The March of the Poor

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, a documentary on the migration of the Poor and their struggle for survival in the icy white world of  Western Europe.

In an epic battle for the hearts and minds of the fearful, the tin men of Western Europe are trying to stem the trickle of poverty driven migrants from the Eastern European badlands. Shooting with a high-powered zoom lens of 1000x magnification and in super slow motion, the directors manage to show the trickle for what it really is not: Class VI rapids about as wide a the Amazon river.

The succinct German compound Armutswanderung (poverty driven migration) makes it as clear as the islanders' "sorry, not in service"  -- poverty is not an acceptable reason to leave your country and head for Western Europe.

The biggest immigration destination on the planet - Europe, my dear stateside friends - is gearing up to achieve what no previous civilization has managed to do. 

Very soon, the aging populations of Europe will see their own motorized minutemen guard its frontiers. Camouflage painted Rascal OPVs (Old People Vehicles) will patrol the dusty Eastern plains, while Zimmer frame supported SOBs (Strong Old Boys) will protect the Gibraltar and the Spanish coasts, lobbing golf balls at migrant skiffs and playing with the monkeys in their time off.

Just so you know, there are no poor people in Europe, none.

How can that be?

Economic theory makes it possible.

In a recent article on the wealth of the Europeans, the author of the article was so nice to explain the difference between median and average (a few days after we bitched about it on the blog, but we take no credit).
The article was helpful, we were happy to see a mainstream German paper take its readers seriously, until, well, the last paragraph.

There, the man said that even those on the 800 euros a month basic welfare regime were not really poor because 800 a month at 4% interest over 20 years still added up to about 134 000 euros.

Look man, we understand the purpose of calculations like this, but here is the deal: the dumbest conclusion ever is to claim that by that measure welfare recipients are not poor.

They live on 399 Euros plus rent, there is nothing left over. Read our post Hilda the hairdresser if you want to know where this money goes.

Or go with the Hem: nada y nada, y pues nada.