UKIP poster boy is a racist immigrant, film at 11

[Zanza]

Because we already had comparisons to Germany's economy and we also talked about immigration and perception thereof...

Germany struggles to adapt to immigrant influx
By Jenny Hill
BBC Berlin correspondent

"Everyone's moving to Germany."

So says Govan, a thin, bearded French jazz musician from Lyon whom I meet in a German language class for people recently arrived in Berlin.

"In one month," he says, "I met lot of people from everywhere."

The faces around the table are young, the accents mainly European. They tell a story about how the demography of this country is changing fast.

Germany is now the world's second most popular destination - after the US - for immigrants. And they are arriving in the hundreds of thousands.

Net migration to Germany has not been this high for 20 years, and even the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) describes it as a boom. In 2012, 400,000 so-called "permanent migrants" arrived here.

They are people who have the right to stay for more than a year. That represents an increase of 38% on the year before.

They are coming from Eastern Europe, but also from the countries of the southern Eurozone, lured by Germany's stronger economy and jobs market.

And they are being welcomed with open arms - by the government at least - because Germany has a significant skills gap, and a worryingly low birth rate.

"Immigrants are on average younger and the German population is on average older, so immigrants are welcome," says Dr Ingrid Tucci, from the German Institute for Economic Research.

"It's important to attract students and highly qualified people. So the government is making it easier for them, trying to invest and put a culture of welcome in place."

Here they call it "Willkommenskultur".

In practice it means free or cheap German language lessons for immigrants plus integration and citizenship classes.

As Berlin's senator for work, integration and women, it is Dilek Kolat's job to facilitate Willkommenskultur in the city.

"Every academic, every employer will tell you we need skilled migration. There's a change in perception in wider society.

"We don't look at migrants as a possible threat or a possible problem, but we look at them as potential.

"What can they bring to society? Business[es] are approaching the senate and asking how can we get the young refugees into apprenticeships which at the moment aren't taken up by German kids."

But Willkommenskultur is also about attitude.

And - politically at least - it's changed substantially since the days of Helmut Kohl.

Under his leadership Germany was 'not a country of immigration' despite the hundreds of thousands of Turkish migrant workers who'd been invited here in the sixties.

They had been recruited to help with Germany's post-war reconstruction.

And - as their families and friends arrived to join them - Germany's immigration figures spiked for the first time since the Second World War. In 1970 for example annual net immigration stood at more than half a million.

Private papers recently published by the German news website Spiegel Online reveal Chancellor Kohl told then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1982 that he wanted to halve the number of Turks living in Germany. They did not, he said, "integrate well".

Today they are an established community. Stroll through the Berlin district of Neukoln and you pass hundreds of businesses run by their children and grandchildren.

In the window of one of the restaurants here, a large chunk of roasting meat turns slowly on a spit. Inside, a woman with a headscarf sips tea from a glass in front of a counter stacked with kebabs and and flatbreads ready for the lunchtime rush.

It is owned by Hassan - an earnest man in his 40s, who arrived in Germany with his parents when he was 13. But he worries about immigration today.

'It's great people come to Germany. They should be able to come. But people who don't work shouldn't be able to stay. Look at me - I work 20 hours a day.

"There are a lot of beggars. They have no money but ask for food. I give them kebabs, pizzas, but my heart breaks - I can't give food to everyone."

Neither, it seems, can some German towns and cities, who are largely responsible for the welfare of immigrants.

Last year the mayors of 16 large German cities wrote to the government asking for help with unemployed migrants flooding into their regions from Eastern Europe. Places like Cologne, Dortmund and Hanover have struggled to cope.

And there is growing support in Germany for a new political party. Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) acknowledges the need for migrant workers but still wants tighter controls on immigration.

This, though, is a country still haunted by the atrocities of World War Two.

People here are mindful of how devastating the consequences of "Rassenhass" - racial hatred - can be.

And bear in mind most of today's migrants are moving within the EU.

Since Bulgaria and Romania acceded in 2007 there's been a significant increase of immigrants from both countries - 67,000 Romanians and 29,000 Bulgarians arrived in the first half of 2013.

In response to public concern about the numbers, Angela Merkel's government pledged to crack down on migrants who fraudulently claimed benefits but - in the words of one politician from her conservative CDU party - free movement for workers is "one of the main pillars of the European Union".

So, as Dr Tucci says: "There aren't a lot of tensions - Germany doesn't compare with countries like France where tensions are more virulent.

"It's important though to say the population has to be prepared for immigration. There are perhaps fears of newcomers. So political rhetoric is important."

Back in the language class, I meet Alissa and David - an architect and a musicians' agent - who have arrived from Milan.

"We discovered that Milan was too expensive for us and the quality of life was not so good," says David.

"We had some money and we decided to buy a flat here in Berlin because it was cheaper than Italy.

"We were looking for a real metropolis, and in Europe the big cities are too expensive. Berlin was the only solution. The only problem is the language."

But, adds Alissa: "I feel at home."

She is in good company. More than 7.6 million foreigners are registered as living in Germany. It is the highest number since records began in 1967.

In the words of President Joachim Gauck: "A look at our country shows how bizarre it is that some people cling to the idea that there could be such a thing as a homogenous, closed single-coloured Germany.

"It's not easy to grasp what it is to be German - and it keeps changing."

[Tamas]

I, for one, welcome the dilution of national identities, if they will be replaced by a common European identity

[The Minsky Moment]

I think Germany's possibly storing up a few problems for the next recession, one is what you've mentioned. I'm not sure how long you can improve the economy by keeping labour costs down rather than improving productivity (which is still higher than the UK because that's our permanent curse). But I've also read that infrastructure investment's at quite historically low levels and, though I could be wrong, I can't think of a single structural reform that Merkel's passed in her time in office - though I understand the latest coalition does plan to lower the retirement age :lol

I read an op-ed from a senior German policymaker a couple weeks back (can't recall which one).  The thrust of which was to argue that if Germany was an independent country, then its optimal monetary policy would be considerably tighter than the current ECB policy (debatable itself but OK . . .). He then argued that therefore it was rational for Germany to oppose monetary loosening.

The problem of course is that Germany is not independent, it is part of a broad economic union, and monetary policy for that economic whole is and has been too tight.  Fictional independent Germany might want to have zero inflation, but real life Germany should want to accept some inflation so that the Eurozone of which it is a key part can grow.  Another way of looking at it is to imagine that within the fictional independent Germany, what if Bavaria were to complain that the fictional Bundesbank monetary policy was not optimal for Bavaria and the rest of Germany should accommodate.  Such a suggestion would be treated with the same raised eyebrow as the suggestion that the Fed should have separate monetary policies for Ohio and Virginia.

I hate to pick on Germany because all the EU countries act like this; they all keep forgetting that they are stuck together in a monetary UNION and still go around pretending it makes sense to think of themselves in splendid isolation.  The difference is that Germany is just so central that its views have greater impact and that it seems to have actually had real influence on ECB policy.

[Admiral Yi]

In your hypothetical Bavaria would be perfectly rational in pushing for tightness.

[Agelastus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29910497

New EU migrants add £5bn to UK, report says

It says exactly the same thing as the report from a couple of years ago (heck, given the dates involved, it may even be the same report, only this time the final, not the preliminary version.) EU migrants add more to the economy than they take - but when you take the headline figure and break it down by number of migrants and number of years the value added per migrant per year is ridiculously low. Low enough to make one wonder if the costs (such as the deflationary pressure they've placed on wages at the lower end of the market) is worth it.

£5 billion over a 7 year period is frankly pathetic.

[Tamas]

Well we are sorry to be a nuisance.

[The Brain]

Can someone please take care of the Romanians in Stockholm?

[Agelastus]

Well we are sorry to be a nuisance.

I'd really like to know why you're so convinced I personally want to throw you out, or consider you a nuisance, Tamas...I didn't think I'd made such a bad impression the one time we met.

I've said this before - the best, most reliable people I've ever worked with were Poles.

[The Brain]

Well we are sorry to be a nuisance.

I'd really like to know why you're so convinced I personally want to throw you out, or consider you a nuisance, Tamas...I didn't think I'd made such a bad impression the one time we met.

I've said this before - the best, most reliable people I've ever worked with were Poles.

[Tamas]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29910497

New EU migrants add £5bn to UK, report says

It says exactly the same thing as the report from a couple of years ago (heck, given the dates involved, it may even be the same report, only this time the final, not the preliminary version.) EU migrants add more to the economy than they take - but when you take the headline figure and break it down by number of migrants and number of years the value added per migrant per year is ridiculously low. Low enough to make one wonder if the costs (such as the deflationary pressure they've placed on wages at the lower end of the market) is worth it.

£5 billion over a 7 year period is frankly pathetic.

But its still a net positive, unlike the native population.

Plus, deflationary pressure on wages in this day and age is a totally wrong argument: those guys from Pakistan or Romania could might as well do the factory work in Romania and Pakistan, posing a much bigger deflationary pressure on UK wages.

[The Brain]

Beggars don't do factory work.

[Tamas]

Well we are sorry to be a nuisance.

I'd really like to know why you're so convinced I personally want to throw you out, or consider you a nuisance, Tamas...I didn't think I'd made such a bad impression the one time we met.

I've said this before - the best, most reliable people I've ever worked with were Poles.

You didn't. But it is a very personal matter to me, and puzzling as well, as this whole thing must be very hidden in society, since I just don't encounter it at all in my daily life (kudos for Britain on that by the way).

But I guess my point is sort of: those Poles you liked, me, etc: we ARE the immigrants you think are hurting the UK. You are entitled to your opinion and ultimately it is your country and I am just a guest here. But you and the rest of the UKIP voters should be aware of this.

[Sheilbh]

Plus, deflationary pressure on wages in this day and age is a totally wrong argument: those guys from Pakistan or Romania could might as well do the factory work in Romania and Pakistan, posing a much bigger deflationary pressure on UK wages.

We're a service economy (although manufacturing's growing precisely because the cost/benefit of outsourcing has shifted - extraordinarily we now make more cars than France or Germany ). But people can't make my coffee in Pakistan. This is part of the reason I support boosting the minimum wage. In the UK most of the jobs that can be exported have been.

And wage policy is part of immigration policy. From what I've read you can count on the fingers of both hands the number of people who've been prosecuted for employing people at below the minimum wage in the seventeen years we've had one. I know from several people who moved here that when they first got here they were offered or worked in a job that offered below the minimum wage, though they quickly moved on.

And Age's point is right, again from what I've read the economic picture of immigration is a bit more mixed. In all sorts of different ways I'm a beneficiary, but low-paid people, without great educations are operating in a different economy - not least because someone with three GCSEs is competing for jobs with unemployed Spanish engineers (seriously when I worked in a bar we had 3 engineers, 1 IT guy, 2 lawyers, a primary school teacher, an accountant and a dentist behind the bar at different points ). Also there can be localised pressure on services, for example Boston a town whose population has grown by 20% largely due to European immigration in the last decade.

[Sheilbh]

You didn't. But it is a very personal matter to me, and puzzling as well, as this whole thing must be very hidden in society, since I just don't encounter it at all in my daily life (kudos for Britain on that by the way).

1 - It's not personal. Everyone I met who moans about Eastern Europeans caveats it with things like 'noone denies they're very hard workers' or 'all the ones I know are great' etc.
2 - We're still a generally polite country. It'd be incredibly obnoxious for someone to take out their political view on you, or even to discuss them with a random stranger.
3 - Drawn from the second and leading to the first, political correctness isn't all bad.

As I say I think the only Eastern Europeans who really should moan about the whole immigration conversation are the Romanians because, due to our ignorance, we really don't distinguish between them and the Roma

But I guess my point is sort of: those Poles you liked, me, etc: we ARE the immigrants you think are hurting the UK. You are entitled to your opinion and ultimately it is your country and I am just a guest here. But you and the rest of the UKIP voters should be aware of this.

You've got a partner and are thinking of getting a car. Doesn't sound like a guest to me

And I do like things like the tiny minority noted in the last census of mixed race Polish-Caribbean children

[Tamas]

How would raising the minimum wage help? Already what you are saying is that immigrants are more willing to take minimum wage jobs than natives. If you raise the minimum wage, it will also raise prices accross the board, promote the grey economy, etc. Hardly a surefire way to improve living standards.

And especially in the service industry, if there is an immigrant who is willing to take the job with X conditions for Y salary, and there is a native British person who is willing to take it as well with  X and Y while showing the same level of skill and experience as the immigrant, there is no way on Earth it is not the native guy being hired. Not here, not anywhere.