party shout

The Going Exchange Rate

[N]ow that Iraq is now up to 4 million refugees (2M internal, 2M external), I decided to waste some time by figuring out comparable stats, proportionally, to the US. Assuming an initial 30M population, and a current US pop of 300M, obviously that's like if we had 40 million refugees. To make it a little more specific, though: that's equivalent to the entire population of 23 states. Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Arkansas, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Connecticut, and Okalhoma combined is right around 40M.

Or, if you prefer, imagine that suddenly the entire state of Texas moved to Mexico and all of New York set up tent cities in the Midwest. Or if all of Michigan and Ohio evaporated into Canada while Florida's population spread itself through the rest of the south. I really don't think people have a good handle on just how profound the humanitarian crisis continues to be despite all the "improvement."