European refugee crisis thread

[K. A. Pital]

First, I'm wondering where the word "rentier" is coming from, as it is not one I am familiar with. Around here they're usually call "landlords" or, in legal documents such as a lease, "lessor" (as opposed the the renter, who is called a "lessee").

I know. But language is politics. A rentier is a person who derives income from rent (land or other property). It is a name I find fitting. I don't want to use anything with the root "lord" to describe them, as such a person is not a "lord" of anything - not of the land, neither of others. Lessor is a neutral term. Rentier is a midly negative term, and I prefer to use it as long as it is not incorrect. Just like I always say "capitalist" and never say "employer" or, cosmos forbid, "job creator".

Second - there are sometimes downsides to renting out property you own. In our area that means increased government regulation and also an instant doubling of property taxes because now it's considered a type of commercial property rather than a residential one (which also accounts for some of the cost of rent).

For us it just means paying common income tax on rent incomes. Property class is not changed.

Sure, you can rent out property you own after moving to another city, but owning property subjects you to certain obligations and they can't always be done at a distance. There is also the problem that if you have substantial money tied up in one property you own purchasing another can be difficult.

True. If you cannot manage the property, pointless to have one. However, the management costs are controllable. I would say in any case it beats having to spend 30-50% of your wage on rent. This money is the money you lose forever. Even mortgages, hideous as they are, are at least a form of investment - you pay towards the property that can eventually be sold, and your losses are limited by its depreciation. In case of renting, all the money paid to the rentier is totally lost forever, 100% of it. Unless of course you're on social security and the state pays your rent... or the rents are very low because you live in government-provided "social housing" (there rents can be as low as the costs of house maintenance, because the state does not expect to make a profit, in practice such rents are extremely low, like ~3 times lower the market average).

Having nothing beats having something only when you can 100% rely on social safety nets. They are no longer strong enough anywhere outside Scandinavia, probably. If you have some property, you can always sell it, for example, if there are circumstances which require you to pay lots of money. Not a nice scenario, but prosthetics can often cost tens of thousands of dollars. If you have nothing, you have nothing.

The haves always have a better chance in such circumstances than the have-nots, at least under our current system. In an ideal world housing should not have been allowed to become an investment, especially such a lucrative one, but we are in the real world.

[Simon_Jester]

First, I'm wondering where the word "rentier" is coming from, as it is not one I am familiar with. Around here they're usually call "landlords" or, in legal documents such as a lease, "lessor" (as opposed the the renter, who is called a "lessee").

I know. But language is politics. A rentier is a person who derives income from rent (land or other property). It is a name I find fitting. I don't want to use anything with the root "lord" to describe them, as such a person is not a "lord" of anything - not of the land, neither of others. Lessor is a neutral term. Rentier is a midly negative term, and I prefer to use it as long as it is not incorrect. Just like I always say "capitalist" and never say "employer" or, cosmos forbid, "job creator".

Rentier is also a term used in non-Marxist economics, for the record, although it is not used quite so extensively there, I think. It helps to distinguish people who make money by virtue of renting access to a desired good, from people who actually provide such a good directly.

"Employer" can be useful in a very objective sense. For example, it is useful when describing entities that hire workers but are not capitalists- such as government agencies, or voluntary member-funded associations that hire secretaries or other staffers to keep track of things.

In case of renting, all the money paid to the rentier is totally lost forever, 100% of it. Unless of course you're on social security and the state pays your rent...

In which case the state loses the money and gets nothing in return. Except, of course, for you having a roof over your head.

[K. A. Pital]

The state loses money when it pays the rents, obviously, but the individual benefits by being able to enjoy a greater disposable income. This applies to the very poor and jobless or temp-employed for a tiny below-subsistence wage anyway, not so much to the general working population.

[Broomstick]

True. If you cannot manage the property, pointless to have one. However, the management costs are controllable. I would say in any case it beats having to spend 30-50% of your wage on rent. This money is the money you lose forever. Even mortgages, hideous as they are, are at least a form of investment - you pay towards the property that can eventually be sold, and your losses are limited by its depreciation. In case of renting, all the money paid to the rentier is totally lost forever, 100% of it.

Actually the very worst of all worlds is the "interest only mortgage", which abortion actually exists. It's a situation where you pay ONLY the interest on a mortgage, never paying down the principle. Why is that worse than renting? Because as a renter you are not responsible for the property. If the owner (heh, no "lord" involved, right?) fails to maintain the property the owner is responsible, not the renter. In an IOM, though the renter IS the owner - so you never gain equity, you never gain ownership, yet you have all the responsibility of an owner, the property value is considered part of your assets, and so forth. It can be very much worse than simply renting. As a renter you may not gain equity, but your liability is also limited. IOM combines the downsides of renting and owning. Only the bank wins.

[fordlltwm]

Over here you won't get a IOM on a property you intend to live in, you can only get them on Buy to Let properties, ones bought to rent out. The theory being you make enough on the rent to cover maintainence and the interest payments, hold on to the house for 10 years then sell it for a % more than you bought it.

[Zaune]

Over here you won't get a IOM on a property you intend to live in, you can only get them on Buy to Let properties, ones bought to rent out. The theory being you make enough on the rent to cover maintainence and the interest payments, hold on to the house for 10 years then sell it for a % more than you bought it.

Which isn't really a lot better, because the last thing we need is more incentives to keep British house prices going ever-higher.

[cosmicalstorm]

Interesting to see that Merkel followed the Swedish lead in the Syria-case. When Sweden adopted the same policy in 2012 it increased the amount of Syrians moving here to a very large degree, the anti immigration party of SD has been growing tremendously in polls since then. The next year I suspect the amount of Syrian refugees arriving in Germany will double. Is there any anti-immigration party in German politics right now worth mentioning?

[His Divine Shadow]

True. If you cannot manage the property, pointless to have one. However, the management costs are controllable. I would say in any case it beats having to spend 30-50% of your wage on rent. This money is the money you lose forever. Even mortgages, hideous as they are, are at least a form of investment - you pay towards the property that can eventually be sold, and your losses are limited by its depreciation. In case of renting, all the money paid to the rentier is totally lost forever, 100% of it.

Actually the very worst of all worlds is the "interest only mortgage", which abortion actually exists. It's a situation where you pay ONLY the interest on a mortgage, never paying down the principle. Why is that worse than renting? Because as a renter you are not responsible for the property. If the owner (heh, no "lord" involved, right?) fails to maintain the property the owner is responsible, not the renter. In an IOM, though the renter IS the owner - so you never gain equity, you never gain ownership, yet you have all the responsibility of an owner, the property value is considered part of your assets, and so forth. It can be very much worse than simply renting. As a renter you may not gain equity, but your liability is also limited. IOM combines the downsides of renting and owning. Only the bank wins.

Sounds a lot like what the swedes do. Very rarely is the intent there to ever downpay the house completely, they tried to enforce a limit of downpaying 70% of it but it was shot down. Eventually some of the largest banks thought it was too stupid insane even for them and enforced similar rules on their own volition, because a housing bubble is pretty apparent in sweden.

[His Divine Shadow]

One reason I'd like to be able to earn a living through writing or independent craft work (or both) is that I would no longer be tied to a geographical location. I could move somewhere with cheaper housing, lower population density, lower crime, etc. without suffering economically.

Get enough independent sorts of that kind moving out to a "depopulated" town or area you can get a bit of a revival as the newcomers will want groceries and various services, which will supply jobs for the area. Combine that with a tourist attraction or two and you can have a viable economy.

Then you have the problem that such areas can also be very homogeneous, insular, and not welcoming to newcomers.

We've had lots of immigrants over the years to the small municipalities in western finland, there are jobs and a lot of them start restaurants. In a little town of maybe a 1000, and 6k in the whole municipality we got a thai restaurant, bosnian, kebab & pizza place and two ordinary burger joints. There are also the greenhouse industries which give jobs to a lot of people. And hey they're unionized finally too, though there was never the kind of predatory relationship that goes in the US with illegal immigrants in farming and such.

Smaller towns can still house large business, one of Finlands biggest cosmetic/hygiene companies, also internationally a decently sized player, is located in a rural municipality of only 2200 people, 10% of the population are immigrants and the unemployment rate has been under 5% for many years, even in these times.

A high quality super yacht manufacturing firm that sells to billionaires and the like is in another small community further north. Vaasa which is quite small by some comparison house one of the global leaders in advanced motors and gas driven power plants, it's called the power cluster hre for it's expertise in power generation related things. This also supplies jobs to smaller contractors around the countryside by way of subcontracting etc.

So it's pretty bunk that we all have to move into big cities to have successful lives. Not that I agree with most peoples idea of success, i.e.making loads of cash to consume the planet to death ever faster.

The trend of larger firms buying up smaller firms (or bought up by these investment firms whose sole purpose is just to own companies and suck them dry) is a problem though, this disconnects companies from their localities and makes it easier to move them away to a central location, thus disrupting entire communities for the sake of a few bucks saved in having everything closer.

As for the integration issues and small towns, it seems to have worked out quite well here. In fact a lot of the violence against immigrants seem to happen down in the metropolitan areas. So it strikes me as a prejudice. But if there's a prejudice that's globally socially acceptable and even encouraged, it's that small town folks are stupid inbred racist moron hell fuckers.

[Edi]

One reason I'd like to be able to earn a living through writing or independent craft work (or both) is that I would no longer be tied to a geographical location. I could move somewhere with cheaper housing, lower population density, lower crime, etc. without suffering economically.

Get enough independent sorts of that kind moving out to a "depopulated" town or area you can get a bit of a revival as the newcomers will want groceries and various services, which will supply jobs for the area. Combine that with a tourist attraction or two and you can have a viable economy.

Then you have the problem that such areas can also be very homogeneous, insular, and not welcoming to newcomers.

We've had lots of immigrants over the years to the small municipalities in western finland, there are jobs and a lot of them start restaurants. In a little town of maybe a 1000, and 6k in the whole municipality we got a thai restaurant, bosnian, kebab & pizza place and two ordinary burger joints. There are also the greenhouse industries which give jobs to a lot of people. And hey they're unionized finally too, though there was never the kind of predatory relationship that goes in the US with illegal immigrants in farming and such.

Smaller towns can still house large business, one of Finlands biggest cosmetic/hygiene companies, also internationally a decently sized player, is located in a rural municipality of only 2200 people, 10% of the population are immigrants and the unemployment rate has been under 5% for many years, even in these times.

A high quality super yacht manufacturing firm that sells to billionaires and the like is in another small community further north. Vaasa which is quite small by some comparison house one of the global leaders in advanced motors and gas driven power plants, it's called the power cluster hre for it's expertise in power generation related things. This also supplies jobs to smaller contractors around the countryside by way of subcontracting etc.

So it's pretty bunk that we all have to move into big cities to have successful lives. Not that I agree with most peoples idea of success, i.e.making loads of cash to consume the planet to death ever faster.

The trend of larger firms buying up smaller firms (or bought up by these investment firms whose sole purpose is just to own companies and suck them dry) is a problem though, this disconnects companies from their localities and makes it easier to move them away to a central location, thus disrupting entire communities for the sake of a few bucks saved in having everything closer.

As for the integration issues and small towns, it seems to have worked out quite well here. In fact a lot of the violence against immigrants seem to happen down in the metropolitan areas. So it strikes me as a prejudice. But if there's a prejudice that's globally socially acceptable and even encouraged, it's that small town folks are stupid inbred racist moron hell fuckers.

I suspect a lot of the successful assimilation of immigrants in western Finland, particularly in your region, has something to do with the high population of native Swedish speakers there. As we both know, they are not exactly regarded favorably in all circles, but in your area they are a large enough group that normal coexistence is no problem. Add a few more languages and origins to the mix and why should there be problems? Contrast with eastern Finland, for example the Joensuu area, which is purely Finnish speakers. There was serious trouble with racists and skinheads there 20 years ago, though it's calmed down now, but the plans to open the new refugee center close by has some of that bullshit rearing its head again.

Also, as far as small towns go, I expect that things now are very different than they used to be, the world is so much more interconnected that it is of necessity less insular in many ways. I was born in 1976 and we started having serious numbers of immigrants sometime in the 1990s, when I was in my teens and early 20s and we didn't have the internet and such things and it was a lot different with the attitudes. Less accepting of differences.

My mom grew up in western Finland near Pori and as a child of Karelian evacuees, she got to see all kinds of bullshit with insularity and discrimination against her folks. The evacuees had to band together, regardless of whether they hated each other's guts or not, because otherwise they were shut out of everything. No representation at the municipal level, nobody giving a damn about their interests and so forth. It was bad enough that the evacuees more or less formed a community within a community. It's telling that my mom is purely Karelian by outlook and upbringing, there is little of the western Finland background there.

I don't wonder that there is a stereotype, it quite probably has some good reasons for existing, but that does not mean things now are the same as they were in the bad old days.

[His Divine Shadow]

I dunno, the two municipalities I mention are both 90%+ swedish speaking an basically monolingual, the smaller was once by percentage more swedish speaking than any municipality in Sweden itself (98%+). There are more immigrants than finnish speakers there now. Still i guess being a minority in a country nevertheless has welded swedish speaking finns together more and perhaps it helps to acclimatize immigrants.

[Broomstick]

Some small towns are welcoming, some are not. People and societies can be quite complex and not always predictable.

[Broomstick]

Could someone more in tune with Europe and Hungary please explain something I'm finding a bit puzzling?

Hungary doesn't want this mass of people who have currently piled up in Budapest, right? Not actively hostile, but don't really want the influx of people. As it happens, most of those people don't want to stay in Hungary either, right? They just want to transit Hungary on the way to somewhere else, correct?

So why the hell aren't the Hungarian authorities allowing these people to travel through their country? It would seem to solve several problems at once. Yes, there are issues even if they are just traveling through (like vastly increased passenger loads on the trains) but that would seem to be less of a problem than thousands sleeping in your train stations or on sidewalks.

From what I gather, the government's line is that various forms of paperwork need to be filled out as these folks are undocumented, don't have visas, etc. and this isn't the choice of Hungary, it's a requirement of the EU rules. Is that the case?

If so, is there any notion among the EU members to have a meeting about this and maybe streamline the requirements or draft up something more appropriate to this particular situation? I would think, if this is a problem caused by bureaucratic rules, Hungary would be eager for a such a meeting and such changes because I can't imagine they want to keep the current situation, it's not tolerable in the long run.

Or is there some other subtext or bias at work here?

[Dartzap]

Dunno, maybe the German's (or others) have asked Hungary to hold up the refugees as much as possible?

[Dartzap]

Curiously, comparatively few refugees are being accepted into Spain, according to a graph I've just seen in the Independent - and last I checked, Spain continues to have significant amounts of empty properties available due it's recent bubble collapse.

Am I missing something fairly obvious?

[madd0ct0r]

unemployement rate in spain?

[Dartzap]

unemployement rate in spain?

True, but short term emergency housing would be damned useful. Better than a tent city, surely?

[ray245]

Could someone more in tune with Europe and Hungary please explain something I'm finding a bit puzzling?

Hungary doesn't want this mass of people who have currently piled up in Budapest, right? Not actively hostile, but don't really want the influx of people. As it happens, most of those people don't want to stay in Hungary either, right? They just want to transit Hungary on the way to somewhere else, correct?

So why the hell aren't the Hungarian authorities allowing these people to travel through their country? It would seem to solve several problems at once. Yes, there are issues even if they are just traveling through (like vastly increased passenger loads on the trains) but that would seem to be less of a problem than thousands sleeping in your train stations or on sidewalks.

From what I gather, the government's line is that various forms of paperwork need to be filled out as these folks are undocumented, don't have visas, etc. and this isn't the choice of Hungary, it's a requirement of the EU rules. Is that the case?

If so, is there any notion among the EU members to have a meeting about this and maybe streamline the requirements or draft up something more appropriate to this particular situation? I would think, if this is a problem caused by bureaucratic rules, Hungary would be eager for a such a meeting and such changes because I can't imagine they want to keep the current situation, it's not tolerable in the long run.

Or is there some other subtext or bias at work here?

The Hungarian leadership fears the "migrants" would travel and work in Hungary after getting asylum/citizenship from Germany, and will in turn flood their country with "Muslims".

unemployement rate in spain?

True, but short term emergency housing would be damned useful. Better than a tent city, surely?

You still need massive amount of resources devoted into making those cities liveable, such as making sure food and water and services can be provided to those abandoned towns and cities.

[Broomstick]

The Hungarian leadership fears the "migrants" would travel and work in Hungary after getting asylum/citizenship from Germany, and will in turn flood their country with "Muslims".

So, instead of letting them transit through to Germany and risk some of them coming back (gee, wasn't aware Hungary was such a desirable destination and overflowing with job opportunities) it's holding all of them in place? That... doesn't seem logical.

I also had the impression that Germany, even if not perfect, was more welcoming to refugees than Hungary was anyway. As I said, I don't think these people have any firm destination in mind other than "place I can live and raise my family in safety". If they're favoring Germany right now it's because of a perception that Germany is a place where they can do that - I expect that if other EU countries, as well as the US, Canada, and others start opening up slots for Syrian refugees that some would be content to go to those countries as well.

It sounds like there is some irrational fears on the part of Hungary here, and some irrational responses as well.

It's also my understanding that these refugees are highly suspicious at being placed in camps or some sort of relocation center by the Hungarian authorities. A few interviewed on TV have said they weren't well treated in the border camps and they fear essentially being imprisoned for years, basically warehoused with only the most minimal conditions. Those fears need to be addressed as well.

True, but short term emergency housing would be damned useful. Better than a tent city, surely?

You still need massive amount of resources devoted into making those cities liveable, such as making sure food and water and services can be provided to those abandoned towns and cities.

Any place you put these people you'll need to provide significant resources.

That is one reason why, even though it's tempting to simply add up the numbers, divide by 28, and say to the EU members "there, that's your share of them" nations are going to vary in their ability to provide for this influx of penniless refugees. While some of them are able-bodied, working age people and have education and skill already you also have a higher proportion of older, younger, and out-of-context people (folks with skills that don't transfer well) in addition to the educated worker types. These folks have a severe lack of resources. Wherever they land they will need to have food, water, utilities, housing, and clothing/material items given to them just for basic humanitarian needs.

By the way - does anyone have a number for how many people are currently trying to get into Europe? I'm assuming it's numbered in the millions, at least a couple, but I'd be interested in a firmer figure.

[Elheru Aran]

UNHCR forecast ~5m, but it's going to be more than that. Mind you, that's refugees total, not just Syrians-- they are including Afghanistan, Eritrea, and so forth. This is an older article (either late 2014 or early 2015) but it may still apply:

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a02d9346.html

Here's an article with harder numbers:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... elped.html

From the looks of it the Hungarian resistance to refugees is plain racism/xenophobia-- 'we have seen what happens with Muslims in other countries' or some such bollocks.

[Thanas]

Hungary is led by a racist, deeply conservative (and quite fascist in more than a few regards) Catholic Party. They get a huge kick out of demonizing others, especially Turks (which for them is everybody to the south of them that is Muslim). So they not help them at all and pretend they will go away.

As for why they go to Germany, Merkel has delared that Germany would automatically grant Asylum to any Syrian fleeing the warzone, no matter where they first arrived in Europe.

[madd0ct0r]

http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolu ... ve-it.html

One of the better articles I've seen today. Nuanced

[LaCroix]

The main problem is that Hungary has to currently deal with 60k refugees, of whom a lot are currently besieging every railroad station in sight, in order to be let travel to "Alemania". Hint: Hungary is dirt-poor, and houses twice as many refugees per capita than Germany. Railroad services have already in part broken down because of the sheer number of people they need to transfer (If said people would cooperate, instead of blocking trains when not heading where they want them to go...)

Also, this is happening in the capital of Hungary - if five thousand refugees were basically camping in Berlin's central train station, you'd have the same troubles.

While EU rules demand that Hungary has to register these people first, and then give them visa before sending them off. The refugees don'T want to cooperate and want to contine travelling instantly.

When they sent off 3500 people to vienna, earlier this week, Hungary was reprimanded for "just sending them off withought documentation". Now they want to process and document them according to EU rules, they are getting reprimanded, too.

[Thanas]

Well, maybe Hungary is caught in a lose-lose situation. OTOH, things like this:

“Everything which is now taking place before our eyes threatens to have explosive consequences for the whole of Europe,” Orban wrote in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Europe’s response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation. Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe.”

He painted the refugee emergency as a crisis between Christianity and Islam, with Hungary on the frontline, erecting razor wire fences to keep people out and defend European civilisation against incomers.

“Those arriving have been raised in another religion and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims,” he said. “This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? There is no alternative and we have no option but to defend our borders ... If Europe does not return to the path of common sense, it will find itself laid low in a battle for its fate.”

In Brussels, he invoked Hungary’s partial subjugation by the Ottoman empire in the 17th century as the reason why Hungarians did not want to live alongside Muslims.

....and this: Kinda makes one doubt what he really wants.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hungary is led by a racist, deeply conservative (and quite fascist in more than a few regards) Catholic Party. They get a huge kick out of demonizing others, especially Turks (which for them is everybody to the south of them that is Muslim). So they not help them at all and pretend they will go away.

As for why they go to Germany, Merkel has delared that Germany would automatically grant Asylum to any Syrian fleeing the warzone, no matter where they first arrived in Europe.

Trouble with this is that Hungary is not alone. Good chunk of Eastern Europe doesn't want to have anything to do with them, because, Muslims.