him to avoid bed sores and to feed him from the spoon. I am sure you will take the poison before you you get to that state. But, assuming you do not do this in time, you might wind up in that state for many years.

You do not need the wages in London and in Lagos to equate for migration to stop. The last time I checked, I did not see entire Bratislava in Copenhagen - and the wages are anything but equal. AND there are no labor movement restrictions there whatsoever (something nobody is proposing here).

[ag]

Meanwhile another one capsized yesterday, with 700 (!?!) people on board. Apparently only 28 survivors have been found so far.

It may be the tragic event that changed the EU policies on refugees. The country concerned by the flow of irregular migrants (Italy, Greece, Bulgaria) have been complaining for years about the lack of European solidarity on this topic.

No sarcasm here, I would like to hear your suggestion for a solution to the problem.

If you are talking about/Syrians/Afghans wanting to leave their countries for better places, there is of course no short term solution.
If you are talking about hundreds of people dying at sea, there are solutions, see for example the EU propositions: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-eus-10-point-plan-tackle-mediterranean-crisis-172945665.html. For example, the number of migrants dying at sea increased since the budget of the rescue programme was cut.

I absolute agree that we countries without non-EU borders should help finance the external borders, and while I original got this lack of solidarity (Italians, Greeks and Bulgarians got free access to our countries against they kept the outer border closed), the situation have changed and they no only deserve financial support they need it.

Yes, sure, you are willing to pay Greeks to kill Syrians, no problem there.

[ag]

Meanwhile another one capsized yesterday, with 700 (!?!) people on board. Apparently only 28 survivors have been found so far.

It may be the tragic event that changed the EU policies on refugees. The country concerned by the flow of irregular migrants (Italy, Greece, Bulgaria) have been complaining for years about the lack of European solidarity on this topic.

No sarcasm here, I would like to hear your suggestion for a solution to the problem.

If you are talking about/Syrians/Afghans wanting to leave their countries for better places, there is of course no short term solution.
If you are talking about hundreds of people dying at sea, there are solutions, see for example the EU propositions: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-eus-10-point-plan-tackle-mediterranean-crisis-172945665.html. For example, the number of migrants dying at sea increased since the budget of the rescue programme was cut.

I absolute agree that we countries without non-EU borders should help finance the external borders, and while I original got this lack of solidarity (Italians, Greeks and Bulgarians got free access to our countries against they kept the outer border closed), the situation have changed and they no only deserve financial support they need it.

Yes, sure, you are willing to pay Greeks to kill Syrians, no problem there.

I thought I had to trust the Greeks, people keep telling me that in other threads, but suddenly they can't be trusted, when they guard the external border.

I do not distinguish between all of you, white men. Greek or Norwegian, you are the same to me

And, of course, I think you can trust Greeks. You can trust them to kill the brownies.

[ag]

Maybe the conclusion you should come with from that, that the price on labour in Copenhagen are not solely put in place by supply and demand.

Actually, the conclusion (repeatedly cross-checked in many parts of the world) is that you do not need wages to be the same - you just need the gap to be smaller than the cost of moving. And that cost is large even for a Bulgarian in London (he has to learn the language, figure out what the Brits want and how to sell himself, etc., etc.).  Puerto Rico is not empty either.

[ag]

Yes, but the large generation who need their ass wiped in 20 years, will live in a time when smart toilets do exist as they already do.

Well, if you prefer to be packed into a mechanized hospice, with a mechanical smart toilet for a companion and a mechanical tit to feed you the ballanced puree at designated times, I guess, you could do so. But it will, still, be a lot more expensive than that Moldavian or Nigerian nurse. And your kids will have to pay the difference: through taxes, probably.

[ag]

The migrants from Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc, should be sent back. There's no fundamental reason for them to have to flee to Europe. It's economic migration, i.e. immigration, not refugees. Syrian, Libyans, Eritreans and so forth are another story.

Great difference there between Ethiopia and Eritrea!

[ag]

The migrants from Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc, should be sent back. There's no fundamental reason for them to have to flee to Europe. It's economic migration, i.e. immigration, not refugees. Syrian, Libyans, Eritreans and so forth are another story.

Great difference there between Ethiopia and Eritrea!

Only one of them is called "the North Korea of Africa"- while actually having less press freedom than North Korea.

Yes, the other one is, merely, Africa's Cambodia (but with a lot less democracy and no king).

[ag]

ag, why don't you support something closer to a "open borders" policy rather than a guest worker program? Frankly, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of millions of Africans living in Europe for 7-10 years without the ability to vote or organize themselves for the purpose of collective action. Your proposal strikes me as being a bit too potentially Gulf Arab for my tastes.

Because I am realistic. My own preference is for much more open borders. But I realize that for a lot of people it is non-starter. I do not sympathize with their xenophobia, but I do acknowledge their right in a democracy to demand the policy according to their preferences - and I know, they are a majority.

Hence, I am putting on my economist hat here. You want to limit migration, while minimizing the number of deaths on the frontier? This is how you do this. Create incentives for people to use the legal route - and to go back, at some point. Such measures would, obviously, not shut down the migration completely - as they crucially rely on creating a legal route for migration. But they can be designed to achieve migration levels no higher than the present ones, or even lower, while crowding out the illegal route (once it is at a trickle because of incentives, enforcement could deal with it).  So, both control over migration flows, some degree of humanity towards migrants, increased revenue for the European state - and lower migration levels - could be achieved if such a program is designed well.

Of course, for such a program to be implemented, one needs to disabuse European citizens from the illusion that they can enforce the frontier against migrants to a degree that substantively eliminates migration - at least, without building gas chambers and crematoriums on a large scale. But that is another matter.

[ag]

And, if one has to be blunt about it, in this case the Gulf Arabs are no worse than the Europeans. At least, the give the jobs. I have not heard recently of hundreds of people dying while trying to reach Dubai. Better that way, then what Europeans are doing today.

[ag]

I agree with your positive analysis of migration flows and I think that your assessment of the preferences of the European public are accurate. I just can't help but think that we live in a bleak world when guest worker programs embody humane migration policy and liberals demand that refugees, whether economic or war-torn, simply be deported rather than left to drown in the ocean.

The German experience with immigration in the 1960s and 1970s provides a solid rationale for a guest worker program in the vein of what you've outlined. I shudder to think why anyone would look up to Germany as a model of immigration policy but, from the perspective of xenophobes, they've done a good job of limiting migration while allowing for large labor flows.

No disagreement here. I guess, this is a proper Mexican analysis

Then, again, I have been reading up on Mexican immigration policies in the 1930s - we do have quite a bit to be ashamed of ourselves.

[ag]

Welcome to this debate, Europeans. It never gets solved. We've been at it for 15 years now.

Oh, the short memory of the young!

You have been at it for 115 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Restriction_Act_1901

Europeans, of course, have, mostly, been at it longer

[ag]

I meant in the particular context of boat arrivals from Islamic countries being an intense, vitriolic, and extremely unedifying national debate, but true enough.

That has also been going on forever.

[ag]

I think they should just enlarge the Mediterranean. None of those Africans are trying to get accross the Atlantic, so US has no problem. There is a clear lesson for the Europeans here. If Africa could be towed, say, another 500 km South, it would solve the problem.