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[Sergarr]

You know, I'm wondering, what is so special about Germany that the refugees would rather go there than staying in Turkey or the Balkans or whatever first peaceful state they reach (which is supposedly what they are supposed to do)? Besides the fact that Isis is right at Turkeys border, which could scare them, and they haven't recieved great treatment in Hungary and some of the Balkans.

Quite a lot of these refugees know only very basic stuff about Europe's geography and socio-economical situation. To illustrate this, here's a real map that was used by illegal immigrants captured in Hungary back in 2010.

[Loud Whispers]

You know, I'm wondering, what is so special about Germany that the refugees would rather go there than staying in Turkey or the Balkans or whatever first peaceful state they reach (which is supposedly what they are supposed to do)? Besides the fact that Isis is right at Turkeys border, which could scare them, and they haven't recieved great treatment in Hungary and some of the Balkans.

Quite a lot of these refugees know only very basic stuff about Europe's geography and socio-economical situation. To illustrate this, here's a real map that was used by illegal immigrants captured in Hungary back in 2010.

Turkey, Greek islands, Macedonia, Kosovo, central European blob and then Austria and Germany above. It's kinda cool to see how it's not a geographical map so much as a straight line from point A to B.

[smjjames]

Sort of like how the US is often THE GOAL for immigrants I guess.

In fact, if it weren't for the fact that ISIS is (unfortunately) taking advantage of the refugee crisis to sneak someof their fighters through, the refugees would certainly be welcome in the US.

[nenjin]

Sort of like how the US is often THE GOAL for immigrants I guess.

In fact, if it weren't for the fact that ISIS is (unfortunately) taking advantage of the refugee crisis to sneak someof their fighters through, the refugees would certainly be welcome in the US.

I really doubt it.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/world/welcome-syrian-refugees-countries/index.html

Even excluding potential ISIS fighters as refugees, notice how much less willing the US is to take anyone in versus.....Canada. Or ANYONE for that matter. (Except for some ME countries who are accepting exactly....0 refugees.)

Immigration is ever a hot button issue in America, and has been hyper-polarized because of the upcoming elections. I suspect if there was no ISIS, our resettlement numbers would be about the same.

(Or perhaps that's just what our resettlement cap is, given various parts of the US are considered resettlement zones for immigration. In my town we get a lot of Sudanese, Vietnamese and Iraqis.)

[Loud Whispers]

Amusingly Canada has had a massive influx of migrants settled by ISIS.

The Immigrant Settlement and Intergration Services.

It has made for some hilarious confusions.

[notquitethere]

If you guys are using slightly dubious sources, how about this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

How did we get from the refugee crisis in Europe to Japan anyway?

The thing is, GDP growth on its own is a terrible indicator of whether a country is any good to live in. The Japanese have a better quality of life than people in faster growing comparably sized European economies (look how I smoothly brought it back on topic).

[Antsan]

Maybe GDP per capita would be a measure a little bit more useful? I mean, it's not like Japan has a rather small population or anything and I would believe that India's rather high GDP also might have something to do with population, don't you think?
And look, suddenly Japan(26/26/28) is way below the USA(10/10/12), Sweden(7/7/8) and Germany(18/17/21).
And if living cost is factored in, Japan(28/26/29) goes down even a bit more. Germany(18/15/20) goes up a bit and Sweden(17/16/19) goes down, still staying above Japan.

And guess what? By the first measure India is at places (143/142/149), by the second its at (125/124/131). Suddenly that doesn't seem so astonishingly awesome anymore, which was kind of to be expected, right?

Also, of course, what notquitethere said.

a better quality of life

That is a strange link you've got there.

[mainiac]

My intent by posting a GDP per capita graph was not to say "look how much lower then US GDP per capita, Japan is".  My intent was to show that Japan has been disappointing compared to what one might have expected.  I would be quite hesitant to put too much faith in a metric that ranks the US higher for having inefficient healthcare system or considers Qatar very rich for the double reason that it produces a huge amount of oil and that consumer gasoline is very subsidized.

Consider HDI as a snapshot for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
It's no surprise that Japan does very well on an arithmetic mean of wealth, education and life expectancy.

[Loud Whispers]

If you factor in GDP per capita then Japan gets beat by a lot of tax havens and oil nations; even so, looking at nations with no vast oil reserves or anything that rely on services, countries like Singapore and Switzerland with strict immigration controls utterly wipe the floor with the rest of the world - and their principle for growth is not mass immigration and high population, but intense quality education for the best of their students with a high quality services sector ensuing. Amusingly by GDP per capita London were it independent would be the 4th richest nation in the world, which compared to rich nations is a ton of shit but it's funny nonetheless. I'm reminded of that one nations forum where there was this woman convinced that mass immigration had caused the massive economic growth in east London and not the massive banks and business headquartered there.

[mainiac]

If you factor in GDP per capita then Japan gets beat by a lot of tax havens and oil nations; even so, looking at nations with no vast oil reserves or anything that rely on services, countries like Singapore and Switzerland with strict immigration controls utterly wipe the floor with the rest of the world - and their principle for growth is not mass immigration and high population, but intense quality education for the best of their students with a high quality services sector ensuing.

Singapore's wealth does not come primarily from investing in it's population.

And GDP per capita is of course going to reward nativist countries.  Suppose you have the republic of Alice with 1 person (named Janet), who earns 30 dollars an hour.  Sam immigrates to the republic of Alice.  Before he immigrated, Sam was earning 5 dollars an hour.  Sam and Janet have labor compliments so after Sam immigrates they earn 35 and 10 dollars an hour respectively.  What happened to the product per capita of the republic of Alice?  It feel by 8 dollars per hour despite the fact that everyone involved is much better off.

[Antsan]

My intent by posting a GDP per capita graph was not to say "look how much lower then US GDP per capita, Japan is".  My intent was to show that Japan has been disappointing compared to what one might have expected.  I would be quite hesitant to put too much faith in a metric that ranks the US higher for having inefficient healthcare system or considers Qatar very rich for the double reason that it produces a huge amount of oil and that consumer gasoline is very subsidized.

Consider HDI as a snapshot for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
It's no surprise that Japan does very well on an arithmetic mean of wealth, education and life expectancy.

I didn't even realize you posted something like that. All I intended was to point out how absurd it is to use data without normalizing.
I'll have a look at the Human Development Index later.

If you factor in GDP per capita then Japan gets beat by a lot of tax havens and oil nations; even so, looking at nations with no vast oil reserves or anything that rely on services, countries like Singapore and Switzerland with strict immigration controls utterly wipe the floor with the rest of the world - and their principle for growth is not mass immigration and high population, but intense quality education for the best of their students with a high quality services sector ensuing. Amusingly by GDP per capita London were it independent would be the 4th richest nation in the world, which compared to rich nations is a ton of shit but it's funny nonetheless. I'm reminded of that one nations forum where there was this woman convinced that mass immigration had caused the massive economic growth in east London and not the massive banks and business headquartered there.

Sweden and Germany are neither tax havens nor oil rich. That's why I didn't mention Norway.

And GDP per capita is of course going to reward nativist countries.  Suppose you have the republic of Alice with 1 person (named Janet), who earns 30 dollars an hour.  Sam immigrates to the republic of Alice.  Before he immigrated, Sam was earning 5 dollars an hour.  Sam and Janet have labor compliments so after Sam immigrates they earn 35 and 10 dollars an hour respectively.  What happened to the product per capita of the republic of Alice?  It feel by 8 dollars per hour despite the fact that everyone involved is much better off.

Wasn't there a name for… uhm… paradoxes for lack of a better term… like that?

[Sheb]

Also, Singapore isnt exactly that nativist. I think the government there is planning to have almost half the population be non-citizen resident by 2030.

[mainiac]

Also, Singapore isnt exactly that nativist. I think the government there is planning to have almost half the population be non-citizen resident by 2030.

Yes, and by doing so Singapore is simultaneously lowering it's per capita income quite a bit while greatly improving the welfare of it's citizens.  Singapore heavily imports talented workers like doctors but because that dilutes the wealth from sectors like shipping and banking, adding high skill workers to a pool of low skill workers lowers the average by increasing the population.  It's really quite a remarkable example of counterintuitive statistics.

Wasn't there a name for… uhm… paradoxes for lack of a better term… like that?

There is but the closest I can come up with is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

Which doesn't seem to quite fit.

[Loud Whispers]

Singapore's wealth does not come primarily from investing in it's population.

I didn't say that, I said intense quality education for the best of its students. Also serious incentives for more skilled labourers.

And GDP per capita is of course going to reward nativist countries.

Then we are in agreement it's not any measure of success

Also, Singapore isnt exactly that nativist. I think the government there is planning to have almost half the population be non-citizen resident by 2030.

Quite the opposite, it's trying to boost the birth rate of Singaporeans to beyond 2.1 to boost the population by 2030; immigration is still a contentious issue in Singapore

Also google ads love me

[mainiac]

I didn't say that, I said intense quality education for the best of its students. Also serious incentives for more skilled labourers.

Singapore's success doesn't come from quality education for it's best students.  Singapore's success happens because during colonial times the British nicked it off the natives and used it as a naval base.  Because it's located on a strait that a large volume of traffic goes through, it became a major trade hub.  This gave Singapore a bunch of cash cow industries that require a bit of capital investment (such as building massive oil storage facilities) but dont require much else.  With that money, Singapore can afford to import whatever it wants, such as foreign doctors to take care of it's population.  In many regards it's similar to an oil rich country like the UAE.