| I think you hit the nail on the head here. Germany it seems will continue to pay for this mistake from the 50/60/70s in a number of ways unfortunately. People are now afraid of immigrants in general. Most people don't realize that there is a VERY big difference to the economy from an Indian IT worker - who learns German - assimilates himself culturally (maybe even studied a masters or something in Germany - picking up the finer bits of your complicated culture) & the Turkish family in the shady part of the city thats living on Hartz 4. This is a huge issue for a country thats trying hard to attract foreigners (www.make-it-in-germany.com). Most other immigrants I know here - eventually get tired of this feeling of constantly have to justify that they arent here to mooch of the system - and are probably providing for some family in Brandenburg with their monthly tax and social security payments (most educated immigrants earn atleast 40-50k€ - its a natural lower limit set by the fact that you cant get a permit otherwise). This means easily 15-20k € in tax and Social security (and lovely SOLI of course) - with which they are supporting a society that looks at them as leeches. Dont get me wrong - Germans are tolerant - but that's different from inclusive. The tendency is to assume "oh these poor 3rd world people need to come here to have a good living." That simply isnt true - a well qualified person can live an equally good life in the developing world as he would in Germany. (sure maybe not everything is always on time but so what). Many people move to Germany for other reasons - be it hte love for beer (no kidding) , german cars, the green, or they wanted to be with a German person they got to know somewhere. but instead of considering any other possibilities - the average German tends to assume "ah he wants our awesome healthcare & social security). This needs to change. Especially if you want to tackle the fachkraftemängel. Those qualified people will get employed anywhere. The government gets this and has made small moves to make it "easier" - you can easily get a permit and work here now - this is good. Even the beauraucracy is less of a pain in the ass than a few years ago. What's missing though is the public education. Merkel herself at some point said "Multiculti has failed in Germany". Foreigners will take an integrationtest, learn the language and even figure out the complicated regulation system. In turn though - you need to offer them more than juts a decent salary and standard of living - you need to offer them acceptance. This is missing. People need to be given reverse integrations training or atleast provided some information - let them understand that these people aren't here to mooch of the system or steal jobs - they're here because to a large extent the country needs them. |
Second, even if you are top 1% in India living like a top 25% in Indiana, your life is one of walls and enclaves. My family was rich in the developing world. We would go from our house with its high wall and iron gate into our foreign car with driver and tinted windows. We would do anything we could to avoid having to interact with the people on the street, our supposed countrymen.
The US has its enclaves, but I can get in a car and head to the relatively poor coastal town where my wife's parents grew up. I can go eat at the seafood shack by the side of the highway and consider it a treat. I can talk to the people and feel like we all live in the same country. That's living a good life.
[1] See this article, for example: http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/the-.... The couple in the article (one a consultant, another a PR executive) makes 1.8 million rupees per year, equivalent to about $29k USD. Adjusted for purchasing power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity), that's roughly equivalent to $70-80k USD. That's roughly at the top 1/3 mark of US household income, and probably not that far above median for US households where both people are working. As noted in this article, the couple is well within the top 1% of India, which starts at $1.25 million rupees per year. That level is equivalent to about the 57th percentile in the U.S.
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-23271.... $20 PPP-adjusted dollars per day, or $7k/year is around the bottom 5% mark in the U.S. Only 4.6% of Indians have all four of these assets: a TV, a car or scooter, a landline or mobile phone, and a computer or laptop. Even people living in trailer parks in the U.S. will often have all four of these assets.