At some point yesterday, while on the campaign trail....Chancellor Merkel was asked about this Mediterranean migrant episode, and how Germany can halt the smuggler business.
It's hard to say if this was rehearsed or thought through much....but she leads the journalist into this commentary that Germany needs to entertain the idea of finding a new job or a new career in life, with an alternate chance in life for the smuggler crowd. In simple terms....she wants to find a new job to keep the guy busy and less likely to smuggler humans.
I sat there for a while and have lingered over this short discussion item. Personally, I think got the idea from intellectual idealist at some Berlin dinner-party, and it just stuck in her mind.
You can do the math....typically a guy shows up on the Libyan coast and seeks out the 'right-people'....then lays out $1,000 (more or less) to be taken by some boat to the 12-mile point...dumped into a 100-man raft, and await the marvelous rescue group from Germany to pick them up at the right time and coordinates.
Hundred folks....$100,000 made off one single day of work....a Chinese-made raft (probably in the range of $2,000 new).....fuel for the boat. The smuggler team ought to walk clear by sundown with $90,000 minimum in their pocket. Figure maybe five guys to make this work....if they split the money....they each walk away with roughly $18k each.
It's not clear to me if the intellectual idiots or Chancellor Merkel really grasp that kind of capital on the streets of Libya. Even if you just did this once a month for a year....you'd clear enough to retire for the rest of your life. What alternate job or career could you offer a guy in this position....that would pay at this level? If you look at the resume of these guys....other than fishing or selling apples on the street....other than flipping burgers, I don't see any future job potential.
All of this thinking and intellectualism skips the guys sitting in hundreds of African communities who figure that flipping burgers in Germany....is a heck of a lot better lifestyle than remaining in Africa.
I don't really blame Chancellor Merkel for the idea...she simply got it at some party and felt it was a swell idea. But you really have to ask yourself.....if a guy is clearing near $20,000 a month in some third-world country....what the heck kind of job enticement can you offer the guy to stay on the straight and honest path?
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