Quote:Well, the bet that Merkel and her economists are making is that the immigrants will grow the economy by virtue of them working and paying those taxes. Germany, more than most, can afford it. Will it pan out the way they planned, probably not exactly. Will it precipitate a "socioeconomic collapse within Europe?" I strongly doubt it.
I really don't think this kind of growth, roughly 1% per year in places like Germany, is sustainable. Thousands could come every single day without reprieve for many years, how can one keep pace with their needs in the long run, for example the demand for places to live? At the moment only short term (therefore inadequate) solutions seem to exist.
You're probably right, a catastrophe of that magnitude is unlikely, but only because I feel the EU will break up beforehand if things continue this way. The Netherlands has been considering this for some time now, and there was a report today that the UK is also considering this.
I also feel part of the problem is that people tend to avoid discussing this honestly, as people who raise objections tend to get labelled as xenophobic. In general, people seem to be reluctant to talk about this in a practical sense. In truth this problem goes far beyond Syria, and has been ongoing for many years now. At the moment Syrians only constitute a minority of the people trying to get into Europe. This means that even if the situation in Syria is somehow resolved and everyone goes home, it only solves part of the problem.
They don't have the means to process all of these people, as they don't have identification. There is no way to know their origins, and there is no way to know who has extremist tendencies, or who could prove to be otherwise problematic.
