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Comment by teiferer | Hacker News Reader

Had Merkel not opened the border in 2015, Germany would be far worse off. If you ever set foot into a German retirement home, hospital, restaurant, random shop at the central station, cinema, xmas market, you name it, you realize that all those immigrants are currently carrying the economy.

She should get a prize for this instead of being blamed. Even if you don't care about the moral aspect of helping refugees.

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In Germany, 23% of the people in working age, don't work [1]. The "refugees are carrying the economy", because you are effectively paying 23% of the local working age population (I'm here assuming you aren't paying refugees to go there and not work, right?) to slack. Remove their benefits and see how quickly you don't need to import people to do those jobs.

And no, I don't care about the "moral aspect" of not "helping refugees". If you care, you welcome them into your own place.

Also, notice how you didn't go into the gas deals Merkel did with Russia and forced upon the rest of the EU.

[1]: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/employment-rate

EDIT: 23%

>I'm here assuming you aren't paying refugees to go there and not work, right? incorrect

From the same site, the same stat for the US is 41% LOL

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate

Edit: also you can't do math well -- it's 100 - 77 = 23 (not 33)

You can't just give any random job to any random person. Go out on the street, talk to the first homeless person and then tell me that for your mom's hip replacement surgery next week for which a Syrian doctor is scheduled, you rather see that person scheduled. And the rehab for which an Afghan immigrant is scheduled, you would prefer the homeless' friend next to him, smelling of Jägermeister. After you did that, we talk again.

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