Ian Baruma writes: The British shadow minister for Europe, Pat McFadden, recently warned members of his Labour Party that they should try to make the most of the global economy and not treat immigration like a disease. As he put it, “You can feed on people’s grievances or you can give people a chance.”

In a world increasingly dominated by grievances – against immigrants, bankers, Muslims, “liberal elites,” “Eurocrats,” cosmopolitans, or anything else that seems vaguely alien – such wise words are rare. Leaders worldwide should take note.

In the United States, Republicans are threatening to close the government down just because President Barack Obama has offered undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked in the US for many years a chance to gain citizenship. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) wants to introduce a five-year ban on immigration for permanent settlement. Russia’s deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, once released a video promising to “clean the rubbish” – meaning migrant workers, mostly from former Soviet republics – “away from Moscow.”  Even the once famously tolerant Dutch and Danes are increasingly voting for parties that fulminate against the scourge of immigration.

Retaining one’s job in a tightening economy is undoubtedly a serious concern. But the livelihoods of most of the middle-aged rural white Americans who support the Tea Party are hardly threatened by poor Mexican migrants. UKIP is popular in some parts of England where immigrants are rarely seen. And many of the Dutch Freedom Party’s voters live nowhere near a mosque.

Anti-immigrant sentiment cuts across the old left-right divide. One thing Tea Party or UKIP supporters share with working-class voters who genuinely fear losing their jobs to low-paid foreigners is anxiety about being left behind in a world of easy mobility, supranational organizations, and global networking.  On the right, support for conservative parties is split between business interests that benefit from immigration or supranational institutions, and groups that feel threatened by them.  On the left, opinion is split between those who oppose racism and intolerance above all and those who want to protect employment and preserve “solidarity” for what is left of the native-born working class.

It would be a mistake to dismiss anxiety about immigration as mere bigotry or apprehension about the globalized economy as simply reactionary.  In the new global economy, there are clear winners and losers. Educated men and women who can communicate effectively in varied international contexts are benefiting. People who lack the needed education or experience – and there are many of them – are struggling.
In other words, the new class divisions run less between the rich and the poor than between educated metropolitan elites and less sophisticated, less flexible, and, in every sense, less connected provincials.

Populist rabble-rousers like to stir up such resentments by ranting about foreigners who work for a pittance or not at all. But it is the relative success of ethnic minorities and immigrants that is more upsetting to indigenous populations.  This explains the popular hostility toward Obama. Americans know that, before too long, whites will be just another minority, and people of color will increasingly be in positions of power.

Economic globalization cannot be undone. But regulation can and should be improved. After all, some things are still worth protecting. There are good reasons not to leave culture, education, lifestyles, or jobs completely exposed to the creative destruction of market forces.

Is there a story that is not being reported here?  Is the US more interested in demolishing dysfunctional regimes and in providing oil producers with big profits?  Is the State Department involved in these decisions?  They have supported the Keystone Gas Line, foriinstance.

Keith Johnson writes,

il prices are flirting with yet another five-year low, which is straining plenty of governments from Tripoli to Tehran. But few countries are as fundamentally threatened as Venezuela, where the sudden collapse in crude prices is making a dire economy downright dismal.

That’s particularly worrisome, because for all the pain that other big oil producers such as Russia, Iran, and Iraq are feeling thanks to less oil revenue, those countries are facing mostly fiscal pressure–not the risk of total collapse.

“It’s more likely that this ends up like Libya” than a replay of orderly transitions, such as the one that led to the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, said Pedro Burelli, a former board member of state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, and an outspoken critic of the Chavez and Maduro governments.

“You take fragmentation of political power, a dire political situation, high social expectations, no cash, and a lot of people involved, and that to me is the recipe for a mess,” he said.

Crude prices continued their slide on Monday, falling to about $64 a barrel in New York and $67 in London. Global benchmark prices have now shed 40 percent since their June highs. For a country like Venezuela, which is dependent on oil for nearly all of its export earnings, the threat is becoming more urgent by the day.

Last week, Venezuela’s government announced a 20 percent spending cut. While President Nicolas Maduro vowed that the cuts won’t affect the country’s cherished social spending–a key to maintaining what little popular support the successor to Hugo Chavez still enjoys–it’s clear that Venezuela’s inability to drum up fresh sources of revenue is tearing at the sinews of an economy that was already reeling from rampant inflation, consumer shortages, and widespread (if underreported) unemployment.

Complicating everything is the country’s byzantine currency exchange rate, which officially values the local currency, the bolivar, at huge multiples of the black-market exchange rate, despite stealth devaluations over the past year. That means that even Venezuela’s oil earnings tend to evaporate when they are converted into artificially inflated local coin.

Although the country has vowed to repay its debt, traders are dumping are Venezuela’s sovereign bonds and there are signs that the market is increasingly pricing in the possibility of a default.  Venezuelan bonds are trading at 50 cents on the dollar and offering sky-high yields, while bond traders are preparing to cover themselves–with debt swaps–in the event that Caracas follows the path of other troubled Latin American countries such as Argentina.

There’s one telling indication of Maduro’s desperation to secure short-term cash, even at the cost of mortgaging the nation’s much-needed future revenues: The country is reportedly in talks with U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs to sell it debt obligations owed by other countries, such as the Dominican Republic, at a hefty discount. Media reports suggest that Venezuela is mulling the sale of about $4 billion worth of IOUs from its Caribbean neighbor for less than half that amount.

Not all the dysfunction in Venezuela’s economy is caused by falling oil prices, of course: Toilet paper disappeared from store shelves even when crude was trading at $115 a barrel. Large protests rocked Caracas and other major cities earlier this year, a reflection of growing discontent with Maduro’s ability to keep the flame of “Chavismo” alive. Recent opinion polls show support for Maduro has cratered to about 25 percent.

What’s ominous about the latest oil-induced pressures is that it seems to be pushing the government to take even more desperate measures than it did earlier this year. Last week, the Venezuelan government charged opposition leader and member of Congress Maria Corina Machado with allegedly conspiring to assassinate Maduro, a charge that could put her behind bars for years. The U.S. State Department criticized Venezuela’s “arbitrary use of prosecutorial power to silence and punish government critics.”

At this point, the opposition movement is cowed and divided. But even if it were possible to replace the unpopular Maduro government with leaders from the opposition, it wouldn’t likely cure what ails the country, Burelli said. He likens Venezuela to a broken-down bus careening toward a cliff with no brakes, no gearshift, frozen steering, and a drunk driver: simply making a change behind the wheel won’t be enough to keep the bus from crashing sooner or later.

“We’ve confused the problem of, ‘who will run this country?’ with ‘what is the state of this country?’” Burelli said.

Immigration is an important economic issue throughout the world.  Many people immigrant for the public benefits of countries.  Both Sweden and the US are struggling with this issue.  Although some UN studies suggest that immigrants pay enough in taxes to pay for their health and welfare benefits, these figures vary from country to country.

Certainly in the US, the rios which have been broadcast across the world are caused by our failure to take care of our own children.   Admitting five million foreign children at this time in going for the ‘cute because we don’t know you,’  instead of the ‘dfficult and tough to deal with’ kids.  A shame to go for votes instead of continuing the hard march to economic and racial equalitiy of opportunity.

Germany is promoting immigrants who can join the workforce immeditately.  Their population if aging and birth rates are low, so they bring in young people who can fill available jobs.  This is a sensible and perhaps necessary policy resolution to a problem, not a political move like the one made recently in the US. REPLACEMENT MIGRATION ISSUED BY UN POPULATION DIVISION

Mark Gilbert writes, Italy, a founding member of the euro project and one of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, is slipping so deeply into debt, its credit rating is just one downgrade away from junk. At the same time, the country’s borrowing costs are the lowest they’ve ever been. This contradiction highlights the conundrum the European Central Bank faces as it tries to revive the moribund euro economy.

Sweden has long been a beacon for some political parties in Europe. Bring up Stockholm’s immigration policies with any center-left politician in the Netherlands, France, or Great Britain, though, and you’ll be met with exasperation and incredulity.

The Swedish minority government has fallen. The far-right Sweden Democrats in essence brought the fresh center-left coalition down over the party’s demands for changes to immigration policies – changes that Prime Minister Stefan Lofven of the Social Democratic Party, and his coalition partner, the Green Party, refused to accept.

Determined not to compromise with parties on the right, Lofven formed a minority government with the Green Party shortly after elections in September. He was opposed by center-right parties who disagree with his socio-economic policies but are generally in alignment concerning refugees and asylum seekers. Not so the Sweden Democrats. The party wholly rejects Sweden’s current asylum policies.

Lofven made another gamble by sticking to the previous government’s liberal policies on asylum, in combination with his new government’s center-left budget. The policy cocktail proved too much to bear, both for the center-right opposition and for the Sweden Democrats. Although the parties generally loathe each other, their vote went against the budget, and it was rejected. Lofven called new elections; yet another gamble, one through which Lofven hopes to finally attain a majority.

This now puts Swedish voters in a bind. Lofven will likely cast the opposition parties as irresponsible, but the minds of many voters will be on immigration, thanks to Sweden Democrats’ move.

A social problem is brewing in Sweden. The country has thus far been very welcoming to refugees from wartorn countries such as Syria. Former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt roused Swedes when he bluntly stated that Sweden should accept more asylum seekers, regardless of popular opinion. The Scandinavian country, however, seems stuck in the 1990s. It continues to accept refugees from countries with different cultures, but it doesn’t seem to have thought through what to do with them. In 2013, riots hit the Stockholm suburbs, with many cars burnt throughout areas populated by refugees. The main reason: unemployment and frustration.

Unemployment among asylum seekers and second-generation immigrants is rampant, and the economy isn’t providing enough jobs for all Swedes. Immigrants seem to be concentrated in small areas, creating pockets of discontent, much like in France.

This kind of discontent has proven to be fertile ground for populist far-right parties like the FPO in Austria, the Front National in France and the PVV in the Netherlands. Stefan Lofven – and anyone else hoping to win Swedish elections set for March 22, 2015 – would do well to heed the lessons of Western Europe of the past 20 years.