Simple points on immigration
You may worry about cultural change or other things, but a single Jensen Huang or Elon Musk can carry a lot of dead weight. As of October, Nvidia’s market cap was around $3.5 trillion. By way of comparison, all US spending on federal welfare programs was $1.2 trillion in 2022. Nothing in Huang’s family background indicates that they would have been let into the country under a system that only sought proven geniuses, as some restrictionists say they favor. If one wants to take all the human and physical capital assets of some of the most successful companies in the US and toss them into the ocean, they need to have an incredibly compelling reason.
That is from Richard Hanania. I’ll say it again — cost-benefit analysis, cost-benefit, and cost-benefit analysis. Let’s have a little more of it, at the margin of course.
52 more things Kent Hendricks learned in 2024
Indian Americans own about half of all motels in the United States. Of them, 70% have the last name Patel.
And:
In the 1990s, then-leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-ll, and current leader Kim Jong-Un got fake Brazilian passports and went to Disneyland in Tokyo (probably).
And:
Waymo self-driving taxis generate 88% fewer property damage claims and 92% fewer bodily injury claims than human drivers. After driving 25.3 million miles, Waymo Driver had nine property damage claims and two injury claims, compared to 78 property damage claims and 26 injury claims from humans who drive an equivalent number of miles.
Here are 49 more, not all confirmed in the Andrew Gelman sense.
What I’ve been reading
Tirthankar Roy and K. Ravi Raman, Kerala: 1956 to the Present. Short, nonetheless the best book I have read on why Kerala is (somewhat) special in the Indian context. Stresses Kerala as part of a larger set of positive South Indian developments. Overpriced though at $40, given the short length.
Richard Franklin Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877. Excellent all around, clear and conceptual from the get-go. In spite of the title, I find the sections on Confederate state-building most novel and illuminating.
Glenn Adamson, A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present. A good book on futurology and its history, note the authors considers more than tech in the narrow sense so Marcus Garvey and Marinetti are in here too. Sun Ra too.
Rob Young, Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music. This book covers Fairport Convention and its many folk offshoots, and ties it in to earlier British traditions of Vaughan Williams, Bax, Holst and so on, plus traditional song and yes The Wicker Man. Much of that is not to my taste, but I am prepping for Joe Boyd and figured I should read a book on it. This is the right book, and it is also a good way to try to understand Britain (a much written-up place) by unusual, roundabout means. I do by the way like Richard and Linda Thompson.
Caroline Burt and Richard Partington, Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State. Very good to read in conjunction with the recent Helen Castor book. Burt and Partington reach earlier in time by focusing on the Edwards, but you can compare their treatments of Richard II, and that is what I am starting with here.
Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848-1861. Walker’s three-volume biography of Liszt is one of the very best biographies, ever. I like it better than most of what you hear people talk about on Twitter in the way of biography. Soon I will start volume three, the final years when Liszt becomes an Abbe. You do need some familiarity with the music of Liszt to grasp these books, but it suffices to listen along while you read, you do not have to be an expert.
There is Tim Congdon, The Quantity Theory of Money: A Restatement, a good introduction.
South Korea fact of the day
South Korea in 2024 saw 242,334 babies born, marking the first increase in the annual figure since 2015, as the country struggles to improve its plummeting birth rate that is among the worst in the world.
The official figure for childbirths rose by 7,295 from 235,039 in 2023, a 3.1 percent increase, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
And yet, it is not so easy to win this one:
The country also saw 360,757 deaths in the year, resulting in the overall population shrinking for a fifth straight year since 2020…
While the rebound in childbirths offers a glimpse of hope in terms of the population decline, the country continued to get older. The average age for Koreans in 2024 was 45.3 years old, up from average age of 44.8 the previous year.
Here is the full story.
Updates
In a justified resurgence of interest in the topic, The Telegraph covers the Rotherham scandals. Liz Truss has spoken up too. This is not a welcome issue for Starmer, to say the least. No matter what you think he did/did not do wrong in this matter, he cannot come out ahead. One implication is that ethnic enclaves sometimes are a big mistake, and that suburban sprawl is underrated. Note that Pakistanis in the United States have median income above the U.S. average, and comparable to other Asians.
Elsewhere, Thierry Breton remains an Ayn Rand villain.
That’s all.
How to Visit India for Normies
In the comments to my post, India has Too Few Tourists, many people worried about the food, the touts and the poverty. Many of these comments are mistaken or apply only if you are traveling to India on the cheap as an adolescent backpacker (nothing wrong with that but I suspect the MR audience is different.) I have spent some time traveling in India including at times with my wife, who puts up with my wanderlust but appreciates a fine hotel, with my teenage children, and once with my elderly mother. So how should normies travel in India?
- Don’t be afraid or ashamed to do the tourist stuff first. The golden triangle, Delhi-Agra-Jaipur is great! There is no shame in following the beaten path.
- For the slightly more adventurous, branch out to Udaipur, my favorite city in India, where you can easily spend a week walking around and doing day trips. Add in Jodphur, stay at the Raas hotel and see the magnificent Mehrangarh fort and stepwell. Try out a tiger safari.
- India has the best hotels in the world. Depending on the season, you can stay in literal palaces for about the same as a good American or European hotel, say $250 a night.
- The food in the hotels is excellent and perfectly safe. The food in high-quality restaurants is perfectly safe. If you want, get some Dukoral in advance and carry some loperamide for extra protection.
- You can rent a comfortable, air-conditioned car with a driver (tell them Alex sent you) for less than it costs to rent a car in the United States. Your driver will pick you up in the morning, take you where you want to go, drop you off in the evening and disappear when not needed.
- The poverty and the dirt and the cows blocking traffic are not a reason to say away but a reason to go to India (drag me in the comments all you like, it is true). In Mumbai, I have seen seen a Ferrari followed by a bullock cart. Where else but in India? It’s important to see real poverty if only because you will appreciate your world all the more and wonder how to keep it. India is rapidly becoming richer. See living history while you still can.
- South India is much richer than North India and much less polluted. My Indian friend from Kerala had never seen a slum before he visited Mumbai.
- India is relatively safe. Of course with 1.4 billion people, bad things happen. Don’t let anecdotes deter you. Overall, it’s safer than the US or say Mexico. Tourists following the above won’t have any problems at all.
- Touts can be a hassle but are not a problem in the tourist sites. In other place, like walking old Delhi, either ignore them completely or hire a guide who will bat the others away.
Here is Tyler’s post on how to travel to India. Slightly more adventurous than what I have outlined but entirely consistent.
Here is a picture of Udaipur. 
Saturday assorted links
France fact of the day
Consumption of red wine in France has fallen by about 90 per cent since the 1970s, according to Conseil Interprofessionnel du vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), an industry association. Total wine consumption, spanning reds, whites and rosés, is down more than 80 per cent in France since 1945, according to survey data from Nielsen, and the decline is accelerating, with Generation Z purchasing half the volume bought by older millennials.
Here is more from Adrienne Klasa at the FT. You will note these are declines from large numbers:
“With every generation in France we see the change. If the grandfather drank 300 litres of red wine per year, the father drinks 180 litres and the son, 30 litres,” said CIVB board member Jean-Pierre Durand.
In the USA, the Surgeon General is calling for cancer warnings on alcohol (NYT).
Friday assorted links
3. Scott Sumner movie reviews, plus Scott confirms that Solenoid is a classic.
4. “So if you’re nostalgic, as Trump and many of his supporters are, for the old days when the U.S. economy was dominated by heavy industry, you should know that it was Reagan, not some bunch of woke environmentalists, who brought that era to an end.” C’mon Paul, you might instead write: “The Reagan budget deficits somewhat accelerated the pace of American deindustrialization of employment, a common long-term trend shared by many advanced economies.” It is also worth noting that U.S. manufacturing output continued to rise through 2008. Of course the deindustrialization of employment has been due largely to automation, and as a trend has little to do with Reagan.
5. Top ten staircases of 2024, some good stuff in there.
6. Top ten Chinese architecture from 2024.
Richard A. Easterlin, RIP
He was one of the fathers of “happiness economics,” here is a NYT obituary. Via John Chamberlin.
India has Too Few Tourists
In 2017, I wrote an article on India’s underperformance in tourism:
India is one of the most desirable tourist destinations in the world. Thirty-five [now 43, AT!] UNESCO World Heritage sites–among them the Taj Mahal, one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World”—attract a global audience. India’s many food, dance and religious cultures are enticing. The widespread availability of English speakers makes India a welcome destination not only for Americans, Canadians and the British but also for many Europeans and others who speak English as a second language. Prices in India are very reasonable for visitors from developed countries.
India has tremendous advantages as a producer of tourism, but its tourism sector is far too small. India is underperforming and in the process giving up tens of billions of dollars in foreign exchange revenue that could lift millions out of poverty.
The Economist concurs noting “a fabulous destination for foreign tourists does little to lure them.” Indeed, India had fewer tourists in 2024 than in 2017. Tunisia attracts more tourists than India! India did improve its visa process, which I complained about in 2017, but it could do much better:
To its credit, the government replaced the onerous process of applying for visas in person with online e-visas. But that was a decade ago and the process remains unpredictable and fiddly; it requires using a website that looks like it was designed during the dot-com boom. Most countries in South-East Asia and the Middle East have slicker sites. Many offer either visas on arrival or visa-free entry.
When I recently visited the UK I entered without being stopped or questioned by a single individual! In contrast, entering India can often take several hours and even with a visa there are forms that have to be filled out for no apparent reason or purpose. Moreover, exiting India is often more time consuming than entering! Yet when I visited India shortly after COVID our tour guide in Bundi was practically in tears as we were the first foreign tourists he had seen in over a year and the money was very welcome.
India should drop its visa requirements for US and European countries entirely and immediately. The tourism industry should be seen as an export industry. Countries go to great lengths to increase exports but India’s government does little to help its tourism industry despite the fact that it’s actually a huge export industry–far bigger than India’s export of pharmaceuticals for example!
Turkey has 55 million tourist visitors a year. That’s 5 times India’s rate which suggests that India could dramatically increase earnings from tourism. More tourists would be great for India and also great for the tourists!
Here is a picture of the fourth tallest statue in the world, in a tiny town in India that no one goes to. Amazing!
My 92nd St. Y debate with Robert Kuttner on income inequality
Here goes:
Ex po st, the Manhattan audience swung thirty (!) points in my favor, compared to the pre-debate poll. This was a fun event for me.
When did sustained economic growth begin?
The subtitle is New Estimates of Productivity Growth in England from 1250 to 1870, and the authors are Paul Bouscasse, Emi Nakamura, and Jón Steinsson. Abstract:
We estimate productivity growth in England from 1250 to 1870. Real wages over this period were heavily influenced by plague-induced swings in the population. Our estimates account for these Malthusian dynamics. We find that productivity growth was zero prior to 1600. Productivity growth began in 1600—almost a century before the Glorious Revolution. Thus, the onset of productivity growth preceded the bourgeois institutional reforms of 17th century England. We estimate productivity growth of 2% per decade between 1600 and 1800, increasing to 5% per decade between 1810 and 1860. Much of the increase in output growth during the Industrial Revolution is explained by structural change—the falling importance of land in production—rather than faster productivity growth. Stagnant real wages in the 18th and early 19th centuries—“Engel’s Pause”—is explained by rapid population growth putting downward pressure on real wages. Yet, feedback from population growth to real wages is sufficiently weak to permit sustained deviations from the “iron law of wages” prior to the Industrial Revolution.
The 17th century truly is the important century.
Asimov Press has a new kind of book
Today we launched our second Asimov Press book…The book’s theme is “technology,” and so we encoded a complete copy of the book into DNA, and are making those DNA copies available to consumers for the first time.
We worked with three companies (CATALOG, Plasmidsaurus, and Imagene) to make 1,000 copies of the DNA and package them into stainless steel capsules under an inert atmosphere, thus preserving the nucleotides for tens of thousands of years.
Announcement: https://www.asimov.press/p/technology-book
X: https://x.com/NikoMcCarty/status/1874859187676852636
Website: https://press.asimov.com/books
Thursday assorted links
1. Disequilibrium play in tennis.
2. Tax cuts are expansionary even at the zero lower bound.
3. Art museum openings in 2025.
4. Teaching data analytics with generative AI.
6. The two states without Chick-Fil-A. And why.
7. Life without stars? Stellar, not celebrities.
9. Very good but difficult Sophie Smith piece on the Pelicot case.