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Notes -
In a previous open thread, the topic of immigration in Europe came up. At the time Sweden was being discussed and it was unclear to what extent immigrants were contributing to crime and other social problems. Unfortunately Sweden's publicly accessible data isn't sufficient to really dig into the issue.
Then I discovered this link which actually does address the issue of immigrant crime in Europe quite directly, albeit in Denmark instead of Sweden. It also addresses issues such as welfare use. As it turns out the racist right wing seems to be completely correct on facts.
Financial Contribution
Danes and western immigrants to Denmark are, on average, positive contributors to Denmark during their working years. The same is true, though less so, of "Other non western". However it turns out that the controversial group of immigrants - MENAPT (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey) - are net negative contributors at every age.
A breakdown by country (for countries with at least 5000 immigrants to Denmark) is provided and the result is exactly what the far right would predict: white people, Indians and Chinese make good immigrants and contribute positively to Denmark. The average American benefits Denmark to the tune of about $12k/year, the average Indian a little bit less. The average Somalian costs Denmark about $18k. Thais, Vietnamese and Filipinos are net neutral.
Crime
Western immigrants commit crime at rates more or less equivalent to Danes. Non-western immigrants commit about 3.5x more violent crime (including murder) and 7x more rape.
Crime rates can be further broken down by country of origin. After adjusting for age and gender, we find that again the racist far right are entirely correct in their views. Somalians have crime rates about 7x that of Danes. Americans, British, Indians and Chinese have crime rates about half that of Danes. I was surprised to see that Israelis and Thais have higher than average crime rates.
Conclusion
In countries where data is available (such as Denmark and the US), said data strongly supports the position of educated internet right wing racists. Some countries, such as Sweden, try to obfuscate the data as much as possible to the point of not describing criminals.
I argue that the most reasonable thing we can do is assume that for nearby countries more or less similar patterns apply even if we lack data drilling down at the level of individual subgroups.
(I use "educated" as an important caveat. I do not necessarily expect a random American racist to make distinctions between Indians and Pakistanis, though a random Brit might. However the typical racist motte poster certainly does.)
This is why I always found it strange that there is a corporate argument for lllegal immigration - that somehow this improves the economy and business of European companies. Maybe, but the taxpayers are big losers ultimately, having to foot a massive bill that will inevitably result in either an increase in taxes (in already the most highly taxed countries in the world) or (more likely) a decrease in quality of services. It’s a lose lose situation.
Corporations benefitting at the expense of the public purse is not exactly a new idea. Indeed, it is one of the more compelling arguments against unfettered capitalism.
I would absolutely expect that corporations would like more cheap labour that is ultimately subsidised by taxpayers, especially in places where corporations are not themselves especially highly taxed. It's the same principle as Walmart workers on food stamps, writ large.
The likelihood that the general public would not buy the economic arguments in favour of immigration if they were more familiar with the numbers (at least in Denmark) may explain why those numbers do not seem to be particularly well reported.
Well wouldn’t an increased tax burden eventually translate to increased corporate taxes? At some point they must see this also goes against their interests
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