YouNotSneaky has a great post in which he calculates how big a "jerk" you have to be to oppose immigration. The answer – proven with considerable mathematical sophistication – is that the exact "jerk factor" depends on theta, the extent to which marginal utility diminishes with income. The results, which you are unlikely to see in the JPE, make me laugh (but note that others will be insulted) are graphed here. Read the whole thing for details on the calculations which do make a serious point.
Hat tip to Dani Rodrik.
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The most popular children’s name in Israel at the moment is Muhammad. Should Israel have an open border too?
Lebanon pretty much did, in 1900 it was majority Christian, today it is majority Muslim and all the Christians are leaving.
Would Tibet be Tibet if it was majority Bantu?
Answers, please.
Just about as big a jerk as you have to be to oppose complete redistribution of income and the abolition of private property.
Can I take it that you are also in favour of income tax rates of up to 100% Tyler?
The fact is that the world isn’t, and shouldn’t be, ruled simply by cost-benefit analyses (especially those which ignore 2nd order effects).
Note, if everybody who ignored Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income in their work was a jerk, that would make 99% of economists jerks. Which may be true…
Wow. This is a new low.
Alex, I want you to visit Japan and start calling everyone there “jerks”. See how long before you’re knocked flat on your ass.
Honest question: what am I to think about the Rector numbers that challenge the premise of the YNS post that immigrants are a net gain to the economy?
Alex,
You guys at MR constantly remind me of why I became an economist. Pissing off people like these Know-Knothings is a beautiful thing to watch.
so this ratio changes with the time of day?
This question is like saying “how much benefit to strangers would lead you to abandon your relatives”. Hmm. doesn’t being a jerk work the other way?
Two comments. One, you can be in favor of immigration (I read Julian Simon a a kid and most of what he said still seems to make sense), but still be disgusted by the manner in which illegal immigration is handled by this country and the effective amnesty provisions of the current immigration bill. Second, yes I consider Americans as more important than immigrants. I think that is at some level inherent in any definition of patriotism. Asking for exact ratios strikes me as meaningless rhetorical device. Would I ask my government to kill a billion foreigners to rescue one American> Unless it was my child no. Do I expect my government to take care of itss citizens first, yes. In between, the situations are so varried as to be impossible to generalize.
I think the biggest problem with the immigration debate is that being “anti immigrant” used to be code language for being racist. While I cannot deny that there is some of that out there, the current system is such a disaster that a great number of people of good faith believe it has to be fixed. Not fair to tag some arbitrary percentage of that group as “jerks”.
Call me a jerk and I’ll deck you! Because I’m totally not jerk who threatens to hit people!
Will – Yeah, I guess I went over the line. Too bad I didn’t write a blog entry basically calling people who disagree with me “jerks.”
I posted this over at YouNotSneaky!
“I think you are simplifying things. The end effect of allowing low IQ immigrants into the United States will be an eventual decline in the ability of the United States to help anyone in the world.
It’s a little like arguing that a private citizen should spend time and money feeding the world’s poor. OK, but might that citizen not be better off continuing to earn money that he can spend than exhausting his resources all at once?
Also, you are ignoring the fact that by allowing Third World countries to siphon off their most desperate citizens, they can avoid needed reform. Thus, allowing immigration may help perpetuate the economic problems of citizens in other countries.
Finally, I’m curious as to what results you would get if you were to do a similar analysis but instead substitute the United States for families and immigrants for strangers. How much of an obligation should you have to strangers over your own family in order to avoid being a jerk?”
Tommy wrote-
I think you are simplifying things. The end effect of allowing low IQ immigrants into the United States will be an eventual decline in the ability of the United States to help anyone in the world.
What about second generation immigrants? What are the educational outcomes of second generation immigrants historically? My non-informed sense is that they surpass their parents in terms of attainment. Also, is it the case that the ones leaving poor countries for richer countries are the worst those countries have? (I’m remembering a quote from the Statute of Liberty all of a sudden…)? There are risks in uprooting and moving to a new country to look for work, which don’t suggest to me the worst, but perhaps some of the best.
It’s a little like arguing that a private citizen should spend time and money feeding the world’s poor. OK, but might that citizen not be better off continuing to earn money that he can spend than exhausting his resources all at once?
More on this at the bottom of the page.
Also, you are ignoring the fact that by allowing Third World countries to siphon off their most desperate citizens, they can avoid needed reform. Thus, allowing immigration may help perpetuate the economic problems of citizens in other countries.
I could see it another way, though. One, there are remittances back into the foreign country, which are equivalent to capital inflows, which encourages economic growth. Thus the incomes of families home rise, consumption rises, and hopefully investment in things like human capital and other growth generating assets grow as well. This is good for the sending country, obviously. Two, it’s not clear the “most desperate citizens” are the low quality citizens. Desperate for what? For jobs? It’s not like they’re coming here to beg for food. They’re coming here to work. So “desperation” needs to be fleshed out a little more. What proportion of the immigrants are “high types” in some meaningful sense?
Finally, I’m curious as to what results you would get if you were to do a similar analysis but instead substitute the United States for families and immigrants for strangers. How much of an obligation should you have to strangers over your own family in order to avoid being a jerk?
This is where the opponents of immigration seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of private property. If a sub-contractor hires a non-native worker, what’s it your or my business? This is a private contract that only involves those two individuals. In your analogy, the family can choose who it wants to care for via the household heads’ collective decisions. But in this context, employers are hiring workers, not forcing you to do anything. Where is the externality?
What about second generation immigrants? What are the educational outcomes of second generation immigrants historically?
Not too much better when it comes to Mexicans. In fact, even fourth generation Mexican-Americans lag dramatically and show no signs of making substantial improvement in any future generation.
Two, it’s not clear the “most desperate citizens” are the low quality citizens.
We are getting a far higher percentage of Mexico’s agricultural workers than its neurosurgeons, I fear.
Another question: how much of a jerk do you have to be to put the welfare of immigrants ahead of that of all your future descendants?
This is where the opponents of immigration seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of private property. If a sub-contractor hires a non-native worker, what’s it your or my business?
Sure. What business is it of mine when that (high fertility) non-native worker sends his children to public schools at taxpayer expense? What business is it of mine when that worker gets into an accident without any car insurance? What business is it of mine when that worker gets injured and has to make use of the emergency room? What business is it of mine when that worker’s kids commit a disproportionate share of crime? What business is it of mine when that worker and his descendants, being poorly educated generation after generation, take on a far lower share of the tax burden than I do while using a much higher percentage of government resources than I do? After all, we non-employers of non-citizens are completely unaffected (at least in negative ways) by the presence of non-citizens.
I think neo-cons and liberal hawks use the same reasoning when they calculate the value of military intervention. If Manifest Destiny makes a return in the 21st Century, this is the argument that will support it: foreigners are just as American as American citizens, therefore we have to defend them and secure their Constitutional rights. It’s an idea after all, that knows no border.
“Morgan – What exactly are the externalities from immigration that concern you so much? I’m used to opposing something because of external costs, but aren’t immigrants seeking to exchange their labor? This seems like private exchange and no one’s business except the contractor and the worker.”
Adrian addressed some of the major themes in his first post. As people (like me) have been pointing out, there is more to life than dollars and cents and I’m sorry you have to read that on a blog to understand that. Maybe you have some friends and neighbors who aren’t economically driven in their thinking…I suggest you ask some of them how they feel about this issue.
This is not just about a contract between employer and employee. There are significant cultural impacts that we all must bear (how will you feel when Spanish replaces English in 50 years if we continue on this present path, for example).
fustercluck – excuse me for saying this, but are you actually making the prediction that if we don’t stop immigration, spanish will replace english? what possible evidence do you have for this?
From Card 2005 “Is the New Immigration All that Bad?”
Ah, yes! David Card and the infamous city-by-city approach to assessing the economic impact of immigration. I think this one has been trounced on many times previously, so I won’t pile on:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/060707_borjas.htm
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/060427_nd.htm
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050524_nd.htm
Jason, sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound as if that’s a foregone conclusion, I meant that entirely as a hypothetical and it’s my mistake that i didn’t phrase it as such.
I guess the point is that there are cultural prices to pay for immigration – some are measurable and some aren’t. Ask Germans how the influx of Turks has impacted their cultural fabric, or how the largey secular French are dealing with the absorption of North African Muslims. It’s not just language, it’s not just customs, it’s not just moral codes – it’s all of these things.
Obviously this country has a history of absorbing immigrants from disparate backgrounds, but we have also had some controls over the rate of immigration to lessen against wholespread erasure of our culture (a combination of mores, language, customs, attitudes, etc.).
For example, would you be okay if 50 million Muslims immigrated into this country and began voting in political candidates promising some form of Sharia law? Don’t say it can’t happen – it’s exactly why Israel does not recognize the right of return.
Yeah, right. To oppose immigration is to be racist. Perfect logic, and why your little treatise is a ridiculous exercise.
How about this: I’m *far* more concerned with religious fundamentalism and religious tensions borne from the mixing of cultures than I am with the economic impact of immigration. Skin color is a non-issue for me, and I don’t particularly appreciate the inferences you’re drawing.
My fiancée is Hispanic, if that needs to be said.
Matt,
Haha, someone used VDare in order to discredit one of the top labor economists in the world …If I remember correctly, Sailer was at one point claiming (incorrectly, of course) that cost of living was not accounted for in a difference-in-difference test. Hilarious!
Ad hominem nonsense with no relevance to the criticisms in the article. Two out of the three articles are by economist Edwin Rubenstein, by the way. After watching Levitt get trounced by Sailer on his Freakonomics abortion-crime argument, and seeing Levitt’s defenders argue that Levitt must be right because he is a pro, I’m very wary of those who resort to the “top economist” defense as their sole argument.
notsneaky,
You’re right. Like the fact that some people spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about other people’s skin color.
Yeah, because it is a dark complexion rather than rates of education, income potential, crime, cultural achievement, and assimilation that are the issue.
admittedly the calculation is done at the margin. It is how much of a jerk you have to be not want to let one more person into US. Given the magnitudes it probably applies for a much larger #s away from the margin. So you can believe that a few more millions of immigrants should be let in but billion is too much and not be a jerk.
But won’t those few million we admit suddenly be obliged to help a few million more? How often will we have to consider the question of admitting more? Certainly, you aren’t arguing that allowing a few million more is a one time thing are you? Do we have to keep this up until we are some fixed ratio of an average Third World nation economically? Isn’t that only fair?
jason voorhees,
Assuming the Card data is accurate, it simply shows that all those Indians with PhDs are helping offsetting the negative educational impact of Hispanic immigrants. I’ll be the first to conceed that bringing in Indians or Koreans with PhDs in physics is a clear net gain for the country. It doesn’t follow however, that we should let in millions of high school dropouts as well.
And if you guys don’t trust the earlier links, then how about this one:
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nrc/reading_math_2005/s0021.asp?subtab_id=Tab_6&tab_id=tab2&printver=#chart
The white/hispanic difference in advanced is 7 to 1.
And California has gone from being a leading state in education to number 46.
Also, I’m pretty sure the numbers for Hispanic education are worse for reading and science, but I deliberatly chose math so no one could reasonably claim “cultural bias”.
“Also, to all those who are scare mongering by mentioning the billion or quadzillion potential migrants who are sitting there ready to come here and tear out social fabric apart like some crazed starved Visigothic Yeti”
*****************
Notsneaky–
Please watch the Oscar winning documentary “Born Into Brothels”, about the children of prostitutes in Kolkata, India (where my parents are from, in fact my father from severe poverty himself). Most of these kids would love the chance to come to America with their families, and they would work 80 hours a week at a salary so low such that they can’t afford housing or health care. How much are you personally willing to chip in, per person, for helping them with housing and health care? Perhaps it depends on the number of people; i.e. $200 would be okay for one person, but only $50 per person if it is four. Can you graph the number of people versus the amount per person and then let me know?
Oh yeah, the fact that my father is a great rags-to-(middle class American)riches immigrant means that I must automatically support the right for everyone to immigrate, or it would be hypocritical. So, we’re talking 500 million people from India, at least. All people from India are the same, so they’re all just like my father, and each and everyone is destined to end up the exact same way he did. Obviously you’re not a jerk, so surely you’re willing to chip in $1000 per person for 100 people, or something to that effect, because you value other people’s welfare as much as yours.
P.S. By the way, 500 million from India is not hyperbole. Neither is 500 million from China. There are at least 2 billion people worldwide who would jump at the chance to come to America given the assumption that they can come with their families (and of course they can come with their families because only a bigot would oppose that). Did you really believe that “the billion” is a RIDICULOUS EXAGGERATION? “the billion” is an understatement. Now, quadzillion, yes that would ridiculous, I would agree with you that mentioning the “quadzillion” would constitute unjustified fear mongering, that’s quite a few zeroes on that number. But “the billion” is a legitimate, although low, representation of potential immigrants.
(and yes I am Indian in spite of the name Jay Singer, it is no different than notsneaky or fustercluck as a label I use on the web that is not my actual name)
Some level of immigration control is necessary. Otherwise we risk chaos. As far as the cultural threat is concerned, the Anglo-Saxon America of yesterday and today will inevitably change. Global demographic facts attest to that. English-only is useful in that it helps to prevent excessive cultural regionalization threatening secession.
As far as offshoring is concerned, allowing cheap labor into this country will (assuming a rational Congress) keep wages low here and thus it will provide an incentive to keep production units at home. After all if the main consumer market is in the U.S., it is more sensible to produce in the same country and reduce transportation costs (all other factors being equal).
If the Chicoms keep poisoning us, the immigration problem just might solve itself, they’ll move the plants south.
The problem with libertarianism is that it falls apart as soon as it hits an international border. Why? As Sailer puts it succinctly,
Ah, sweet, more name-calling. This post and its comments have really taken the cake.
The underlying point remains … and I have yet to see anyone commenting here effectively refute it … that in opposing immigration we Americans denigrate the inherent value of those people who wish to immigrate. It’s supreme arrogance with a dash of racism.
It’s especially confusing to me because we are a nation of immigrants. Go back a hundred years or so, and most of our ancestors weren’t much different from those folks crossing the Rio Grande today. What happened to “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses”???
Ohh yeah … it doesn’t apply if those “huddled masses” have brown skin.
Feh!
Ted, Robert Rector’s studies are misleading because he only takes into account the fiscal impact of immigrants on the federal and state budgets while ignoring the overall economic benefits they bring to our communities and our country. For example, people like Rector bemoan the negative impacts that immigrants have on states, but studies have proven otherwise. At this website (http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/ki/reports/2006_HispanicStudy/) you’ll see the results of a study that surveyed the economic impact of North Carolina’s Hispanic immigrant population. While the Hispanic population cost the state $61 million the studies authors estimated that they contributed more than $9 billion to the state economy. Rector would simply see the net fiscal loss of $61 million and conclude that immigrants harmed the state of North Carolina.
Ted, Robert Rector’s studies are misleading because he only takes into account the fiscal impact of immigrants on the federal and state budgets while ignoring the overall economic benefits they bring to our communities and our country. For example, people like Rector bemoan the negative impacts that immigrants have on states, but studies have proven otherwise.
Let us see here:
North Carolina Hispanics’ after-tax income totaled an estimated $8.3 billion in 2004. With about 20 percent of that total sent home to Latin America, saved or used for interest payments, the remaining spending had a total economic impact of $9.2 billion on the state. Much of that spending occurs in the major metropolitan areas along the Interstate 40/Interstate 85 corridor, but it also supports businesses in every part of the state.
Fascinating, so their “contribution” to the economy is far beyond their total after-tax income if you believe this study! Actually, there “contribution” was taking in for themselves around $8-9 billion. Of course, that “contribution” may come at the expense of depressing wages for native-born workers and driving those workers out of such jobs entirely, making them non-contributors. But we can just go on pretending no native-born workers would have been willing to do any of these jobs for any price, I suppose. This gives me a brilliant idea on how North Carolina can rake in billions more: they should get rid of the Mexicans and replace them with some Third World people willing to work for half the Mexican wage. If Mexicans are taking in $8 or $9 billion annually and, say, Ethiopians are willing to work for half of what Mexicans are willing to work for, then North Carolina would “gain” an “additional contribution” of $4-4.5 billion by the same logic!
Hispanics annually contribute about $756 million in taxes (direct and indirect) while costing the state budget about $817 million annually for K-12 education ($467 million), health care ($299 million) and corrections ($51 million) — for a net cost to the state of about $61 million, or $102 per Hispanic resident.
They cost the state money. How much they cost the federal government isn’t accounted for. We probably don’t want to know.
This North Carolina study of the contribution of illegal immigrants sounds a lot like one of those studies showing how building a new stadium at taxpayer expense to keep the Smashers from moving to Las Vegas will contribute $9 billion to the local economy.
And does no one else find it wierd to compare your country to your family?
Maybe I’m just too much of a rootless cosmopolitan.
It is with the American people all right, just not with flagless clowns like you, elitist traitors.
Do some research on Mexican IQ, and tell me they won’t become a permanent underclass, tell me America won’t become Brazil. Do the math on the Mexican IQ, you economists like math and stats right? Well we can extrapolate from IQ data where these Mexicans will end up on the social ladder. Coupled with the collapse of the Mexican family (did it ever exist?) and their astonishing high school drop-out rates, they will remain at the bottom forever.
More math and less morality please!
Adrian,
I would write this out with the math but while I am sure you are up on you linear algebra and probability theory, I would not want to lose the others reading who may not be as “elite” as we are.
[GoodnessOfFit waits for the irony to sink in]
IQ has shown itself to be a very bad proxy for actual ability in things as straight forward as empirical test of the effect of education on wages. There are certain mathematical properties that a good proxy has to have. And IQ does not have them.
Even if I believe your claim about the mathematical certainty of the IQ scores of people from Mexico (and I really don’t) there is little reason to believe it matters. This is why social scientist stopped using IQ as a proxy in most statistical work over a decade ago.
It kinda sucks that it had to be tossed because it is a great variable for many reasons (cross comparable, cardinal etc…) and it is easily available. But it turns out that in addition to being a bad proxy its conditional (thats a vertical bar in the math) explanatory power is pretty bad. If fact the distribution of IQ is not even that great at predicting the distribution of education itself.
So your gonna have to find another hobby horse. Your IQ argument does not hold (mathematical water).
If you really want to see the math (and some how I doubt you do) check any introductory econometrics or political methodology text.
“Pocahontas should have told Powhatan to scalp that bastard”
In hindsight most certainly YES!
Barkley,
You must have mis-read my post.
Ack! GooodnessOfFit gets to horse whip me!
Any contribution said to be made by Hispanics in terms of income earned and spent is no real contribution at all if that same income (or even more income) would have been earned and spent by native-born non-Hispanics instead. Native-born workers would have presumably not sent as much of their hard-earned dough to Latin America either. Short of an actual argument to the contrary, it doesn’t matter if GoodnessOfFit and others of his ilk feel otherwise.
Why, yes, GOF and the rest, Bill has it nailed. He has revealed exactly
what the hidden and surface moral philosophies held by the jerks and sneaks are (btw, what are they again????)
And tommy definitely knows what he is talking about. Anything earned by
a Hispanic (but not by a Chinese Muslim terrorist) is taken fully away
from a deserving and unemployed Real American and is entirely sent off
to his way-too-numerous relatives, the lazy good-for-nothing Spanish
speakers, if not bomb-making Allah worshippers with slanty eyes.
And adrian is on the money with all his scary rape pictures. Eeeeeek!!!
Barkley, use a f**king pseudonym, your blatant status seeking is pathetic. I know, I know, if you say anything not ‘right on’ about immigration you’ll be excluded from all dinner parties, but Jesus, status seek within reason.
Adrian,
First of all does it give you any pause what-so-ever that the very people (and I am speaking of the scholars not the cranks) who’s work you cite would not support the normative policies that you propose based on their work?
Two of the people you mentioned appear to be serious scholars. Look at the work, they are talking about means and medians of IQ distributions. As I said above IQ is a really bad proxy for ability (which is what I assume is what you are really worried about).
But lets for a second just assume it’s not. Let’s assume IQ is a perfect predictor of ability. I still am unwilling to ban people from this country based on the fact that the distribution of ability in the race or culture to which they belong is lower *in the mean*.
As long as people are coming voluntarily and firms are voluntarily hiring them I cannot find any fault. All the mercantilist hysterics in the world won’t dissuade me. Nor will hand wringing about nonsensical pecuniary externalities. Appeals about culture and language will also meet you with blank stares. These things are fluid all over the world even here in the U.S. Nor will your naive linear projections about whites being the minority. I don’t care if whites are in the minority in the U.S.
Why should I?
I am not sure who should be more offended, autistics, libertarians, or economist.
I always find medical disabilities make poor slurs…
Nah, blank stares as in “idiots like you still exist?”
Yes, we “idiots” who take IQ seriously still exist. Heaven forbid, with recent advances in genetics we may even be ascendant in years to come.
“Nor will your naive linear projections about whites being the minority.”
Except that half of all children under five are now minorities, and immigration is on an upwards trajectory, so you’re the one who is naive. And you should care about whites being the minority, because the world over Lebanon is the norm when multiethnic groups fight over the same pie.
You disputed IQ’s ability to predict life outcomes, I gave you many links proving you wrong.
“I still am unwilling to ban people from this country based on the fact that the distribution of ability in the race or culture to which they belong is lower *in the mean*”
But if you read LaGriffes very important Smart Fraction Theory you would learn although high IQ people are important, they can’t do EVERYTHING. So you need a stable number of reasonably capable individuals: store managers, detectives etc, to keep a society ticking along, ie you need a high MEAN IQ for economic growth.
Mexicans have a very small smart fraction, thus they will be an overall drain on economic growth in the long run, as the smart fraction that presently exists will have to devote resources to looking after them, telling them what to do, organizing them etc, leaving less time for the Smart Fraction to engage in creativity and innovation.
LaGriffe pretty much sums up the universe here:
“In a developed country like Belgium with an average IQ of 100, thirty-four percent of the general population makes up its smart fraction. Morocco, in contrast, has an average IQ of 85. Less than eight percent of its people are capable of doing smart-fraction jobs, a fact made plain by its dreary third-world economy. But if you think that’s bad, black Africa is utterly hopeless with less than two percent qualifying for smart-fraction jobs. The demise of colonialism sealed its economic doom.”
Note – Morocco has a similar mean IQ to Mexico.
As LaGriffe notes, we already have an example of what happens when the smart fraction is overwhelmed by a very low IQ majority – South Africa.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/imm.htm>Cognitive Decline: The Irreducible Legacy of Open Borders:
“Mentor handed me the 2004 edition from which I noted that 16.2% of the South African population is either white or Indian, the rest being of the third world. “If we apply the Fourth Law to South Africa using a third-world population fraction of 0.838, we predict that South Africa’s per capita GDP has been depressed by its third-world population to approximately 36.3% of its hypothetical ‘pure European’ value. If we now scale up South Africa’s per capita GDP of $10.7k (purchasing power parity basis) to its hypothetical ‘pure European’ value, we get $29.5k, a value about in the middle of the West European countries, e.g., Finland $27.4k, France $27.6k, Norway $37.8k, Denmark $31.1k, Belgium $29.1k, UK $27.7k, Switzerland $32.7k, Germany $27.6k, Austria $30.0k, Netherlands $28.6k and Italy $26.7k.”
Oh and all you libertarians out there know that unionism is endemic in most Latin American countries, right? Already Mexicans are forming race based union machines.
Adrian,
Union machines… oh my.
Whats next?
Political Machines…oh no!
Next thing you know they will take over Tammany Hall.
Somebody call the Order of the Star Spangled Banner.
You know Adrian, one nice thing about my view on immigration is that I get to go home take the wife and child to the local Taqueria. Sit outside and enjoy the tapestry of people with decedents from all over the world hanging out. I walk downtown and see folks from all over the world enriching my fair city.
And you? Well you better lock your doors and put out the lights, because what looks like a beautiful tapestry to me looks like the apocalypse to you.
And even if I am the one who is wrong I had one fine Chorizo taco on the deck of the ship as we went down. If your wrong (as every single alarmist nativist group has been) then you probably took a couple of years off your life worrying. I think ole’ Pascal himself would be proud of my wager.
For the love of God would some of you Know-Nothings stop using economic arguments and terms you have no clue what they mean. Seriously its embarrassing that you don’t have a freshman’s understanding of micro but you are making grand and sweeping policy proposals. Pick up a book or look at some of the free online text. As of right now you are like a tourist walking past the empire state building and speculating about how they should have built it differently.
Redistribution is not economically the same as the loss of some consumer surpluses to some agents due to a shift of the labor supply curve. Redistribution has a huge dead weight loss. There is no dead weight loss to an economy when the supply curve shifts.
If your arguments about externalities are true then you have a REAL loss on you hands. But you need to read up on the difference between pecuniary and real externalities. One has an efficiency loss one does not.
While you at it hit a chapter on comparative advantage and gains from trade.
While your at the library grab a history book an American immigration. Some of you constantly mis-state basic facts about this. But the history lesson is a luxury at this point. Get down some basic micro theory. Then you can make an actual argument that someone might take seriously. There is an argument to be made in favor of you side (although I myself would not agree), but not one of you is able to articulate it in a compelling way. Scare tactics, and emotionalism will not win over many people. And lets face it your opinion is not winning the day with either political or intellectual elites, and thats who makes the policy.
Let me get this straight: we’re supposed to take the advice from some anonymous, uncredentialed person who doesn’t understand the difference between “your” and “you’re”?
Seriously?
As for this little hyperbolic masterpiece:
I want to thank Morgan, and Sailer, and fustercluck, and adrian, and GoodnessOfFit, and all the rest of you folks who have really opened my eyes to the truth here. I now see that Alex is a jerk and notsneaky is not not sneaky, but is sneaky. The two of them should not just be decked, but should be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered and dragged behind a Hummer, before they are lynched, such anti-Americans that they are. They simply do not appreciate the threat we face from Spanish-speaking Chinese Muslim terrorists like the infamous Mohammed Jose Chiang. It is not his skin color that is the problem, but the slanty eyes he uses to construct bombs to plant in our exurban gated community elementary schools while he prays to Allah in Spanish. Any minute our women will be forced to cook tamales with chopsticks for his like while wearing veils.
Yes, we should have learned from Jamestown and Plymouth and those filthy English immigrants. Pocahontas should have told Powhatan to scalp that bastard, Captain John Smith, and Squanto should have given those pilgrims poisoned fish before they polluted the landscape with their smallpox, guns, and Magna Cartas. If we do not act now, the Scotch-Irish will end up like the Rappahannocks, a tribe unrecognized officially by the federal government!
You fool no one with the feigned outward disdain of the notion of preserving an American way of life; your inner “thank god a society exists in which I can subsist on nothing more than flowery language because I’d wilt in anything more taxing than Friday night sushi and wine-tasting with the Thomases on Sundays” is so preciously apparent.
If you want to live in a different kind of a society, please move there. Many people in this country aren’t interested in importing a wholly different culture or way of life. As I have said, with immigration control we can – and I’ll probably be skewered for using this word even though I’m more liberal than most of you – ASSIMILATE reasonable numbers of newcomers. Without immigration control, well, many here have painted some realistic pictures of what could be, but as usual you’re too idealistically entrenched in your lofty ivory towers to consider them.
Let me get this straight: we’re supposed to take the advice from some anonymous, uncredentialed person who doesn’t understand the difference between “your” and “you’re”?
Posted by: fustercluck at May 25, 2007 7:55:39 PM
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You see the English language is already crumbling around you… maybe you know-nothings are on to something.
Why don’t we auction off immigration permits (I’ll let the rest of you fight over how many leads to appropriate assimilation) on Ebay to the highest bidder (who subsequently has to pass a security and language screen to use the permit)? This would seem to satisfy many of things that both sides in this debate want: mutually beneficial exchanges. When I go to a concert, I pay an entry fee. When I went to night clubs (in my single days), I paid a cover charge. When I went to Kings Island amusement park last weekend, I paid an entry fee. People who didn’t think that the concert, night clubs, or amusement parks didn’t pay and were excluded. Why is it sensible to allocate admission passes to the U.S.A. without an entry fee? I think most who are in the debate above agree that people all over the world are anxious to get here. Well, if there is nothing imnmoral about night clubs, amusement parks, and symphonies (and art museums, can’t forget Tyler might be reading) charging significant entry charges, then there would seem to be nothing immoral about the U.S.A. charging what the market will bear. Of course, night clubs have bouncers that prevent free entry (via the back door)because otherwise the willingness of people to pay the entry fee falls off; similarly art museums police entry and exit points (for this and other obvious reasons).
Oh it is not name calling. It is a historical reference that is anything but reflexive.
Do I need to tell you who the know-nothings were?
Another interesting thing about selling immigration permits is that anyone could bid on them. For example immigration-advocates who favor “the poor” could buy them and give them to people the thought “really needed them.” Others who want “high brow” immigrants probably could just smile, because lots of successful foreigh buyers of permits would probably be successful people (as measured by the fact that they have the financial means to buy permits). Those who want to inhibit immigration could buy permits and burn them.
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