Disappointed with Europe, Thousands of Iraqi Migrants Return Home
what strikes me with this migrant crisis is the number of misperceptions on both sides:<p>The migrants are always refered to as war refugees when really only a minority are.<p>The migrants seem to come with the perception that they will be welcomed with open and generous arms where the European public opinion is becoming very visibly hostile to this wave of migrants. And European countries will not have the means and the will to subsidise immigrants on this scale.<p>The European public opinion turned against the migrants after the Paris attack, just because some of the attackers travelled through these immigration channels, but all attackers were either French or Belgium nationals, not migrants. Same thing in Cologne where it seems all the attackers where from Marroco and Algeria, not Iraq or Syria.<p>What I am worried about is the combination of these factors:<p>1. This is only the start of the migrant crisis. Migrants stopped crossing the mediteranean sea during the winter, but spring is coming, and the Russian backed offensive in Syria will lead to more war refugees. Not only that but when Bashar will likely regain territories from Isis, we will really see many Isis fighters returning home in Europe, ...or seeking asylum from the certain death if caught by Putin&#x2F;Bashar (and then what do Europeans do?). And on a longer term, the African demographic explosion means millions of africans trying to make their way to Europe every year will be the new normal. Add to that the fact that our societies will increasingly reduce our reliance on oil, which will bankrupt half of the states in the middle east. Saudi Arabia for instance will be a pretty problematic failed state.<p>2. The threshold of tolerance to migrants seems to have been exceeded pretty much everywhere in Europe. In the UK the EU referundum will largely be about polish immigration and current polls suggest the UK will exit the EU. The far right is rising pretty much everywhere in Europe. And the standard politically correct response of the medias&#x2F;political class (if you don&#x27;t want these migrants, you are a racist, end of discussion) will not do anything to contain the far right.<p>3. With the exception of the UK, pretty much all of Europe is in recession and has high unemployment, and therefore will not be able to absorb this immigration. To make things worse, all the technological change we foresee (AI, robotics, more automation) will only reduce the supply of low-skill jobs in favor of high-skill jobs. The exact opposite of what would be required to absorb this immigration.<p>The whole thing feels like a slow motion train crash, like the accumulation of public debt. It seems pretty obvious to me that one way or another it won&#x27;t end well.