Hang on a sec

Tim

Some wages might go up in the short term, due to government spending driven increased demand. Of course, the German government could've gotten a similar effect from increasing spending on German citizens ...

Rancid Schnitzel

Nick have you ever wondered why these people are galloping right through Eastern Europe and even Denmark and going straight for countries like Germany, Sweden and Norway that: (a)will let them stay (2) give them free shit? Actually I just answered that for you. As the Indonesia President once said, "Take the sugar off the table". 
With regard to work, the big question is what work these young men can actually do. They don't speak German and you have to study for years to be qualified for anything in Germany. They could do the shit jobs, but will they want to when the unemployment benefits are so generous? I've also read that even Syrians in Syria aren't keen to do the shit jobs. So I guess while you have a potential pool of labour, it appears to be largely composed of unskilled men who don't speak the language. Not exactly ideal.

Rancid Schnitzel

Apologies Nick, I misread your post. Disregard.

jegga

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="NTA" data-cid="551247" data-time="1452143429">Can't force wages below minimums, which was instituted in Deutschland as of 1st January last year (which is weird when you think about it - considering Australia and NZ have had it for over a century. Guess we take a lot of things for granted). 
 
There is a school of thought that you need a certain percentage of minimum-wage population to keep a functioning society. Otherwise you either fall into the poor trap or the inflation trap. 
 
Can't say I understand all of it, not really being any kind of economics whizz. But I look at house prices in Australia created by a bit of false economy in the real estate market and can see that you don't want to fuck with things on a big scale. 
 
 
 
 
Those countries sharing a border with the shitfest in mainland Europe would likely need to break out their armed forces if they set up screening stations, and that is never a good look if you have to start shooting refugees. We get the luxury of a screening process and from the pictures I've seen (which are no solid indicator of the entire sample, of course) there are families in most of the 12,000 we've agreed to take. Canada too (though sucked in for the cold weather). 
 
As to why there seem to be a lot of 20-40yo males - probably because they're of fighting age and would be enlisted at gunpoint for any of the many fucking nutjob militia running around in the desert on God's behalf. Plus they're physically more able to make the journey compared to women and children.</blockquote>
 
I never said they'll work for less than the minimum wage but if they can be arsed working they'll be competing for the smelliest noisiest or most soul destroying jobs with Germans so it's the poor that'll get shafted. 
I'm sure a fair few of the men were trying to avoid fighting , I'm equally sure a decent amount of them thought " western women dress like hookers and are easy, I want some of that" the fact that they seem to be able to organise gropefests is pretty good proof of that. Living in a country where there's little nightlife that compare to a german city, the women never show any skin and the Germans will give you a benefit and a place to live it probably sounds really good to your average Arab feral to make the move .

antipodean

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Rancid Schnitzel" data-cid="551235" data-time="1452142485">
<div>
It's pretty insane, but I think Merkel saw it as a unique opportunity to finally rehabilitate Germany from the WW2 atrocities. I suspect she also had an eye on demographics and saw this as a chance to import a young labour force. 
As we can see, that's worked out real well.
</div>
</blockquote>
 
They'd already learnt that lesson from importing Turks.

mariner4life

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="antipodean" data-cid="551264" data-time="1452145302">
<div>
They'd already learnt that lesson from importing Turks.
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</blockquote>
of course, the import of Turks has resulted in the ability to get a fucking unreal kebab while walking home bent up after Oktoberfest in Munich.

gollum

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Donsteppa" data-cid="551251" data-time="1452143895">
<div>

Mid-run, if German demographics are as 'bad' as some of the other Western European nations/Japan, and if (a big if) they've got their numbers and timing right (setting aside settlement and integration for the moment) at worst it'll keep wages the same/avoid upward wage inflation. 
.
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</blockquote>
 
Re that arguement, what you REALLY want to import is breeding age women - ideally ones who are a bit submissive & buy the idea that they should not have careers & should stay home & raise 4 kids. And kids who are young enough to educate & become productive. So in that regard there are a LOT of Syrians you could bring in & it'd be great. You'd have a short term drain as they don't earn, but a long term positive as the population gets a boost.
 
You very much dont want the old, or men.
 
The "we are aging so need imigrants!" arguement only really works if the immigrants either earn enough to pay good amounts of tax or breed heavily and assimilate to provide a boost to future tax payers. The last thing you want are single low skilled men who pay almost no tax and send what money they do make home to their family.
 
The Turks sort of worked in that Germany was in a building boom so needed low skilled labourl & more or less intergrated - plus the demographic issue was not on the radar, tho' a lot of cash was sent home. But now with robotics & so on there aren't thousands of low paid unskilled labouring jobs, or if there are the Romanians & Bulgarians are already doing them.

Donsteppa

And/or,

highly skilled (younger) men in key labour market areas, or
wealthy (younger) individuals likely to invest in job/wealth creation activities, or
students studying higher end courses, ideally in areas of current/future skill shortage 
I haven't dug into the trends yet, but they were never going to get many in the latter two categories, and have lucked out on the former if comments so far in the thread are on the mark. 
I hadn't realised this about their status in Germany though: <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/11/06/report-german-government-downgrade-syrians-can-stay-2-years-no-family-reunions/'>http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/11/06/report-german-government-downgrade-syrians-can-stay-2-years-no-family-reunions/</a> - many more instances like Cologne, and things will get tighter again. They seem to have given themselves some wriggle room (or at least more than I'd realised...)

Donsteppa

By contrast, the NZ refugee intake get permanent residence on arrival: <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.refugeehealth.govt.nz/about-us/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-in-new-zealand">http://www.refugeehealth.govt.nz/about-us/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-in-new-zealand</a> though based on smaller numbers <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/general/generalinformation/refugee-protection/">http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/general/generalinformation/refugee-protection/</a>

Rembrandt

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="antipodean" data-cid="551139" data-time="1452127631">
Time for the Germans to throw off the guilt of 70 years ago.</blockquote>

Catogrande

The volte-face of the Germans in downgrading the status of the Syrian refugees will likely turn out to be irrelevant. So they have to leave after two years instead of three? Where are they going to go? How are they going to be transported? (Please no-one say cattle trucks). How will they all be found and identified? The logistics are enormous. It took an awful lot of organisation in letting them in when both sides were working to the same aim - what chance do you give it when one side are dead set against it?
 
Three years was bollocks anyway, 2 years is just further bollocks with a sugar coating for the German electorate. The family reunion thing might (small might) have some traction, but you can bet your last penny that any attempts to block such things will be held up as a transgression of their human rights etc etc.
 
Nope. They are fucked on this one.

gollum

UK has (apparently) 40,000 failed asylym seekers that were told to leave but haven't & now no one actually knows where they are... once you are in you are in.
 
Plus if you fail you just go try knock someone up, then you cannot be deported due to EU humans rights laws.
 
I guess that is an upside sort of. Sure 40,000 very dodgey asylum seekers are loose in the UK not working nor paying taxes, but 40,000 fatties & 39 year old chicks are getting that shot at a baby they'd never normally have. So silver lining there.

Catogrande

On a personal, selfish level I see NO silver lining.

NTA

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Rancid Schnitzel" data-cid="551256" data-time="1452144506">
Nick have you ever wondered why these people are galloping right through Eastern Europe and even Denmark and going straight for countries like Germany, Sweden and Norway that: (a)will let them stay (2) give them free shit? Actually I just answered that for you. As the Indonesia President once said, "Take the sugar off the table". 
With regard to work, the big question is what work these young men can actually do. They don't speak German and you have to study for years to be qualified for anything in Germany. They could do the shit jobs, but will they want to when the unemployment benefits are so generous? I've also read that even Syrians in Syria aren't keen to do the shit jobs. So I guess while you have a potential pool of labour, it appears to be largely composed of unskilled men who don't speak the language. Not exactly ideal.</blockquote>
 <blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Rancid Schnitzel" data-cid="551258" data-time="1452144808">
Apologies Nick, I misread your post. Disregard.</blockquote>
 
:D 
I'm not really pro-refugee in order to fix a problem of the MidEast's making. I was just thinking out loud about what it means economically for Germany. 
The benefits - with one eyebrow raised at jegga's fixation with white burds being raped by camel-fuckers fresh out of the desert :fishing: - are there for all to see in terms of welfare etc. 
Mostly, I'm kind of shocked the krauts didn't have minimum wage as part of federal law.

NTA

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="gollum" data-cid="551316" data-time="1452159739">
<div>
But now with robotics & so on there aren't thousands of low paid unskilled labouring jobs, or if there are the Romanians & Bulgarians are already doing them. 
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Automation is going to make Western populations less employable as time goes by. Once robots do our cleaning for us, were do the unwashed masses turn?
 
Finland's experiment with basic wage for all will be interesting:
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33977636'>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33977636</a>

Godder

Immigration is hard - most people clearly know very little about it. Studies show that immigration is a net positive economically, but it's a small impact unless numbers are cranked right up. Generally, the jobs taken by migrants are balanced by jobs created by their existence e.g. food, clothing, transport, housing, general consumption. It's a common misconception that allowing migrants to get visas as lowskilled workers undercuts locals, but most tertiary institutions are reliant on foreign students to stay afloat, and a number of regional towns and industries are dependent on migrant workers because NZers are less than keen to move there permanently, or take on that kind of work (e.g. farming, rest homes). Cutting back on that type of immigration will cause issues for those places and industries. However, too much of it depresses wages, and prevents unskilled locals from finding work, and can create an underclass of low skilled migrants. 
The flipside of that is the major issue with the concept of skilled migrants is that it cuts out opportunities for locals and interferes with their ability to study or retrain to fill those roles. Imagine doing career planning at high school 5 years ago and deciding to study accounting because there was a shortage at that time. You get a degree in accounting after 5 years of planning and study (2 at high school, 3 at university or polytech), and then discover you can't get a job in NZ because a stack of skilled migrants have filled most of the jobs, and the pay rates haven't moved in 5 years because the wave of migrants has repressed wage growth. That said, some skilled migrants are still needed as locals don't always stay in NZ... 
The point of the waffling above is that a mix of low and high skilled migrants is best as too much weight one way or the other creates its own issues.

gollum

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="NTA" data-cid="551336" data-time="1452172136">
<div>
Automation is going to make Western populations less employable as time goes by. Once robots do our cleaning for us, were do the unwashed masses turn?
 
Finland's experiment with basic wage for all will be interesting:
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33977636'>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33977636</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Indeed. There will be an issue where a very small chunk of the population own the companies that make all the automated systems. So the jobs go, and the money is concentrated with only a few people.
 
EG Tesla teams up with Uber. 500,000 taxi drivers lose their jobs. And the profits go to 10,000 employees at Tesla/Uber.
 
Now repeat that for everything.
 
A company like Google has 50k employees in the US averaging 100k a year. So $5bn is being distributed. 50 years ago the top companies in the US were distributing $5bn (equivelant) in wages, but to 350,000 staff. Its why the middle class in the US has been evicerated.
 
Hence there is a school of thought that governments should own a chunk of all of the new disruptive tech's. IE if the US government own 10% of Google, when Google make $100bn from destroying a stack of jobs the government pockets $10bn as shareholders & uses it to pay a uiniversal wage to the 90% of the population that have no jobs & don't own shares in Google, Uber, Tesla, Lyft, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel etc.

Tim

<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.dw.com/en/reports-cologne-nye-assaulters-were-largely-asylum-seekers/a-18966406'>Reports: Cologne NYE assaulters were largely asylum-seekers</a>
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">A majority of men who sexually harassed women in Cologne on New Year's Eve were asylum seekers, German media reports. City police reportedly did not want to publicize this because of its "politically awkward" nature.
 
</blockquote>

Virgil

I smell a big fat German cover up

jegga

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Tim" data-cid="551401" data-time="1452210326"><a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.dw.com/en/reports-cologne-nye-assaulters-were-largely-asylum-seekers/a-18966406">Reports: Cologne NYE assaulters were largely asylum-seekers</a></blockquote>
 
I just saw the Amy Winehouse doco , I was more surprised about her dying at the end than I am about reading that. 
On the plus side, we could be experiencing an influx of cashed up Europeans wanting to move here to get away from the idiocy of Merkel etc .

The Silver Fern

Hang on a sec