The Refugee Problem

One of the success stories of western civilization and western economics is that it attracts so many people from poorer countries.

It is of course also one of its problems, the number of people who are attracted to the better life it promises.

Most of the western world has consumer based economies where the production of consumer items employs many at good wages leading to more money to spend on consumer items.

Underlying this economy is of course certain fundamental industries, but as we see consumer spending growing every year it becomes a bigger percentage of the economy as a whole.  It is currently a little over 70% of the economy, as measured by GDP.

To people living is poor, war ravaged areas where clean drinking water is a real concern, seeing images of people ordering exotic coffees or any of the million other consumer items we hardly think about is an image of a paradise they want to be a part of.

Obviously not all of them but enough that it becomes a problem for many western countries, or at least a perceived problem.

It obviously varies country by country and some of the poorer European countries with high unemployment can hardly afford thousands of more needy people.

On the other hand the United States actually has plenty of work for them once they get acclimated and the objections are generally more related to social issues, and rhetoric.

The nature of the issues tends to define the areas hardest hit, so the southern tier of European countries are generally the most accessible to most of the new refugees and ask for help from richer northern European countries.

It is however more of a worldwide issue that should probably be dealt with via consensus, although of course we are currently not interested in such arrangements.

It really is a much more problematic issue elsewhere but it is a tale of human misery which impacts all of us to at least some extent.