I really don´t know if you guys speak out of ignorance, provocation, racism or ill-intent, I just wanted to share to all the forum good news about the situation in germany and you
suddenly come up with this strange criticism...
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Originally Posted by Crawford
Probably because Germany had its greatest immigration numbers ever last year.
Given that Merkel's "solution" to Germany's demographic issues is "welcome any living human provided they make it into the country", Germany basically has the choice of maintaining
population while transforming into some other type of country, or losing population while maintaining borders and nationhood. I prefer the later, but I'm not voting. If you lose your
country, then issues of demography and economy are irrelevant.
I hope Germany's next leader actually implements reforms to encourage Germans to have more babies, as has been done with some success in practically every other wealthy Western European
nation. Otherwise Germany is screwed.
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First, I don´t think the latest fertility numbers are only related to immigration, Germany had similar or higher immigration in the early 90´s than 2013-14 and fertility even went down, I think it is also a consecuence of long term politics being implemented since about 10 years, and a cultural change taking place.
Apart from demographic/economic problems I´m glad germany has (or I hope it does) an open enough society to welcome people from other countries and cultures and above all, being able to integrate them in the german society, that was not always been the case in the past and I think, with all the problems it generates, there´s much more experience and preparation today
then by the time of the "Gastarbeiter".
For Merkel or any politician, refugees are not a "solution", to say that is really insane, Germany receiving refugees might be a solution for countries in eastern europe and the UK which don´t want them or France and Italy which are not wanted by them, but every german, me included, knows that from a purly economic and prosperity perspective, Germany would be better off
without so many refugees, they generate a huge cost for everybody and represent a challenge for social integrity, but there are needed people abandoned in other countries, little solidarity in the EU and a german constitution to respect, that´s why Merkel is letting them in. Politicians can only try to keep this cost as low as possible by trying to let them get
jobs and integrate as soon as possible, and that doesn´t have to screw the country, would you say the city of New York is screwed because it has/had so much immigration??
Quote:
Originally Posted by New Brisavoine
Germany has actually implemented reforms to encourage Germans (in fact Germans and immigrants, since these policies cannot target specifically German people,
as that would be discriminatory and contrary to European and international law) to have babies. In fact Germany spends more on child/family policy than France now! Problem is, it's not
working, or it's working only very marginally. The reason for that is cultural: after 40 years of low fertility, many German women simply do not desire 2 children anymore. No amount of
money, benefit, etc, can change that.
At most, in the best of world, if German women could have their desired number of children, they would have 1.96 (French women would have 2.58). Source: Eurobarometer 2011. So if the
German government got absolutely everything right, magically removed all barriers to procreation, it could bring Germany's fertility rate to 1.96 (and France could bring her to 2.58). In
the real world, it's almost impossible to reach these figures, for all sorts of reasons.
As for Merkel's "solution", it is simply not sustainable. There are currently 4 million Syrian refugees in the Middle East. If they suddenly decided to take advantage of Merkel's "free
entry" offer, that would collapse Germany's welfare state (and create a humanitarian disaster in Germany, as I can't see which logistic could feed and house 4 million people arriving all
at once). Not to mention that from what I understand, Merkel extended her offer to people from Iraq and Afghanistan, so that's million more people who could now cross the Balkan and
arrive in Germany if they are ready to contemplate the long journey.
How could a normally mature and cautious leader make such a foolish statement is beyond me.
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Allow me to question, that Germany is currently spending more for child/family than France, and if it is, it´s only since about a few years while France pronatalistic spendings are running since the 70´s. In Germany, for historic reasons, this cause has been totally ignored for a long time until the middle 2000´s, but even so, having a family is still not the great business in Germany and France has a much wider social network for families and workers, if they will be able to keep all that structure regarding their economic problems remains to be seen.
I partially agree it´s also a cultural problem but it´s about cycles, while France has peaked its potential for an industrialised country, other countries like Spain or Germany can
only improve, specially if there´s wide awareness in society of how important is to have families like the one I´m perceiving lately in Germany.
Again, I don´t know what make you guys think Merkel sees refugees from Syria or Afghanistan as a "solution" for german problems, is it for France a "solution" to keep oversees "territories", many of them little related to french culture and allow them to be french citizens?? Do citizens of Mayote who want to be french (and use the Euro as currency), should be rejected as french because they are not sustainable from an economic perspective?? after all, France host one of the largest, if not the largest muslim community in Europe and I hope they can integrate them well, as I hope this for german muslims. You could have saved your strange calculations, Merkel only tried to give a solution for the current disastrous condition of refugees already coming to Europe, I hope other leaders like Hollande or Cameron at least show some solidarity and give it a try too