Jacob Mikanowski: prediction

Transcript context

…That’s going to change as they grow, right? And a lot of people have left and will leave. Well, right now there’s a huge influx of Ukrainians and probably — well, Moldovans all left. A quarter of Moldova left Moldova. Romanians will also return. A great way to find out what’s going under the surface in European labor and migration is go to bus stations — long-haul bus stations. I remember trying to catch a bus from Seville to Lisbon, which for whatever reason is really hard. It’s not a good connection. But I was at the bus station, and there were tons of buses to places like Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Suceava, Botoşani: rural Moldavian cities (the part of Moldavia in Romania). Seventeen 25-hour bus rides because there are so many Romanians in Spain. And you can see the same thing in Italy, same thing in Portugal. Some of those people are going to come back. A lot of them are coming back. You’re going to get an influx from over the border. Right now, Ukraine is going to lose people because that economy is going to be in, I think, crisis for a long time. The migrants that are coming overland from Asia: they tend not to stop in the Balkans. That’s a thruway for them, even in Hungary. They are trying to get to Germany, France, Great Britain. Very rarely do the migrants from — maybe a little bit, but that’s not a major influx. Because also the living standard gap I don’t think is big enough. Does Moldavia have a future as an independent nation?…

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