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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (188184)	6/3/2006 2:32:04 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Interesting article Nadine.. Thanks for sharing.. I pulled this little nugget out of it and thought it worth commenting. While it can be argued that the fast-growing community of about 20 million Muslim immigrants in Europe is the equivalent of America's new Hispanic immigrants, the difference in their productivity and prosperity is staggering.An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study in 1999 showed that while immigrants in the United States are almost equal to native-born workers as taxpayers and contributors to American prosperity, in Denmark there is a glaring gap of 41 percent between the contributions of the native-born and of the immigrants. In the United States, a laid-off worker gets an average of 32 percent compensation for his former wages in welfare services; in Denmark the figure is 81 percent. A culture of welfare dependency is rife among immigrants, and it is taken for granted. Both the US and Europe have this problem of surging populations on their borders. The demographics of the Mid-East are eerily similar to what was occurring in Mexico in the '80s and '90s. I seem to recall a statistic I used in a college paper back in the '80s. It cited that fully 50% of Mexico's population was under 14 years of age in the late '80s and that there was just no way that their economy could produce sufficient jobs to accomodate them all. And thus, they are being pushed out (encouraged/enabled) of their own countries into the developed economies, and it's been claimed that possibly deliberately so by their respective governments that are incapable/unwilling to provide them an equal degree of opportunity in their own countries. And while I agree with the author that many illegals, it's just ridiculous that we permit 10% of Mexico's population to illegally reside within our borders, regardless of their productivity. There is simply no reason we haven't had a guest worker program instituted, with some kind of employer provided healthcare (if necessary, subsidized by both the resident and guest governments). There is no reason OUR healthcare costs must subsidize the cost of millions of illegals. But in Europe, it's obvious that the situation is far worse. If workers are not as productive as native born employees, then one has to question the logic of granting them them similiar entitlements. As for immigrants, it used to be, according to any number of older immigrants I've spoken to over the years, that when they arrived, they and their families took major steps to integrate into their new country. While they might like to import some of their cultural values, foods, and traditions, they NEVER forgot that they were Americans and this is what they wanted to be. They didn't want to be people with loyalties to two different countries. When they left their homeland, they did so with the objective of making a new life in a better country and not looking back. And I think that our policies and cultural expectations at the time demanded this of them. And the apparent loss of these expectations is something I find quite disturbing. I know that if I were to ever choose to permanently immigrate to another country, I damn well had better integrate myself into that culture and never forget that its ME who has to change my values to accommodate my new country. Of course, I never foresee ever doing this, but it's the attitude I expect and demand of new immigrants in this country. And so long as they have this attitude, I'm always go out of my way to make them welcome and to encourage their enrichment of our culture. Just thought I would add my little rant to this subjec.. Hawk